Recently I’ve been very troubled, concerned, and worried by ICE activities locally and nationally. Here in North Central West Virginia ICE has raided local restaurants and detained people while at their work, stranded students at school after their parents were detained, and placed more than a few local businesses at risk. All the while not making a single person in West Virginia safer and sowing confusion and chaos. This local news also comes amid national news of ICE endangering and killing Americans in Minnesota and other places across the country. These actions are deeply unpopular but ICE is propped up by a president and group of allies who have somehow convinced themselves that they’re making the lives of average Americans better.
If it isn’t clear already I think that the use of ICE to essentially harass, detain, and deport people in this way is wrong and unacceptable. It’s true that many of the people detained are undocumented but otherwise have done nothing wrong and are in the country to improve their lives.
The Land of Opportunity
I’ve always been taught that America the land of opportunity. Here it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from. Anyone can make something for themselves if they work hard. This is an ideal of course but it still holds some weight in reality. If you work hard, if you contribute, if you save then you can scrape together a life for yourself here. Despite the numerous flaws and imperfections of America I think that is what makes the country great. It might not be easy but it is possible to put together a safe life here unlike it is in large parts of the world. But I don’t understand why so many people are so set against others coming here and contributing to that ideal. If opportunity is what makes America a great country then I think that opportunity only exists when we’re all contributing to that ideal.
A Rising Tide And Whatnot
A rising tide lifts all boats. Everyone should know what this means. When something we’re all apart of gets better we all benefit. When I think of this my mind lands on this idea: we all need to eat, all want to go shopping, all need to run errands and chores. We need people to work those jobs to check us out at the grocery store, cook the food we order at our favorite restaurant, change the oil in our car at the mechanic. Those people need to eat too, want to go shopping too, need to run errands too. They’ll visit businesses, spend money, generate more jobs, etc. It’s a cycle and benefits from more people being in the cycle of spending. It seems clear to me that we would be at our best when we’re open and welcoming. We should encourage new people to participate and contribute that the economy through work and consumption. But at this moment a huge contingent of Americans from the White House down are intent on draining millions of people and dollars out of the cycle. Maybe to put it in different terms, they’re interested in pulling the tide away from the country’s boat.
Let’s Talk About Hard Work
I don’t think that it’s took absurd to say that hard work should be valued and rewarded in America. How many stories have we all hear about people “pulling themselves up by their bootstraps” and making something from nothing. Ignoring how it is quite literally impossible to pull yourself up by your bootstraps let’s talk about hard work for a minute. There are plenty of natural born American citizens who spend their days working half as hard as the people they disrespectfully refer to as “illegals.” I think it completely unacceptable to fault any immigrant for coming to America for a better life and working hard once they settle here. What difference does it make if they are documented or not? Seeking opportunity how ever you can is not a crime. Real criminals already face the full force of America’s criminal justice system. Whether documented immigrant, undocumented, citizen otherwise. Why not let those immigrants who abide by the laws, work hard, and contribute to our economy do just that?
Why Not Just Let ‘Em Work?
There’s a common dog whistle that is bandied about by conservatives and xenophiles that immigration is harmful because it add more people to the labor force and force American citizens into unemployment. I firmly believe this is a complete fallacy that has become so pervasive it’s hard to convince someone otherwise. From everything I have read, heard, and seen the majority of immigrants end up working in job that American will not do. Let’s think about it for just a second. If part of our national narrative is building a better life for yourself than your parents had who wants to wake up every morning go to a physically demanding, mentally draining, and low paying job?
I certainly don’t but these jobs still need to be done. In fact these jobs are so important that when no one is willing to do them we’ve seen crippling consequences! But don’t take my word for it. Read this article from the Guardian, or this article from Mother Jones, or this article from HuffPost.
TL;DR — Alabama passed one of the nation’s most draconian anti-immigration laws in 2011. Most of the states farm workers self-deported or left the state.
The HuffPost reported years after about the law:
“Many Alabama farmers witnessed the abrupt departure of their workers, many of whom were undocumented immigrants that feared deportation. In their wake, many farmers — especially those who grew fresh produce like tomatoes and blueberries — were left without the workers they needed to harvest their crops”1
Then some people in the state had the bright idea to recruit dozens of unemployed citizens to replace those missing farmworkers, drive them an hour north of Birmingham, and have them work a farm. The experiment was a total bust. At the time Mother Jones wrote:
Over the course of the monthlong experiment, about 75 Alabamians worked on Jenkins’ farm; 15 of them showed up more than once; only 3 lasted the entire month.2
If that’s not clear then I don’t know what is! American’s just do not want to do the kinds of jobs undocumented immigrants are willing to do and do well! Removing immigrants from the workforce had dire consequences for the agricultural industry in Alabama. Six years later HuffPost reported that fruit and vegetable production in the state was still down anywhere from 6 to 65 percent from before the anti-immigration bill took effect.
And I have just one more thing to say on this topic. If any American has been truly displaced, laid off, or kept unemployed because of an immigrant I would encourage you to strongly consider if you’re taking advantage of the privileges that come with American citizenship? Are you bettering yourself? Are you pursuing an education? Are you developing new skills? Because if you are squandering the opportunities afforded to you just by virtue of being born in American then I am sure someone else would be happy to use what you’ve taken for granted.
Support Who You Can
Sadly the immigration crackdown does not appears to be stopping anytime soon. If you’re concerned about this like I am then I hope you take the opportunities to so something real and meaningful for those affected. My wife and I have a favorite Mexican restaurant in Nutter Fort, WV. We were appalled to learn that ICE raided the restaurant recently and all of the kitchen staff. The owner is doing all the cooking by herself now, she’s had to reduce hours, and is receiving an unimaginable amount of hate online. The first thing we did was go an eat there. We ordered double what we would normally order and left as large of a tip as we could manage. We won’t singlehandedly save her business but if it helps then I am glad we could do something.