Latimer on Law & Politics

The Parts Of "Illegal" That I Don't Understand

The Parts Of  "Illegal" That I Don't  Understand

"But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just."   - Jesus Christ, Luke 4:13-14. 

"It always seemed strange to me that the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system.  And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self interest are the traits of success." - John Steinbeck

The Teabaggers like to ask "what part of illegal don't you understand" whenever anyone questions why they defend the attempt by Arizona Republicans to usurp the federal government's exclusive jurisdiction over immigration.  They bleat about how the federal government isn't enforcing the law and how this is causing so much hardship to those good, hardworking, legal American  citizens of Arizona.   They would have you believe that it's simply a matter of law and order, based on the "illegal" status of  the Mexican immigrants who come north to find work as domestic servants or farm workers.  I mean, the law is the law, right?

             Well, here's what I find difficult to understand about their use of the word "illegal" as the basis for supporting the new Arizona statute that requires state and local police to enforce the immigration laws against persons suspected of being Mexican.  There are several things, actually.

What part of the term "Supreme Law of the Land" don't they understand?

             First, what part of the term "Supreme Law of the Land"  don't they understand?  The Constitution of the United States is the Supreme Law of  the Land, and it gives exclusive jurisdiction over immigration and naturalization to the federal government.  That's the law, i.e. what is "legal," and the State of Arizona's attempt to usurp that jurisdiction is itself "illegal" under the Constitution.  That is the basis of Attorney General Eric Holder's pending lawsuit against Arizona.  Two wrongs don't make a right, and two "illegals" don't make a "legal," as defenders of the new Arizona immigration law seem to believe.

             Here's another part of  "illegal" that's hard to understand in this context.  These folks, right wing Republicans and Teabaggers, like to claim that America is a "Christian" nation.  Just this week Glenn Beck popped off  big time on a national broadcast against the "Jews" who killed Jesus.   Maybe someone should tell him that Jesus was a Jew himself, but never mind that.  The main point is that so-called "Christians" like him don't have the first clue about Jesus' true message, which was compassion.

             Jesus made this clear in the parable of the Good Samaritan.  A young man came to the rabbi Jesus and asked what he must do to save his soul.  Jesus quoted scripture and told him he must love his neighbor, but the man asked how can I know who is my neighbor. So Jesus told him this tale.

             A Jew was attacked and beaten by robbers and left to die by the roadside.  First a Pharisee came by and ignored his plea for help.  Then a fellow Levite just passed by.  Finally, a Samaritan came along and tended to the man's wounds, put him on  his donkey and took him to the nearest inn, paying for the man's lodging. Then Jesus asked the young man who he thought was the Jew's neighbor, his fellow countrymen who passed him by or the traveling foreigner?  Luke 10:25-37.

              So, as a Christian myself, I find it difficult to understand how those folks in Arizona who claim to be Christians can justify their selective and harsh treatment of their neighbors from the South by dismissing them as "illegal."   Jesus' point about the Good Samaritan is that your "neighbor" whom you must love is anyone you meet who is in need -and you show that love by helping him. In Arizona, we are talking mostly about poor people who come here seeking a better way of life, people who come here to do work that most Americans don't want to do anyway, such as picking fruits and vegetables in the hot Southwest sun all day.  They are our "neighbors" within the meaning of Christ's message, and they need our help, not our condemnation and abuse.

The best way to stop that would be to legalize drugs and take that market away from the Mexican drug cartels.

             Oh, I know about the drug runners who are a small percentage of the undocumented Mexicans coming into the States.  The best way to stop that would be to legalize drugs and take that market away from the Mexican drug cartels.  Even real  conservative  thinkers like the late William F. Buckley have made that obvious point.   But that's an entirely different issue from the focus of the new Arizona law, which is actually  just an amendment to a comprehensive law that focuses on denying public benefits to undocumented aliens and preventing undocumented aliens from finding any kind of work in Arizona. 

              The new law, the amendment, is clearly meant to give state and local police the power to enforce immigration laws to prevent undocumented aliens from receiving benefits or finding work, not to prevent drug or gun smuggling.  And that is absolutely clear because it is the specific focus of the comprehensive statute to which the new police enforcement provisions have been amended. 

             So, yes, it's really hard to understand how self-professed "Christian" people can support such an un-Christian law that denies help to their neighbors in need, that denies help to the poor,  by simply dismissing them as "illegal."  As a lawyer, I clearly understand what the word  "illegal" means, better than most Teabaggers do you can be sure, but it's hard to understand what part of that term as used in this context can in any way be consistent with their claim that America is a Christian nation.

           The Teabaggers also like to point out that the Arizona statute itself is worded to be facially neutral on race, color and nationality, as if the very raison d'etre for the statute were not specifically to exclude undocumented Mexican immigrants. I mean, does anyone seriously believe it is intended to require the police to stop and detain white Europeans on "reasonable suspicion" they might be illegal aliens.  Not even Sarah Palin is dumb enough to believe that.  

Photo taken at "co:ordinators" area at a Tea Party rally.

           So, again, it's hard to understand the part of "illegal" that is supposed to be racially neutral here.  The statute is worded to exclude consideration of race or nationality, but it is obviously directed at both race and nationality, specifically Hispanics and Mexicans.  And the specific focus here has as much to do with class, as it does race or nationality.

            There are sections of the main statute that allow the police to arrest any occupant of a vehicle that stops for the purpose of hiring or transporting others to a worksite, and allows them to arrest any person who is picked up for the purpose of being hired or transported to a worksite -if the vehicle obstructs traffic.  Arizona Rev. Statutes, Sect. 13-2928, A and B.  That is obviously a pretext for harassing poor, immigrant farm workers, legal or "illegal."  White, well-to-do European immigrants don't stand on the street corner looking for day labor, and they don't stop a pickup truck in traffic to take day laborers to the fields.

           So here's another part of the term "illegal" I don't understand in this context.  How is it any different from 80 years ago in Arizona and California when the same kind of harassment of poor migrants was directed at "legal" American citizens from Oklahoma who were displaced by the Dust Bowl environmental catastrophe?   Steinbeck's story of Tom Joad was a novel, but it was a reality- based account of what happened to those impoverished migrants from Oklahoma, Arkansas and Texas as they moved west.

Why don't the Teabaggers just come out and admit they are racist xenophobes instead of pretending to be "Christian" American patriots who are only concerned about poor Mexicans being "illegal."

            The Okies, personified by Joad, suffered the same kind of class-based xenophobia that we're seeing today in Arizona directed at Mexicans coming north. The real irony is that it is being perpetrated in many cases by descendants of those Dust Bowl migrants, separated by only a generation or two,  folks who claim to be "Christians" to boot.

             The real question isn't what part of "illegal" don't I understand, but how does the term "illegal" make today's undocumented Mexicans seeking a better life really any different from the Dust Bowl migrants of the 1930s who received the same harsh treatment in places like Arizona and California as the Mexicans do today?   As Steinbeck observed,  Americans like that give lip service to kindness, generosity and other Christian values, but when it comes down to the nitty gritty they always act on meanness, and self-interest.

              So why don't the Teabaggers just come out and admit they are racist xenophobes  instead of pretending to be "Christian" American patriots who are only concerned about poor Mexicans being "illegal."  Could it be that they're just a gang of  mean-spirited, self-intererested  hypocrites?  You think?