Holding her baby, a 15-year-old girl, traveling north through Mexico, noticed her “coyote” was now driving southward. Fearful she might be coerced into sex slavery, she dumped her purse onto a front seat, including $100. Her escort took the bribe and set her free. She and her baby made it to the U.S. border.
Without knowing her, many would call her a criminal or “lazy cheater,” someone here to take our jobs, who refused to migrate “the right way.” An illegal alien. She could be from Bangladesh, Cameroon, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Venezuela or Ukraine.
According to the Brookings Institute, U.S. population growth has stalled to the lowest pace since 1900, primarily due to young women postponing childbirth and restrictive immigration laws. According to the Census Bureau, by 2030 immigration will overtake natural increases (births over deaths) as the primary driver of our population growth and 40% of Americans will be at retirement age. It’s predicted that in 2034, for the first time, older adults will outnumber children. And we’re doing better than other “developed countries.” No matter what, our future population will be more racially and ethnically diverse. (Some of us enjoy the fruits of diversity.)
This has implications. We are already experiencing a shortage of workers, especially in manufacturing, government, transportation and agriculture. Baby boomers are retiring at a record pace. By 2031 there will be twice as many retirement beneficiaries compared to 2008, reducing the worker-to-beneficiary ratio to, respectively, 60% to 40%. According to the Social Security Administration, retirement funds are expected to run out in 11 years without more workers paying Social Security taxes or an infusion of money.
The 1952 Immigration & Nationality Act, as amended, is the law of the land. With quotas, it is designed to regulate naturalization, admit foreign students, assign work visas and grant asylum. It was amended in 1986 under President Ronald Reagan to “legalize” 3 million undocumented people.
We are now engaged in a “restriction movement,” which thrives on angry rhetoric, spending unprecedented tax dollars on immigration enforcement, resulting in an extraordinary rise in deportations, with new, state anti-immigration laws coming online regularly.
Since 2006, proposals to overhaul our immigration law have been stuck in our congressional morass, yet representatives from both sides of the aisle agree that we need comprehensive reform. Meanwhile, people who have been taken or forced to go home have reportedly been killed, tortured, raped and extorted when they arrive, a policy of “deterrence by cruelty.”
According the dean of YaleUniversity, Peter Salovey, the Bible, Torah and Quran all command that we welcome immigrants, refugees and strangers. He quotes the Bible, “So you also must love the foreigner, since you yourself were foreigners in the land of Egypt” and “Like my forebears, I am an alien, resident with you.” Deuteronomy 10:19; Psalm 39:12. Citing the Gospel of Matthew, a professor of the Hebrew Bible at YaleDivinitySchool, Joel Baden, describes Jesus and his family as political refugees. He cites the story in the book of Ruth about “a foreigner who comes to Israel, working as a laborer in the fields, hoping for a better life. And it is this foreigner, immigrant and stranger, who turns out to become the ancestor of King David, and, through him, Jesus.” Baden quotes Deuteronomy, “You too must love the stranger,” and Matthew 25:41-46: “I was a stranger and you did not invite me in .…” and you will be judged “just as you did to the least of these, you did to me.”
A Brownsville organization called Team Brownsville gets up very early to meet BayviewDetentionCenter buses to caringly greet immigrants in handcuffs and leg-irons and provide backpacks containing necessities for their journeys north. A member of Team Brownsville commented on the story about the 15-year-old mother, “… what of the numerous youngsters who don’t have the resources for a bribe? Are they condemned to be sex slaves?”
Our immigration laws are bad morality, bad policy, and causing unnecessary pain.
Barry R. Benton lives in Brownsville.
