Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free; the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
—Statue of Liberty
History was made Nov. 8 when California, the last frontier in a nation full of immigrants, decided to deny access to public services to many of its inhabitants.
The heated debate over Proposition 187 drew a record number of voters to the polls to approve a measure which would enrage a powerless minority of the state’s inhabitants.
All of the sudden friends, spouses and even relatives of people who came to the United States as illegal immigrants decided that it was time for illegal immigration to stop and that proposition 187 was the best way to curtail the problem.
While it may be agreed that illegal immigration is a problem, Prop. 187 is not a solution. Denying access to services such as education and health care will benefit no one in the long run. With the problem of homelessness at an all-time high, what is going to become of recent, non-English speaking immigrants who are kicked out of schools? How will they learn enough English to get a job so they can become productive members of society?
Education has typically been the link between the illegal immigrant and the productive citizen, successful businessman or politician. The real question is why we have accepted and nurtured illegal friends and relatives of the past, but cut off such aid to those hopeful of new opportunities in the future.
The hypocrisy in the matter, then is the attitude that what was OK for “us” is not OK for “them.”
Many immigrants support the economy by joining the cheap labor force, accepting working conditions and wages which would normally be unacceptable, so they can stay long enough to earn citizenship. What seems cruel is the fact that we are willing to buy the products produced by illegal immigrants, but we are not willing to grant them the privileges granted to every other inhabitant of the state. While it is a crutch for California’s economy, nobody can argue that the cheap labor force provided by illegal immigration is not essential. Substandard treatment of a few by the majority, then, begins to sound much like indentured servitude, except that what is keeping many immigrants here is that the alternative of going back to their homeland is a bleak one.
The United States is considered a land of opportunity by most of the inhabitants of the world. Many confess to being disappointed when they arrive and realize that existence here is more difficult than expected. However, to expect that a measure which denies illegal immigrants health care and education will deter residents of other nations from coming to the land of milk and honey is completely shortsighted.
The strangest aspect of Prop. 187 is that teachers and doctors, those entrusted with nurturing the sick and the young, are suddenly asked to take on the role of Immigration and Naturalization Service agents, whose job is to seek out illegal immigrants. Most teachers or doctors enjoy their occupations because they enjoy helping their fellow man. What we are doing by asking them to report illegal immigrants is putting them in an awkward situation where they are required to report the people who they want to help.
On Wednesday, many of the provisions of Prop. 187 were blocked by U.S. District Judge Matthew Byrne, Jr. For the next several years, this proposition will wind its way through the courts and it is ironic that taxpayers will pay the court costs for litigation involving a proposition which was supposed us money.
As we watch our tax dollars being spent in defense of this fruitless proposition, let’s remember that the United States was built on the “wretched refuse” of other shores.
