 First, the bare facts. On August 13, federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested two men in Bend, Oregon, and put them on a bus intending to transport them out of the area, likely in preparation for deportation. A few local residents showed up to block the bus. That few grew into a crowd during the day (several hundred, according to a report on Oregon Public Broadcasting, OPB). The crowd continued to block the bus for hours to keep the men from being sent away and deported. The bus was locked, so people could not provide food or water to the men inside.Then, federal agents arrived. They fired tear gas, projectiles, mishandled people, and in the chaos this creates, they managed to get the two men into a car and away. Next day, local people returned to the scene, placed flowers, held vigil. There is talk of finding some way legally to prevent the men from being deported, although no one is sure where they have been taken. These two men came to the United States as immigrants. They have lived in the U.S. for 15 years, have children, jobs, and are contributing members of society, according to news reports. Their neighbors know them. Unfortunately, this is only one of so many similar incidents in recent years in Oregon and across the country. We are an immigrant nation. Immigrants are us (except, perhaps, for those who claim fully their Native American ancestry). Because of this, and more basically because we sense that immigrants are humans like us and our ancestors, seeking a better or safer life, we know that an attack on immigrants is an attack on all of us at some deep level. Those angels of mercy who put out water and food for Central American immigrants crossing the border through the desert of the Southwest are arrested by immigration and law enforcement agents for committing a crime, and the water they have left for immigrants is poured out or destroyed. It is a crime to perform a human act of mercy, a crime to recognize immigrants as human beings with a right to life. But destroying a lifeline is defined as “law enforcement.” The federal law enforcement attack on the folks in Bend who were defending their neighbors shows us a particularly insidious facet of this campaign against immigrants. It is bad enough that there is a deeply racist current in our immigration policy (if the term policy is even appropriate here) that draws from the racism inherent in our society. It is bad enough to witness the inhuman and illegal treatment of immigrants and asylum seekers at our southern border-the crowded detention, the separation of families, the demand that people wait for weeks and months on the other side of the border before they can even get a simple hearing. But the events like the one in Bend do not involve recently arrived immigrants waiting at the border. These incidents that target long-time residents far from the border signify that the “border” is anywhere and everywhere. They do not target new arrivals but rather folks who have lived as productive neighbors for decades. The border is everywhere, and there is no time limit after which an “immigrant’ becomes a secure member of society. Fear and insecurity are everywhere and always. The message is not only for “immigrants.” It is for all of us. The “law enforcement” that enforces this reign of terror is increasingly militarized, and increasingly turned against anyone who tries to defend “immigrants.” The most insidious part of this is that this campaign of terror and criminalization increasingly threatens all of us simply for being human and caring about our neighbors. We are all increasingly targets of this campaign of terror. The recent incidents in Portland, the heavy use of federal agents to repress peaceful demonstrations-and the incidents before that, at Lafayette Park across from the White House, as well as the threat of more-are indications that “immigrants” are not the only targets. An injustice to some is an injustice to all. When they came for the immigrants, I wasn’t an immigrant, so I did nothing. Then they came for me. The treatment of immigrants tells us a lot about the extent of “fascism” in our country. I have acted as an expert witness in more than 45 immigrant asylum hearings. I know that the conditions that cause Central Americans to flee their home countries are too often truly unlivable, and are not something that people can simply “put up with.” That is why international law (to which the U.S. is signatory) forbids returning people to conditions that may threaten their lives or safety. The U.S. has been negotiating “safe country” agreements with three Central American countries. People can be deported from the United States and sent to a “safe” country that is anything but safe. What is to be done? This question about how to change our inhuman and thoroughly illegal immigration system comes again in the context of widespread protests over police brutality and racism, and demands to defund, and/or disarm the increasingly militarized police. This protest is also about the dangerous erasure of the line between local policing and military action. The immigration “problem” (and its racism), and the police “problem” are closely related. In many parts of the country, federal immigration agents rely on local police and sheriffs to help identify and detain immigrants (some of whom are actually U.S. citizens). In Oregon, there is a prohibition against such collaboration. This is wise. It preserves whatever trust the local police have developed with the immigrant community, and it lessens the creeping militarization of all law enforcement agencies. Preserving this prohibition is important. Gandhi taught that a major way of dealing with injustice is through non-collaboration, withdrawing our support from an unjust or inhuman system. Reestablishing some civilian legal control over the immigration agencies (most of which are within the Department of Homeland Security) will require Congressional action. Supporting bills to that end is important, and encouraging Senators and Representatives who propose and support such bills is important. This is needed in tandem with efforts to overhaul other aspects of law enforcement in the country, to change the current systems of law enforcement that are so light on the law and so heavy on the enforcement. Our immigration court system is woefully overburdened. Two or three year waits for your asylum hearing are not at all unusual, and many people must spend this time locked in detention centers that are worse than many prisons. When I checked last year, the system had 700,000 asylum cases pending, and 330 immigration judges in the entire country. Justice delayed is justice denied. A fair hearing is the justice to which asylum seekers are entitled. Putting less money into ICE enforcement and more into providing timely legal processing, hiring more trained asylum judges, would certainly help. Again, something to encourage Congress to do, but in concert with other efforts to change the system. The current immigration system, especially the parts that deal specifically with those who apply for asylum in the United States, are overwhelmed. This only encourages inhuman treatment of asylum seekers and blatant disregard for their legal rights under both U.S. and international law. When someone arrives at the border and seeks asylum, s/he is entitled under law to a hearing before a federal immigration judge in an immigration court. Asylum seekers are in the U.S. legally (even if they lack documents) until a hearing determines whether they are granted asylum. The term “illegal” is widely wielded in the media and by officials as a way of convincing us that all immigrants are criminals. You have heard it said that no human is illegal. Furthermore, asylum seekers that make up a large percentage of “immigrants” have a legal right to be in the country awaiting a hearing. Every time you hear or see the term “illegal” applied to immigrants, please correct it. “Undocumented” is better, but nothing is perfect in this context. The wall. The wall is not only at the border, it is everywhere. “Mr. Gorbachev (Mr. Trump), tear down that wall.” The good people of Bend who stood in front of the bus to protect their neighbors are like the people of Berlin who tore down the wall. |
How We Can meet the Challenges of Authoritarianism
November 15, 2024 No Comments
This is not our first rodeo with authoritarianism. Americans have collectively risen to seemingly impossible challenges in the past, and we can do so again. By Maria J. Stephan Analysis