(Legal) Immigrants Are Welcome Here

Lately I have been hearing the refrain, “legal immigrants are not the problem” when people complain about ICE and the reign of terror that has gripped the United States. These people seem to be saying, “I’m not racist; I only care about following the law.” Some naturalized citizens say, “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 a rarity when employers prefer domestic employees 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 and can 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 the economy in tatters, their cities governed by gangs, and zero economic mobility for the poor. Some are the victims of sexual violence or gang violence, or the threat of it if they do not leave. Since applying to become an 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 illegally, 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.

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 excluded and sent back to their home country at the expense of the steamship company.

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 even less vetting to go 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. Your ancestors 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 portion of the American West are not!

Even my parents, who came from China after the Tianamen protest in 1989, gained legal status due to an extroadinary piece of legislation called the Chinese Student Protection Act of 1992. The Act applied to Chinese nationals who had been in the United States between June 5, 1989 (the day after the Tiananmen Square massacre) and April 11, 1990. It was designed to protect those who feared political persecution if they returned to China following the government's crackdown on pro-democracy protests. While there were about 40,000 to 43,000 Chinese students and scholars in the U.S. at the time, the Act also covered other Chinese nationals, including those who were in the country on temporary visas or even those who were undocumented. Such a piece of legislation would never be introduced today, much less pass into law.

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 own 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 always defined immigration policy in this country since the first ships arrived uninvited on its shores.