Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Immigration and the Democrats

To date, Democrats have largely failed to lay out a comprehensive vision of what our immigration policy should be. Some of the announced presidential candidates have, over time, staked out positions on specific issues, such as the status of the Dreamers or the abolition of ICE, but they’ve largely left it to Donald Trump and his allies to set the broader terms of the debate.If the candidates hope to offer a genuine alternative to the administration’s policies, it’s imperative that they shift the debate from sloganeering about the wall and “open borders” to a consideration of an underlying question: what priorities and values will guide our immigration policy in the coming years? Will we continue along the present path of increased militarization and incarceration, or will we forge policies guided by a vision of a more just society?No challenger will succeed in this project unless he or she can begin to counter Trump’s greatest political weapon: fear. Right from the start, candidate Trump began stoking people’s anxieties about their job security, their physical safety, and the cohesion of American society itself. Since his election as president, he has used the enormous power of his office to amplify his message, supported by Fox News and other conservative outlets. If Democratic challengers are to succeed, they’ll need to employ facts and narratives skillfully to align the mainstream debates to reality. For the facts, they’ll need to draw on extensive research, including a recent report of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, that documents the positive overall effects of immigration on US economic growth. They’ll need to show that Trump is wrong on crime and immigration. A number of recent, large-scale studies of metropolitan areas throughout the US have shown no correlation between crime and the growth of immigrant communities. If anything, crime in those areas has decreased. Moreover, challengers to Trump must show that his repeated characterizations of migrants as constituting a destabilizing “invasion” are dangerously distorted. Although news reports have focused on recent migrations to our southern border of people fleeing violence and destitution in Central America, the greatest percentage of people coming to the US since 2010 is from Asian countries, and many of these immigrants are college educated. The percentage of foreign-born persons in the US – 13.7 percent as of 2017 – is still lower than the peak percentage of around 15 percent at the turn of the twentieth century.But in addition to neutralizing the weapon of fear, successful challengers to Trump must show in stark terms the tragic failures of the present policies. They must remind voters how Trump’s harsher policies on asylum, prosecution, and detention have failed to deter migrants from coming to our southern border (a record 76,000 came this past February). They must keep before the public mind those images of cruelty that have repelled people of all political persuasions: the separation of migrant children from their parents, the caging of children in make-shift facilities, the teargassing of migrant families by US agents at the border, the deaths of both adults and children in detention.The challengers must call out the racist discourse animating these policies – and the white supremacist logic that moves inexorably to greater and greater cruelty. They must show their skill in using facts and stories to remind us of our common humanity – not only in the suffering experienced as a result of injustice, but also in the countless gifts and contributions that flow from centuries of immigrant experience.This is an excerpt from: ‘Immigration and the Democratic Hopefuls’.Courtesy: Counterpunch.org

from The News International - Opinion https://ift.tt/2CBfTHg

Related Posts:

  • Driving to liberty?I met Inaam Bacha and his wife Sumera in Thana City – a beautiful leafy town surrounded by beautiful mountains in Malakand District. It was inspirational to have a conversation with an educated, progressive and cultured coupl… Read More
  • The resistance to IMF reformsThe agreement signed between the PTI led-government and the IMF for structural reforms in the economy is evoking resistance from people of all walks of life. Businesses, from small to big, employees, trade unions, daily wage … Read More
  • No turnaround in sightFY2018-19 may go down as one of the slowest years in recent economic history. Even when one takes into account the fact that there was a need to cool-off an over-heated economy, the actual slow-down is excessive. A number of … Read More
  • Action films – the way forwardWith the restoration of peace, Pakistan has a golden opportunity to convert the 'war on terror' into a big film business activity by officially supporting film-making in genres such as action, war, adventure, and epics.This h… Read More
  • Waltzing with TrumpAs Imran Khan prepares for Washington there is something he must know. President Trump, IK’s host for the visit - which will include a tete a tete with the man himself and a delegation level interaction to give the visit some… Read More

0 comments:

Post a Comment