End immigration discrimination

[mawilson 2,133]

U.S. immigration practices are biased. We maintain a double standard that gives immigrants

who enter illegally better opportunities than those who obey our laws. Legal immigration

requires complex bureaucratic procedures and long waits, with no guarantee of success at the

end. Illegal immigration merely involves crossing the porous U.S. border without getting caught.

We impose tight security on all who enter through our airports. Security along U.S. land borders,

however, remains notoriously lax. Mexicans and Central Americans can readily slip across our

southern border and millions have. But for most Asians and Africans, the only practical option

is legal entry by air. Lax land enforcement opens broad immigration channels for Latin Americans

that are inaccessible to Asians and Africans.

Asians and Africans have a more urgent need to immigrate because of noneconomic pressures

than Latin Americans, whose homelands are comparatively wealthier, freer and less populated.

For example, 5 million Burmese have fled their country's oppressive regime to live in abject

poverty as despised aliens in neighboring countries such as Thailand. Many speak English and

would like to immigrate here, but biased U.S. immigration policy practices do not give them a

fair chance. The same story holds for tens of millions of other Asians and Africans facing political,

religious and ethnic persecution. We admit few of them as legal immigrants; instead, we leave

our back door ajar for multitudes of illegal immigrants seeking not freedom but only higher wages.

The U.S. record of discrimination against Asian and African immigrants is long and shameful.

In the 19th century, Chinese were brought in to build our railroads and then shot and buried in

mass graves. For decades the Chinese Exclusion and the National Origins acts deemed Asian

immigrants "racially undesirable" and severely restricted their numbers, while imposing no limits

on Latin Americans.

With African immigrants, our record is appalling. Millions were forcibly transported here to toil

as plantation slaves. Early in the 20th century, we enacted a quota system that virtually barred

Africans and favored Northern Europeans. After 1965, as demand for cheap labor rose, we

replaced the quotas with policies and practices that favor Latin Americans. Today, eager for low

cost labor and tacitly preferring illegal browns to legal blacks, we still decline to give African

workers an equal opportunity to immigrate.

To favor people who enter by breaking our laws over people who aspire to become law-abiding

U.S. citizens is manifest folly. To discriminate against Asian and African immigrants by favoring

Latinos is racist and a betrayal of America's unifying values.

Immigration discrimination is wrong: It should be illegal. Equal protection of the law, which bans

racial, religious, and ethnic discrimination, ought to apply to those seeking a legal path to

citizenship, not just current citizens. Equal protection of the law is not a quirk of the Constitution;

it is a self-evident human right. Congress and the courts have a moral obligation to end

government practices that foster de facto racial, religious and ethnic discrimination. To be just

and fair to all, and safeguard against terrorism, we must secure our land borders as diligently

as we secure entry by air.

Notwithstanding, the contribution of immigrants to America's creativity and economic growth is

undeniable, as is the need for more selective legal immigration. Once America's immigration

challenges are honestly assessed, we can recognize the necessary reforms: 1) increase legal

immigration and give it flexibility to respond to our economy's changing needs; 2) select

immigrants by ability to contribute and in order to relieve severe hardship and oppression;

3) minimize illegal immigration by improving land border security and curbing employment

incentives; 4) give members of all races and ethnic groups equal opportunity to become

American citizens.

If Congress and the president are serious about immigration reform, ending immigration

discrimination should top their reform agendas. Far from being genuine reforms, the current

"comprehensive" proposals extend and legalize racially biased practices.

Ending discrimination is the right and moral thing to do: that is sufficient reason to do it.

It will also have crucial benefits. We will gain a more balanced selection of immigrants who

will assimilate more readily and better reflect the rich variety of global culture. Such diversity

will strengthen our economy and society by broadening our talent pool. Most important,

America will at last realize the full meaning of "all men are created equal" by applying it to

immigrants.

James P. Driscoll, a long time AIDS activist in San Francisco and Washington, served on the

International Committee of the Presidential AIDS Advisory Council. He arrived at these

concerns after working with international AIDS issues.

Source

[peejay 327]

They'll just lie and cheat their way in just like they do now by gaming the system. They'll claim they want freedom, but they are really coming to make $$$ to send back to the motherland. Steal a US job for half price and ship the stolen loot back home.

Edited June 28, 2007 by peejay

[Saddle Bronc 124]

They'll just lie and cheat their way in just like they do now by gaming the system. They'll claim they want freedom, but they are really coming to make $$$ to send back to the motherland. Steal a US job for half price and ship the stolen loot back home.

wrong tense: there have already been a number of such bogus refugee claimants.