RACE AND IMMIGRATION
A Sacred Conversation on Race
By the Rev. Dan Romero, Esq.
General Synod XXVII
June 28, 2009
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Earlier this year, it was reported in the Los Angeles Times that a family had come to the United States from Australia to visit the ailing father of Mr. X, as we will call him. They had traveled for 18 hours and landed at LAX. The four of the them, all Australian citizens, were detained by U.S. Customs officials and deported almost 26 hours after their arrival. According to Mr. X, they received nothing to eat and in his own words “were treated badly.” He said, “We are good people. We just wanted to see my father. He could die soon. They can check everything with our government.”
Australia participates in the United States’ visa waiver program which means that its citizens can travel in the U.S. for up to 90 days on a valid Australian passport. In other words you do not need visas to enter the U.S. from Australia. This family not only had passports but had obtained visas as well. This man and his family are originally from Bangladesh. They are not white Australians.
Immigration and Customs do not need to give answers for what they do…but they did offer a couple of explanations. First they accused Mr. X and his family of wanting to stay permanently in the U.S. even though they had purchased round trip tickets at a considerable expense. Then Immigration said they were denied because on a previous occasion when they were still living in Bangladesh they were denied visitors visas to the U.S. There is no relationship between one incident and the other. (Los Angeles Times, January 28, 2009) One more fact…Mr. X is Muslim. After this incident became public, the Islamic Shura Council of So. California which represents Mosques and Muslim organizations in L.A. began to investigate. The executive director of the Shura Council, whom I know from previous participation in the Religious Leaders’ Council of LA, was told by immigration that there were “admissibility issues” related to Mr. X which of course he could not discuss but assured the executive director that “no racial, cultural or religious profiling was involved in the decision to detain the family.” (Los Angeles Times, January 31, 2009) I’ll let you be the judge of that.
Just last May 13th, nine Haitians died attempting to reach the shores of Florida joining scores of Haitian migrants who have attempted to escape the poverty and oppression in Haiti over the years. (Los Angeles Times, May 25, 2009) There has not been a just immigration policy affecting these refugees who happen to be black. I’ll say more about this later.
An immigration attorney in Los Angeles posted this concern recently on our County Bar immigration list serve:
In 2007 a woman from Nigeria entered the U.S. on a tourist visa to visit her relatives while 3 months pregnant. She was admitted for 90 days on the visa but ended up giving birth prematurely. The baby weighed just 1 pound. The baby has survived but with severe health problems and requires constant medical care. She has had several surgeries and will not survive if she returns to Nigeria. The baby is at USC but the mother who was here on a visitors visa, has had to depart once already and leave her baby with relatives and return in order to keep her legal status which is a terrible arrangement. What shall I do? (Email exchange, Liz Profumo, Associate Attorney, Law Offices of Kate L. Raynor, Encino,CA.)
Will it make a difference that she is from Africa?
Rennison Vern Castillo was born in Belize and had come as an infant to Los Angeles where he was raised by his mother. He spoke fluent English, served a stint in the Army in Korea and was honorably discharged, and had become an American citizen in 1998. Later in life he had difficulties in his marriage, violated a restraining order, was shackled and transferred to a federal detention center. Records showed that he was an illegal immigrant. Although he vehemently protested the records, an immigration judge did not believe him. He was ordered deported in Jan. 2006. A non profit Immigrant Rights group handled Mr. Castillo’s appeal where ultimately the paperwork mix up demonstrated that he was in fact an American citizen. (Los Angeles Times, April 9, 2009)
There is an organization at Boston College called “Post Deportation Human Rights Project” that has been researching numerous cases of citizens who have been deported. A study recently released by the Associated Press indicated that the detainee population in the U.S. is 32,000, held in 260 facilities across the country, most under contract with local governments or private companies. 18,690 immigrants detained had no criminal conviction, not even for low level crimes like trespassing. Nearly 10,000 have been in custody longer than 31 days. Since 2003 Congress has doubled to $1.7 billion the amount dedicated to imprisoning immigrants. The report notes “that substantial numbers of detainees from 177 countries….are not illegal immigrants at all. Many of the longest-term non-criminal detainees are asylum seekers fighting to stay here because they fear being killed in their home country. Others are longtime residents who may be eligible to stay under other criteria, or whose applications for permanent residency were lost or mishandled…” (“AP Impact: Immigrants Face Detentions” by Michelle Roberts, Associated Press, March 15, 2009)
We have our own Guantanamo situation right here.
This is my favorite and then I’ll move on. In November of last year an undocumented immigrant was facing a deportation hearing. He was from El Salvador. He subsequently died. His attorney presented a photocopy of the death certificate which he had obtained from his client’s former wife. Immigration told him the photocopy wasn’t enough. Since the ex-wife could only get a non-certified copy (which is called informational) the attorney presented that to immigration officials. In March of this year, a judge urged immigration officials to determine whether the certificate was legitimate or not. They still want to deport him. A hearing is scheduled for this summer because according to an immigration official, “the integrity of the hearing process must be maintained.” (Los Angeles Times, March 16, 2009)
I can say unequivocally that United States’ immigration policy and practice is a history of race and ethnicity in America. You cannot study U.S. immigration policy without drawing that conclusion. There were, after all, 18 million Native Americans residing in what is now the United States and Canada. They are and were indigenous to this country and we know what happened to them. It is unfortunate for them that they did not have any immigration restrictions because the millions of undocumented immigrants that came to this land from Europe might have been controlled.
Let’s look at history for a moment.
The Europeans who settled in the original colonies continued to view themselves as subjects of the English throne … they were British, however as their lives developed and they saw the benefits of freedom from both religious and secular authority, they began to develop a vision of a new self-governing land, an independent nation. With this vision also came the concept of what would be a “true American” which did not include the original inhabitants of this nation, it did not include Africans who were brought in chains to serve as slave labor. Even among the colonies there were levels of social class and acceptability; large Anglican landowners who looked down upon the poor white farmers from the backcountry. The first census in 1790 recorded a population of 3,227,000. 75% of those persons were English, Scots and Scotch-Irish; Germans were 8 percent and other nationalities included the Dutch, French, Swedes and Spanish. There was fairly unlimited arrival of new immigrants during this period.
In 1755 Benjamin Franklin expressed the following: “Why should the Palatine (German) boors be suffered to swarm in our settlements and, by herding together, establish their language and manners to the exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a colony of aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them?” (Defining America Through Immigration Policy, Bill Ong Hing, Temple University Press, 2004). In an interesting article that John Thomas made available to me on German Lutheran and Reformed Churches in the Pennsylvania field, in 1727 the Governor of PA spoke before the provincial council saying,
It would be highly necessary to concert proper measures for the peace and security of the province, which may be endangered by such numbers of Strangers daily poured in, who being ignorant of our language and laws, and settling in a body together, make, as it were, a distinct people from his Majesties Subjects.
The Germans had to take oaths of allegiance to the British throne. In fact, the British parliament at one time required that any alien wanting to qualify for British citizenship had not only to swear an oath of allegiance but “certify that he has received communion administered by a Protestant pastor” (“Pastors and People: German Lutheran and Reformed Churches in the Pennsylvania Field 1717-1793” by Charles H. Glatfelter). So much for separation of church and state.
The states began the first immigration control in the 1780’s. It was not a federal issue. Each state wanted to define for itself who would become part of their community. Some states prohibited any persons from immigrating into their state, even from other states, who would become a public charge. This was a form of economic discrimination which obviously affected the movement of free slaves as they were called then. It affected the movement of people from state to state. There were also state laws regarding those who had criminal backgrounds from immigrating…the person had to be of good moral character to enter another state.
The First Congress in 1790, adopted a provision pursuant to its constitutional power on naturalization for aliens who were “free white males” and had two years of residence; that was the citizenship requirement at the time, memorialized by the Congress. It excluded indentured servants, slaves and most women. Some of these laws remain on the books today. You can be excluded from entering the United States if you are not of good moral character and if you are going to become a charge or dependent of the government. We confront the remnants of these laws daily in our immigration practice.
The first federal immigration laws in 1798 were called naturalization and alien acts which increased the residency time from five to fourteen years before a person could become a citizen. These laws were aimed primarily at the Irish and French who, interestingly enough, had participated in political activities critical of the Adams administration. The immigration laws became political tools for certain parties who actually benefited from certain immigrant groups and therefore encouraged immigration. The Alien and Sedition Acts (the precursors to the Patriot Act) were enacted to protect the country against rebels and unpatriotic persons. However those laws got out of control when Benjamin Franklin’s own grandson, editor of a Philadelphia newspaper, was arrested and charged with libeling President Adams. It was all about national security. There was an hysteria sweeping the nation that foreigners would begin to take over the nation until one of their own got caught in the extreme forms of this hysteria that led to eventually repealing of these sedition acts and the naturalization laws (Defining America, Bill Ong Hing).
There were some progressive voices during this time such as William H.Seward, governor of New York, who in 1838 in his inaugural address advocated measures to attract Irish and German immigrants on behalf of the Whig party (Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin). During the 1800’s there was the expansion of the U.S: the Florida Acquistions, the Louisiana Purchase, the Republic of Texas, the Oregon Territory, the annexation of Mexican territory and the Gadsden Purchase. Manifest destiny was well on its way.
On July 14, 1870, the Naturalization Act passed by Congress extended the naturalization laws to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent. Have things changed for African Americans? I’ll let you be the judge of that.
There were supporters of immigration also. The first comprehensive federal immigration law was passed in 1864 called an Act To Encourage Immigration. This law was to encourage European immigration which had been advocated by the then President Abraham Lincoln. “There is still a great deficiency of laborers in every field of industry, especially in agriculture and in our mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals” he wrote to Congress. He even encouraged financial assistance to those who were eager to settle in the United States. That law, generous and open, was repealed in 1868, four years later. Why? That law produced waves of immigrants from Ireland and Germany. The Irish were Catholic which spread fear through the Protestants that the papacy would take over the U.S. Several anti-immigrant groups were formed, the most notorious was called the “Order of the Star Spangled Banner” which advocated for laws that would restrict aliens from serving in governmental positions to the native born and requiring 21 years of residence before a person could become a citizen. (Doris Kearns Godwin, Team of Rivals) What has changed? I’ll let you be the judge of that?
On March 3, 1875 the Congress established a policy of direct federal regulation of immigration by prohibiting for the first time entry to undesirable immigrants. These were the provisions: a) excluded criminals and prostitutes from admission; b) prohibited the bringing of any Oriental persons without their free and voluntary consent; declared the contracting to supply “coolie” labor a felony; c) entrusted the inspection of immigrants to collectors of the ports.
In May 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was adopted which provided, among other provisions: 1) for deportation of Chinese illegally in the U.S.; and 2) barred Chinese from naturalization. (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Website Educational Resources, Naturalization Act of July 14, 1870).
Very recently we’ve all been aware of concern expressed about the drug war in Mexico. There were similar concerns expressed in the early 1900’s during the Mexican Revolution that somehow Mexico’s political radicalism would seep northward. In 1915, the Chicago Tribune “came close to predicting a race war in the Southwest.” The newspaper’s editorial warned that “Mexican anarchy now thrusts its red hand across our border and with an insane insolence attempts to visit upon American citizens in their homes the destruction it was wreaked upon American persons and property abroad” (Los Angeles Times, April 6, 2009, “The Fearful Fallout from Mexico’s Drug War, ” op-ed by Gregory Rodriguez).
The 1940’s brought us the internment of the Japanese Americans, citizens of this nation who were incarcerated in camps for years during WWII at a tremendous loss of personal property, but more than that, their rights, their dignity and for this nation more evidence of its moral inadequacy.
Our more currently history is not much better. During the late 1970’s and 1980’s we saw a very dark chapter in the history of immigration. The treatment of Haitians was just short of scandalous. Many Haitians who fled Haiti not only for economic reasons but for some well founded fears of persecution were treated shamefully. Their applications for asylum were allowed to pile up without serious attention, they were held in detention for years and when the immigration officials began seriously dealing with thousands of claims for asylum, they did so in such an arbitrary manner that the federal courts had to intervene and strike down the accelerated program as a violation of procedural due process. President Ronald Reagan declared the presence of undocumented Haitians as a “serious national problem detrimental to the interests of the United States” while, at the same time, making it possible for those who supported the repressive regimes in Central America and sought refuge in the U.S. from Nicaragua and El Salvador were expeditiously processed for asylum in the U.S. When you learn of the details of what was done to subvert the processes associated with providing asylum and how they were circumvented to achieve certain racial and political agendas, you are simply horrified.
In an enormously helpful book Defining America Through Immigration Policy, Dr. Bill Ong Hing, professor of Law and Asian American studies at the University of California at Davis, concludes,
U.S. refugee and asylum policy has always been influenced by political, ethnic and racial considerations. From the country’s failure to rescue Jews during World War II to the institutional barriers erected for Guatemalan, El Salvadoran, and Haitian applicants, evidence of bias in our asylum policies is clear. Favoring those fleeing communism until too many of a particular ethnic group, such as Southeast Asians, have arrived has become engrained in our approach to refugee admissions. Even in the area of asylum, our policies are implemented in ways that are not generous toward those who would not fit the real image of who an American is” (Defining America, Bill Ong Hing, pp. 245-247).
We should be careful not to judge our early brethren. This is, after all, part of the way we structure our lives even to the present. It affects where we live, where we send our children to school, who we choose to associate with, what clubs we join, what churches we belong to. It is always about who is in and who is out. So as we look back in history to some of the absurdities of the first immigration laws and anti-immigrant sentiment, we cannot be too judgmental because we hear and participate in the same kind of stereotyping and ugliness in the immigration debate today.
Basically that is what is going on with immigration. America is and has attempted to define itself through the enactment of its immigration laws and policies. These laws are a reflection of who we want to be and become as a nation. So the attitudes that we bring to that discussion is what forms the policies obviously. There is a tenor to the debate, from the very ugly and vicious commentary of those who want to preserve the current dominate Anglo majority to those who challenge the “who” of the debate, offering a more open and diverse picture of who we want to become.
Much of my experience has shown me that it has a lot to do with the numbers we are talking about in this debate and you hear a lot of numbers quoted. It has to do with the historic relationship with Mexico and Canada, and the histories are different. It has to do with the fear of the loss of power and control.
Just look at the debate over the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. The immediate response of the right wing of the Republican Party just spewing forth the venom that produces not only illogical attacks but an attempt to demean the character of someone whose judicial qualifications and experience cannot be matched even by those on the current court. It is all part of the same deep resentment by those who have controlled the country that those not like them can possible sit at the same table.
The reality of immigration obviously affects race relations in the United States. A recent editorial on June 16 written by a Latino columnist, sought to remind the Latino community of it having been a beneficiary of the African American civil rights struggle, and that the two communities need to follow the words of Martin Luther King when he sent a telegram to farm worker rights activist Cesar Chavez writing: “Our separate struggles are really one ---a struggle for freedom, for dignity and for humanity.”
Yet it has become commonly experienced that racism, lack of education, and a growing intolerance by both communities has caused considerable tension and even violence. As indicated by the columnist, Mr. Hector Tobar, this reality has caused many of us a great deal of anguish. He writes: “I know that mostly our two peoples are working, living in peace and even starting families together. And yet the seeds of a deeper intolerance lie all around us, ready to sprout” (“A Call for Unity, Not Hate” by Hector Tobar, Los Angeles Times, June 16, 2009).
And yet there have been recent experiences of major breakthroughs which give a glimpse of much more hopeful future such as the election of a Chinese-American woman in a predominantly Latino community as the Democratic primary candidate. She stood for election against a prominent Latino legislator. Just as an aside, her brother-in-law is a UCC pastor in Hawaii and her husband one of my early mentors in immigration law. However, I do not often see or experience places where dialogue and an increased awareness of the needs and feelings of the communities most affected by immigration are expressed.
The Atlantic Monthly published an article this past February entitled “The End of White America?” (January/February 2009, available on the website of Hua Hsu). This very provocative article written by Hua Hsu, Professor at Vassar College, has identified the very essence of why the immigration issue has become so electric. It is about the future of the demographic of this nation. He writes “There will be dislocations and resentments along the way, but the demographic shifts of the next 40 years are likely to reduce the power of racial hierarchies over everyone’s lives, producing a culture that’s more likely than any before to treat its inhabitants as individuals, rather than members of a caste or identity group. However, while we aspire to be post-racial, we still live within the structures of privilege, injustice, and racial categorization that we inherited from an older order” (Hua Hsu, Atlantic Monthly, January/February 2009).
I would like to conclude with some thoughts from my own experience this past year in the more hands-on practice of law in the current immigration system and climate. The immigration system itself is terribly dysfunctional. It involves three departments of the government -- DHS, State and the Justice Department –- and the procedures and requirements are overwhelming for anyone who cannot understand the language, let alone how all of this functions or does not function. It is ironic that our immigration laws that were actually enacted to keep family members together by providing special avenues of legalization of immediate family members is now ripping families apart. The hardest part of immigration law today is seeing these very difficult cases of U.S. citizen-children being deprived of their fathers and mothers who are either detained or deported.
Just last Friday I was in court to observe a case brought by the staff attorney of El Rescate, a case that he thought would be one of the few approved for cancellation of deportation. “Deportations separated more than one million family members in the U.S. from a parent or spouse between 1997 and 2007” (“Deporting Fathers in the Name of Homeland Security” by Joseph Nevins, New America Media, June 22, 2009).
The mean spirited and ugly debate does not help. Living in fear constantly of being discovered diminishes a person’s dignity and humiliates parents in front of the children for just wanting to provide and to care for them.
Even in the midst of all of this heartache and dysfunction, there are officials within the immigration system and immigration judges who are kind, compassionate and often use their discretion to rule in favor of many a petitioner. In the Los Angeles system, I have found a multiracial and multicultural group of immigration officials and judges who are former immigrants themselves who do understand the plight of others but who have these laws that they must execute.
I appeal to all of you and your congregations to take time to familiarize yourself with the law and the immigration debate before accepting the “sound bites” and the political rhetoric that is so compelling to some. The church has a unique role to play in this debate and it can do so very effectively and strategically. We are all hoping and praying that the Congress will soon consider a comprehensive immigration bill to alleviate the burdens of many. It will not unravel the dysfunction of this system, nor will it answer everyone’s dilemma, but it will be a start.
