Jack Doppelt
April 30, 2019
[A version of this talk was delivered at the Wilmette Public Library on April 30, 2019]
Possibly the most controversial legacy of the last few years will be that a nation of immigrants is being replaced by nation of enough immigrants. Should something be done about it and if so, by whom? It’s a slippery slope caked with mud.
American Creed, a documentary by Sam Ball and Randy Bean, examines through profiles of diverse people what constitutes The American Character.
It has challenged me to work with a different lens. My lens for ten years has been to sustain an online network for immigrants, refugees, their families and communities. Our network is stoked by the personal stories that emerge from the multiple immigrant communities in and around Chicago, to find threads that connect them with one another. We came up with weavable threads – stories of back home, culture shock, family, fearing the law, identity, learning the language, problems with papers, the migration, and experiences with work, jobs and money - and we’ve been at it ever since. The immigrant experience is historically one of isolation and insecurity, and the sharing of stories and information is a time-honored antidote.
American Creed got me to pull back to see beyond the vivid, often tattered tapestry of immigrants, refugees, their families and communities to explore the sets of beliefs and principles that delimit "we the people.” Who's in, who's out? Who decides? Are there core values that pull Americans, or that can pull Americans, together?
One line that sticks with me is all we have to hold us together is a story. To that I add other stories that emanate and resonate from there. What stories do we want to endure? That’s a not too distant echo from what I’ve focused on with immigrants.
One of the core principles of American Creed is that we are a nation of immigrants. Are we? Or has the American Creed evolved like manifest destiny or the great frontier and shifted to a nation of enough immigrants.
As Kai Ryssdal of Marketplace would say, “let’s do the numbers.”
The countries with the highest percentage of immigrants (foreign borns) other than islands and Vatican City are gulf states (United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar and Kuwait-over 70%), small European countries (Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Switzerland), middle east countries (Jordan, Lebanon), and Singapore. The U.S. and Germany are about the same-14%. The UK- 13%. Russia-7%.
In terms of sheer numbers though and that’s what “we the people” may notice and feel more, only four countries have more than 10 million foreign born residents. The U.S. has by far the most, with 46+ million. Germany (12 mil), Russia (11 mil), and Saudi Arabia (10 mil) are next. Other hugely populated nations such as China (4 mil), India (5 mil) and Brazil (700,000) are much more insular. Japan has 2 mil or less than 2% of its population and Mexico, 1 mil or less than 1%.
Any wonder the U.S. is a nation of immigrants? That realization may also make it more understandable that there are plenty of Americans, a movement of them, and an easily fomented movement, who believe the U.S. should be a nation of enough immigrants?
At his juncture, in a nation in which living room conversations occur, when they do, in encampments of like-minded, isolated creeds, there are dueling storylines.
Hordes, terrorists, drug-dealers, rapists, criminals, job takers, and benefit leaches, from hell hole countries.
The slippery, mud-ridden slope is in place.
That slope is what Donald Trump appealed to when during his first hundred days in office, he issued a flurry of executive orders that, in addressing immigration and refugee policies, staked out a vision of the American Creed:
• Removals (Deportations)
• Hire 5,000 additional Border Patrol agents
• Hire 10,000 additional immigration officers, who shall complete relevant training and be authorized to perform the law enforcement functions described in section 287
• Empower State and local law enforcement agencies across the country to perform the functions of an immigration officer in the interior of the United States to the maximum extent permitted by law under the 287(g) program
• Those who entered US fraudulently (knowingly lying on papers)
• Detain individuals apprehended on suspicion of violating Federal or State law, including Federal immigration law, pending further proceedings regarding those violations;
• Expedite determinations of apprehended individuals' claims of eligibility to remain in the United States
• Ensure the detention of aliens apprehended for violations of immigration law pending the outcome of their removal proceedings or their removal from the country to the extent permitted by law.
• Border crossings now being treated as federal criminal misdemeanors –illegal entry - people get mass due process - so immigrants who cross the border illegally are considered criminals. They weren’t before. That way, anyone who’s undocumented in the U.S. is a criminal too. For a sense of how that worked, listen to This American Life's All Together Now, which documented that 74 of 74 people pleaded guilty – included asylum seekers. After pleading guilty, most got sentenced to time served for the time they already were in detention. Phase 1 – if done a 2nd time, they can be tried for felonies.
• On a weekly basis, make public a comprehensive list of criminal actions committed by aliens and any (sanctuary) jurisdictions that ignored or otherwise failed to honor any detainers with respect to such aliens.
• Privacy Act. Agencies shall, to the extent consistent with applicable law, ensure that their privacy policies exclude persons who are not United States citizens or lawful permanent residents from the protections of the Privacy Act regarding personally identifiable information.
In summary, just those initial executive actions resulted in:
- More arrests, more detentions as cases pend;
- Public shaming of undocumented and welcoming cities;
- Priorities for enforcement shifted from criminals convicted of felonies to those -
- convicted of any criminal offense;
- charged with any criminal offense, where such charge has not been resolved;
- committed acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense;
- engaged in fraud or willful misrepresentation in connection with any official matter or application before a governmental agency;
- abused any program related to receipt of public benefits, such as subsidized housing, free education, English lessons, free school breakfast and lunch, urgent medical care, prenatal and postpartum care for pregnant women under the Women, Infants and Children program, and food stamps for families with U.S.-born children;
- in the judgment of an immigration officer, otherwise pose a risk to public safety or national security.
Of course these measures left people and communities without the American Dream they prized. For a nation of immigrants, the measures appeared at the least to strip any vestiges of the American Creed from those in the country who'd already come to cherish it.
The nation of immigrants seemed to be evolving into a nation of enough immigrants. If immigrants and refugees sought a better life, they should take their business and families elsewhere. Maybe the American Creed they'd adopted of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity were of other people, by other people, and for other people.
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