The American Dream, in shambles? The truth
VIA THE ATLANTIC / SHANNON STAPLETON / REUTERS
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Ironically, this is the famous poem displayed on the Statue of Liberty, AKA the Mother of Exiles, greeting millions of immigrants and embodying hope and opportunity for those seeking a better life in America. It stirs the desire for freedom in people all over the world. It represents the United States itself, a symbol of the American Dream. Or is it?
What does the American Dream truly mean to immigrants today? Currently, under Donald Trump’s Presidency, it means to walk thousands of miles, to escape gang violence and danger and seek asylum only to be put in another kind of hell, immigration detention centres. It means being subject to inhumane conditions and treated as a criminal. It means being separated from your family.
Truth #1: Immigration detention is civil detention.
The system is marred by deaths, poor medical care, sexual assault, and no meaningful oversight. Mandatory detention laws have exacerbated this massive system of injustice, stripping due process from immigrants by jailing them without bond hearings before an immigration judge. Frankly, this is a reflection of the Trump administration’s attempts to demonise a whole group of people for their own gain. As of July 2019, ICE is jailing a record-breaking 54,000 people a day, even though Congress only funded ICE detention beds for an average daily population of 45,274 detention beds per day. ICE is well known for misusing the exorbitant amount of money granted to it by Congress, continuously overspending the agency’s allocated funds. It then uses this higher level of spending as the baseline for its next round of budget negotiations. The corruption doesn’t stop there, ICE has also looted funding from other federal agencies--including FEMA, which provides natural disaster aid, in order to preserve cruel detention practices and maintain its high-cost imprisonment of immigrants.
Truth #2: Leadership in Washington doesn’t reflect the will of the American people.
According to a new CBS News poll, more than two-thirds (67%) of Americans say the family separation policy is unacceptable, while only 17% said they approved of the practice. Another 12% said they didn't know enough to answer the question, and 4 % said they had no opinion. The change in policy comes from the administration adopting a "zero tolerance" enforcement stance on everyone who crosses the border illegally being charged with a misdemeanour crime. That, in turn, in turn has triggered the longstanding law of separating children from parents at the border.
Truth #3: The crisis at the border didn't start with Donald Trump and it won’t end with him either.
The controversy over the separation of children from their families at the border has exploded recently with the media putting the blame squarely on the Trump administration. But as Trump officials and allies have argued, the law specifically demanding separation of children from their parents has been in the books far longer than the current president has been in office. Donald Trump rather is a manifestation of the pre-existing misconceptions about immigration that plague the American people that continue to be misinformed on the issue.
Truth #4: Believe it or not, immigration enriches the American economy and society. Here’s why.
If we’re being honest an influx of people into the country brings tremendous benefits to the economy. The 2005 (ERP) devotes an entire chapter to immigration and reports that "A comprehensive accounting of the benefits and costs of immigration shows the benefits of immigration exceed the costs”. Not to mention that as of 2014, the latest year for which we have statistics, the median time an undocumented adult has been living in the U.S. is 13.6 years and of all the illegal immigrants in America far less than one million have criminal records. Assuming the criminal group will be dealt with by President Trump's deportation efforts, that leaves 10 million who will not be subject to criminal expedited processing. We are talking about those illegal immigrants who, apart from their immigration status, live normal, decent lives and who have families and jobs in the United States and who, for years, have been contributing to America through their work and taxes. In fact, immigrants to the U.S. are less likely than native-born citizens to be arrested, charged with a crime, convicted of a crime or felony, incarcerated, or institutionalised. The Hamilton Project researchers cite a 2014 paper, by University of Pennsylvania criminology professor Aaron Chalfin, which found no connection between Mexican immigration and U.S. crime rates. Furthermore, researchers have found that providing legal status to undocumented residents actually causes crime to decline.
Truth #5: Congress can act and make substantial changes to the system despite President Trump’s stance.
Members of Congress have oversight authority over DHS (The Department of Homeland Security) and can visit the detention centres immigrants are being held in, often privately owned and for-profit facilities. In addition to this, congressional officials can co-sponsor the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act of 2019, which will address long standing and widespread failures of the immigration detention system that have often resulted in serious harm for people whose only crime is essentially seeking asylum. Lastly, representatives should meet with constituents who are impacted community members and other local stakeholders so they can gain a better understanding of the issue, because politics is indeed personal and policies impact many communities at a personal level.
We can’t ignore the founding principles of the USA: liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and capitalism. It can be seen that these ideas were created, and are only marketed to a select group of individuals, white people. This has been explicitly seen in the wake of the sitting President’s chilling rhetoric about immigrants and the blatant racism that accompanies his comments. Diversity does not endanger our so-called “Americaness”, rather it’s woven into the fibre of our country. It’s about time Americans embrace the coveted diversity that is boasted about by Lady Liberty.
By Emma Bhansingh
(she/her)
IG: emm.881
Emma is the Politics Editor @ PARDON! read more about her on our TEAM! page.