I know I'm coming in late to this game, but give me a break, I've been busy. This may be my cynical side writing, but it seems to me this whole immigration issue is another manifestation of the Southern Strategy.
The Southern Strategy
The Southern Strategy was a term invented in the Nixon years and basically boils down to securing votes in the American South using racially divisive tactics. By inciting fear and racial biases in the South, the Republicans were able to capture majorities there which remain to this day.
As the Republicans are now embroiled in a corruption scandal that seems to have deep roots and long tentacles and as President Bush continues his precipitous decline in the polls, the GOP needs something to get its base fired up about. Iraq and terrorism aren't working for them anymore (there is only so much failure the general public will tolerate) so it's time to move the fear that much closer to home: those brown people to the south of us. And what better timing than the year of a mid-term election?
Race and Culture - The Real Issues
Let's be brutally honest here. This issue isn't about securing our borders and it isn't about the labor market. It's about race and culture - maybe the latter more than the former. Why else has the Senate rushed to pass an "English-as-the-national-language" bill? Race and culture - divide and conquer, the Southern Strategy. Immigration plays very well in the South where the impacts are the greatest and the border states not in the South are quite sympathetic to the issue (Minutemen anyone?)
So what's the big deal with immigration, anyway? Some are using the "rule of law" argument, others talk about jobs and economic impacts and others still of security. Security comes closest to the real explanation, I think, but it's not the security you're thinking of. The security that is at stake here is the security of culture. It is uncomfortable to not be able to understand your neighbors - their language, their family structure, their mores even their food. It is the nascent fear of the other and the impact to our current, predominantly white, culture that seem to be at the heart of the immigration debate.
Race + Fear = Division
Division has always been a winning strategy in war as well as politics. Capitalizing on fear and race has been a Republican specialty and used to great effect as a tool to divide people who have traditionally stood together (Union members and the poor to name a couple.) By painting the Democrats as weak on security, as allowing "those people" to take American jobs and as sympathetic to those who would cross our borders (illegally) to seek a better life, the GOP becomes the party of choice for protecting the "American way of life." The Democrats are forced to either acquiesce and pass bad legislation or fight and be mis-characterized on the issue. Brilliant politics, bad policy.
The question is, will the politics of race, fear and division backfire as a strategy? I don't know, but I hope so. This is a complicated issue and there is something to be said about (actual) security, but I'm just not seeing the problem that we're trying to solve. The lack of a clear problem statement makes this a great political issue because politicians can speak in vagaries and generalities while doing nothing more than getting people bothered about what boils down to very little. Are there problems? Certainly, but they have nothing to do with immigration and everything to do with justice (how people are treated, specifically) and the global economic system.
The meta-narrative is clear - immigration becomes the umbrella word for fear of the other. Secure borders, like a gated community, keeps us isolated from the chaotic pressures of
an country that is becoming more and more multi-cultural. In fact, I think the gated community is the perfect metaphor for what this is really about. I'm inclined to tear down the gates, myself...
Tomorrow - Law vs. Justice, what exactly is immigration law all about anyway?
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