by Janet Murguía
It was hard not to notice the tone of the uproar which led to the demise of immigration reform legislation earlier this summer. Immigrants were accused of everything from crime to loose morals to bringing leprosy to our shores.
But when concerns are raised that the air was becoming ugly and dangerously anti-Latino, talk-show hosts and legislators took pains to say that their problem is with illegal immigrants, that they have nothing against those here legally or with the larger ethnic groups that they are a part of.
In short, they insisted that this is not about race but about the problem of illegality.
As the feedback we’ve received at the National Council of La Raza since that time and at our national conference last month clearly demonstrate, Latinos aren’t buying that explanation.
What started out as a debate on immigration has turned into something far larger and far uglier.
Everyone in this nation should heed what is occurring. Less than a month went by after immigration reform failed for majorities in both the House and Senate to vote for proposals that attacked not illegal immigrants, but those legally in the United States and even those who have become naturalized citizens.
The most egregious of these was an amendment offered on the Senate floor in July by Senator John Ensign (R-Nevada) which was framed as a restriction on Social Security benefits to anyone who was once undocumented; yet it would have made every foreign-born person (think Madeleine Albright, or Henry Kissinger, or every refugee from the second world war, Southeast Asia or Cuba) prove their immigration status for every moment of their work history in order to receive Social Security benefits.
If they were out of status for one single day, the fact that they paid into the system would be irrelevant. The government would keep the money they contributed over the years and, of course, they would be rendered ineligible for Social Security.
This shocking amendment received 57 votes — more than enough to pass. Fortunately, a procedural requirement prevented it from becoming law, at least for now.
This is not an isolated case. Similar amendments have already been proposed in the House and Senate affecting housing programs, food stamps and other social policies. Many have already passed. Documentation requirements recently added to the Medicaid program – aimed at immigrants but requiring paperwork from every person seeking to use the program – have resulted in delays and denial of services to elderly U.S. residents who are eligible but may not have the documents readily available to prove it.
The argument in favor of these proposals is entirely without merit. Legislators are placing restrictions on programs already off limits to undocumented immigrants. These proposals just affect legal immigrants and U.S. citizens.
The problem is even worse in local jurisdictions as the vacuum in congressional action on immigration reform is filled by state and local governments looking for ways to address the issue.
Prince William County in Virginia recently passed a law which requires local police to act as immigration agents. County officials are meeting now to determine whether to check documents of people using public libraries, parks and swimming pools. In Georgia, sheriffs’ departments regularly set up roadblocks for the sole purpose of stopping persons who look Mexican and scrutinizing their documents.
This pattern is repeating across the country at an alarming rate.
Add to this a wave of hate and mean-spiritedness on the airwaves and you begin to understand why we don’t believe the concerns have to do with illegality. Numerous verbal attacks on the radio have led to or accompanied a well-documented resurgence in hate groups and crimes.
Hispanic Americans are increasingly outraged that we are suspect everywhere we go, constantly asked to prove we belong in our own home. We see our beloved country in danger of becoming something we hardly recognize – a place so eager to hound those whose “crime” is coming to the United States to work, that the country seems to be rushing to undercut every other value we hold dear. A poll conducted last year by the Pew Hispanic Center found more than half of this country’s Latinos reporting that discrimination against them has increased because of the immigration debate.
Latinos are extremely upset at being singled out as targets, but we sense urgency. We are the canary in the coal mine, sending a warning to our country that it is teetering on something that harms us all. Those who think the rancorous immigration debate does not affect everyone are sorely mistaken. For Latinos, it is obvious that we cannot stand on the sidelines. The sooner that becomes obvious to the rest of the country, the better.
(This is the first in a series of monthly commentaries written for Hispanic Link News Service by Janet Murguía, president of the National Council of La Raza, the largest Hispanic advocacy and civil rights organization in the United States).
