Enigmatic Essay on Immigration, Alienation, and Disolution, a Poetic-Proseic Prophesy

A friend asked the question as to how we prioritize all the cases of immigrants and poor people we help, particularly the ones that have immigrated because of violence in their homeland. These people have nothing but the clothes on their back; their families or parts of them have been brutally murdered or kidnapped, and they run for their lives. They get here only to be treated to incarceration and if lucky something called humanitarian parole. They must have a way to pay the... fees for work visas; no visa, no work; no work, no food or shelter. So how do we prioritize the cases of suffering and poverty regardless of cause? What about the ones we turn away for lack of resources? 

All of this bespeaks the whole question of "immigration policy" in the United States, the need to not reform, but rather "rethink", "reestablish anew" and "implement a humanitarian approach" this issue. My friend's question about how human beings are to treat other human beings who are not only neighbors in the sense of the larger brotherhood/sisterhood of ourselves to one another among our species, but among those of our human family who are connected by geography, history, culture, code, and yes, cult (i.e. religious belief systems). 

Poetic Prophesy:

"I am certain of the answer to your question; as certain, as I am that I indeed have a physical heart. Unfortunately, that answer is unexplainable and at best may seem unsatisfactory for individuals among the many who are left out, marginalized, or 'turned away'.

"There is a universality to the problem of alienation and poverty that in one sense holds 'the many' captive, but for some universal reasons, “individual souls” within “the many” endure with or without human help, least of all, my help. In the end, we are all 'individuals' both 'a part of' and yet 'separate from' any human derived collectives, freely instigated or not. In Hebrew, these special ones were called the 'Anawim'.

"Why do we as a species 'draw lines? Especially, when as Robert Frost writes, 'Something there is about nature that doesn’t love a wall…' (Mending Wall).

"Individuality is not for the purpose of protecting the self, or even defining the self. If I might wax poetic at this point: Individuality is as it is for snowflakes, pre-defined, and yet, as if those flakes could make a choice of whereupon to land. Some would freely choose to land upon a place most barren and in need of moisture, sacrificing individuality for the sake of a greater purpose. They would crisscross woven paths from heaven to earth. And rather than fall to places easily found directly beneath them, or even to the shadows where they might last a little longer, some would search that place where they might melt at their own expense, to penetrate the line or wall of dryness, searching for a holy ancient cryptogrammic seedling. In so doing, the crystalline beauty takes another form, yet keeps unique integrity present though unnoticed, a grace which lasts forever.

My friend's question triggered me to meditate on the specter of boundaries and why they limit our prescience for elevation and flight. Would that we could see beyond the artificial, insulating, and growth limiting boundaries we set to spite ourselves."

If the wall we built is not removed, it will be removed for us. There is indeed "something in nature that doesn't love a wall."

 

 Prosaic Prophecy (but it might be too late).

On the surface, the above Poetic gleanings might give no practical solutions per se. So here is a prosaic set of rambling thoughts about the "problem" of immigration reform as the efforts continue to work upon a paradigm of a balance between "enforcement" of existing laws, and legalisms that are intended to more or less open a door to "acceptance" of what is the case on this side of the border with Mexico. The "enforcement" v. "acceptance" (i.e. amnesty) paradigm is a straw man, a red herring, an imaginary balance because it is predicated upon a basic attitude that the potential contribution of Mexican people to our "economic well being" is at best at the "servile worker" level and it fails to concede that it would be through a non nationalistic approach to be hospitable to those who wish to share in our prosperity wish to enhance our prosperity with their genius, work ethic, creativity, ingenuity, survival savvy, and generosity. This is not to mention the spiritual contributions to that wonderful synergy which diversity brings to our border areas. After all, even nature teaches that where there is a conjunction of two ecosystems, there is the highest degree of biodiversity.

Immigration, especially that of our Mexican neighbors, has to be looked at as an organic part of prosperity, not as a disease. Some have said that the North American Free Trade Agreement  (NAFTA) was designed to do this, however, NAFTA was a red herring that ended up playing into the hands of neu veaux riche (sp?) manufacturers from a rising upper middle class in Mexico in the state of Nuevo Leon and the Distrito Federal, (with the help of Chinese and ...Indonesian financing) exploiting the Mexican rank and file people under the guise of a "good job". It was tantamount to indentured servitude, and still is. NAFTA-like one dimensional economic policies that have as their sole basis as economic development, as opposed to a broader basis of social development, exploits the persons who happen to be workers and it stripped persons who happened to be workers in the United States of their own productivity potential. Companies like Digital, Hewlett Packard, and even Intel all sent jobs to Mexico only to subsequently close plants. Ironically, the work was to, in the end, be done in Indonesia and China. It is a curious thing to look at the flow of money and how money has defined both immigration, diversity, and even....and even what it is to be considered a "friendly nation." 

Unfortunately, now China is at the gate because we have not been taking care of our back yard. Trade agreements and even Intelligence Liaisons between Mexico and China are creating a sub culture of Mexican dependence on China. The fact the Chinese own the Panama Canal is not insignificant. What will be next. The stupid Maginot line repeat of a wall between our two supposedly friendly nations is sinful, prejudicial and unwarranted. I know my conservative friends hold the line on immigration policy, but truth be told, we have to begin treating our neighbors to the south with distinguished integrity as we do our Canadian allies to the North. All the hype about terrorism and drugs may be true, but we have given little incentive to help Mexico develop as we have Egypt, Iraq, or any of the once friendly nations so far away. It may be too late. The fence is up. We have stated our case and now the Mexican people "know" what we think of them. Truly sad. Again, my conservative friends like to stick to the "enforcement" talking points.

 

I understand the need for vigilance against the true threats of drugs, and terrorism but we need to completely obliterate the "enforcement v. acceptance balance" paradigm. Even in our post 9/11 society, we need to look at Mexican immigration policy from beyond the U.S. economic development alone perspective. Rather, we need to think of a holistic approach toward a "mutual benefit" approach and quit the "win-lose" gamesmanship that is designed to result in gaining an upper hand. What we see as foreign aid benefit to the nation of Mexico is to the average Mexican "scraps from the game table." Additionally, our fool hearty approach causes lasting negative effects on our citizens on "this side" of the border who are negatively affected by the piece-meal, one dimensional offerings of the public policy library of thought to which we have had access since the Brazero Program. In the late 70's and early 80's, my former boss, U.S. Senator Harrison Schmitt, introduced the Good Neighbor Policy Act, and even more recently, since the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. Since its passage almost 30 years ago, there have been piecemeal amendments to the act. We need to have access to the library of experience and the organic nature of the "value" of the contributions of our immigrants regardless of their place of origin. Borders do not make us stronger. Borders create what in biology is called the "island" effect. We become so inward looking and insulated (i.e.. the word insulate comes from the Latin word for island - "insulam") that our thinking at all levels becomes "inbred". One disease will undoubtedly decimate us. Under these conditions, nature shows how the ambience, in this case, our thinking and creativity, dies to the "anaerobic" nature that comes from lack of diversity and boundary permeability.

 

I am now engaged as a spiritual minister to assist in the task of improving the plight of the pilgrim, the immigrant if you will. I have been involved in this for longer than I realized on and off throughout my apparently ineffective life. I was first introduced to immigration as a mere 7 year old when my niece, born 6 weeks premature, came into this world all of 2 lbs. As a 7 year old, even I remember holding her delicate frame in the palm of my little hands. Her birthplace? A hospital for the poor in Juarez, Mexico. Alexis was illegally brought over a few days after birth with no papers except a statement from the mother that she could not take care of the baby; and that it was better that my by my sister (really innocently unbeknownst to her) smuggle the baby across into the United States, in a shoe box billed with a little blanket. Since that time, this little girl has grown now to be a grandmother, and is a naturalized citizen. My sister learned the hard way there was a process she did not follow but for the transgression that resulted in a productive citizen to take place like that in today's immigration world would be tantamount to a national security threat. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in monetary and man power resources would have been spent to prosecute my sister, and deport my niece. 

 

Looking through a group of papers I found in my storage room, I found my past deeply rooted in the immigration issue even beyond my time working for a U.S. Senator. I was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to serve on the New Mexico State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in 1984. Ironically, serving with me on that Advisory Committee was newly appointed first Bishop of Las Cruces, Ricardo Ramirez. Little did I know at that time I would be approaching immigration from more spiritual foundations and serve Bishop Ramirez as one of his advisors on this issue.

In this old box of papers I kept from my heyday in the political world was an advisory committee report on the 1986 Immigration Reform Act, published by the Advisory Committee. In the contents of the report, I found that the discussions are the same exact discussions going on today with respect to immigration reform. That is almost 30 years of haggling and arguing about a reformation that created more boundaries that were insulatory than they were permeable and truly useful economically, socially, and culturally. This insulatory effect grew geometrically and with such intensity so as to result in a physical wall between two supposedly friendly nations. Of course the 9/11 security excuse propelled this monstrosity in spite of the one sided and misguided economic intentions of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). 

Boundary permeability is a must for free breathing to take place. This is a tenant of organizational theory as it is to some extent basic anatomy and physiology. A contact lens does not divide the eye from the world to be seen but intensifies the focus. It does so by allowing through its permeability the eye to breathe and the light to pass through it.  What I have witnessed is a kind of prejudice and falsehood to take root. It takes root among even those who have been able to cross the border, obtain a measure of legality, and even citizenship. Somehow "citizenship" is looked at as a means or rationale for considering the non citizen, especially an undocumented person, a lower form of life. You have former Mexican citizens by virtue of their legalized tenure, lord it over even to the point of extortion over their brother and sisters who do not have a "credential." These undocumented, are considered second class, a scourge upon our land, a disease, or less intelligent.  

Really, the only differences are external and it was by accident of our birth that we are on this side and they that side. Boundaries set to be goals to achieve or transcend are good. However, boundaries that are intended to insulate or protect against entry have purposes when the boundary builder is under threat. These boundaries are to be considered limited, special purpose and utilitarian for those instances of transgression, or trespass. However, when rigid boundaries or fences are built to inhibit the synergistic bonding between two separate social entities in a situation of proclaimed "friendship", there is a mutual weakening of entities on both sides of the rigid border.

 

Instead of following the method of enculturation of the borderland between the new and old world brought about by the mass conversions of Aztecs to Christianity, allowing a time of growth, peace, and the creation of a new culture, we simply chose to consider the natural evolutionary migration to and from Mexico as a kind of scourge.  We do more to treat peoples in the middle eastern hostile enemies as neighbors than we do instead supporting our neighbors to the south. Even if we had looked at oil and gas resources in Mexico on the pragmatic, socio economic perspective, we would have done better by becoming true friends of the Mexican peoples as we secured oil and gas resources in trade agreements while helping strengthen a much more democratic and fair governmental system in Mexico.  

 

If only policy authors and decision makers would be as accepting of these brothers and sisters from the south as they were of the Irish and Italian immigrants of the 19th and early 20th century. I love Mexican and Central American genius, artistry, music, the predominance of Our Lady of Guadalupe's influence on all the Americas. Whether you are a believer or not, the cult of this apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary to the indigenous Aztec, Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin (He who speaks like an eagle), influenced the sustainability of the Spanish colonization effort and prevented what might have been a bloody massacre of the Spanish invaders in the new world. And it worked not in the way of "enforcement", but in the way of acceptance and ironically to the benefit of both peoples. A culture of Mexico was created that is "unconquerable" by any government in much the same way that the Jews were unconquerable by the Egyptians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, and every manner of onslaught upon their culture. The Spanish generals had imagined otherwise, while it was this almost unexplainable apparition and its after effects that created a world of possibilities for Spaniards and the Aztecs that continue to exist 500 years later. Yet American policy to Mexico does not reflect the respect due the rank and file Mexican citizen. American diplomacy in Mexico is the "lala-land" of those empowered to exclude the value of the Mexican worker, the indigenous cultural creativity still thriving there. We continue to see the Harvard graduate mentality both in electoral politics and economic policy in Mexico. Our foreign aid and how our diplomatic policy reinforces this caste system mentality for the sake of power and control. Among the cognoscenti these insular syndromes are addictive and sui-erosive.

This will be, in the end. a power and control which like a baton gets handed from the hand of the status quo to the hand of revolution. Both the American diplomatic policy and immigration policy reinforce a penchant for the trappings of power, protocol, civility, and a toleration of pseudo democratic governance of a good people, instead of a real appreciation for the good will of the rank and file who live to maximize their individual right to thrive in real freedom to share in mutual prosperity with all people of good will, foreign and domestic.  

While I personally hold the occurrence at Tepeyac in December of 1531 to be a spiritual reality as a matter of faith, it is at the very least, a cultural anomaly that brought together two rigid boundaries between the Spanish and the Aztecs, and made each of them permeable, bondable, sustainable and durable while producing a culture that preserved the richness of indigenous technologies, language and adapted old world rigidities into a new people, a new future, and a new fruitfulness. 

 

True immigration reform is the reform of the minds of the rich and powerful to see from the perspective of another kind of richness and power not based upon political or even military power. This is a kind of richness that is inclusive of the treasures of talent, potential, integrity, work ethic, honesty, character and benevolence, among others. These treasures result when a people on one side of an imaginary border are treated as "persons" and not threats, enemies, less intelligent, unproductive. If anything, our own program of redistribution of income by our system of taxation and welfare is the opiate for those who might otherwise endure by virtue of culturally fostered creativity, desire for opportunity, and all new ideas endemic to the migration of peoples. If I might even be radical enough to say that there should be no boundary set that denies an inalienable right or freedom to achieve past any boundary when that upon an authentic consideration by a neighboring nation that its bordering nation is indeed a friend which knocks at the door in peace and with the intention of addition to and not detracting from the whole of the "good will" of both peoples. And if that bordering nation comprised in the final analysis of individual souls, each with their own inalienable rights, is experiencing a usurpation or undermining of its foundation of friendliness by external parties of "bad will," as we see in the infiltration of drugs, crime or physical threats to local people on both sides of a border, the stronger nation should not build a wall. Rather that stronger nation shows its true integrity in its compassion for its neighbor. That compassion is best manifested by a reprioritization of its foreign aid objectives to protect both its own integrity and the integrity of its friend at the gates. To do otherwise is tantamount an anaerobic policy which will indeed set the stage for the decimation of the friend and the creation of an enemy. This would be the prophecy of the dissolution of the nation with the greater responsibility for eventual havoc and turmoil that is probable in the coming decades. What comes after is undoubtedly disaster and war. There are some in power of very bad will who would wish this even on themselves and their friends for the sake of power and gamesmanship. To me, it looks like a kind of psychopathy, a neurosis, if not a cirrhosis of the underpinnings of the thoughts of our founding fathers. Not a good prophecy at all.