How should the land of immigrants treat immigrants?

Introduction: We had several topics to choose from in writing our project. I wanted to write something personal, and something I think is incredibly important. My essay deals mainly with the issue of immigration in America. Specifically, how we are dealing with it. I wanted to answer the question by highlighting America’s need for a change of ideals before they can change their actions.

I have a habit of compulsively reading the news. Whenever I’m on the bus or in the middle of something I’ll scroll through my news feed. Recently I came across an image of an immigration detention facility in the United States. The image showed dozens, maybe hundreds of people packed in by a fence. In a small space, in an unfurnished, beigie room. Towards the fence were children, some toddlers if you looked closely, were laying on the ground, tired, aching. As the sea of people reached the other side of the room I began to notice that there were so many people that I couldn’t see the floor. Looking at the picture, even looking at it as I write this makes me feel claustrophobic, nauseous, and angry. Is this the fate of those striving for a better life? My questions grew. How can America, one of the richest countries on the planet, treat these people so mercilessly? I settled on a final question, what should America’s role be in an immigration crisis? The answer lies in the stories of immigrants.

America, a land of immigrants striving for something greater, has never really been all too kind to immigrants striving for something greater. And with all our wealth, all our capacity to be generous, we stay stagnant in our selfishness, our ignorance. I can imagine you’ve seen the televised political discussions and debates concerning immigration. Old white men, who’ve never had to work a day in their lives, speaking of the lives of people they can’t begin to understand. The point is best conveyed through a quote from the book We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo, a book about immigrating and trying to assimilate into America. “When they debated what to do with illegals, we stopped breathing, stopped laughing, stopped everything, and listened. We heard: exporting America, broken borders, war on the middle class, invasion, deportation, illegals, illegas, illegals. We bite our tongues till we tasted blood, sat tensely on one butt cheek, afraid to sit on both because how can you sit properly when you don’t know about your tomorrow?” This quote does a lot to highlight the treatment of immigrants, but illuminates particularly how little control or voice immigrants have over their lives. This is a point America should take into account if we want to play a better, more helpful role globally and in the lives of immigrants. Does this mean we have to make immigrants dictate exactly how we should be treating them and do things? No. It means America can listen to the specific issues of those being displaced or having to move and working with those people to help them join our country, and live comfortable lives.

The issue of American involvement in immigration goes farther. America would rather kick undocumented immigrants out then keep them in the lives they built, letting them get their citizenship with their homes and families intact. We see this manifest in the ICE raids happening across our country. If we should be taking a more humanitarian approach, then the raids are the antithesis. The New York Times reported in an article (Miriam Jordan, Aug 7, 2019) that, “The raids were by far the largest to occur since Mr. Trump took office, and the biggest since December 2006, when more than 1,200 people were swept up in a raid at several units of a meat processing company.” The same New York Times article interviews Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, who said the following, “The American economy loses a workforce that is contributing in more ways than we can imagine. And, along the way, we are no safer as immigrant communities are pushed further from law enforcement.” The article goes on to confirm that both companies involved with the raids (the poultry raids predominantly featured in the article) made sure that the workers were able to work in the United States using E-card verification. Not only are the raids brutal, ripping people from their children and their livelihood. But they are hurting our economy. These are not the actions of a developed society.

So once again we are brought to our question: What should America’s role be in a immigration crisis? The answer is not in specific actions this time, but in values. We should approach our immigration problems and any immigration crisis we see with Egalitarian values. These immigrants are people and their lives should be treated with this in mind. As a nation, we should strive to understand the problems these people are facing, to see what we can do to help, to accommodate them into our society. Because in the end, anything we do to help them, will, in some way, be returned back to us. Not by karma or in any spiritual sense for that matter. Just the simple logic that helping people makes people want to help you. Something our country has clearly forgotten.

Bibliography

-We Need New Names, NoViolet Bulawayo -https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/07/us/ice-raids-mississippi.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/19/opinion/opdocs-immigration.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/05/29/opinion/migrant-crisis.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/01/18/what-do-we-owe-each-other/?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region