As a recent immigrant, I was looking forward to the May 1 campus protest for "A Day Without Immigrants," which promised to highlight the inequities suffered by immigrants and the faults of the U.S. immigration policy. However, I was disappointed to see the focus of the rally narrowed down to a push for rights for illegal immigrants, thereby ignoring deficiencies in rights for legal immigrants.
The May 1 rally opposed HR 4437, a bill making "it a felony for the 11 million undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States, having social, cultural and economic repercussions" ("Dartmouth protest reflects heated national debate," May 2). However, the protest overlooked the "social, cultural and economic" inequities suffered by the over 20 million legal immigrants in America.
As emphasized by the "A Day Without Immigrants" events, and as reiterated in a number of subsequent articles and letters to the editor in The Dartmouth, illegal immigrants do contribute tremendously to our society, but are, due to their legal status, deprived of some basic human rights. This is clearly discrimination, and the organizers of the protest correctly attempted to raise awareness of the issue and encourage positive action.
Unfortunately, they failed to address the problems facing legal immigrants, who account for more than half of all immigration to the United States. Their situation is, on average, better and more secure than that of illegal immigrants. However, it, too, needs to be improved based on some of the same arguments as those made regarding illegal immigration. Pro-immigration arguments invariably call upon the philosophical and historical foundations of our nation. America does owe its present status to immigration -- legal and illegal. It also owes its existence as a sovereign nation to the early immigrants' cries against "taxation without representation." Ironically, taxation without representation persists to this day, and affects, among others, legal immigrants.
One of the protest's coordinators highlights a significant injustice: Illegal immigrants contribute greatly to social programs, but reap no benefits. However, the protest failed to acknowledge another iniquity -- the millions of dollars in taxes added to governmental coffers by legal immigrants, who are prohibited from voting in all national and a vast majority of state and local elections. We cannot ignore the parallels between these two wrongs; we also cannot justify addressing only one of them.
Such exclusion is not the only example of discrimination. The protest organizers wanted Dartmouth to recognize the relevance of the illegal immigrants' issues to the campus. However, the protest did not acknowledge obstacles faced by students who legally reside in the United States. Significant constraints are imposed upon Dartmouth Plans of some international students with temporary student visas. Many are required to take classes for three consecutive terms before taking a term off, making it difficult for them to stay on for sophomore summer -- a major social disadvantage. Currently, obtaining permanent residency status is a cumbersome process. It took me over three years to do so: three years of substantial financial expenses, travel restrictions, fingerprinting, physical exams and countless mind-numbing encounters with immigration bureaucracy. My case is not an exception -- If anything, it was less painful for me than it is for most.
Therefore, I think that future pro-immigration events should expand upon the message of this year's protest. Some questions to consider include: Should illegal immigrants be granted permanent residency status? If so, what would incentivize people to adhere to legal immigration procedures instead of simply crossing a border? Or should illegals instead be granted a specific, different set of rights? How would those rights be defined?
Immigration policy, both illegal and legal, is in need of substantial improvement. However, in a society where gradations (perhaps unfairly) exist among citizens, permanent residents, temporary residents and illegal immigrants, the protest's approach, which addressed only one of these groups and ignored the others, is paradoxical.
