I’ve just argued, for the second time (here, and here for the first) that all legal, and newly legalized, immigrants should be barred from receiving preferential treatment based on their race, ethnicity, or national origin. “Coming out of the shadows” is one thing; catapulting to the front of the line is quite another.
For a different view, there’s always Barbara Ehrenreich. Although she begrudgingly admits, writing in The Nation, that “All right, they committed a ‘crime’ — the international equivalent of breaking and entry,” for her “[t]he only question is how much we owe our undocumented immigrant workers.”
Once she starts tallying it up — re-imbursement for uncollected Social Security contributions; “wages withheld by unscrupulous employers”; the “massive compensation owed to undocumented immigrants for preventable injuries on the job” — it adds up to a pretty penny, “well in excess of the $5000 fine the immigration bill proposes.”
And what of what she scare-quotedly calls “the original ‘crime’”?
If someone breaks into my property for the purpose of trashing and looting, I would be hell-bent on restitution [Ed: But, presumably, not prosecution]. But if they break in for the purpose of cleaning it — scrubbing the bathroom, mowing the lawn — then, in my way of thinking anyway, the debt goes in the other direction.
Perhaps The Nation could contribute a portion of its subscription fees — and Nation writers a portion of their fees, once famously described by Nation writer Calvin Trillin as “in the high two-figures” — to a fund for the compensation of “undocumented immigrant workers.”
“if they break in for the purpose of cleaning it — scrubbing the bathroom, mowing the lawn — then, in my way of thinking anyway, the debt goes in the other direction.”
She doesn’t really mean that. It’s more likely that she would say, “Well, thanks, but I didn’t ask for your help, so get lost.”
How nuch would Barbara Ehrenreich pay someone to break into her house and straighten-up her underwear drawer?
Barbara Ehrenreich, in her book, Bait in Switch, basically argues that the U.S. economy needs to be structure so that it is easy for upper middle class white women to live a comfortable life living in Burling, Vt; Madison, Wi, or Charlottesville, Va as writers. From Barbara’s point of view, importing non-Americans to do all of the work that upper middle class white women writers do not want to do make complete sense. Especially if they do it some place other than Burlington, VT or Madison, WI.
I’m sure she always gives a $20 to the squeegee guy who runs out and starts washing her windshield without asking.
I hadn’t properly understood your proposal based on the previous posts – I stupidly thought it was that preferences should not be given based on former illegal immigrant status – but now that I do, and I reread the Ward Connerly letter, I have some concerns.
Would this extend to immigrants-turned-citizens, or would it only cover residents, guest workers, etc.? And what of American-born children of immigrants? I hope this isn’t something that would further categorize and divide Americans, or that would base eligibility for preferences on how long ago one’s ancestors came to this country.
Nels – Good points. I’m not sure of the wording of an amendment that presumably will be suggested. As you will probably have guessed, my preference (if you’ll pardon the expression) would be to have no preferences for anyone based on race, ethnicity, or national origin. But I would be willing to get there in stages if those wiser than I thought it a quicker route. Thus I would be willing to accept, or at least to consider, a provision in this bill that barred such preferences to anyone granted legal status in the US after the passage of the bill, including their descendants.
This would, as you say, involve an unpleasant distinction between those already here and those yet to come, but it is entirely legal, and arguably proper, to place conditions on the grant of legal immigrant status that do not apply to those already here. Although there are policy arguments against such a policy, I don’t think equal protection complaints would be persuasive.
Such a messy half-measure would remind me, if not others, of Lincoln’s attempts to bar slavery in the territories while begrudgingly accepting it where it already existed. We, of course, do not accept preferences anywhere, and would continue our efforts to get rid of them.