The Writing on the Wall: Immigration bill needs to break U.S. caste system
By Brian Goodman, opinion editor
Posted on April 3, 2006

As astonishing as it was for those in West Africa and other parts of the world, the solar eclipse was not the most atypical event to capture headlines last week. That prestigious title goes to none other than the Senate Judiciary Committee, which actually managed to approve significant legislation in something approximating a reasonable amount of time. Monday night heralded the passing of landmark legislation on the hot-button issue of illegal immigration.

Of course, immigration reform was not hustled through out of senatorial kindness; between Sen. Arlen Specter’s swollen head and Sen. Ted Kennedy’s swollen liver, there is little room in the Judiciary Committee for heart. Such things, which have no place in the hallowed halls of the Capitol, were instead represented by scores of demonstrators stretching from Washington to San Diego. In Los Angeles alone, half a million people took to the streets in opposition to the heavy-handed anti-immigration legislation floated by Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, and already passed in the House. Such an outpouring of support for the immigrant community effectively lit a fire under the committee conference table, for not only was the legislation passed within 48 hours, it was passed without the hard-line stance taken by the other side of the Hill.

The ambitious bill attempts to comprehensively deal with the porous southern border and reform the guest-worker visa program, but the biggest point of contention comes from the illegal immigrants already here. The severe House bill sought to make illegal immigrants even more illegal by raising their undocumented presence in the United States to a felony charge, while the Senate Judiciary Committee instead proposed a plan to offer the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in the country a way to gain citizenship without first having to return home.

Though over 60 percent of Americans oppose streamlining nationalization, last week’s plan demonstrated wisdom, which is as rare in the Senate as green cards are in the chicken processing plants downtown. The hard-line social conservatives and their inflammatory “amnesty” rhetoric are blissfully unaware of exactly what a considerable impact 11 million people have on an economy and a society.

Current immigration laws have relegated a population almost one-and-a-half times larger than New York City to a state of poverty, fear and invisibility. With their meager and often undocumented wages largely sent to their families back home, they are left scattered about farms, factories and fast-food kitchens across the country. Such elementary tasks as food shopping or commuting are trying and prolonged, and living situations show little improvement in amenities, overcrowding and sanitation since the immigration boom a century ago.

In principle as well as practice, we have instituted our very own “made-in-the-USA” caste system, with 11 million illegal immigrants as our Dalit untouchables, a fact which no one engaged in the reform debate even attempts to deny. President Bush, for example, has taken a remarkably compassionate stand on the issue — in large part to his experiences as governor of a border state with a large Hispanic population — stating that immigrants are forced “to live in the shadows of society.” Yet he cannot escape the caste rhetoric when arguing in favor of the visa reform, which he purports would be “a legal way … fill the jobs that Americans are unwilling to.” Such statements reinforce the subhuman (read: sub-American) category in which we have consigned 11 million people.

Not all is lost, however, as the speedy and moderate Judiciary Committee proposal demonstrates. It’s amazing what miracles half a million protesters can accomplish when they apply themselves; if the population of Boca Raton were to do the same, we might actually see some Social Security reform before it’s our turn to retire.

But that is another fight for another day. Right now, our senators are thoroughly occupied with the daunting task of balancing the seemingly irreconcilable problems still unresolved by the Judiciary Committee proposal: appeasing the 62 percent of the population opposed to easing the nationalization process for illegal immigrants while simultaneously discouraging future illegal immigration and humanely combating the social and economic realities of immigrant workers already here. Successfully striking a compromise — let alone one that will benefit the untouchables of our society — would be the true miracle, regardless of how miraculous senatorial rapidity and rationality might be.

Brian Goodman is a junior communications major.