Explaining, but not excusing, the Arizona immigration law

28 Apr 2010

Eugene Robinson has what I think is so far the best analysis of the new immigration law in Arizona:

Arizona’s draconian new immigration law is an abomination — racist, arbitrary, oppressive, mean-spirited, unjust.

I’d recommend reading the whole thing; he goes into some pretty specific detail, and also mentions something that’s otherwise absent from the debate.

Let me interrupt this tirade to point out that while Arizona has unquestionably done the wrong thing, it is understandable that exasperated officials believed they had to dosomething. Immigration policy and border security are federal responsibilities, and Washington has failed miserably to address what Arizonans legitimately see as a crisis.

It’s a good point. Looking at this as a deliberate attack on illegal immigrants (and a deliberate attempt at racial profiling) would be misleading. I don’t think the people who passed this law actually favor legalized discrimination against Latinos, at least not consciously. But the law’s passage reveals something about ethnocentricity and Americanism that we still see whiteness as the “default” in this country. Somehow, the existence of other races and cultures is a threat to “American-ness”. Clearly this is a load of junk; this country was built on immigrants and continues to thrive off of their cheap labor. In the present day, easier paths to legalization would lead to significant economic benefits.

Opposition to flexible and fair immigration policies is in my experience associated with an extreme form of nativist patriotism; the idea that America is intrinsically better than other countries. I’m the first person to defend the Constitution as one of the finest documents on which to establish a government, and I think there are in fact intrinsic advantages to the American judicial and legal systems. But that’s not the same as saying that this country is better by virtue of its existence, or is fated to be that way. We got a lot of stuff right that a lot of other countries didn’t. We also got a lot of stuff wrong. And like every country, we should be trying to fix the things that are wrong, and we should be helping others do the same. In a way, this means that I see America’s “greatness” not as a gift, but as a privilege that implies many important responsibilities.

So here’s where I get confused: if the type of uber-patriots I’m talking about really think America’s so great, they should have no problem with allowing others access to it. If this is really the greatest country in the world, how can a bunch of poor people who want a better life be that much of a threat? The answer is that American nativists believe that they’re special by virtue of having been born here, and immigrants are somehow “less American”. Obviously illegal immigrants aren’t citizens, but don’t forget that what makes this country fundamentally different from the world of nation-states from which it arose is that the only thing required to be part of it was to want to. In practice, there were and are a fair amount of obstacles to this rather lofty dream, but it’s undeniable that we have gotten and continue to get closer and closer to it.

For modern-day nativists to claim that American-ness should be restricted to those of us who are already here is totally contrary to the principle of equal access and to the historical trend towards this principle. It’s a disguised form of racism, a historical tendency to view whiteness, and only whiteness, as “true American-ness”. While the definition of who is and is not white has changed over time (historically excluding, to name a few, Catholics, Irish, and Jews, all of whom are considered “white” today), it’s sure that Latino immigrants aren’t included in it now. Comprehensive federal immigration reform would be a good opportunity to affirm that whiteness is no longer required to receive the full benefits of citizenship. Obviously it won’t fix racial inequalities in and of itself, but a progressive immigration policy would do a lot to put us on the right track.

For some more interesting reading on the economic implications of immigration policy (an angle I haven’t really explored in much depth here), check out this terrific Free exchange piece in response to Krugman and Yglesias.