Sunday, February 19, 2017

A Day Without (Illegal) Immigrants

   So, was "a day without immigrants" (the name) another attempt to blur the legal/illegal immigrant distinction? That's how I took it...but you know me. I thought it was, in substance, supposed to be a way to offer evidence for the common claim that the U.S. can't run without illegal immigrants doing jobs that the rest of us don't want. If so, then it would be accurately called "a day without illegal immigrants," obvs...but I took it that the secondary aim was to further blur the relevant distinction.
   Wikipedia (as of today) says it was:
...to demonstrate the importance of immigration...and to protest President Donald Trump's plans to build a border wall and to potentially deport millions of illegal immigrants. The strike called for immigrants not to go to work, to avoid spending money, and keep children home from school. People took part to show the importance of immigrants to the economy and also to protest possible racial profiling of U.S. citizens by immigration enforcement.
So that seems to indicate that it it was primarily about illegal immigration.
   Needless to say, that could be wrong...but blurring that distinction has been one of the left's general strategies on this issue, no? I mean, they tend to be jargon-mongers, and the point of much of the jargon is tactical (e.g. 'microaggression,' 'transwoman,'). PC terminology does not aim for accuracy. Their insistence that 'illegal alien' had to be replaced by 'illegal immigrant' made it easy to fudge the legal/illegal distinction by simply using 'immigrant.' (I rather expect that the new preference for 'migrant' ultimately aims to blur the distinction between coming and going. Then they could, for example, characterize the U.S. as regulating migration, suggesting that we don't let people leave. Anyway, I predict that'll be part of some future phase of all of this: lumping the U.S. together with e.g. the U.S.S.R. as a nation that "inhibits free movement of people" or some such thing.
   OTOH, many on the left do think that the right is anti-immigrant generally...and Trump has given them some ammunition with the attempted "Muslim ban"...but I doubt that this is what's up. I think it's the other thing.
   For the record again--and I don't think one should really say things like this, because it plays into the hands of the left by, basically, apologizing for a view that requires no apology--I'd love to be able to take in everyone who wants to come here. I long for the days when we could tell the world to give us its tired, its poor, and its huddled masses yearning to breathe free... But that's no longer possible. To think it is is as much a fantasy as thinking that we can remake the world so that everyone is happy where they are. It's just not in our power.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home