Leave aside the fact that it’s pretty immoral to punish children for the sins of their parents. Leave aside the fact that sending some kid back to countries they may not have been to since infancy is traumatizing. What I don’t get is this: in what world does it make sense to kick this human capital, which represents an investment of tens of thousands of dollars in education funding from taxpayers, out of this country before there is a return on the investment? How is that fiscally sane?

• Current Mood: Sushi
• Currently Listening To: "Let It Grow", Eric Clapton

Seriously, that’s the best I can do. Changing the law is obvious, for so many reasons. These kids came to this country not by choice, but along with their parents, and not holding children culpable for the crimes of their parents is a legal and moral concept that has a pretty long history. We’ve already spent tens of thousands of dollars educating them in public schools, so deporting them after having spent all that time and money is poor economics. As baby boomers retire, we’re going to need young, college-educated workers to replace them. People with degrees and secure employment tend to be the stabilizing forces that communities yearn for. And on and on and on. Bottom line, there are a whole host of moral, economic, and practical reasons why the DREAM act is a good idea. There are no reasons why it isn’t, unless you count “punishing kids to send a message” a valid reason. Which I don’t.

Look, the fact that we have a serious immigration problem is readily apparent. But opposing the DREAM act does not solve that problem. It’s not in the same area code. If you want to stop people from coming to this country to look for work, incentivize businesses not to hire undocumented workers. It’s not rocket science. What won’t work, and in fact what is disgustingly wrong, is to punish a high school student who wants to go to college for the sins of their parents when they were 4 years old. I’d hazard to guess that when people come to this country seeking work, it’s not because their young children may be able to get into college in 15 years.

It’s issues like these that really make me wonder about the future of our society.

• Current Mood: Normative
• Currently Listening To: "Daydream Believer", The Monkees

Aside from the fact that immigration policy in this country is a mess, all of these issues have one thing in common: the proposed “solutions” are less about solving problems than about making some xenophobic statement. Yes, the status quo regarding undocumented people in this country is untenable, but the solution isn’t to make people with dark skin carry their papers around all the time. Lino Lakes has never spent money on translation services, and it is doubtful they would ever need to. As for the mosque in New York, that just defies comprehension, especially the Anti-Defamation League’s bizarre statement essentially arguing that yes, they have a right to build it, but they shouldn’t because people’s feelings will get hurt.

The way I see it, a more diverse society is a good thing: more viewpoints, more interesting people, better food. Others focus on the challenge to the existing power structure that it encompasses; often, it is the people who have power now but fear they will lose it in the next round who hold this viewpoint. Lino Lakes, for example, has a tiny minority population now, but what if, what if “those people” start moving in? Then what will we do?

This reactionary wave is doomed to fail, for demographic reasons: it is these reasons that is prompting the wave in the first place. Nevertheless, the damage that may be done as this latest batch of closed-mindedness breaks upon our shores could be significant. There is much more potential ugliness out there.

• Current Mood: Warm
• Currently Listening To: "Better Make It Through Today", Eric Clapton

The particular stupidity that gets to me is having the cops determine the immigrant status of anybody suspicious. For a second, ignore the profiling, and ignore the chilling effect that this will have when it comes to police interactions with the community at large. Because aside from that, you’ve got the main problem that determining immigration status is hard. That’s why there are immigration lawyers. Having gone through the immigration process myself (and needing to hire a lawyer to do so!), I know firsthand that determining a person’s immigration status is not easy or logical. If it takes lawyers hours of work to figure things out, what can a cop with no training on the finer points of immigration law do? Sure, you can blame ICE, the federal government, and Congress for this mess, but that doesn’t mean that Arizona, or any other state, can fix it themselves.

Hopefully, Congress will actually pass an immigration reform bill this year. It’s actually not that complicated, or even controversial for such a huge issue. Most of the reform packages floating around actually agree on the major points, such as the fact that we won’t be kicking millions of people out of the country anytime soon. A realistic reform includes:

• A path to citizenship for those already here
• Requiring the paying of back taxes
• Requiring evidence of knowledge of English
• Tightening up the border
• Simpler verification of work status
• Much stiffer penalties on businesses that hire undocumented workers

The latter one is the most important, and predictably the one most opposed by businesses that want cheap, non-union labor. Personally, I think some aspects, like requiring English, are unnecessary, but if that is what it takes to get it through Congress, then I guess that is what it takes. Notice, however, that this list has no overlap with the law passed in Arizona.

In the meantime, Arizona richly deserves every canceled convention and boycott it gets.

• Current Mood: Calm
• Currently Listening To: "Us and Them", Pink Floyd