Immigrants are not the enemy!

As immigration, particularly illegal immigration, looms over the political discourse as an intractable problem, the news that the federal Citizenship and Immigration Services agency is amassing a huge backlog of applications for citizenship and residence visas almost seems expected. Everyone is in agreement that the country is in dire need of comprehensive immigration reform. If anything, this story is noteworthy for the angle it takes; it shows the crisis from the other side of the story-- the immigrants' side.

In the dialogue of political campaigns, immigration is often framed as a red vs. blue problem, a white vs. brown problem, Us against Them. It isn't always clear who's on which side-- it took Hillary Clinton quite a few tries to pick sides in the "Us vs. Them" debate surrounding driver's licenses. And while some republicans may want to portray themselves as pitted against democrats on the issue, nativism isn't an idea that belongs squarely in the conservative camp. Bob Moser pointed this out in The Nation more than a year ago; interestingly, he made the case for this in Tennessee, which experienced its first strong anti-immigrant wave in 2001 after becoming the first state to grant driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants. The point is, this is a problem that everyone finds personally frustrating, political inclinations aside. People are angry.

The New York Times addresses the seething discontent in the nation over immigration on its editorial page today. It blames piece-meal, enforcement-heavy measures to curb illegal immigration for that anger-- the sort of anger that instigates violence and racial bias. There is hope, however, the Times goes on to say, that a leader willing to face the political headwinds and bring forward comprehensive change could allay the country's anger.

A leader could do this with comprehensive policy reform-- but first he or she needs to change the "Us vs. Them" tone that is becoming increasingly hostile towards immigrants. "I take issue with your description of people being illegal immigrants," Dennis Kucinich said at the last debate, in response to Wolf Blitzer's driver's license question. "There are no illegal people." He is right. Most Americans probably know he is right, but as the problems stemming from immigration policy continue with no resolution in sight, their anger often is taken out on immigrants. There can never be any successful immigration reform as long as this hostility towards immigrants, Latinos in particular, continues. Hopefully, with news like today's, more people will realize immigrants are on our side, and are just as much short-changed by poor policy as Americans are.