Response to Guest Editorial of Michael Johnson

Response to Guest Editorial of Michael Johnson, Phoenix City Council Member

(By Antonio D. Bustamante, Attorney at Law)

REAP BENEFITS OF WOKERS FROM ABROAD,

BUT OBEY HUMAN RIGHTS

Phoenix City Council Member Michael Johnson wrote a guest editorial for the Arizona Republic that appeared in the October 26, 2007, edition. It laments that undocumented immigrants entered the U.S. without obeying the immigration laws. Mr. Johnson praises their “work ethic” and claims to regard them as “decent, hard-working folks.” He supports an immigration policy that would “include fair treatment for the illegal (sic) immigrants already here.” Then he reverses gears and advocates that police notify “appropriate agencies” when they come into contact with the undocumented. It is a position interpreted as favoring that local police become an extended Border Patrol, something that Valley chiefs of police understand is bad public policy.

Mr. Johnson avers that “we can no longer ignore the laws that currently exist.” The current law provides that it is usually a petty offense to enter the country without permission. The federal government never prosecutes unauthorized immigrants for this misdemeanor, opting instead to pursue the non-criminal, administrative law remedies of either “voluntary return” or deportation, now called “removal.”

The glaring contradiction is that the great national uproar over misdemeanant immigrants was, until rather recently, acknowledged with a comparative whimper. Why? Could it be that such persons, after entering illegally, devote themselves to working and contributing mightily toward building the national economy? The same cannot be said of true law breakers, whose illegal acts actually hurt people and prey upon the innocent.

The practice of having folks from abroad enter without authorization to toil at low wages and without protection of law long ago became the nation’s convenient status quo, the de facto immigration policy of the United States. The charade is both calculated and institutionalized. To deny this is to be dishonest or, at best, to keep one’s head in the sand. The deal is that millions have been allowed to enter in a cat and mouse game that border guards are not really supposed to win. Sometimes the crossers are caught by Border Patrol agents, but by and large they have evaded the agency’s understaffed, under-funded corps. Who can seriously argue this has not been by design? If unauthorized immigration were not such a benefit to the nation’s prosperity, the world’s most successful, most powerful country never would have allowed it to persist.

Having come to this land answering the unofficial yet unambiguous invitation of a labor-needy society, the undocumented have known more than hard work. Theirs is an underground existence, thanks to the unavailability of visas, a situation imposed by a miserly immigration quota system that no longer meets the nation’s immigration needs and has not been revamped in decades. Why not? Because it is preferable, and so easy, to keep the undocumented in an illegal status. Their need to survive is greater than can be explained. Rather than starve, they put up with it. The callous deprivation of visas exits because the undocumented have no political voice, no voting rights, no elected representation. In the land reputed to so cherish freedom, we have turned a blind eye to the creation of a subclass that gets kicked around. So we have allowed them to be here, to do our hardest jobs at the lowest pay. They get no visa, no work authorization, no protection, but through the sweat of their brow they take care of the rest of us. Then, in a further affront to human nobility, public figures like Michael Johnson advocate that the cops hunt them down.

The voices clamoring for unleashing city police departments against immigrants will not die down out of any recognition that it constitutes persecution antithetical to American values. Instead it will happen when those voices wise up, when they realize they can no longer endure the unacceptable consequence of the decline in public safety. It will happen the day they are forced to admit that pulling resources off of fighting real crime in order to arrest non-criminals is crazy, like cutting off your nose to spite your face. For now, however, advocating such an irrational policy allows the intolerant to feel good, to revel in the kind of bullying witch hunt that Sheriff Joe Arpaio has so gleefully instituted against a powerless and disenfranchised minority.

Mr. Johnson’s desire for “fairness in our society and equality under the law” is profoundly inconsistent with his support for local police arresting the undocumented. It recklessly ignores the lack of “fairness in our society” flowing from a system that officially prohibits undocumented immigration while unofficially creating it through the enticement of employment and under-resourcing of enforcement. This position is grossly abusive and hypocritical, the opposite of “equality under the law.” Because of such grand irony, it bears repeating that Mr. Johnson claims to support “fair treatment for the illegal (sic) immigrants already here.”

In a disappointing lapse of leadership, a public figure holding an important office has thrown in with the crowd propagating the worn falsehood that the undocumented are to be blamed. It is all their fault, and they deserve to be hammered. We U.S. citizens are not complicit in any of this. We do not accept responsibility for our role. We thrust singular culpability upon the undocumented. Who’s to counter us?

The Councilman concludes by saying, “Laws are set in place to protect and provide benefits.” This could be countenanced if he did not know better, if he were not a retired police officer and practicing politician. The immigration laws were put in place to create an exploitable population of cheap labor. Mr. Johnson, cut the buffoonery and save the tutu for an audience wanting to see a sideshow. If these laws were made to “protect and provide benefits,” they would bestow the dignity of a visa and work authorization instead of perpetuating the current human rights travesty that the apologists try to defend by sanctimoniously calling it the “law.”

Mr. Johnson’s guest editorial was titled, “Reap Benefits of Working in U.S., but Obey the Laws.” A more responsible title would have been: “Reap Benefits of Workers from Abroad, but Obey Human Rights.”

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