The American dream is buried under anti-immigrant rhetoric
Ouisa D. Davis
I cannot understand mean-spirited attitudes toward immigrants and refugees. For over 15 years, legislative efforts to give people a chance to enjoy the American dream have been unsuccessful, buried under anti-immigrant rhetoric for political purposes.
There are the "dreamers" – immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. Children do not choose where they live. They are not active participants in unauthorized border crossings. Yet, these "dreamers" live among us, learn about our country and our culture, and love the principles that make our nation great. Once they become adults, they become a part of a hated and invisible underclass in our society, facing barriers to education, military service and full participation in the American way of life.
The DREAM Act will ensure undocumented young people a right to become full, contributing members of our community. Year after year, we have witnessed Congressional refusal to act to protect these immigrants. And this from a nation claiming to treasure its youngest inhabitants.
I cannot relate to the refusal to provide a reasonable path to permanent resident status to the millions of undocumented immigrants who live in our community, take the jobs that no one else will fill, and who share fiscal responsibility for our society by paying taxes. The reality is that the majority party in Congress, which holds the power to make positive changes to the immigration system, has no intention of repairing the damage done by the 1995 and 1996 immigration laws. There are very simple fixes but no political will.
I do not understand the continuing persecution of refugees, those seeking protection from criminal gangs and government persecution suffered in their home country. Under the misguided policies of the Tweeter-in-Chief and his minions, crime and torture victims are incarcerated in immigration for-profit prisons, although they are not charged with a crime. Their children are ripped from their arms, lost for weeks, months and years in a system and country they do not understand.
Here are some hard truths – our country's immigration policy is supported by four pillars: reunification of family, labor considerations, diversity through a lottery system and refuge from persecution, national disaster or civil strife. Our national motto, "E Plurbis Unum" (Out of many, one) is a reference to the multicultural reality that is, and has always been, America. Since its founding, before the American Revolution and the creation of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, our nation has been and will always be a nation of immigrants. None of us, except those who are fully Native American, can claim title to this country. All of us, through migration or servitude, have come to and contributed to the building of this nation through our ancestral heritage or individual migration journey.
It is a travesty and a national sin to allow our government to rip children from the arms of their already-traumatized parents. It is an offense to the God that some of us claim, to pretend that we have a greater right to family unity than do those who flee the horrors of their stories. And it is a great hypocrisy for any one of us to stand silent in the face of the continued inaction of the Republican majority in Congress and the continued outrages of the Trump administration in the handling of migration issues.
Workplace raids, home invasions by immigration officers, detention during immigration processing and the confrontation of potential refugees as they attempt to seek the rights allotted to them under existing immigration laws are inhumane and violate every tenet of human decency that we proclaim to hold as a nation.
It is said that there is a growing public distaste for these tactics of Attorney General Sessions and the Trump administration. But what are we doing about it? If this were your family, would you remain silent?
Ouisa D. Davis is an attorney at law in El Paso. She can be reached at Ouisadavis@yahoo.com.