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Addressing immigration

It's time for progressives to speak more about long-standing values, and less about supply and demand curves

by the S&B Editorial staff

After a draining day of Tuesday classes, we crammed into South Lounge hoping to watch a morality play on United States immigration policy. The esteemed liberal professor from Northern Iowa was set to rip apart the Bible-thumpin', gun-slingin' hate monger from Arizona.

Anxious for things to get underway, some speculated about how the villain would be slain and what xenophobic words he would utter before joining David Horowitz in the dungeon of defeated conservative demons.

In a clever twist, the villain began with a suspiciously compassionate, articulate and well-reasoned argument, while the hero resorted to personal criticism, a litany of statistics and awkward appeals to "our" Judeo-Christian heritage.

We waited an hour for the two to fill their proper roles, but it never happened. And we nearly cried when the climax turned out to be our would-be hero narrating a plotless and insider-y story involving Bay Buchanan and Tom Tancredo in a parking lot.

We didn't learn the lessons we wanted to at Tuesday's debate, but we did learn that claims of rational superiority, discussion of supply and demand and invocation of statistic after statistic is a recipe for intellectual irrelevance.

As a community that prioritizes our tradition of social justice and progressivism, we must recognize that the standard contemporary liberal is less persuasive than the head of a nativist renegade group.

As President George Bush's state of the union address also painfully reminded us, most Americans voted for Bush, who could speak plainly about his values and vision, over Kerry, who could crunch numbers but couldn't stop nuancing his convictions.

It's time for progressives to stand up for what we believe in and speak clearly about our ideals. On issues like immigration, which are emotionally charged, it is important to bring more than our cost-benefit analyses to the public forum.

At the debate, Minuteman co-founder Chris Simcox, to everyone's amazement, skillfully integrated humanitarian compassion for immigrants with practicality in securing America's borders.

But, let's face it, his policy position of closing off America until "most Americans are back to work" is a concealed call to indefinitely stifle immigration. For the Minuteman and other immigration foes, there will never be enough Americans working.

Their recommendations for tighter border control and crackdowns against illegal immigrants, without an appropriate guest worker program or allowance of more legal immigration, would devastate our economy and our deepest traditions.

Immigrants don't just take the jobs no one wants, as was insinuated at the debate, but also give real meaning to the American dream and enrich American society.

As highlighted in a recent U.S. News & World Report editorial entitled "Land of Opportunity," immigrants, legal and illegal, have uprooted themselves from "the familiarity of family, community, and ... culture," making them "self-selected risk-takers, which is why they tend to be hardworking, self-starting, creative and smart."

It is advantageous to all Americans to cultivate this wealth of talent and provide opportunities for success rather than relegate immigrants to society's periphery and force them to languish in poverty.

Across the Atlantic, old Europe is seeing first-hand the consequences of xenophobia and unfriendly immigration policies. In France, immigrants have long been excluded from the rights and culture of mainstream society. Last year, deep-seated resentment mutated into hatred and violence as many immigrants burned the cities that refused them access.

Since America's inception, we have taken an alternative path, deriving strength from immigrants' cultural diversity and strong work ethic. Let's learn how to articulate our pride in that tradition.

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