Many of the current misconceptions about immigration were heavily promoted by the corporate media in the past, but establishment outlets have occasionally published sensible articles on the subject recently—especially since Trump entered the White House.
In this selection, a New York Times piece shows that “amnesty” shouldn’t be a dirty word—living here without legal status is one of the few violations that don’t get a routine amnesty through the statute of limitations. At the Washington Post a Mexican-American citizen explains that she isn’t better than undocumented Mexicans just because her father immigrated here before there were limits on Mexican immigration. And at Bloomberg News Noah Smith deconstructs the fantasy that mass deportations would somehow help U.S. citizens (although he does repeat the tired and questionable cliché about crops rotting in the fields).—TPOI editor
By Amanda Taub, New York TimesOctober 11, 2017
The biggest taboo in the immigration debate is the idea of an “amnesty.” Immigration opponents routinely paint amnesties for undocumented immigrants in the United States as catastrophic blows to the rule of law.
The implication is that the only proper thing to do is enforce laws uniformly, all the time, without exceptions — and that an immigration amnesty would thus be a threat to truth, justice and the American way.
But there’s a problem with that theory: Amnesties, though not always labeled as such, are central to how the nation’s legal system functions.[...]
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My family immigrated here legally. I used to think that made us special.
It took travel and time for me to realize how arbitrary and unfair our immigration system is.
By Amanda Machado, Washington Post
October 13, 2017
Amanda Machado is a writer and educator who lives in Oakland, Calif.
During my first year in college, in 2006, I walked across campus one day and found hundreds of white crosses staked on the main green. An immigration activist group had created a mock graveyard to honor people who had died crossing the border. As I passed the demonstration, I felt uncomfortable.
As a Latina with U.S. citizenship, I didn’t know how to identify with the undocumented-immigration battle, which is again raging after hard-line immigration proposals from the White House.[…]
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Ousting undocumented workers can hurt the economy and put American freedoms at risk.
By Noah Smith, Bloomberg News
October 5, 2017
In its zeal to deport unauthorized immigrants, the U.S. risks turning itself into a quasi-police state -- all for little or no benefit to the native-born.
First of all, net illegal immigration to the U.S. ended a decade ago [...]
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