Immigration issues …

Christian Century, Feb 13, 2002

DAVID OSTENDORF'S otherwise excellent article "Workers, go home!" (Dec. 19-26) was marred by his statement that "while Jewish and Islamic leaders have been visible and vocal in their support of the workers [on Long Island], other churches have been silent." That is not only not true, it is a real swipe at the broad-based coalition led by the Long Island Council of Churches (a largely mainline Protestant organization), and unfair to the Catholic church, many mainline evangelical churches and the Unitarian Universalist congregations that have been vocal and visible in support of immigrant laborers and the Brookhaven Citizens.

Thomas Goodhue, executive director of the LICC and a United Methodist minister, has been particularly vocal, organizing and inspiring a multifaith effort to respond to the SQL and like-minded groups. The 2,000 who attended the rally for the immigrant workers included 14 clergy prayer leaders and speakers. Others represented Muslims, Jews, Catholics and more than a half-dozen Protestant traditions. The unity we are trying to achieve is not served by slighting the courage of religious leaders or congregations working together to stem the tide of hate and find a solution to our problems. That coalition is as much a model for communities as the SQL is a model for hate groups. They deserved better than they got in Ostendorf's article.

Mark Lukens
Bethany Congregational UCC,
East Rockaway, N.Y.

Like David Ostendorf I used t think that anyone who disagreed with open and unrestricted immigration was a racist. That meant, according to some polls, that about 80 percent or more of the American public was racist. Then I faced facts.

First of all, I witnessed the riots that erupted in downtown L.A. after the Rodney King verdict. Something didn't fit. Why were African-Americans violently attacking the persons and property of Koreans, Hispanics and other immigrant minorities? What did they have to do with Rodney King?

I concluded that this aspect of the riot had to do primarily with economic issues rather than race. People in the bottom fifth of the working class, the "working poor" of south-central L.A., were angry at having to compete with people who, willingly or unwillingly, were living below the U.S. poverty line. They were angry with a 10 percent loss in their hourly income throughout the '90s ($6.89 an hour to $6.18). It had become a race to the bottom to see who could win a wage-cutting war with Third World immigrants. I could see no difference in principle between importing or enticing cheap labor here and moving the jobs from the U.S. to Third World sweatshops.

The next evolution in my thinking came after studying the report of the bipartisan multiracial U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform. While it made seven or eight recommendations to restore credibility to our immigration laws, neither Democrats nor Republicans followed them. People decided their stance on the basis of their own agendas. Cheap labor, huge profits, votes, influence and a sentimental attachment to our immigrant history all played a part. But to me, it was still a basic conflict of interest between native workers and immigrants who competed for their jobs.

The U.S. population could grow anywhere from 350 million to over 500 million in the next 50 years with unrestricted immigration. That concerns me. If a population of 280 million in this country is not enough, how many people are? What is the point at which open immigrationists would restrict immigration, if ever? Has anyone filed an environmental impact statement? What will that mean for the future of our kids? Can we ask people to practice birth control at the same time we allow an influx of poor immigrants, many of whom want large families, to undercut the economic gains of our own sacrifices? What impact will the increased consumption have on world resources such as oil, metals and other raw materials?

"Open immigration" people have responded to these questions with charges of racism, hypocrisy, nativist know-nothingism and immigrant-bashing. They haven't really answered them. I think they should stop this war of words and engage in a reasoned and civil discussion. To do that, we must follow one of the recommendations of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform: establish a commonly accepted set of facts to cut through the fog of competing claims. The respected Center for Immigration Studies has tried to do that. Since immigration policy is discretionary on the part of the host country, we should look at it seriously before we make our country the only one that unilaterally opens its borders.

I look forward to further discussion of immigration, especially the theological issues. Do we believe that human beings are just disparate individuals seeking their own financial advantage and a better life? This seems to be the assumption of most economists and open-immigration advocates. Or, do we believe that people are persons-in-community who have special obligations to the communities of which they are a part? If the latter is so, then what is our obligation to the poor in America, with whom we have the social contract of citizenship?