Serious discussion about Citizenship and Illegal residency must be narrowed down into at least four sub-areas of discussion to arrive at a humane solution.

Disparaging the motivations of people who raise questions about immigrant status will not accomplish anything. There are various motivations at work and not a single one. The fact that the immigration laws have not been previously adhered to, or selectively enforced, does not mean that such a sorry state-of-affairs should be allowed to continue indefinitely.

All Countries and all Peoples have laws and regulations about who may, or may not, reside in their territories. This has always been the case, since time immortal. Tribes and Clans had territories and recognized boundaries that they defended. The ancient societies of Egypt, Timbuktu, Kush, Greece, China, and Native America, etc, all have had similar rules that they sought to enforce.

Arguments about how everyone in the USA is an ‘illegal immigrant’ because the Native Americans were here first, are totally absurd, since we would be forced to recognize: 1) that the Native Americans were several different nations – each with their own laws about residency – and not one singular, unified nation; 2) there cannot be a ‘turning-back-the-clock’ to fix the death and destruction that was visited upon them in North, South and Central America; 3) that under this argument, most Latin Americans would be ‘illegal’ even in the countries from which they seek to gain entry to the USA since the Native American populations of those Latin American countries were similarly destroyed and the current populations, by and large, have no claim to those Latin American lands either. In other words – under this argument, Mexicans would be illegal in Mexico.

Traveling this path in an argument is a sign of silliness and desperation. One would be forced to empty-out the entire Americas, sending everyone who is not Native American, back to Europe, Africa and Asia – perhaps leaving behind only those who could demonstrate a genetic mixed-connection to Native tribes.

Let us deal with today and recognize that one cannot reside in Mexico, Canada, anywhere in Europe, Africa, Asia or Latin America without permission of the governing authorities and the peoples who inhabit those countries. Therefore, why do some people think that illegally residing in the USA should be a ‘right’ without consequences?

What are the four sub-areas of consideration regarding the Immigration debate?

1) Children born in the USA from Illegal Immigrants and those brought into the USA as children by their parents, who entered illegally – yet they know no other country other than the USA.

2) Immigrant workers who perform a useful function in American society, doing the work like immigrants before them, (and slaves before either of them) which is back-breaking and often monotonous, that average Americans do not want to perform.

3) Immigrant workers who have jobs that should go to citizens, but are instead occupied by non-citizen, illegal immigrants. This is often aided and abetted by employers who chose to hire illegal immigrants because those illegal immigrants are not able to fight for citizen rights and are therefore compliant and easily abused.

4) immigrants who are allowed entry because of a promise to employ citizens. They need to be closely observed to assure that they’re fulfilling this obligation.

There are those who would argue that Americans should work-for-less-money in order to be more competitive with foreigners in the USA or abroad, however this is a fallacious argument. Following this logic, one would have to engage in a constantly downward competition wherein each person claims to be willing to work for less money than the person next to them. How then, would an American compete against a person who makes only $200 per year?

The Dream Act was originally proposed to address the first sub-area: the children born in the USA or brought into the USA by illegal immigrants. If they have no criminal backgrounds, and have been dutiful adherents of the laws of the USA, then they should be allowed to apply for citizenship. Such citizenship cannot be granted automatically, since they would need to be investigated and made to comply with some requirements (various ones are proposed) to make-up for their unintentional, yet deliberate violation of immigration laws. They would not be able to petition for Parents or other relatives, first until they’re ‘recognized’ adults, and then perhaps for a specific period of time. This proposed remedy is to fix something over which the youngsters exercised no control and could therefore be seen as innocent victims. It is a compassionate and humane solution.

Immigrant workers who work at hard and unpopular occupations should be allowed continuous and regular entry into the country to perform those jobs, until someone can demonstrate that Americans wish to perform those jobs – which is unlikely. Such entry would not necessarily be a ‘right’ to citizenship, and might require a special-category, or expansion of existing categories for temporary workers, between the current statuses of citizen and permanent-resident, because they would not be permanent but periodic. For the sake of the ‘soul’ of the country, they should not be abused and mistreated but recognized as performing a useful and respected task.

Those illegal immigrants who work in ‘higher level’ – not the hard and unpopular – occupations, should not be allowed to work. The unaddressed aspect of this is that approximately 50-percent of illegal immigration is composed of people who enter the USA legally, and then simply overstay their visas. This group, no matter how poor they may be relative to Americans, nevertheless has the money and wherewithal to board an airplane (or other transport) and legally enter via an official port-of-entry. Some of these people are lured here under false pretentions or with assurances that they can become ‘lost’ in the mass of citizens and remain undetected. Large numbers of illegal Europeans and Asians fall into this category, as do smaller numbers of African and Caribbean peoples.

One can make an argument that immigrants should be encouraged to fulfill those ‘higher-level’ occupations for which there are a shortage of trained Americans – usually thought of as the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) positions for which few Americans pursue studies. If this strategy is to be pursued then it should be undertaken in tandem with efforts to get legal citizens to pursue the STEM subjects, making the importation of immigrants a temporary stop-gap measure.

Technological improvements have made it ever easier to track and verify Immigrants, if one wanted to. The institution of an E-Verify system, if properly administrated, makes a great contribution to this effort. Such a system needs to be regularly safe-guarded and reviewed for accuracy to avoid problems. When and if such problems occur this will undoubtedly be used to argue against its existence, but that would be a case of the proverbial ‘throwing the baby out with the bath water’ – rather than fixing it.

As for those already in the USA, a limited round-up would seem to be inevitable. This would not be popular and cause many alarming headlines, but, not everyone would want to be ‘registered’, because they would not fit the ‘safe’ categories mentioned above – thus requiring their deportation.

It would be wonderful if people didn’t need to come to the USA to seek low-level employment, but this would be true only if their own country provided opportunities for self-sustaining work. Yet it cannot be the responsibility of the USA to fix other people’s countries, even if there are efforts to help. Such tasks would be too broad for any one country to undertake and the solutions would take many years, perhaps decades, or centuries, to have effect.

Yesterday, on June 28th, six young high school and college students held a press conference inside the Georgia State Capitol and were later arrested outside in an act of civil disobedience. This was the second action of this kind in Atlanta since April 2011. The youth were protesting the passage of Georgia House Bill 87 (HB87) and were there to send a message to other undocumented youth.

Nataly Ibarra, a 16-year old high school student testifies: “We are doing this because we want other undocumented youth to realize they need to be unafraid- unafraid of the politicians, of the police, of anyone who tells them they deserve fewer rights than anyone else. We will no longer remain in the shadows.”

The event drew several hundred community supporters and featured speakers from the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, Concerned Black Clergy of Metropolitan Atlanta, and the Georgia Undocumented Youth Alliance, and former members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

Pulitzer Prize Columnist, Jose Antonia Vargas, has decided to make himself a ‘poster boy’ for those illegal immigrants who exemplify the good reasons for passing the so-called “Dream Act” through the American Congress. He set-off a small news tsunami by exposing himself as an illegal immigrant and speaking-out for passage of the legislation.

It is too soon to know what effect his self-exposure will have on the legislation and upon his personal life. Vargas risks imprisonment and deportation by his confession. The people who assisted him, and have decided to also be exposed as helping him, risk similar possible repercussions for their actions. While admittedly an act of bravery, the reactions to his confessions have been wide and various, often dependent upon perceptions that are not specific to him.

Vargas came to the USA the way that fifty-percent of illegal immigrants do, by airplane, from the Philippines when he was 12 years old. He doesn’t explain the legal status he had for this trip, but it had to involve a legitimate USA visa, which guaranteed entry. He was accompanied by a ‘coyote’ to whom his mother delivered him in Manila, and who, in turn, delivered him to his grandparents in Mountain View, California. .Vargas would not only have no idea of what type of visa he had, nor if that visa was correctly applied for, since he would not become aware of his illegal status until he was sixteen (16) years old, and applied for a Drivers License. At the Motor Vehicles Bureau he would ‘discover’ that his Permanent Residence (Green) Card was a fake, when the License clerk proclaimed it was fake and told him to leave and not come back. That clerk could have had him arrested, on the spot, but chose not to do so. Instead he returned home to confront his grandfather about this ‘discovery’, which resulted in the revelation that would burden him from that time forward – that he was an illegal immigrant.

This was a stunning discovery for him. From that time onward he had to learn to avoid too much attention, at the same time satisfy his intellectual curiosity and interests in doing well. His grandparents preferred that he keep his head low and only strive to work at some, more-or-less, menial job that would bring little attention to him. Instead he found that he excelled at writing and developed into an award-winning, Pulitzer Prize, Journalist. Each step along the way he had moments of great anxiety and stress, for fear of being discovered as an ‘illegal’. At several strategic moments he had assistance from USA citizens – school teachers, counselors, co-workers, etc, some of whom have also come forward to admit their help – to help him keep his secret.

There are those who criticize his appearance on the ‘immigration stage’ as an attempt to claim a special status for himself because of his accomplishments. They state that he should not be afforded any special consideration because of what he has achieved. This position misses the foundation of his argument, whether or not one agrees with it. Vargas defends people, like himself, who came to the USA as children, who by definition had no control over their illegal entry, and have known no other home, other than the USA. He argues that his achievements have been made as ‘an American’, which should not afford him special status, but instead indicate the possibilities of what those, like himself, can contribute to the only country that they have ever known – when given the opportunity to do so.

The ‘Dream Act’ – actually has stringent requirements for those who would be accepted in the USA. It would not apply to others who decide to now enter in hopes of qualifying. It does not allow for repatriation of relatives, including parents. It only has applicability to those who have been in the USA since childhood, for a certain number of years.

Meanwhile, Vargas has made two potential errors in his argument – things that can be misunderstood and misinterpreted by other Americans. One is that, on national television (ABC-TV) he spoke of ‘going home’ when he plans to return to the Philippines for the first time in eighteen years. For many Americans, without contact with people from foreign countries, he could be seen as foregoing his claim to being ‘American’ by claiming some other place as ‘home’. In fact, America is his home and the Philippines is his country of origin, but this type of dialog is often stated this way among immigrants, legal or otherwise. It has a nostalgic feeling and would still be reflective of memories, in this instance, gathered up until the age of 12.

The other error was that his mother, in comments about his public pronouncements, told a NY Times reporter that Vargas had obtained a Philippine passport as a hedge against being deported and becoming a man-without-a-country. Yet to many Americans this would seem to be a confirmation that he doesn’t truly believe that he is an American, despite his protestations, and few Americans know much about passports, nationality, and the concept of dual-citizenship.

We know that children forced to depart the USA, the only home that they’ve ever known, would not be “happy campers” in their new homeland and feel that they had been done a great ‘injustice’. This would not be very good for the USA in either a diplomatic or political-economic sense.

Are we going to round-up everyone – think millions of people – and deport them? Not really.
Can the USA prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants? Maybe, but the other lesson of Vargas’ story is how he was able to create false documentation as part of his maneuvering through the system.
The unanswered part of the story is that American employers have proven that they often prefer to hire people who have little or no rights, and are therefore totally compliant and fearful – and easy to take advantage of.

Jose Antonio Vargas has attached his ‘name’ to a cause without a certain ending. It is a risky venture to undertake. Time will tell if he has made a wise decision.

On Tuesday, April 5th, 2011, seven undocumented students risked prison and deportation to protest recent laws passed to ban undocumented students from attending college. The students engaged in non-violent civil disobedience and sat defiantly in the middle of Courtland Street in downtown Atlanta. As dozens of police arrived on the scene and approached the seated students with handcuffs, the students and their supporters chanted “Education, Not Deportation!”

Starting this fall, undocumented students cannot attend Georgia State University, the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, Medical College of Georgia, or Georgia College and State University. Coincidentally, these are the same southern universities which banned African Americans from attending college more than fifty years ago. The seven students are a part of a national movement seeking to pass the DREAM Act (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act). The DREAM Act was first introduced to Congress in 2001, but has yet to pass successfully into law. The DREAM Act would apply to persons who (1) enter the country before the age of sixteen, (2) graduate high school or obtain a GED, (3) have good moral character, and (4) have at least five years of continuous presence in the US.

Before their act of civil disobedience, the students shared their stories. Georgina Perez, 21, shared that she has been in the US since she was three years old. “I am doing this for my friends who are in the same situation and also for my mother who did everything she could to give me a better life and to have an education.  We are being denied an education and criminalized for wanting an education!” Perez was the first to be arrested.

David Ramirez, who arrived in the US when he was one year old, declared: “If you are undocumented, don’t be afraid to defend your dignity.  If you are an ally, don’t be afraid to be an advocate.  We need to come out of the shadows and show the State of Georgia we are not afraid.”

The video, Estudiantes Arrestados Durante Protesta en Atlanta (Students Arrested During Protest in Atlanta) produced by Mundo Hispanico, documents the testimonies and arrests of these students. Dayanna Rebolledo, in the moments before she was taken to the Atlanta City jail, speaking in Spanish, said: “They can’t make us feel like we are criminals or that we are anything less than human beings.”

Near the end of the work day on March 25, 1911, a fire broke out at the factory of the Triangle Waist Company in New York City. 146  immigrant workers, the majority of which were young women, lost their lives. This tragic loss of human life is remembered as one of the pivotal moments in U.S. labor history, as it highlighted the inhumane and unsafe working conditions in which industrial workers could be subjected. Moreover, the incident served as a catalyst for transformations in New York’s labor code and the adoption of fire workplace safety standards around the country.

Commemorations are taking place today in New York City, and a comprehensive learning guide that sheds light on the story of the fire, the victims, the following legal reforms, and the legacy of the Triangle Factory incident is available at Cornell University’s Triangle Factory Fire website.

Yesterday, on December 16, 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama announced that the United States is now supporting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (the Declaration). After 25 years of development, the Declaration was adopted by the UN General Assembly on September 13, 2007. At that time, 144 countries voted in favor of the Declaration, and only four countries opposed- Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States.

Currently, there are more than 5,000 distinct indigenous peoples, totaling more than 370 million Indigenous persons in the world. The Declaration seeks to safeguard and promote their collective human rights and treaty rights within their respective nation-states.

The preamble of the Declaration affirms that “all doctrines, policies and practices based on or advocating superiority of peoples or individuals on the basis of national origin or racial, religious, ethnic or cultural differences are racist, scientifically false, legally invalid, morally condemnable and socially unjust.” Moreover, the Declaration recognizes that “indigenous peoples have suffered from historic injustices as a result of their colonization and dispossession of their lands, territories and resources, thus preventing them from exercising, in particular, their right to development in accordance with their own needs and interests.”

Over the past three years, Australia and New Zealand have since announced their support of the Declaration. Canada announced its support of the Declaration on November 12th, 2010. While the United States is indeed the last of the opposing countries to support the rights of indigenous peoples, President Obama’s announcement is nonetheless being welcomed and applauded by the international human rights community and Native American right groups around the country.

On Monday, Githu Muigai, the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Intolerance, gave a press conference in which he presented the findings of an investigative report on racism and human rights. In his remarks on the findings of the study, Muigai said “If I have found any specific group of people to be the subject of the most insidious contemporary forms of racial discrimination, those are migrants.” Moreover, he stated, “In many parts of the world today, immigrants bear the brunt of xenophobic intolerance – and this is true of the United States, and it is of Europe, and it is of many parts of the world.”

While Mr. Muigai clearly states that countries must enforce laws regarding the flow of migrants into their borders, he also iterates “Migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers, regardless of their migration status, are entitled to have all their human rights protected by the state where they live without discrimination.” The solution, he states, requires the global community to “develop systems, structures, and policies in an international legal environment in which we can address the legitimate concerns of the receiving states while being able to safeguard the fundamental humanity, in my judgment, of the immigrants.”

Great articles in the Washington Post and Reuters highlight the content of this report, and specifically, its significance in reflecting upon immigration laws in the United States, such as Arizona’s recent immigration policies, which do not meet basic international human rights standards.

U.N. Special Rapporteur Githu Muigai

On August 23, 2010, the United States State Department submitted its first domestic human rights report to the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC). In 2006, the HRC established the Universal Periodic Review process to assess each U.N. member nation’s adherence to their human rights obligations under international law every four years.

However, in addition to the federally submitted report, a comprehensive shadow report was also published by the U.S. Human Rights Network, a non-governmental human rights organization. The report represents a compilation of 26 independent civil society submissions covering a vast range of human rights issues, and has been endorsed by more than 200 human rights organizations and advocacy groups in the United States. In a statement released by the U.S. Human Rights Network, University of Pennsylvania Law School Professor Sarah Paoletti, Senior Coordinator for the Network’s UPR Project, testifies: “Comparing the State Department report with the Network’s, it is clear that gaps remain in our respective understanding of the issues and the solutions needed to resolve them. We look forward to working with the Administration to narrow that gap in future months.”

The United States’ human rights record is scheduled for review in a series of hearings by the U.N. Human Rights Council on November 5th in Geneva, Switzerland.

This week marks the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which was signed into law on July 26, 1990. The ADA prohibits discrimination based on disability, which is defined as a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity. In the United States alone, one out of every five people are affected by a disability, which is roughly 54 million Americans. However, since the ADA was enacted into law, significant changes in technology have created new challenges and forms of discrimination for people living with disabilities. For instance, people with disabilities are twice as likely to not have access to the internet or are severely limited to certain online activities. Those who are blind, for example, are often unable to enter passwords and use certain authentication software, barriers that could be overcome with the development and availability of voice recognition technologies.

As we look back at the last twenty years of progress in increasing access and eliminating forms of discrimination based on disability, we must keep the voices and experiences of people with disabilities at the forefront of policy debates to ensure that our laws keep up with changes in technology and that they continue to protect against new forms of discrimination which impede upon peoples’ capacity to engage with their communities and fulfill their chosen life courses.

The average American is a slave to technology. Although no one really knows the physical and psychological impact of this, there is a lot of discussion recently about the danger of computers and cellphones. According to several articles and books, these “gadgets” have resulted in shallower thinking, weakened concentration, reduced creativity, heightened stress, and interrupted work and family life. There are also concerns about the physical impact. One Swedish study that followed young people, who began using cellphones as teenagers, for 10 years calculated a 400 percent increase in brain tumors. Another study revealed a potential link between cellphone radiation and loss in bees’ honey production—given that bees pollinate 90% of commercial crops in the USA the side effects of this could eventually be dire. However as Maureen Dowd wrote, “even if scientists told us our computers would make our arms fall off, we’d probably keep typing.” All this recent attention to the physical and psychological impacts notwithstanding, it is people who don’t even use these “gadgets” that are at the greatest, yet far less talked about, risk. Smartphones and laptops are built from minerals—tin, tantalum, tungsten, and gold—that warlords trade and use to fund mass slaughter and rape in eastern Congo. This straightforward video by the Enough Project describes how these minerals leave a trail of destruction from the mines in Congo to the cellphone in your pocket, and what consumers can do to help end the violence.