An article I wrote on the role of immigration in the 2008 elections was published. I was so excited to come home tonight to discover that it was the feature article in the Sept/October issue of AILA’s Immigration Law Today. I’ll scan it and post it under “Publications.”
Bloomberg raises important election issues
In Bloomberg’s Advice to the Next President published by Newsweek, he tackles some of the issues I wish the candidates would have addressed throughout their campaign. On immigration, Bloomberg warns:
1. the most brilliant minds are being shut out of America because of our stringent immigration laws
2. outsourcing and xenophobia have caused fewer jobs for americans and less tax revenues
3. Immigration reform is crucial to our sick economy! Bloomberg proposes a bi-lateral plan: tighten border security, create a worker ID card to allow employers to verify work authorization and ID’s for job applicants, and provide a legal pathway to citizenship.
Easier said than done Mr. Bloomberg! He does, however, identify one root of the immigration virus, and its vaccine: immunity to Congresspeople from threats to re-election despite supporting sound immigration solutions.
Bloomberg writes, “You will never convince the demagogues, but most members of Congress will be willing to support this kind of common-sense approach if they believe it will not threaten their re-election campaigns. Tell them—including members of the opposite party—that they will have your support in their re-election campaigns. That simple act may do more to shake up the Washington establishment than anything that has occurred there in decades.”
Immigrant’s List, an organization founded by a group of prominent immigration attorneys to pursue that goal, raises funds to support candidates, regardless of party affiliation, enforcing the point that candidates don’t have to sacrifice economic and political support by casting their votes to resolve the immigration crisis. While advocacy may pull at the heartstrings, money talks.
Awoken from Slumber!
I was listening to NPR this morning, and out of the blue they played Woodie Guthrie’s “Deportee.” Pretty cool. Now they’re playing “Living in a City of Immigrants” which I’ve never heard before.
It still shocks me how important this next election is to me and to the future of America. Once a model around the world of justice, hope, and true democracy, our recent leadership and domestic & foreign policies have destroyed our economy, and distanced us from the respected global position we once held. The country and it’s leadership have become a very scary joke.
Many Americans (myself included) for the first time are energized and actually care who will be elected in the next presidential and congressional elections on Nov. 4, 2008. I already voted for Obama because I think he is a responsible leader, in line with my value system, and the best choice for the country. He’s the inspiring rolemodel of sensitive strong leadership, intention, and intelligence that I feel America needs. I don’t fear irrational decisions that contradict my sense of global and national responsibilty (which I definitely fear with the McCain Palin ticket).
But I have been quite disappointed with both candidates’ failure to address all the pressing issues. I wonder how this election would have been different had the mega economic crisis not occured earlier this month. I wonder what will be the fate of all the poor, homeless and unemployed people from New Orleans. How will our immigration system change to attract more foreign talent, and maintain our country’s tradition of welcoming the stranger? What about healthcare? And what about our education system which in most areas of the country doesn’t prepare young Americans to be the next leaders in technology, ecology, and diplomacy? I’ve read the one liners both parties have as their stated policies on these issues, but I still do not understand why these issues were not more thoroughly explored and debated throughout the campaigning.
I never cared about politics before, and honestly never really understood our political system fully. But in the last few years, I’ve found new purpose and meaning as an immigration attorney working with large corporations, small businesses, artists, teachers, engineers, and many others to ensure compliance with the immigration laws and to secure visas and green cards. I’ve devoted almost all my free time to advocating and lobbying for immigrants and refugees, and in that process I realized that I’ve learned a lot, I do care, and that my beliefs and values do translate into the issues that are debated by Congress and our national leadership. I studied abroad in China and Japan when I was in college which was another transforming experience and period in my life. China has been compared to a sleeping dragon, lying dormant with a storehouse of strength and fire. I sometimes feel that armed with with all my newly discovered political passion, I’m a little baby dragon who just woke up from her slumber.
Tags: Elections
Feivel Mousekewitz
I remember watching Steven Spielberg’s An American Tail when it first came out in the theaters. I was about 8 years old, and other than sitting in my grandparents’ bed begging them to tell me about “the olden days,” it was my first glimpse into the immigrant experience. I was captivated by Feivel’s story, and by the stark contrast between the fantasy and reality of America for those seeking and expecting a new life.
Watching the movie again, more than 20 years later (wow!), I was surprised to find that Feivel’s discovery that there are cats in America, his struggle to find his family, and the poverty and fears that defined the immigrant experience nearly moved me to tears, a feeling I distinctly remember from the first time I saw the movie in the theaters as a young child.
I also remember writing a letter to Steven Speilberg after McDonalds offered Feivel Christmas stockings with the Happy Meal to promote the movie. I was upset because Feivel was Jewish, and I felt that a Jewish mouse didn’t belong on a Christmas Stocking because it conveyed a message that assimilating to American life meant that a mouse would sell his heritage and religion for a few extra marketing bucks.
I received a letter back (not from Speilberg) explaining that Feivel represented all immigrants, not only Jewish immigrants. While I still feel that a Christmas stocking probably wasn’t the best choice for a Jewish mouse, today I noticed the Irish and Italian mice who also played major roles in the movie. Although colored with details of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, Feivel’s story contains elements of the immigrant experience that had nothing to do with country of origin, and everything to do with the destination. Feivel’s story is also timeless; immigrants today still face the challenge of reconciling the fantasy of a land ripe with opportunity and the reality of the struggles of learning a new language, finding jobs, raising families in unfamiliar territory without the support of family, and re-defining their dreams to meet reality. All my respect!
President Bush announced that passport holders from seven new countries don’t need to obtain b1/b2 (business/tourist) visas to enter the US: the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, and South Korea Before entering on a VW, make sure you know the rules.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/10/20081017-5.html
Obama and McCain: Was it a Face-off?
Thanks to Obama v. McCain 2008, I finally got a TV so I could be a part of all the debate excitment. I rushed home to meet my parents for a night of family fun watching the final presidential debate. I was excited and nervous to see how things would play out, and was almost satisfied.
I knew that the economy would be the centerpiece of the debate, but I still expected just a tiny honorable mention of the seemingly unsovleable topic that ignites so much bigotry, passion, and controversy whie affecting nearly all domestic policies including education, big and small businesses, healthcare, and national security: immigration.
I waited patiently through every 9 minute segment, but soon realized that Joe the plumber (who turned out to be unlicensed, making around 40k per year, and delinquent on paying back taxes) was taking center stage as McCain tried to frame Obama’s tax plan as one that rapes Americans of their American dream, (or at least 39% of all imaginary future dreamy income above $250k).
In retrospect, I shouldn’t have had any expectations. Obama is riding on a precarious wave of positive poll estimates, not a time to start discussing really controversial stuff. McCain is more focused on denigrating Obama using his miniature pitbull tactics, and showing that Obama has really missed the mark by promoting socialism. And to be honest, their positions on immigration aren’t THAT different. But was anyone else surprised that the moderator (who chooses the questions anyway?) stayed in such a safe and predictable zone?
My parents are visiting me right now. My mother sits on my left knitting another scarf (I have about 30 of them in my closet which she’s decided I should give away to homeless people on the street this winter). My father sits on my right reading Steve Berry’s “The Templar Legacy.” We just put my father’s ipod on “shuffle.” One of the first songs that came up was a Peter Paul and Mary cover of an old Woodie Guthrie song called “Deportees.” I was surprised to learn that it was written in 1948 in response to a plane crash near Los Gatos, California. The plane carried 4 American crew people, and 28 migrant farm workers who were being deported back to Mexico. Guthrie was struck by the racist disrespect to the 28 farm workers who were listed in a New York Times article about the crash merely as “28 deportees” as if they had no importance, value, or identity. They were then buried in a mass grave in California. All 4 American crew members were named individually. I was especially moved by the lyrics and their origin after hearing the racist comments by McCain supporters this week. I’m not sure America has moved forward in the last 50 years, and after hearing such blatant racism during political rallys this week, it seems as if many Americans are completely unaware of how racism, bigotry, and xenophobia still colors their so-called rational thoughts. In 1948, 28 lives were deemed meaningless by the most prestigious newspaper in the world because they were Mexican farm workers. I am equally frightened by a Journalist who devalued and dehumanized the deaths of the 28 Mexican migrant workers as I am by the characterization of Barack Obama which I saw yesterday on CNN by John McCain’s supporters. The voice these individuals give to the politically active right and the bigotry fueling many of John McCain’s supporters is shameful. And after looking back at history through the story behind Guthrie’s 1948 song, unfortunately very American.
Lyrics by Woody Guthrie
Music by Martin Hoffman
The crops are all in and the peaches are rotting
The oranges are piled in their cresote dumps
They’re flying you back to the Mexico border
To pay all your money to wade back again
My father’s own father, he wanted that river
They took all the money he made in his life
My brothers and sisters come working the fruit trees
And they rode the truck till they took down and died
CHORUS
Good-bye to my Juan, good-bye Rosalita
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maris
You won’t have a name when you ride the big air-plane
And all they will call you will be deportees.
Some of us are illega, and others not wanted
Our work contract’s out and we have to move on
But it’s six hundred miles to that Mexican border
They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like theives.
We died in your hills, we died in your deserts
We died in your valleys and died on your plains
We died ‘neath your trees and we died in your bushes
Both sides of the river, we died just the same.
CHORUS
A sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos canyon
Like a fireball of lightning, it shook all our hills
Who are all these friends, all scattered like dry leaves?
The radio says they are just deportees.
Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?
To fall like dry leaves to rot on my topsoil
And be called by no name except deportees?
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