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Is there any common ground on immigration reform?
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Elena Herrada is a Detroit community activist and the director of the oral history project of the Fronteras Norteñas organization. Herrada says she is a fourth generation American whose family was recruited by the Ford Company from Mexico to work in auto plants in Detroit around 1920. “…I left my local and started, with a dedicated group of activists, a center for immigrant workers. We hold legal clinics, English classes, some cultural events, and search for people picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, post bonds and accompany people to court. “Recently, a friend and I drove a young woman and her six-month old baby to a Southern state because there is no work here. She joined her husband, who had not yet seen their daughter. The couple will likely be picking tomatoes and then on to the next crop. The couple faces deportation, but they cannot leave the country because they have no way of feeding themselves and their families. I have never been so aware of the privileges of citizenship as I have since I started waiting in detentions, posting bonds, driving a car, all things many of my neighbors cannot do. We wait in hopeful anticipation of immigration reform for an end to this madness. “Still, thousands of U.S.-born children face the same fate as our families did in the 1930s — deportation. The big difference is this: We are here, and we will not stand by while innocent people are detained, incarcerated, hunted down and separated from their children, parents and loved ones. Children witness this every day. What are we to tell them? If I have learned anything as an oral historian, it is that small acts of cruelty and small acts of kindness are remembered as historical events. What we do will be remembered.” That is her story. Now I, actually you, have a few questions and comments for her. I have developed the questions from the dozens of comments readers have sent in over the past three months. There can be no blanket amnesty, so there will always be those who do not qualify to become legal. President Obama can say what he will about strengthening our borders, but there will always be those who will come here illegally, and there will always be those who come legally and do not leave. What will be done with them? This year Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s state buckled under a $47 billion budget deficit because of 4 million plus illegal immigrants. Through violating federal law, thousands of foreign nationals live in low income housing. Mothers who crossed the border to intentionally have children have taken taxpayers to the cleaners, with millions of dollars owed to hospitals in baby delivery. In California there are many violations of federal welfare payments. We tried a supposed one-time "comprehensive reform" amnesty in 1986, which failed and led to more illegal immigration. Why would this reform be any different? Others say amnesty is not rewarding the illegals to help them out and let them apply to be legal. Stop blaming the illegals for all of our problems in the United States. Or eight million undocumented immigrants pay Social Security, Medicare and income taxes. Denying public services to people who pay their taxes is an affront to America’s bedrock belief in fairness. Can we find a reality between Herrada’s and yours? I look forward to reading the comments.
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