The Invisible Aliens

A similar situation exists here in India. Agartala, the capital city of Tripura is right on the border with Bangla Desh. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Bangla Deshis cross over in the early mornining hours to Agartala. The US-Mexico Borders is fenced/under constant survellience, but there is hardly any border between BD and India at Agartala.

As usual, the BDs pull the rickshaws whole day and on an average may be making Rs.50/-per day. In the night, the park their rickshaws just on the Indian side of the border and cross over to BD. They are hated by the Tripuris but are welcome nevertheless, because of the cheap transport services they are offering to the locals.

The plight of BDs during the day is worse than those of animals. They are often beaten up mercilessly particularly by Tripuri auto-rickshaw owners right in front of police/ general public on slightest pretext like a minor accident. Nobody cares for them. You cant make out whether they are living persons with dead soul or dead persons with a living soul.

If you call this as something of a diaspora, or people-without-borders, well ,then my heartfelt sympathies for such unfortunate people.

sanjay,

thanks for your support for poor people all over. But to reach the level of versey (who is really sensitive too), you will have to write an article.

Jawahara, this is a nicely written article on a very relevant topic - much more relevant to most of the crowds here than they would acknowledge.

Every ten to fifteen years or so, I see this cycle repeat itself - the undocumented aliens become the favorite whipping boys, and since they don`t have any political voice for obvious reasons, the debate seems to have few limitations imposed by propriety and common sense.

I am personally amazed at the demagoguery of most of these politicians, members of the media and the self-appointed amateur border guards!

All of them gang up on these individuals trying to elk out a living far away from their native lands. They all gang up - Republicans and Democrats - left and right, you name it. It is just ludicrous that on the one hand, we tout the virtues of hard work, the American vision, free market, freedom of the spirit and the like and at the same time, want these folks to just go away as if their going away will not cost us our sense of what makes an American - not to mention raise the cost of living for everyone of us.

It is very difficult to believe that a bit of xenophobia is not at the root of it! Many of the current anti-immigrant bodies, especially FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) originated with certain white supremacist organization at one time.

My hope is that common sense will prevail at the end - if not, the realities of the market place will!

I disagree with the suggestion that Rove has anything to do with this rising frenzy - in my view, it is just a point in that eternal cycle of ``those bad immigrants`` that has been recurring for over two hundred years. In fact, I have every confidence that GWB is a good man at heart and if there is one politician in US who has the strength of character to rise to this difficult challenge and to hold out for what is the right thing to do - it is him!!

A chronology of Immigration to the U.S.
(culled mainly from Wikipedia)
1776: U.S. Independence declared.

1790: U.S. population is approximately 3.9 millions (English: 54%, African: 19%, Ulster-Scot-Irish: 7%, Germans:7%, Scots: 4%, Netherlands: 3%, others: 6%)

1789: French revolution (and Napoleanic wars of 1792-1814) severely limit immigration from Britain and Europe.

1790: The first naturalization law in the United States passes, restricting naturalization to ``free white persons`` who have resided in the country for two years and in their current state of residence for a year.

1795: Residence requirements increased to 5 years residence and 3 years after notice of intent to apply for citizenship.

1795: Residence requirements increased to 14 years residence and 5 years notice of intent.

1808: Congress bans the importation of slaves.

1815: The US foreign-born portion reaches its minimum (1.4%)

1820: First Federal records of immigration start getting kept.

1820-1830: Immigration builds up from 8,000 a year to 23,000 a year.

1840`s: The first significant Catholic immigration to US occurs.

1845-1849: Britain eases travel restrictions. Large scale immigration by Irish, Germans, British and French become feasible.

1845-1849: Potato famine drives many, fleeing their homeland to escape poverty and death. The British, attempting to divert some of this traffic to help settle Canada, offer bargain fares of 15 shillings, instead of the normal 5 pounds (100 shillings) for transit to Canada. Thousands of poor Irish take advantage of this offer, and head towards Canada on what come to be called the ``coffin ships`` because of their high death rates.

1848: Bad potato crops and failed revolutions strike Europe and drive people out; land, relatives, freedom, opportunity and jobs in America lure them in.

1848: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, concluding the Mexican War, extends U.S. citizenship to approximately 60,000 Mexican residents of the New Mexico Territory and the 4,000 living in California. An additional approximate 2,000 U.S. and foreign born California residents also become U.S. citizens.

1849: California Gold Rush spurs mass immigration from Mexico, China, Australia, Europe and the migration of citizens of the United States resulting in the state of California being admitted to the union on September 9, 1850.

1850: First US census takes place in which the place of birth is asked. The foreign-born portion of population is found to be 10%.

1865: The Fourteenth Amendment, originally passed to protect newly emancipated slaves, becomes also a tool to protect the children of almost all persons born in the U.S. by extending automatic citizenship.

1870: The law is broadened to allow African-Americans to be naturalized. Asian immigrants are excluded from naturalization but not from living in the United States. There are also significant restrictions on some Asians at the state level, for example in California where non-citizen Asians are not allowed to own land.

1882: Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act which specifically limits further Chinese immigration. Nearly all such immigrants were men on work contracts. The ban is supposed to be temporary but is extended repeatedly and made permanent in 1904. The ban is not repealed until 1943.

1882: A law is enacted to ban entry of ``lunatics`` and infectious disease carriers.

1880-1924: Over 2 million Eastern Europeans, mainly Catholics, immigrate. People of Polish ancestry are the largest Eastern European ancestry group in the United States.

1880-1924: Approximately 2 million Jewish people immigrate, seeking better opportunity and fleeing the pogroms of Eastern Europe.

1881-1885: A million Germans leave Germany and settle mostly in the US Midwest.

1901-1910: Japan negotiates a so-called Gentlemen`s Agreement, a protocol where Japan agrees to stop issuing passports to her citizens who wanted to emigrate to the U.S. But it continues to give passports to the Territory of Hawaii where many Japanese reside. Once in Hawaii, it is easy for the Japanese to continue on to Japanese settlements on the west coast if they so desire.

1901-1910: Because the Japanese immigrant flow is 80% male, the demand for female Japanese immigrants arises. This need is met in part by what are called ``postcard wifes`` who immigrated to new husbands who had chosen them on the basis of their pictures. (Similar marriages also occur throughout the female starved West.)

1901: After President William McKinley is assassinated by a Polish anarchist, Congress enacts the Anarchist Exclusion Act to exclude known anarchist agitators.

1910-1920: Over 2 million Italians immigrate to the US. Many return to Italy, after working an average of 5 years.

1910-1920: About 1.5 million Swedes and Norwegians immigrate to the United States, due to opportunity in America and poverty and religious oppression in united Sweden-Norway. This accounts for around 20% of the total population of the kingdom at that time. They settle mainly in the Midwest.

1911-1929: The Mexican Revolution drives at least a million refugees temporarily into the U.S. Most return in the 1920s or 1930s.

1917: A literacy requirement is added in Immigration Act.

1920`s: A more complex quota plan replaces the ``emergency`` system under the Immigration Act of 1924 (Johnson-Reid Act). Immigration restrictions laws try to achieve four goals: reduce drastically the number of unskilled immigrants; favor uniting of families by giving preferences to relatives; keeping the ethnic distribution stable by allocating quotas according to how many from each national origin were living in the U.S.; allow unrestricted immigration from Mexico and Latin America. The reference census is changed to that of 1890, which greatly reduces the number of Southern and Eastern European immigrants.

1920: United States has large populations of many European nationalities, but had very small populations of others.

1921: Congress passes the Emergency Quota Act establishing national quotas on immigration. The quotas are based on the number of foreign-born residents of each nationality who were living in the United States as of the 1910 census.

1929-1939: The Great Depression hits and continues for ten years. Immigration patterns of the 1930s are dominated by it. Many people leave the U.S. then return in the 1930s.

1933-1945: Jews fleeing Nazi Germany are often denied access to the United States, highlighted by the event of the S.S. St. Louis.

1934: The Tydings-McDuffie Act, which provides for independence for the Philippines on July 4, 1946, strips Filipinos of their status as U.S. nationals and severely restricts Filipino immigration.

1938: Hitler starts rounding up Jewish populations - in prelude to what would become the Holocaust. No governments show a willingness to accept the Jewish refugees, including the US, due in part to anti-Semitism, isolationism, the Depression, and xenophobia. The immigration policy of the Roosevelt Administration make it very difficult for refugees to obtain entry visas.

1945: The War Brides Act allows foreign-born wives of U.S. citizens who had served in the U.S. armed forces to immigrate to the United States.

1946: The War Brides Act is extended to include fiances of American soldiers.

1946: The Luce-Cellar Act extends the right to become naturalized citizens to newly freed Filipinos and Asian Indians.

1946: At the end of World War II refugees from war torn Europe and United Kingdom start immigrating to the U.S.

1948: The Displaced Persons (DP) Act of 1948 allows displaced people of World War II to start immigrating. Some 200,000 Europeans and 17,000 orphans displaced by World War II are allowed to immigrate to the United States outside of immigration quotas.

1950: The Korean war starts. The Internal Security Act bars admission to any foreigner who is a Communist or who might engage in activities ``which would be prejudicial to the public interest, or would endanger the welfare or safety of the United States.`` War ravages Korea but there is little immigration because of the existing type of quota system.

1952: The McCarran Walter Immigration Act affirms the national-origins quota system of 1924 and limits total annual immigration to one-sixth of one percent of the population of the continental United States in 1920, or 175,455. The act exempts spouses and children of U.S. citizens and people born in the Western Hemisphere from the quota.

1953: the Refugee Relief Act extends refugee status to non-Europeans.

1954: ``Operation Wetback`` - in which United States Border Patrol aided by municipal, county, state, and federal authorities, as well as the military, begins a quasi-military operation of search and seizure of all illegal immigrants, forces the return of thousands of undocumented immigrants to Mexico.

1956: The Hungarian Revolution is crushed by the Soviets. A temporary hole in the Iron Curtain allows a burst of refugees to escape, bringing in 245,000 new Hungarian families to the U.S. by 1960.

1959-1970: Refugees flow in from Fidel Castro`s ``new`` regime in Cuba, driving 409,000 new families to the U.S. by 1970.

1965: Immigration laws revised to abolish national percentage quota. Democrat-controlled Congress passes the Hart-Cellar Act, abolishing the system of national-origin quotas. Over 28,000,000 have legally immigrated since 1965 under its provisions. Immigration is now mostly ``chain immigration`` where recent immigrants who are already here sponsor their relatives.

1975: The U.S. withdrawal from South Vietnam and the subsequent armed Communist takeover of South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia brings a new wave of refugees, many of whom spent years in Asian camps waiting to get into the U.S..

1986: The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) is passed, creating for the first time, penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants.

1990: The Immigration Act (IMMACT) -- Modifies and expands the 1965 act; it significantly increased the total immigration limit to 700,000.

1996: Several pieces of legislation mark a turn towards harsher policies for both legal and illegal immigrants.

#2 HAMZAAD

I think the titles like Muslims, Hindus, Indians, Pakistanis etc. belong to the rich and well to do. For poors, life is nothing but a body and a soul joined together by a stomach. Thousands and Thousands these tiltles cannot take away their hunger, sufferings and pains. I really dream of a world where there are no such bloody useless titles and the mankind is free from its sufferings and pains.

Jawahara, nice essay, but the following is totally ill-representative of the plight of Mexicans, you said:

>>>As I contemplate this supposed flood of illegals, it strikes me that they are the ultimate Diasporic people, just as the Jews were. Persecuted, often poor, they truly see no borders. They just look at the other side and see food on the table for their family, money to secure their future and an open sky of opportunities. A line on a map means nothing to them. They are ready to be scattered for a little bit of opportunity. They are looking for their promised land and it just happens to be in another country.<<<

Jews were persecuted in the lands they lived (because they were economically powerful). Mexicans are not persecuted in their lands. They leave for economic welfare and not to escape persecution.

Secondly, the immigration debate has always been alive in the US, for as long as it has existed. There have been major influx of Europeans (eastern and western) based on legislation, then of nurses and meds, and then of Asians (to build railroad) and then H1 Visas, and family based visas, then so on and so on. Every sane person would like this issue discussed, be they are in favor or illegal immigration or not. There has to be some mechanism to make it more controlled. Look at the EU for example, that has turned immigration the “only” issue in most of western Europe.

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#1

I hired a mahzbi sikh (scheduled caste) to show me around Patiala. He would punch every Poorbia rickshaw puller he could reach in a traffic jam ;-))

Many illegal Mexicans live rather comfortable lives; driving Escalades; their kids and they milking public systems; living here as is they own the country; they are the worst racists who hate blacks, Asians, Indians, etc.

#8 by kaurasach on May 31, 2006 8:58am PT

``Many illegal Mexicans live rather comfortable lives; driving Escalades; their kids and they milking public systems; living here as is they own the country; they are the worst racists who hate blacks, Asians, Indians, etc.``

kaurasach, I wonder how many of the estimated 11 million (how did they get the estimate, anyway?) drive Escalades, especially if they are milking the public system? I would venture to say that the vast majority of them are not. As for racism, Indians too are racist against blacks and Hispanics? To some degree we`re all racist and we can only do anything about it by acknowledging it first.

I do believe something should be done about illegal immigration but it does need to be done in a balanced, humane, non-racist, sensible way not in this knee-jerk, paranoid issue of the day kind of thing going on now.

There are two ways of withdrawing money from a bank. One way is like I do; go to a teller, fill out a withdrawal slip with your account number, show her your passbook or ATM card and get money from your own account. The other way is to walk up to the teller, show her a gun and withdraw money from the bank`s account.

Jawahara, Sanjay and all those supporting illegal immigration. If you realise that there is a difference in the two ways of withdrawing money from the bank then I am sure you are intelligent enough to realize that there is a difference between LEGAL immigration and ILLEGAL immigration. Yes, many of them might be coming for a better living, yadda, yadda but at the end of the day there is something called a law that does not allow people to sneak in illegally into the country and they should be made to obey the law. Now don`t go around comparing it to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. If the law is discriminatory then let`s do away with it but until then make sure that people obey that law.

[quote]Unlike those of us who applied by legal channel (some would argue because we had the means to do so), these illegals live sometimes invisible lives. They work in sweat-shops, labor under the hot sun picking fruit and lettuce, mow our lawns, clean our houses and look after our children.[/quote]

First of all many if not most of the legal immigrants also had to endure a tough route. People on an H-1 had to endure low wages for 4-6 years because they were stuck to an employer and had to wait in apprehension until their EAD or Green Card came. Then if the person got married after getting the Green Card then his wife has to wait for 2-3 years in the home country before she gets her visa. Siblings sponsored by their US citizen siblings have to wait 12-15 years before getting their visa. Case is worse for large countries like India and China where the equal quota for each country gets filled much more quickly. My wife and I were married in the US. One of her brother wanted to visit the US to attend the marriage but was denied a tourist visa as he was a potential immigrant. Recently my wife`s cousin, a self-employed doctor and her husband, a self-employed factory owner, were denied a tourist visa.

Legalizing the illegals would be a slap in the face for those people who had to endure the pains and frustration of the system but still had faith in it, obeyed and complied with it. It`s like waiting in a large line somewhere and the illegals cutting across it. Jawahara, as to your comment about the means. Many families be it from Punjab, Shanghai, Karachi, Nairobi or any other part of the world, have paid through their nose to get legal immigration. Family jewels have been pawned.

[quote]“Look we did it the right way. We have a right to be here. Those other brown folks don’t.”[/quote]

Once upon a time when the immigrants came to this country they considered it their privelge and not their right. Be it the persecuted Jew from Eastern Europe, the railroad worker from Shanghai or the California worker from Bhatinda, they all learnt English. They were thankful for the new opportunity. Today, the Mexicans, Cubans and some of the Hispanics who have come to the country expect others to adjust to them. Spanish signs are propping up everywhere. So much tax dollars is wasted in printing government materials in Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Tagalog. Imagine if an uninvited guest forced into your house against your wishes and expected you to live according to his rules. The same audacity is being shown by the illegals. The average American has been very tolerant and patient with the immigrants and even illegals. But now his/her patience is running thin and I don`t blame them.

...to be continued.

Now to the question about the law restricting immigration being fair or not. Yes, hopefully one day the political barriers in the world may not mean anything and people would be able to move from place to place freely. However, until that happens, US like any other country is within its right to set rules on immigraiton. Mexico treats the illegal aliens coming into its country from Central America in a much worse way. They are beaten, tortured and then deported back.

However, assuming we take your suggestions and lift all restrictions. Two questions come to mind:

1) Security issue - How are you going to monitor that the people who are coming into the country won`t try to harm you. It is no coincidence that the illegal immigration from Bangladesh into India is rampant and nowadays any terrorist act in India has some Bangladeshi link. Fortunately, for America the Mexicans are not such ungratefuls like Bangladeshis to bite the hand that fed them but you never know. Anti-US people from some other countries might sneak in thru Mexico.

2) Most importantly there is a limit to how much even a vast nation like the US can absorb. Many of the developing nations like Mexico, India, Pakistan, Africa are producing people like a factory assembly line. What if all of them decided to migrate to the US???

Finally, what I want to state is that contrary to the propaganda that the illegals are a net positive on the country and the state economy in which they live and work, they are a net negative. How much does an illegal earn? $4, $5, $6 dollar an hour. Which comes to about $10-15 thousand per year assuming a work week of 50-55 hours. Assuming that both spouses work it comes to $30,000 per year.

Now most of them are paid under the table. So no taxes are paid by them or the matching FICA and other employment taxes by their employer. Then their kids go to the public school system and it costs at least $7K per child for the state to educate him/her. Assuming only two kids though if you see an average Mexican family you will see that there are more. Then in most states including California they qualify for food stamps, subsidized housing and other benefits even if they are illegals (based on their income). Then if they get pregnant or have other medical emergencies, many hospitals have to take them. Many of them drive illegally and without insurance and it is estimated that 25% of California`s drivers are uninsured (source DMV, AAA or any other Insurance statistics). It increases our premiums to get UI motorist coverage.

You add all this up and you will see that the average illegal is more of a burden on the system.

Jawahara,


I have observed different classes in a district that is 78% Hispanic.....and interact with adult Hispanics on daily basis.....have first hand knowledge......of their lives......and their status, incomes, etc....

The US is decaying because as one Mexican (legal) put it.......``this is the garbage of Mexico``...is being swept to the US.

Many of them are hard working and humans who naturally would want to come for better lives....their damage to the US is far more than the benefit.....

They tell me openly that they are reclaiming the lost lands of SW USA.....have no obligation to the USA. 100% of them (the ones I know) dont pay taxes at all or dont pay their fair share......they have ways of getting benefits......all the social services are being drained by them......they think it is their right......

I can go on and on about the cesspool they have created here......Spanish is now the most important factor in the hiring process. Incompeten and unlicensed teachers are hired - their only qualification Spanish.....their English is minimal.....some are coming from Mexico.....while American teachers are jobless.

Whoa...when did I say I supported illegal immigration? My only discomfort is with the reactionary, right-wing manner some people are reacting to this. This includes the nut-jobs building a fence/wall, the minutemen patrolling the border and people ready to shoot to kill illegal aliens.

Whatever else, we can agree that most (not all, of course, kaurasach) people coming over are poor, don`t think in terms of national boundaries when all they see is some rozi-roti across the border and their own government is failing them.

Illegal immigration as an issue and illegal immigrants as a people need to be dealt with humanely. Of course, some people would blame NAFTA and other trade agreements being in part, responsible for the problem.

I believe that this ongoing problem is being brought forward now to divert attention from all the other horrible, crappy things being done by the Bush White House both here and abroad. And this is an issue like gay marriage that can be used to whip people into a frenzy. People fall for it. To just look at illegal immigrants as the problem is to be blind to the US employers who lure them here, the others who turn a blind eye, those who employ them in sweatshops, etc.

Is illegal immigration a problem? Yes. But is the solution to further victimize a poor, voiceless minority? Or should there be more holistic and more humane solutions. Solutions that will keep them in their own country.

please state one `humane` solution that will work.........it has never worked.....

IF `rozi roti` is their motive then i dont have any qualms about immigration; even illegal; almost always the immigration is illegal....in all history.........

many, prob most, esp Hispanic illegal aliens have negative effect and are degrading the American standard of living.......

anyways, these measures are cosmetic only.......they wont stop anyone to come and earn their `rozi roti`

What’s mind boggling is that Mexico has a GDP per capita of $10,000, and is considered a middle income country (it’s double that of Venezuela, Philippines, and about 1/3 more than Turkey). How come there aren’t many illegal Turks in the US? The problem of illegal immigration can only be tackled by attacking it on both sides – supply and demand. US can only address it’s side, Mexico must take some responsibility as well. Building a wall is perhaps not the solution, but it will only make things worse. If wall is to be built, for it to be effective, it has to be built all around, and not just on the southern border.