[Mb-civic] Decency to 'Those People' - Eugene Robinson - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

Decency to 'Those People'
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By Eugene Robinson
The Washington Post
Tuesday, March 28, 2006; A23

Half a million people poured into the streets of Los Angeles on Saturday 
to protest the various Republican-sponsored proposals in Congress that 
would demonize illegal immigrants. Hundreds marched yesterday in 
Detroit, which, last I checked, is nowhere near the Mexican border. Tens 
of thousands have demonstrated in Phoenix, Denver and other cities 
across the country. In every case, the crowds were mostly Latino.

We all know that Latinos are the nation's largest minority and that most 
of the people in those demonstrations either were born in the United 
States or are here legally. But we also know that at least some of those 
protesters had gone through the experience of crossing the border 
illegally under the tutelage of avaricious people-smugglers known as 
"coyotes." At least some had been here for months or years, working to 
send money home to their families, keeping their heads down, somehow 
managing to carve out lives for themselves and their children.

Who are they? After the demonstrations were over, where did they go? Are 
they so diabolically clever at hiding in plain sight? Or is it that the 
rest of us refuse to see them, because by seeing them we would have to 
acknowledge their humanity?

That willful blindness is why the debate on illegal immigration is so 
hypocritical. If we lump undocumented immigrants into an 
undifferentiated mass of Those People, we can avoid really looking at 
the immigrant experience. And we can convince ourselves that it is 
somehow different from the periodic waves of immigration that have 
shaped this nation -- that suddenly it is not an issue, or even a 
problem, but an urgent crisis.

There are an estimated 12 million immigrants in the United States 
illegally. That many people don't just fade into the woodwork. The fact 
is, we see undocumented immigrants every day.

Maybe they vacuum your office at night. Maybe they landscape your garden 
or clean your house or cook the food at your favorite restaurant. You 
probably don't know where they live. You probably don't know their 
children's names or where they go to school. You probably don't know 
what it was like for them to buy a car or even get a driver's license. 
You probably don't know where they get medical care.

If you did know these things about individual immigrants, whether 
they're from Mexico or El Salvador or China or Brazil, I think you would 
find the debate in Congress almost grotesque.

Should we declare that they are all criminals? Should we make criminals 
of the people who give them jobs, too? Should we build a Berlin Wall 
along the border? It's possible to take such draconian measures against 
Those People -- but not against lovely Marta, who waxes your floors, or 
genial Juan, who tends your azaleas. So to side with the xenophobes, you 
have to know as little about Marta and Juan as possible.

In terms of realpolitik, the immigration issue is easy: If the 
Republican leadership in Congress wants to alienate Latino voters and 
drive them into the embrace of the Democratic Party, it's tempting to 
let them do it. But that means ignoring the reality that we're talking 
about individuals, not Those People. And it means abandoning the process 
of inflow, adaptation and renewal that has made this nation of 
immigrants so dynamic and resourceful.

I don't get many chances to say that George W. Bush is right, but I 
think he really understands the immigration issue on both the political 
and the personal level. His guest-worker program is a mess. Does he 
really expect millions of people to report for deportation? Won't 
employers have an incentive to exploit the guest workers when they know 
they will never have citizenship, and therefore will never have any 
political clout? But I do give the president credit for seeking a 
compromise that will quiet the nativists in his party and maybe buy some 
time for cooler heads to prevail.

Much better is the proposal by Sens. John McCain and Edward Kennedy that 
would declare what amounts to an amnesty for undocumented immigrants. 
They would both take issue with that characterization, because "amnesty" 
is a forbidden word, but that's what it would be -- "illegals" who 
reported to authorities would be able to stay in the country and 
eventually begin the process of seeking citizenship. It seems unlikely, 
though, that this reasonable plan will fly.

Whatever Congress does, 12 million people aren't going to pack up and go 
home overnight. They are here -- Marta and Juan, not Those People. We 
see them every day. Let's deal with them as fellow human beings.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/27/AR2006032701302.html
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