Falsehoods mar immigration debate
Filed under: Articles by Ralph Carmona
The DREAM Act is under attack by a mixture of opinions and fabrications that hurt democracy and the dreams of young people.
Portland Press Herald – December 1, 2010
By Ralph C. Carmona and Sarah M. Davis
PORTLAND – Debates on controversial legislation, like the DREAM Act, facing the U.S. Senate requires that intelligent discussion not be distorted by absurd half-truths. Jonette Christian utterly fails the “intelligent discussion” test in her November 18 article “Amnesty Bill to let illegal immigrants go to college unfair to citizens.”
The writer opines that undocumented immigrant Selvin Arevalo “might be a good citizen,” but “he broke our laws” and “has no right to be here.” She characterizes the DREAM Act as an amnesty-driven “Trojan horse” for older illegal aliens to tax Americans, takes their jobs and become citizens. The problem is that these claims are based on blatant false facts and fabrications.
Christian: “The fact is, the DREAM Act is not what the advocates claim. It’s a Trojan horse. More than 2 million illegal immigrants up to the age of 35 would be eligible for amnesty and a path to citizenship.”
Fact: DREAM Act applicants must be under 16 years old and live in the country for five years. Legal status goes to those graduating from high school, with no criminal record and two years of college or military service.
Older applicants, like the California State University at Fresno Student Body President and UCLA Law School graduate, who “came out” as illegal, will be eligible because they are part of an applicant pool supporting the DREAM Act for over a decade. Encouraging applicants up to 35 years old to apply captures a lost generation of acquired skills and contributions. The writer is simply using this tragic reality to provoke suspicion and distrust about the DREAM Act’s primary purpose.
Christian: “As citizens, each of them would be able to sponsor for immigration their parents and extended families, who were not ‘innocent’ children when they broke our laws.”
Fact: The DREAM Act’s age and physical presence requirements make this issue irrelevant. It gives legal status and is no guarantee for citizenship
Christian: “The DREAM Act would be the 8th amnesty since 1986. Millions of illegal immigrants have learned that if you break our laws and stay long enough, Congress can be convinced it would be too great a hardship to send you home. It’s not surprising they keep coming.
“And there is nothing in this legislation to prevent fraud, which has been a major problem in previous amnesties. The burden of proof does not fall on the immigrant who applies, but on the American taxpayer. And there is nothing in this legislation to prevent other parents from bringing their children here illegally, and putting them in the same position, creating the need for yet another DREAM Act amnesty.”
Fact: The last amnesty was in 1986, under President Ronald Reagan. The notion that the DREAM Act is the “8th amnesty,” from which immigrants have “learned to break” laws is fraudulent. The DREAM Act is not amnesty. Its passage is central to the military’s strategic plan and a 2010 UCLA study confirms applicant life span earnings could total up to $3.6 trillion. The requirements make it likely that their children will be American-born – not “another DREAM Act amnesty.” These false claims about amnesty are fodder for extremists to charge that undocumented immigrants exploit taxpayers and social services. This kind of conjecture is wrong and dangerous.
Christian: “Wealthy corporate elites…have joined with billionaires…to form the Partnership for the New American Economy. Their goal is to lobby Congress for expanded immigration, and shape the immigration story in our media so Congress will continue to pass amnesties.”
Fact: The “amnesty for illegal aliens” blame game goes from big business and wealthy elites to ethnic groups, labor unions and President Obama. Overlooked is a growing conservative divide between opponents and Tea Party Leaders like Dick Armey and former President George Bush who desire federal comprehensive immigration reform. Business and religious leaders know that the DREAM Act is not some scheming Trojan horse – but a small step toward addressing the immigration dilemma of our times.
These fundamental falsehoods and untruths give Christian and her 20-member Mainers for Sensible Immigration Policy license to distort the DREAM Act’s purpose in undemocratically shameful ways. The hope is that this reconstruction of such malicious yellow journalism enables our U.S. Senators, Olympia J. Snowe and Susan Collins, to reject malicious diatribes as unhealthy for democracy and damaging for America’s future and support the DREAM Act.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Ralph C. Carmona has over 35 years of experience in higher education, business and civil rights. Sarah M. Davis is a graduate of Bates College and former President of Bates Immigrant Rights Advocates and founder of Refugee Volunteers.
Maine’s future begs for immigrant dreamers like Portland’s protestors
Filed under: Articles by Ralph Carmona
That’s why Congress should pass, and Maine support, a law to allow these young people to get an education here.
The Portland Press Herald – November 18, 2010
Ralph Carmona and Kyle de Beausset
PORTLAND – When Selvin Arevalo and two others publicly declared their undocumented immigrant status last Thursday afternoon in Portland’s Monument Square, they shared childhood American dreams of citizenship.
Young people, like Arevalo, know today’s arc of immigration’s moral universe is long. They are trapped in an illegal “no-man’s land” and need Congress to bend that arc more toward justice by passing the Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act.
The DREAM Act requires undocumented youth live in this country for over five years and have good moral character.
They must complete two years of college or military service to be eligible for provisional legal status and potential for citizenship. For the vast majority of these youth, this legislation is the only chance of legal status in their lifetimes.
Declarations like Thursday’s defy the immorality of law. Young Latinos “coming out” as illegal is akin to their African-American antecedents going illegal during the 1960s against segregation laws. Opposing immigration’s segregated inequities, the Arevalo types are today’s freedom riders for a civil rights integration through citizenship. They were born into separate and unequal worlds of immigrant exclusion.
With an estimated 2 million undocumented youth facing deportation or shadowed lives of segregation, it is inevitable that American conscience will see the folly in this.
This is where Maine’s U.S. senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, can make a difference.
They can follow the tea party wing of their Republican Party and support destructive policies of segregation, exclusion and deportation. That concession views the Arevalos of the world as criminals — not young victims of flawed immigration policies, limited by dysfunctional border enforcements, destroying families and communities while neglecting exploitation and employer greed.
The senators can best learn from the counterproductive Republican experience in California and give pause to their party’s anti-integration base’s opposition to undocumented immigrants. Beyond the noise of xenophobia, America needs immigrants. Notwithstanding the hue and cry about “cracking down” on illegal aliens that benefitted California’s GOP over a decade ago, polling now shows a favorable state desire to integrate undocumented immigrants as citizens.
Positive change came with time and the recognition of immigration’s diverse value to California’s economy and civic culture. And the ironic census urgency is that Maine is a 95 percent white state in need of immigrants for economic relevance. Our state needs people like Arevalo going into the future. Maine is America’s most aging — with a median age of 42 — and least diverse state in the union.
Portland is central to the geographic lower third of Maine where two-thirds of the population live.
As data-driven thinkers like Richard Florida make clear, the American “backlash” against immigrants like Arevalo “chills the climate for any immigrant to come here.” Most important, the futurist emphasizes immigrants are key to American economic creative revitalization in the face of crises like our Great Recession. Economic crises influence when the “global flow of immigrants shifts and it is the worst time for an anti-immigrant sentiment.”
This is why what Collins and Snowe do is so critical. They can avoid the myopia of a Republican base opposition toward comprehensive immigration. A big incremental first step would be to support the DREAM Act. Maine’s future hungers for the legislation’s prevention of young immigrants, like Arevalo, from being deported and its support for their potential to create value in its economy.
The Republican anchor strategy is to oppose the DREAM Act as “amnesty for illegals” and support surreal public actions of deporting millions of undocumented young people and the parents of American-born children. According to a recent UCLA study, the DREAM Act’s effect would allow the Arevalos of America to add over $1.38 trillion to the economy over their lifespans.
In control of state government, will the Maine GOP go the way of California’s GOP? If Gov.-elect Paul LePage and his Republican Legislature, along with Snowe and Collins, fail to see immigration as primary to its future, Maine will continue to age and become the immigration gateway to Canada — not a destination for America’s future.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Ralph Carmona has more than 35 years of experience in education, government and business and next year will be teaching public politics and policies at Portland’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. Kyle de Beausset is an American citizen from Guatemala and a leader in the Student Immigrant Movement.
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