(Legal) Immigrants Are Welcome Here

Lately I have been hearing the refrain, “legal immigrants are not the problem” in response to outrage over ICE. These people seem to be saying, “I’m not racist; I only care about following the law,” or even “I followed the law; now others should also get in line.” This feels like the same argument to me as we should not forgive current debtors their student loans because I had to pay them, but that is for another day. The problem with this type of thinking is that current immigration policy is racist and U.S. immigration policy has always been based on white supremacy. To understand this, we need to look at what it takes to be a legal immigrant in the United States today. In order to legally immigrate to the U.S., you need to

1. Marry a U.S. citizen;

2. Be the immediate family member of a U.S. citizen;

3. Get admitted to a U.S. university or educational institution, AND can pay tuition;

4. Be sponsored by an U.S. employer;

5. Have a lot of money or celebrity status;

6. Be an asylum seeker due to war, disaster, or revolution in your country.

The last one is mostly unavailable during the Trump administration because the president thinks that people suffering war and disasters should just suffer or starve to death. Even if you meet all of the requirements it takes years and lots of legal fees to become a citizen.

If you don’t qualify for provisions 1 or 2, it’s obvious that to fulfill 3, 4, or 5 requires a great deal of privilege. Most international students who come to study in the U.S.A. come from very wealthy families who can afford to not only give them an education that would gain them admission to a U.S. university but also the tuition money to put them through 4 years of college or graduate school without financial aid. Some of these students get a job after graduation with a U.S. company who is willing to sponsor them, but that is rare when employers prefer domestic candidates that don’t require sponsorship. To be sponsored by a U.S. employer usually requires being in a highly technical or specialized field where there is a dearth of qualified U.S. candidates. A way to circumvent provisions 3 or 4 is if you are extremely wealthy, have over $1 million to start your own business, or prove that you can live in the U.S. long term without government support or employment.

This leaves out millions of people who want to come to the United States but can’t afford to study abroad, are too old, don’t have family or professional connections, etc. An increasing number of these people come from countries ravaged by climate change where crops are failing due to drought, communities are destroyed by flood, livelihoods based on natural resources are no longer viable, or it’s simply too hot (Kuwait City for example, frequently see summer days hit or surpass 50°C). Others come from countries in the Banana Republic or Latin America where centuries of economic exploitation and political oppression has left their economy in tatters, their cities governed by gangs, and zero economic mobility. Some are the victims of sexual violence or gang violence, or the threat of it if they do not leave. The vast majority are people of color of the global majority. Since applying to become a legal immigrant to the U.S. is nearly impossible for those without the money, education, or connections, that leaves them with no choice except to come any way they can, and hope to gain legal status after they are already residing in the U.S. No one wants their status to be illegal, but you will risk it if the alternative is death, violence, and starvation.

Now if you're an average White American, your recent ancestors probably just showed up at Ellis Island and were granted legal status on the spot. Between 1892 and 1954, approximately 12 million immigrants passed through Ellis Island, New York, most of them Italian, Irish, Greek, Jewish, and Eastern European. Newly arrived immigrants at Ellis Island had to pass a health and fitness inspection (a “six-second physical”) to make sure they had no communicable diseases or physical disabilities. They had to answer questions about their criminal record and personal identity. They also had to show that they had a certain amount of cash to sustain themselves until they found work. After 1909, this was typically $25. The vast majority (about 98%) were eventually admitted. Only about 2% were denied and sent back to their home country at the expense of the steamship company.

During the same period, Chinese and other Asian immigrants arriving in California were subjected to grueling vetting processes and systematic discrimination. At first, these immigrants were welcomed to help construct the First Transcontinental Railroad. But as economic competition grew, so did systemic discrimination. In 1852, California passed the Foregin Miners’ Tax, forcing Chinese miners to pay high monthly fees that made it nearly impossible to turn a profit. The Page Act of 1875 barred Chinese women from entering the country, preventing the formation of Chinese-American families. Then the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 suspended the immigration of Chinese laborers for 10 years, the first time federal law prohibited entry based solely on race and class. The Geary Act (1892) extended the Exclusion Act by requiring all Chinese residents to carry a Certificate of Residence at all times. Failure to produce it could lead to immediate deportation or a year of hard labor.

By the turn of the century, the restrictions became even more rigid, forcing immigrants to find creative ways to navigate the law. When Chinese immigrants arrived at Angel Island, they were often held for weeks or months in cramped barracks, undergoing grueling interrogations to prove their identities. Many states, including California, passed laws preventing "aliens ineligible for citizenship" (which included most Asian immigrants at the time) from owning or long-term leasing of agricultural land. Then the Immigration Act of 1924 (Johnson-Reed Act) effectively banned all immigration from Asia by excluding anyone who was "ineligible for citizenship." Under the laws of the time, only white persons and those of African descent were eligible for naturalization, leaving Chinese immigrants in a legal limbo. After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed birth records, many Chinese residents circumvented the law by claiming they were born in the U.S. (making them citizens), and then using that status to bring their family or community members to the U.S., since they could not come any other way.

If you're a descendant of the original English or Dutch settlers who came here on the Mayflower or some such vessel, your ancestors had no such legal system to pass through. Between 1606 and 1624 the Virigina Company actively recruited men and women to settle in Virginia with promises of land, wages, or marriage. The pilgrims of Massachusetts arrived for religious freedom, and the Dutch settlers to New Amsterdam for economic opportunities. These Europeans arrived here unnanounced, chopped down forests and planted invasive species, killed and drove out the native residents and took their land. By today’s standards, they were more criminal than any "illegal immigrant" today. They are the definition of domestic terrorists who invaded, raped, pillaged, were unvaccinated, and spread diseases. They were considered legal whereas someone trying to bring their favorite exotic snack on a flight today would be turned away due to agricultural regulations.

Let's not even get started with the enslaved people who were kidnapped from Africa, tortured, and brought "legally" to this country. Their descendants are considered legal. The people who trafficked human bodies and their descendants are legal. But the Mexicans whose homeland used to include California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, and vast portions of the American West are not!

Clearly, whether you are a legal or illegal immigrant in the United States has much more to do with whether you serve the purposes of white supremacy than anything else. White European settlers were allowed to come to the U.S. for centuries and do whatever they wanted, even if that entailed engaging in slavery, Native American genocide, and settler colonialism. People of color without wealth or connections continue to be excluded. Those who came here during friendlier administrations may eventually gain legal status, but if you fail to do so before that window closed, then you risk being branded illegal forever. As an illegal immigrant, you are not permitted to work, or take advantage of social benefits like Medicare and social security, even though you will still pay taxes on your wages and your children are citizens.

Ultimately, the distinction between "legal" and "illegal" is not a reflection of a person’s character, their work ethic, or whether they followed the rules. It is a reflection of a gatekeeping system designed to preserve a specific racial and economic hierarchy. When we say "I only care about following the law," we ignore the fact that the law was written to welcome some while criminalizing those fleeing the very climate disasters and economic crises that our system helped to create. To look at a family crossing a border in desperation and call them "criminals"—while calling the architects of genocide and slavery "founders"—is a moral failure. Until we decouple immigration status from worth, the distinction of legal vs. illegal immigrants remains nothing more than a euphemism for the white supremacy that has defined immigration policy in this country since the first ships arrived uninvited on its shores.