Amy Taylor
How Did We Get to A Fence?
Last spring, after hundreds of thousands of protestors took to the streets in response to the passage of the draconian House bill HR 4437, it felt as thought the nation was on the cusp of real immigration reform. For the first time in a long time, immigration reform was a hot topic in Washington and in papers across the nation. The Senate was considering comprehensive provisions and the passage of some form of legislation seemed likely. Although there were stark disagreements between supporters of the House Bill and comprehensive reform, all agreed that the status quo was not working and it was time to do something about it.
Today, we stand by as Congress considers a series of enforcement-only provisions including the construction of a 700 mile fence along the border--in response to our nation's broken immigration system. How did we get to where we are today? I think that election year rhetoric plays a large role. It was widely reported that the immigration hearings over the summer were election-year road shows used, not to stir debate on a real and complex issue, but to conjure up support for candidates up for re-election. These same candidates continue to play on the public's fears about national security to push for border security instead of a reform package that would truly address the roots of our current immigration dilemma.
Tom Tancredo, the Republican party's "immigration man" from Colorado, spoke at the Heritage Foundation on September 21st. He defended his support for enforcement-only provisions as an effort to stop the deception of the American public by admitting that we can secure our border, and that his proposals are the way to do it. His election year rhetoric is transparent. The language he uses to talk about immigration continually conjures up images of a state of emergency. According to him, there is no time to discuss the real roots of the problems with our immigration system. One of his favorite metaphors for our broken immigration system is a person hemorrhaging. He asks what you would do if you saw someone hemorrhaging --would you stop the bleeding or look for other causes of the injury? Again, emergency time --run to the polls!
Furthermore, he refuses to call anyone who has entered the country illegally an "immigrant", instead choosing to use what he argues is the legal term "alien" to refer to them. He is right that the law does refer to anyone without valid immigration status as an "alien", but Tancredo's motives are clear. Tancredo invokes a literal alien invasion to play on the fears of the voting public.
And he is all too cognizant of his actions in an election year. He claims that non-citizens committing voter fraud tip the balance in favor of a certain candidate in some districts, while election fraud experts say that undocumented immigrants avoid voting because they avoid interacting with government officials, even those running the polls.
Tancredo's central election-year deception is his claim that the funding of a 700 foot fence will secure the border. Nevermind that the U.S. -Mexico border runs 1,300 miles longer than the proposed fence. Nevermind the lessons we learned from the San Diego fence --where border-crossers continued to cross, just not right there. Nevermind the fact that how a multi-billion dollar proposal will be funded has yet to be determined. Not to mention the devastating environmental and humanitarian effects of such a project.
For someone who claims he wants to level with the American public and end the disconnect between the political elite and the average American, his use of election-year rhetoric and fear-mongering is shameful. Congressional candidates up for re-election are jumping on board so they can go home and campaign on the fact that they are tough on security. They can play the role of the protectors of the American public who are under an invasion-- yes, folks an alien invasion --and worry about how to fix our immigration system after the elections are over.
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Posted at 4:43 PM, Sep 27, 2006 in
Immigration
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