Arthur Helton: Well, thank you Utrice. It’s a pleasure to be involved in this series and I think we can already say that this has been a very profitable collaboration. Yesterday, we had a chance to investigate in depth the dimensions of immigration in New York City and I think we began touching, as we must, on issues of national identity and citizenship. Joining us in this conversation today are two colleagues who I am pleased to introduce. Muzzafar Chishti who is the Immigration Director at the Union of Needle Trades, Industrial, and Textile Employees, and has been a long and dedicated advocate on behalf of immigrants’ rights, particularly from the perspective of workers. And Antonio Maciel, a colleague of mine at the Open Society Institute, who directs the Emma Lazarus Fund, which is a 50 million dollar fund committed by philanthropist and financier George Soros to addressing concerns about welfare reform and its impact on legal immigrants in the past couple of years. So I am very pleased to welcome both to this discussion. Today, we will be talking about two issues closely related to immigration: the issue of citizenship and the issue of national identity. This has been a surprising decade in terms of citizenship, naturalization and national identity. There have been fierce debates. Early in the decade perhaps no more than 200,000 people a year sought to become naturalized US citizens. For 1999, it’s projected that 2 million people will seek to naturalize. The citizenship issue has become a surprising item in high political discussions. Presumably, we should all feel grateful that so many resident aliens and newcomers wish to become part of our community and to participate fully in public affairs in the United States. Is it really good news? Perhaps I can ask Muzzafar and Antonio to join in and share their perspectives on this controversial question.
Muzzafar Chishti: I’m really glad to be here Arthur. Well, I think it’s good news and bad news on citizenship. The great news is that a larger number of people -- unprecedented numbers -- are willing to become citizens; they are lining up to become part - in their final step - to become part of our national family. And while so many people are eagerly waiting to join this final ritual, our congress and our bureaucracy have reacted to this enthusiasm with an amazing amount of hostility and indifference. About 2.8 million people, I think by most recent estimates, are going to be in the backlog to become citizens by the end of September. Now, that compares to about 200,000, as you said, in the beginning of this decade. So, it’s just taking too long for too many people to become part of our society and that ultimately is not very good news for democracy.
Arthur Helton: Antonio?
Antonio Maciel: I agree and I think we are also seeing a bit of a backlash caused by not understanding or by distortions in the media of why people want to become citizens and we are starting to get attacks on immigrants that want to integrate, that want to be part of the society, that are very politically motivated attacks.
Utrice Leid: Is it...could you kind of elaborate on what you surmise the psychology is of seeking citizenship and naturalization. People think that it’s a very easy thing, they wake up one sunny morning and say, “Ah, I think I’ll immigrate today,” and then once they learned, okay I think I’ll become a naturalized citizen. I know for me it was a wrenching process where you make a decision to cut yourself off, in a way, to say goodbye to a way of life that has sustained you and a sense of nationhood that you grew up with and you carry with you and then you are in this place where your roots are not really deep enough to help you identify with it as such but you come to terms with the pragmatic business of having to put down roots somewhere and therefore you make this decision. Do you get a sense that immigrants kind of go through the same process that I did?
Antonio Maciel: I believe so. I believe that’s a very common reaction or psychological process that people go through because it can be one of life’s major steps or major life changing steps when you gave up or renounced your previous allegiance to a certain country and pledge allegiance and become totally integrated to your new country, to the United States. So it’s a huge step I think for many people. It’s also very, for most people, it’s very joyous affirming and embracing of the values and the way of life in the United States.
Muzzafar Chishti: Well, you know, like you I became a citizen, a naturalized citizen of the United States, and it clearly was, I think, if not one of my most difficult decisions, but it was clearly way up there. And I think it becomes harder if you look at modern times when it’s very easy for people to belong to more than one place. I think the psychological journey that new immigrants have to take towards becoming citizens is much more complex than it was in earlier times. In earlier times people came and they essentially sort of burnt their bridges when they came here. This was going to be their new home, all the ties to the old home were severed, and so it was a much easier decision. It’s much more complex now; I mean you can easily belong to two or three places of the, especially if you come here in the later part of your life. Therefore, the act of making the affirmative decision that I am going to become a citizen of the United States and make this my new home is a very powerful statement on the part of the new immigrant today. That’s why I think that for so many people to seek citizenship, given this complex psychological journey of today, is something that America should truly celebrate. It was a moving experience for me when I was sworn in. I actually, you know, go to federal court a lot as part of my job but here I was in a different circumstance in the court and I was actually truly impressed by what the judge said in swearing multitudes of us together. It actually happened on the same day as President Clinton was sworn in as president of the United States and he actually made it an important point to mention that both those things were happening on the same day and he wasn’t sure which of these was more important for the country - that so many people have consciously chosen to become citizens. The difference between citizens who are born here and citizens who are naturalized is that citizens who are born here don’t have to exercise the choice. I mean they are born citizens. Naturalized citizens affirmatively exercise their choice and they buy into a new identity called American which is essentially formed by the set of ideals that this country stands for. So when citizens actually decide to make the affirmative step it’s an affirmation of that ideal of America which actually is very good for the country. Naturalization is exactly the process that allows us, symbolically, the chance to reaffirm the American ideals again and again.
Utrice Leid: Well, I had a slightly different reaction. I felt full of emotion but it was of a different kind. I felt almost like I was committing an act of betrayal against my country and I didn’t take it too well. I felt that this becoming an American was in a sense a surrender (laughter)..a surrender and had things been equal, had things been fair I would have remained where I was and realized all my hopes and dreams and aspirations and would’ve been very happy. But of course the pragmatism took over and I decided I was young enough, I had to... I was already here several years, it made practical sense because I’m involved in community issues and that kind of thing. You know, if you’re going to pick a fight you have to have some roots some place so I decided, I did it as a practical matter but I must confess I was very angry about it because I wondered why it was that the situation on the reverse wasn’t as wrenching - many Americans who leave America and go to the Caribbean feel perfectly at home without having to suffer these same traumas that I experienced. And indeed, I saw the link between my having to leave and the fact that they came to where I was living and made it impossible for me to stay there. So that was what was going through my head.
Arthur Helton: Maybe we could take a moment and also think about the psychology on the other side. Until not very long ago, I would have assumed that of course these were difficult decisions, sometimes unfairly put to, sometimes forced upon, the individuals involved. Perhaps this is the case nowadays because of the incentives or disincentives contained in various recent legal reforms which push legal immigrants to naturalize. But I was most surprised by the reactions in Congress and in the executive branch to those, who after whatever struggles they went through, still presented themselves and petitioned to be members of the political community here. What kind of psychology are we talking about, people who are jealous, insecure, ungenerous, worried? Is this the latest battlefield in the culture wars? What, what are we looking at in terms of the psychology on the other side?
Antonio Maciel: Actually, the psychology for certain leaders or people in Congress, I wouldn’t even call it the psychology of it, I don’t think it gets to that level with them. It’s much more and I hate to sound sanguine, but a calculated political decision on their part to target and to use inflammatory rhetoric around immigrants wanting to naturalize. What could be more affirming of American identity than wanting to become citizens when, in fact, they are going out on a tacking thumb. I think it’s very much of a politically calculated move.
Utrice Leid: But is it so abnormal in the scheme of things? I mean if you understand national identity as a kind of asset and you understand the structure of the society where certain people are predestined to share in certain assets and other people are predestined to be locked out of it. The giving or the granting of this identity, this sense of Americanism is something that has to be earned and of course people will never fulfill all the requirements of earning the American label. I’m not so sure that even now it’s been more than a decade since becoming naturalized. I’m not quite.. I’m very uncomfortable saying American, I still am. I mean I haven’t adjusted very well to it at all because part of me is still fighting, part of me is still fighting this. But I am going to your point about the political nature of it and I’m thinking that it is just another part of the vicious race-based cycle the country is predicated on in which people who are powerful, the power elite in this country has defined who qualifies and who does not and it seems that it’s a definition that withstands the test of time. I don’t know how to get around it especially in these times when issues such as the global economy, you know, the state of unemployment, and the real state of affairs. To distract people from dealing with the substantive issues you can always pander to their basest instincts and this is one of the most effective ways to do so.
Muzzafar Chishti: Well, just following up on what Antonio was saying, some people in the public domain -- many of them happen to be your colleagues in the field of journalism -- have taken a short-term view on the issue of citizenship. They are talking about the integrity of the citizenship process and they think the integrity of the citizenship is under attack. If you scratch the surface, they are against all legal immigration. In fact, they would rather not have any of these people here at all. So their attack is not about citizenship, it’s about something else. Where I think the debate about psychology gets a little deeper than what you just see on the surface -- and at some level I think it’s a decent debate, I think it’s an important debate the country should have -- it’s about our identity. I think actually our president, President Clinton, talks about this issue in more profound ways than a lot of other politicians: that the biggest challenge America has in the third new wave of immigration is, are we up to this diversity or not. We are going to become, whether we like it or no, an incredibly diverse country; much more than we have ever been. I mean all demographers will tell you that by the year 2050 there will be no majority race in this country. When you ponder that phenomenon it scares the hell out of a lot of people. Just that simple issue: is race an important element of our identity or no. I happen to believe that’s valid debate, we should have it. But people may differ on which side of that question they come down. We think that race is not what defines the identity of America, it never has and it won’t in the future and some others who would believe that, no that’s exactly what defines it. But I think that’s the debate that the country should have all across and it’s our job to argue the two different points of that equation.
Utrice Leid: But as you - I’m sorry - as you navigate your day to day life, though, Muzzafar, and I wanted to ask you this as a fellow immigrant, what is your identity?
Muzzafar Chishti: Well, I think, you know, that’s a good question. I think that’s exactly why I was saying that becoming a citizen was probably the most important decision of my life. And it’s probably the same, I think, for most people who come to the States at an age that I did. You know, I came to this country when I was twenty-two. So in many ways, a good part of my identity, my psyche, was formed somewhere else. So it’s a much more difficult question, I think, for people like me. For people who come here very early in life, it may not be that hard. I think it’s just simply a truism of our current existence that we belong to more than one place: we have more than one identity. By becoming an American I can’t and I will not wash off all my past. But I think that’s the uniqueness about America. America allows you to become uniquely American without having to wash off everything of your background. I mean you can be quite comfortable listening to showtunes from Bombay cinema -- which I listen to -- and listen to jazz in the course of being an American. And that’s perfectly fine and it’s amazingly unique about America that we are able to do that without compromising on the concept of what it means to be an American. So I’ll always walk around with two identities, I’ll dream in two identities. But that’s the price I have paid in my internal journey and I think that’s what most immigrants do when they uproot themselves from one place and make America their new home.
Arthur Helton: That seems to precede a very strong case for the notion that the American identity is more about change than about stasis, more about multiple identities or dual identities than about the notion of a single nation state. Yet, there are those who would hearken back to times which never existed, and argue for a nation state or a bygone era, caused simply by misremembering something that never existed…
Utrice Leid: (laughing) I like that, “misremembering something that never existed.”
Arthur Helton: (laughing) Yeah, talk about mistakes. It just seems that if people were more accepting of the notion of change as more the norm than stasis, it would be a more comfortable, inclusive way to begin thinking about the American identity. Muzzafar, I hate to descend from the lofty plains of philosophy to the brass knuckles of politics, but I was actually surprised that President Clinton took an occasion recently to make a pro immigration statement. It didn’t get picked up as much as perhaps it deserved to be picked up, but what are the politics here? Why is this the way forward? Is this a partisan issue or is there more to it?
Muzzafar Chishti: I think the president is not simply being partisan about it because I think this is probably the third time in the last two years I’ve heard him speak very strongly on this issue. About a year ago, he spoke to the clergy at the annual prayer breakfast he has. I was extremely surprised that he took on the topic of immigration and diversity as a subject to talk to the clergy of America. So, I think he must feel deeply about this issue at some level. And I think, you know, my sense is that it’s not bad politics at the same time. Increasingly, the anti-immigrant sentiment that became so much a part of our political dialogue in the mid-nineties has turned itself on its head. It’s strangely no longer politically correct to be anti-immigrant in this country: something that has radically changed in about four years of our political existence. And the transforming point of that was Proposition 187 and Pete Wilson. I mean Pete Wilson’s legacy to the Republican party would be that he alienated the Hispanic and the immigrant vote from the Republican party. He might have risen to the reelection as Governor of California on the back of immigrants in 1994. But I think he unleashed a political movement that a lot of people had just underestimated. New immigrants started voting in large numbers and they started voting essentially driven by the feeling of xenophobia, anti-immigrant hysteria that they had been subjected to in the preceding years and when they looked at which party had been more blatantly anti-immigrant, it was the Republicans. So the backlash, I think, for the Republicans has not been lost on the Democrats and it has not been lost on some Republicans. If you look at governors like George Bush Jr. in Texas, he is courting immigrants and Hispanics in a big way because he understands the politics of Texas. Arthur, today Texas’s Hispanic population is like 28%, California’s Hispanic population is like 32%. If you are simply making political calculations it’s no longer politically profitable to ride an anti-immigrant wave. And I think that’s really where the politics of this comes down. But I think, hopefully, it’s also tied to the longer-term interests of the country. That is where I think President Clinton -- just as he does on issues of civil rights -- knows, more than any other recent president, that issues of diversity can be divisive and you really need political leadership to be able to address them.
Arthur Helton: Why can’t he then translate that lofty rhetorical support into practical accomplishments, into things like reducing the naturalization backlog? It’s just growing, becoming unmanageable. If there is one constant in the American identity, I guess, over the next couple of years, it will be that we will have a naturalization backlog. I’m not sure what else we can say with such certainty.
Utrice Leid: So Arthur what do you suggest we do? (laughter)
Muzzafar Chishti: Become the INS commissioner for a day (laughter)
Arthur Helton: Right. Let’s draw lots and see what we can do here. Is this ultimately a partisan issue or can it transcend partisan bickering?
Antonio Maciel: I wouldn’t call it a partisan issue, I would definitely call it a political issue. But couched in terms of partisanship with the Democratic party being pro immigrant and the Republican party being anti immigrant I think is simplifying the issue too much. It actually does not boil down to that type of division. Actually if you look at many immigrant communities from a traditional family values perspective, they are probably more aligned with a Republican party philosophy than with a Democratic party philosophy. So it’s very difficult to do that but I think it is very much a political issue in that parties are vying for the support of these new voters, especially the new voters.
Utrice Leid: I’m taking a look at, let’s say New York City, where a certain reality does creep in. The number of people in the city who are immigrants pales in comparison with the numbers of people who are immigrants who are eligible to vote. Now in the scheme of things, in politics this has been a really wonderful sleight of hand, blue smoke in mirrors kind of thing, that politicians do by appearing or they would say something that would be interpreted as pro immigrant but when you look at the policies that they actually are championing they are very anti immigrant. The classic case is Rudolph Giuliani. Rudolph Giuliani energized a section of the immigrant community. Why? Not because they are eligible to vote - some are - but because they can sustain a campaign. Even if they can’t vote they can contribute to campaigns and this is one of the things that both sides are engaging in - energizing a disempowered community but specifically for the purpose of priming the economic engine that will keep the political campaign in full gear. But even after you know these gestures, these public gestures we see what is going on in terms of day care, education, you know public school education, health care systems and health care delivery in the city. It is virulently anti-immigrant so I see both the Democrats and Republicans engaging in this kind of magicianship where they say one thing and they do something entirely different.
Arthur Helton: You agree it’s a bipartisan approach. (laughter)
Antonio Maciel: And this smoke in mirrors approach I think is especially evident in all the problems right now with the naturalization process and with immigrants who want to become citizens, who want to be able to participate to vote, to exercise their voice. Even before politicians or government structures supposedly support them it is impossible at this point to make it through the process in any time less that two, two and a half years which is in effect keeping over two million people disenfranchised.
Utrice Leid: We will come back to the discussion right after this short break.
(Music)
Utrice Leid: You are listening to WBAI 99.5 fm in new york. I’m Utrice Leid. The program is Talk Back and all week this week we’re taking a look of the impact, on the impact I should say of immigration in New York City.
Arthur Helton: Utrice, when we broke we were tantalized by the dilemma of the expanding backlog in naturalization. I see a factoid here: in New York it could take five years at the current pace of about 4,600 cases per month to actually achieve currency in terms of backlogged naturalization applications. And New York is not really all that different from elsewhere in the country. The question that Antonio asked you, let me ask back: what can be done? I mean, this seems like a curious dilemma in a way. We have this new pro-immigrant executive branch. The politics are becoming more favorable on immigrant assimilation -- becoming part of the political community. Yet the backlog grows. Is this what it appears to be on the surface, are there darker currents underneath, what are we really debating?
Antonio Maciel: Yes to all of the above. I think that a lot of what we are seeing now is in a way just the delayed reaction or the delayed consequence of the actions that had been taken earlier on. We’re just seeing their manifestation now. Actually, if New York has only a five year waiting period we’re doing pretty well here.
Antonio Maciel: But to answer your question specifically, I think it is a matter of resources at one level. The INS needs to be provided by Congress with more resources directed to the naturalization process to help speed it up while at the same time Congress has been really going on a witch hunt with the ins and putting up barriers at every step of the way preventing the INS from doing what it needs to do. Needs to back off.
Utrice Leid: But isn’t this, in a way, the end result of a confusion of roles as to what the INS is actually supposed to be doing. The INS, it seems to me, has been armed, literally armed to do a kind of policing when at least in my low novice understanding it was supposed to be handling the issue of naturalization and now it’s in the business of policing. So we have a confusion of roles it seems to me.
Muzzafar Chishti: Well, I think the ambivalence within the INS has always been true. They’re not sure whether they are an enforcement agency or a service agency and that informs this problem. But I think to their credit, INS did try to address the issue of naturalization very head-on in the middle of the 90’s sometime, I think it was 1995. They instituted a new program called Citizenship USA whose goal was to naturalize people within six months of application. And they had a program, they had personnel in place to do it. Now, it ran into political rough waters very quickly and I think we just haven’t recovered from that. So, to answer your question, Arthur, at one level I think people who are deliberately trying to impede the citizenship process -- and most of them happen to be in Congress -- should be called on exactly for what they’re doing. I mean they want a large disenfranchised community in the United States and I think how that impedes the progress of democracy is what has to be brought to the forefront and it has to be called that way. These people just don’t want this large number of governed masses to have a say in their government -- and that’s not democracy. The second point is that, ultimately, it has now become a management problem and we should exactly call it a management problem. I mean many of us worked with INS during the legalization program. It was not exactly a very popular program, but about three million people were pushed through a process reasonably efficiently in two short years. So even this agency – INS -- has proven that at times it can do good work -- it can do things if it is given the resources and if it is given the political will to do that and I think both those things are lacking. I just got my driver’s license renewed recently and I remember that the Motor Vehicles Bureau in New York was considered the world’s worst bureaucracy, that the lines would be endless. I got my driver’s license renewed in fifteen minutes.
Utrice Leid: I think I know where you went. You went to 34th Street.
Muzzafar Chishti: I went to 34th Street.
Utrice Leid: See I know. (laughter)
Muzzafar Chishti: So there are clearly offices like 34th Street. (laughter)
Utrice Leid: I can vouch, it’s the only office where you can get in and out of there in fifteen minutes. (laughter)
Muzzafar Chishti: Maybe the INS can learn something from the 34th Street bureaucracy. (laughter) And there are clearly more people who are applying for driver’s licenses than they are applying for citizenship. We teach management to the rest of the world. I mean we have the world’s best management firms right around the corner from this studio and we can’t manage processing 2 million people through paperwork. It just is unacceptable, I think, in current day technology.
Arthur Helton: Now the INS has hired several of those same firms recently to come up with management plans to do exactly that. The question though is why does this break down at the political level. I mean is it really just a matter of resources, and if so, what will it take?
Muzzafar Chishti: Well, no, I think the leadership in Congress on this issue is clearly not just confused: they are quite deliberate about what they want to happen. I don’t think - they may say the right things about it - I don’t think they actually want so many people to become citizens. And I think they certainly don’t want so many people to become citizens before the next election, talking about straight political calculations here. And I think to ignore that would be ignore the obvious. But I also think we haven’t been up front in calling the decisions of the members of Congress who are in those positions of leadership exactly for what their intentions are.
Utrice Leid: I’m going to ask you a question Muzzafar that would kind of put you right in the thick of your world, Union of Needle Trades, Industrial, and Textile Employees. I said yesterday that I get a sense that part of the backlash is the byproduct of a philosophy that in these times capital can flow freely, can move all over the place, it can be as animated as it wants to be but there seems to be a growing philosophy that labor ought to stay put. Now in the United States where we’ve seen the articles “The Browning of America” and other race based alarms going off. Do you kind of sense that there is a possible anticipation of the relocation of labor out of the United States back to their different countries and therefore immigration would become one of those so desired products that only the very choicest few will be allowed to accept naturalization.
Muzzafar Chishti: Well, you know restrictions and xenophobia are not new. Just in the last few years we have seen the most recent chapter of xenophobia in the country. And, you know this country – though we call ourselves the ultimate nation of immigrants -- has always been ambivalent about immigration. We have gone through cycles of welcoming and shunning immigrants and I think today we are in the cycle of shunning immigrants. I think talking about people feeling insecure about their own lives and their own livelihood and all that is a part, a central part of this debate. What we have seen in the last few years in this country is that we have gone through about eight years of sustained economic growth. This kind of economic growth we haven’t seen in a long time combined with high growth and low unemployment. But at the same time we have seen tremendous disparity growing between various economic classes in the country. And that, I think, for a society cannot be a very comfortable position for a long time. People who have been left out of the miracle of American economic growth are obviously feeling the pinch. And they have been schooled in many cases in talking about targets for their discomfort and for their being left out. People who have nothing to do with their plight -- immigrants -- become very important, very convenient scapegoats in all such economic times. American workers who feel vulnerable and don’t see themselves being part of this great miracle of economic growth think that immigrants must have something to do with depriving them of it. And, therefore, the call for shutting the borders becomes rampant. We, at our union, just from our experience of having worked with both immigrant and native born workers since the founding of our union 98 years ago, know that immigrants have nothing to do with either the displacement of US workers or the depreciation of their wages and working conditions, that the real culprits for such evils are very important economic interests who these days call themselves global capitalists -- who are going all around the globe looking for the cheapest form of labor that they can get. Now, we should be truly angry about that, I think we should be truly calling those entities to question and make them accountable. But to blame immigrants for the plight of workers in Flint, Michigan is just really addressing the wrong problem.
Arthur Helton: I’m also wondering, Antonio and Muzzafar, what your thoughts are about - actually I credit you Utrice with this suggestion - the notion of penetrating the barriers to full participation in public life in the United States by having localities grant citizenship for certain purposes, in terms of municipal governance or other such matters. Why in Houston not confer municipal citizenship for purposes of voting for the city council, opposed to waiting that twenty years before those individuals become citizens? Wouldn’t that starkly present the issue in political terms?
Antonio Maciel: Actually that’s already the case in some localities especially around school board elections. The only requirement is that you be a resident of the district and have kids in the system in order to be able to vote. There’s no requirement of US citizenship. So that’s already the case in some localities and I think it’s an interesting proposition to try to expand that in places where it doesn’t exist. Of course that would require going through maybe, you know, charter revisions or local state constitutional revisions. But it’s an interesting proposition.
Arthur Helton: But that political process might do what Muzzafar said should be done. It would clearly identify the interests at stake in the localities where these matters would be undertaken, the reverse, if you will, of Proposition 187.
Muzzafar Chishti: That’s true. I haven’t actually been that much of a fan of granting less than citizenship rights in local elections. I just think that it sort of dilutes the notion of citizenship. But given...when you’re confronted with multiple-year backlogs obviously the concept that you were opposed to two years ago may suddenly sound enticing. But on the other hand, I actually have become a new fan of localities loaning their personnel to INS. I mean it’s being done in San Francisco where the local politicians got so upset they actually offered twenty city officials to the INS and said, look, if you’re really interested in reducing backlog, here are our twenty county employees who’re willing to work for you. I think given that the immigration issue is no longer a national issue and its effects are found in localities and states, that kind of partnership between states and the federal government, would be a much more interesting one than we have seen before.
Utrice Leid: But it does occur to me that charter revision is due quite shortly in a matter of years actually [unclear] will be devised.
Arthur Helton: Isn’t that a proposal to take the 34th Street motor vehicles office and make it the naturalization office? (laughter)
Utrice Leid: Yes, I think it’s a great idea because I do know that let’s take a city like New York or Chicago. I know the political landscape would be changed dramatically if people had the right to vote at least in local and state wide elections the outcomes would be entirely different because many immigrants are coming from countries in which voting is a very serious matter. This is not something they play around with you know; the entire nation shuts down on election so that people can concentrate on this business of exercising the franchise. And I can’t help but think even though people say, well gee, you first have to have citizenship, but I construe it to be a state of affairs where there is taxation without representation for immigrants in cities like New York and other major urban centers.
Antonio Maciel: I may be wrong but I think that New York is actually one of the places where the only requirement for voting in school board elections or local school district elections is residency not citizenship. What happens then is that you have a very complex system where yes, certain families might be able to vote for these local elections based on their residency but based on their citizenship status or their immigration status they might be at risk if they come to the attention of the authorities under new very restrictive immigration laws. So that actually acts as a barrier for their exercising their right, coming forward.
Utrice Leid: Absolutely. This is my point, the point I made earlier about a system with checks and balances; the hand that giveth also is the hand that taketh away. We have, of course, the school board election process is a very good example. But then what happens in other policy areas such as bilingual education, such as, again, school quote overcrowding unquote - when 90,000 kids are out of a classroom I don’t call that overcrowding - lack of daycare and so forth. A number of related issues that counter balance in the negative any of the positive intentions by these policies.
Arthur Helton: I suppose you could limit that risk by enfranchising those who have resident status in the United States, as opposed to citizenship, if you really are trying to profile the backlog and the problems with achieving citizenship in the United States in a timely fashion. It would not be fully representative in the sense that parents without status would run the risk that you mention. Parents with status would run a risk of some confusion, and there are now certainly quite stringent laws against unlawfully voting which were introduced courtesy of certain disappointed...
Muzzafar Chishti: ex-candidates. (laughter)
Arthur Helton: ...ex members of congress.
Antonio Maciel: But actually I happen to agree with Muzzafar that in not wanting to dilute the importance of citizenship and the benefits that citizenship confers on those that have it. And I think that, while some of the motivations might be good, I’m kind of concerned of the unintended consequences of some of these.
Arthur Helton: Now the dilution of citizenship is oftentimes cited on the other side by those who are concerned that people are now naturalizing for the wrong reasons. They they are not going through this agonizing personal decision, it is argued, trying to decide whether to have multiple or dual identities and compromising those identities and withdrawing from a home to embracing a new home and nation, but that it’s a more pragmatic decision based on entitlement to public assistance and other such considerations. Isn’t that the concern most frequently presented by those who are completely on the other side of the issue?
Muzzafar Chishti: I think that’s absolutely true. In fact, people who have been responsible in Congress for impeding naturalization would exactly say that that citizenship is just an access to public benefit; it really is not a declaration of intent, of change of heart on the part of the newcomers. You know, I think that argument really bothers me more than anything else because it, first of all, tends to state that new immigrants have a different motivation than older waves of immigrants did. Then you can’t help putting it in straight racist terms just looking at where the attack is coming from on the part of these politicians. We will never know for what reasons waves of immigrants in the past chose to become citizens. We will never go into motivations good or bad about our forefathers who came here. But suddenly to judge the motivation of newcomers because we don’t seem to like the face of the newcomers is just blatantly racist. People argue that the welfare law of 1996 was the important turning point for applicants to come to the queues in such large numbers to become citizens. If we actually really see the pattern, the pattern of large applications for citizenship grew much before the 1996 welfare law. Actually the biggest surge came in the middle of California’s anti-immigrant Proposition 187. Proposition 187 became really a war on newcomers to this country by a reasonably powerful politician in the most populous immigrant state in the country. And I think it became a vehicle for people then to express their frustration with that move, and the only way for them to bring that message was to say look, if you’re going to attack our loyalty, we’re going to become citizens, we’re going to prove it. So therefore if you really look at the sequence I think most people who have impure motives on this, they just got the sequence wrong.
Utrice Leid: Well, we’ll take another break. We’ll come back right after this.
(Music)
Utrice Leid: Well, I wish I could tell you the title of that but all I know is that it’s music from Bosnia. Hello you’re listening to WBAI 99.5 FM in New York. I’m Utrice Leid, the program is Talk Back, the gathering place for the exchange of information, opinions, and ideas and today the second in a series on immigration and the impact in New York City and the environs of New York City and nationally as well. The co-host for this series is Arthur Helton. He is the director of migration programs at the Open Society Institute and the series is a collaboration with the Open Society Institute.
Arthur Helton: Thank you, Utrice. And I am joined today by Muzzafar Chishti who is the Immigration Director of Union of Needle Trades, Industrial, and Textile Employees as well as Antonio Maciel, a colleague at the Open Society Institute, who directs the Emma Lazarus Fund’s grantmaking. Emma Lazarus’s poetry adorns the nearby located Statue of Liberty. I’m not sure we can see it from the studio here.
Utrice Leid: If you strain your neck over you can see, I think, just the crown.
Arthur Helton: Muzzafar, I wonder if you could perhaps acquaint us with the current legislative debate on issues of naturalization. This is a high political issue which is now is reflected to some extent in a series of legislative proposals that may touch upon these questions of national identity.
Muzzafar Chishti: Well, as we were saying before, there are certainly important forces in Congress which would make it more hard for people to become citizens and they have expressed themselves in various legislative proposals. There are two or three proposals moving in Congress but the most significant one that is actually being marked up by the House subcommittee on immigration is authored by Lamar Smith, who is a congressman from Texas and has actually openly advocated very strong restrictionist immigration policies. The bottom line about the Smith Bill is that it would put tremendous new burdens in the process of citizenship. Instead of addressing the questions of efficiency and backlog -- where we now have a crisis situation -- it would actually make that situation worse. And, I think, the most onerous provision of the Smith Bill is that it, instead of just looking at the record of any person for the last five years -- which is what the requirement of the present law is -- it leaves open for questioning your entire record, your conduct during your entire life. And immigration officers would have the ability, and the provision would require them, to look at your entire life, look at incidents about your life even before you came to the United States. And they wouldn’t be asked just to investigate issues of criminal conduct, they would be allowed to investigate issues of any conduct that they find impinges on your good moral character. So that if there is certain life style issues that one particular examiner may find is not good for moral character that examiner could disqualify you from citizenship.
Utrice Leid: Hello, you’re on the air. This is WBAI 99.5 FM.
Caller: Hello?
Utrice Leid: Yes.
Caller: Good afternoon Utrice, Antonio, I can’t... I don’t know how to pronounce the other name.
Utrice Leid: Antonio Maciel and Muzzafar...
Caller: Safar.
Utrice Leid: No, Muzzafar.
Caller: Uzzafar.
Utrice Leid: Moo, moo.
Caller: Well, what’s in a name, he’s a good human being...
(laughter)
Muzzafar Chishti: Try again, that was good.
Caller: Now I’d like to (?), but you know John Kennedy the president wrote “A Nation of Immigrants.” Now I want to go even further and break the frontiers and this thing about passports they call immigration but eliminate the frontiers and passports and we have migration. Even with ...Given that, we recognize each other as human beings, and living beings have needs. Now how do we eliminate the frontiers and the passports. We start looking at each other as living beings instead of nationalities and everything else. I mean everybody has a gripe, right? I mean the fellow that called before, they were brought here as slaves, and they were mistreated. And others come who were mistreated, yet we’re all living beings. Now that’s the past and it’s still going on, and this all will end if we look at each other as living beings. And we have to survive. And, is money the problem?
Utrice: Let’s get you an answer Tony, and thank you so much for calling.
Muzzafar Chishti: I think that’s a wonderful ideal to strive for. I think that we should be working towards that. I think that actually in some areas, and we’ve talked about this a bit today, especially the economic areas, there is a move to break down borders, and to have the free movement of goods and capital. What our caller is talking about is also to have free movement of people. And I think it’s a wonderful ideal to start working towards.
Utrice Leid: Well, as I said, capital can move wherever it wants, people better stay put. That’s the meaning of the global economy. Hello, you’re on the air. This is WBAI.
Caller: Hello? I have to turn my radio down, hold on.....I don’t know how you guys got to where you are, I really don’t.
Utrice Leid: Who’s calling please?
Caller: My name is Stella, from the Bronx.
Utrice Leid: Okay.
Caller: You guys don’t even have a clue. It’s like my daughter says, “You’re dipping in the Kool-Aid and you don’t know the flavor.” You know nothing about American History. Nothing. You come from these Mickey Mouse countries and you think you’re going to change these white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants. You sound like Jews. I actually read in the New York Times.....
Utrice Leid: All right, well thank you so very much for your call. You’ve disqualified yourself on so many grounds it’s not even funny. (212) 209-2900 is the number to call. But let’s take another look at Antonio’s suggestion at eliminating frontiers and eliminating passports.
Arthur Helton: You know, if you really looked at the underlying principles of any immigration policy, you would see a tension between the broad universal notions of human rights, the rights of individuals to leave any country, including his or her own. On the other hand, you have the well-established, and now almost sacred, province of sovereignty, the notion that every political community can define itself. And that includes not only notions of inclusion, but also notions of exclusion. And the war between those two ideas, with the sovereignty principle being largely ascendant and the winner in those wars, is the ultimate philosophical foundation of all immigration policies. Immigration does touch values, and people can become impassioned, and sometimes inappropriately impassioned, on this issue.
Utrice Leid: Okay, well let’s take another call. Hello, you’re on the air with Muzzafar Chishti, Antonio Maciel, Arthur Helton, and I’m Utrice Lead. Hello?
Caller: Hello?
Utrice Leid: Yes, you’re on the air.
Caller: My name is Una, and I’m calling from Queens. I myself am speaking as a Korean immigrant, and um...I guess my question is really I feel like, speaking in the context of Korean immigrants in this country, that I feel that my...the cause of my immigration and my family is really marked by U.S. and Soviet intervention and militarization of Korea, and ultimately later on, with the help of the UN, the division of the nation, and forced, you know what we would call, “development”. And I really wonder what citizenship would mean to Korean immigrants, who have really been forced to come here as laborers and really have been marked as laborers as a cause of a war, as a cause of forced division and development upon Koreans in Korea, and really what citizenship of America would mean. How would you conceptualize citizenship of Korean-Americans, or any other people of color who are immigrants, who have really been forced to come into a nation in which the nation has intervened violently against what would be called their homeland?
Antonio Maciel: I think that’s an excellent question. And brings another dimension to the international component of immigration policy or citizenship policy where we get large numbers of immigrants to this country, and they’re immigrating precisely as a consequence of certain US international policies. And uh.. at a gut level this complicates, or makes much more difficult the whole psychological issue of what does it mean to be an American if the only recourse you had in fleeing a war-torn society was to come to the US, which was one of the participants in such a conflict, could really complicate your own feelings towards wanting to become a citizen or not.
Muzzafar Chishti: It’s a very interesting question. It’s what we were talking about earlier about this being a constantly changing phenomenon. I think one of the beauties about American immigration is that you could have people, even those who were displaced by America’s bad former policies, who could become reasonably important actors in the new country in shaping America’s policy towards those countries in the future. I mean these are transforming things about this country. And I think that’s why citizenship, once again, becomes a key to this. If the same South Koreans or North Koreans, who made their way to the US because of US policies in those countries, choose to become citizens, they could actually affect the policies of this country as new citizens. And that’s a transforming process about the country in itself.
Utrice Leid: They also can affect the processes in their countries of origin. I mean we are sitting right here in the company of someone who helped the Phillipino government.. the Philippine government, I should say, shape its constitution right here at NYU. So the ex-patriat community also has some leverage in shaping domestic policies in their lands of origin. Thank you so much Una. But Arthur, you had something to add? No?...Well hello, you’re on the air. This is WBAI.
Caller: Hello?
Utrice Leid: Yes, you’re on the air.
Caller: Well just to..
Utrice Leid: Who’s calling first?
Caller: Carol.
Utrice Leid: Thank you.
Caller: I guess a white American born here, with relatives that go back to European extraction, I wish we had a quota system, like “No more Capitalists, get off the boat.” I think so much, I’m learning as I get older, when you see certain waves of immigration, it is behind the dirty work of the United States. It seems like there isn’t that much loyalty to capital. They’ve played with the immigration laws to let computer-literate people, and in fact we don’t have a shortage of that level of technician people, yet we would see our tax-payer dollars going to keep Haitians..you know, literally drowning at sea. I just have this feeling as an American trying to come to grips with what’s going on here, we set this chit, oh bit chit to the Apple Americans who have been here since way back when, and we keep dragging our feet in doing the right thing there, and while it’s true there are many immigrants coming with all there war stories...uh that somehow, it seems when the budget gets tightened down there’s a great deal of well-healed immigrants that get to the front of the bus, then as, I think the Korean caller indicated, how much other people are kind of used when they sort of fall into that general “people of color”...but it’s so suspect what’s really going on, and I think the issue really has to be updated and I think somehow the one caller that sort of took a wrong turn there...
Utrice Leid: Well she was offensive, let’s be clear on that.
Caller: She was way off on that. But the hurts of a lot of people that have been sitting here, watching the same game coming around, and they really pre-date the big European waves of immigration, we sort of need some way to deal with the people value, the providing the basic, you know, housing and food and access to education. And yet this bit about, “Well these people are very good at computers”, or this or that and we need that. There’s no shortage of that crap in America and we know it. And it just seems like, you know I don’t know, if I was running the test to get into the country, “Are you a progressive?”, “Are you a capitalist?”, and then maybe we’re talking the same language that would help us all out. It’s just an observation.
Utrice Leid: Thank you. Thank you Carol.
Arthur Helton: It’s interesting, can a just immigration policy overcome injustice in American society? Probably not. Again, we’re asking an immigration policy or a citizenship debate to address larger issues in American society. Immigration policy is often times informed by issues of race and class. There are value judgments that are quite obvious in the way that immigration policy is declared and implemented, and the caller mentioned some of them. It is, I suppose, fair to say that immigration policy contains perhaps the same measure of hypocrisy and injustice that American society does.
Utrice Leid: Oh well, that’s a good hopeful summary there. Hello you’re on the air. This is WBAI. Hello? Hello, anybody home? Nobody’s home. Hello, you’re on the air.
Caller: Hello?
Utrice Leid: Hello.
Caller: Utrice?
Utrice Leid: Yes, you’re on the air. Who’s calling?
Caller: This is Frank. I’m calling from Suffolk County. I disagree with the words that I hear like, in the United States. It is my view that Americans, native-born, immigrant, what have you, have very little or no influence on the foreign policy of this country The example, case point...
Utrice Leid: But you know Frank, we’re not talking foreign policy, we’re talking immigration, so switch around and then you’ll be talking in our neighborhood.
Caller: I know, but immigration and foreign policy are connected.
Utrice Leid: Okay.
Caller: I look at the people that I have occasion to work with, and many of them are from El Salvador. And Ronald Reagan and subsequent Presidents did a real job on that government, so much so that a million of those people had to leave their country and they came here, which rightly they should have. Because of what our policies were, looking for this witch-hunt that was supposed to scare us into becoming a communist state. These people are genuinely honest, generous and friendly and what they had to go through because of what our country did to their country is reflected all over the planet. And I’ll just say one other thing, that from what I’ve been able to understand, this country has no friends outside of the United States, that are not dictators or some kind of repressive government. And as soon as the dictator falls we find ourselves in a foreign policy crisis and this is reflected in the immigration. When the people come here they are picked and choose, pick and choose for the purposes of a capitalist state. And I’ll just let it go at that and listen to your reaction.
Utrice Leid: But Frank I want to congratulate you, you brought it right back, you brought it home, that’s fine, thank you. Any response, any reaction?
Muzzafar Chishti: Oh I agree. I think there are clearly elements of US foreign policy, US trade policy, US economic policy, US cultural policy, I mean, the way we are influencing the culture of the world, which generates a wave of immigrants, and so they all have something to do with each other.
Utrice Leid: Thank you. Thanks a lot Frank for your call. Hello, you’re on the air. This is WBAI.
Caller: Hello
Utrice Leid: Yes.
Caller: Thank you for taking my call. Good afternoon.
Utrice Leid: Good afternoon. Who’s calling?
Caller: My name is Abdi from South Jersey.
Utrice Leid: Thank you Abdi.
Caller: I’m an immigrant, and I’m..a lot of times there is a mis-perception or misunderstanding, or mis-education, or mis-information of the people, thinking a lot of people would like to come to the US. And not really, necessarily. There are people who are forced, in terms of like Frank was explaining. When we have a crisis, and a situation overseas, that people are forced to come to the United States, but they would rather stay in their home country. They are comfortable where they are, but the situation where the crisis are occurring will force them to come to the United States. Because....it’s not unique to the United States also, you go all over the world, France, England, all, you know, colonies, we used to colonize all these third world countries, have the same phenomenon. And we see a rise of a right-wing extremist, anti-immigration policy in France, in England, all over Europe, and not against...only the South people, as such, but against the Romanian, or Yugoslavian or Croatian, displaced people for whatever different crisis. And this phenomenon is a form of international phenomenon, where it has same action, you know, how do you say it, manifestation, generally. It’s unfortunate. So what I’m saying is, that people really do not have that understanding, and they think that everybody is lining up in every capital city in the world where US embassies are located, line up to come to the United States in terms of looking for an opportunity. There is another side also, of course. That’s the reality also, but I’m not really denying it. But we can see that from fellow Americans, respective of their class, respective of their gender, or whatever, color...they have the same nativist understanding and resentment. And, uh..I think we have to take into account all the circumstances when we analyze immigration issues. And I thank you for call..for the opportunity.
Utrice Leid: Thank you Abdi. Any reaction?
Arthur Helton: It’s interesting that many of the calls that we’ve received have addressed the pains of immigration in many respects, and not just specifically the pain of removing oneself from one’s home. Callers have talked about the obstacles to integration constructed by the host country and the feelings of disassociation suffered as a result. They have talked about the difficulties in synthesizing old and new identities. We are talking about individuals who have a home, but because of circumstances many times beyond their control, they can’t live in them. They have been forced into a new place whose new ways are hard to learn and its inhabitants not always welcoming. The more smooth we can make the transition, the easier the acquisition of a new identity becomes, the more likely and sooner the new members of our society will be in a position to, and want to, make positive contribution to it. The refugee experience will be the topic we explore in our next program, and I hope, in as much depth as we’ve examined these questions of citizenship and national identity today.
Utrice Leid: Well this is a good place to segue into tomorrow’s program if you can amplify a bit and tell us what’s coming up tomorrow.
Arthur Helton: Well tomorrow we’ll be joined by Beverlee Bruce, who’s a fellow at the Social Science Research Council, and a Board Member of the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children, as well as Felix Cardona, who is a Professor of Public Policy and Legal Studies at the City University of New York. And it will be a discussion of refugee issues, immigration, and the causes and consequences of foreign policy. Who in the international community can and should provide protection and assistance to refugees? What role is the U.S. presently playing? What kind of solutions do we have for refugees? We will try to answer these question and others tomorrow.
Utrice Leid: And just before we sign off, could you talk a bit about the work of the Open Society, because we didn’t really do that yesterday. We didn’t describe what is the Open Society, and people might be curious about it.
Arthur Helton: The narrow answer is that the Open Society Institute is the organization through which philanthropist and businessman George Soros implements his philanthropy in the United States and other places in the world. This occurs through a network of national foundations, regional programs, many of which are based in Budapest, Hungary, which is George Soros’ country of origin, although he’s now a US citizen. Increasingly, programs and grant-making activities are tackling social issues in the United States. The Open Society, which is sometimes confused with open borders, is a philisophical constuct. It’s really a critique of Marx, as a matter of fact, the open society, and its enemies. But Antonio, I’ll give you a moment and maybe you could talk a little bit about the Emma Lazarus Fund, which is quite relevant in terms of today’s discussion.
Antonio Maciel: The Emma Lazarus Fund is a program of the Open Society Institute, which focuses on supporting non-profit organizations in the United States that are helping immigrants through the naturalization process and help them become citizens and to realize that dream.
Utrice Leid: And...
Muzzafar Chishti: I have nothing to do with the Open Society Institute.
Utrice Leid: No, I know
Muzzafar Chishti: Although I’m glad to be here with my two distinguished colleagues from the Open Society Institute.
Arthur Helton: Although the notion of an Open Society is one that I am certain that Muzzafar Chishti ascribes to in his work as well.
Utrice Leid: But tell me, Muzzafar, how did you come to this particular area of interest, immigration?
Muzzafar Chishti: Well, I started working at the International Ladies’ Garment Worker’s Union, which represents apparel workers in the United States, most of them women. I was just doing labor law and contracts, and immigration as an issue was becoming an important issue for the union, both in terms of defending the interests of workers in the organizing context, and in their own personal lives. Their immigration status was an issue. So it was up to me to respond to that. So we decided to provide a legal service to immigrant members and to have a more organized response to policies in immigration. And I started doing that, I was asked to do it. I had an interest in doing it because I was an immigrant, and there was a lot of support for that in the union, and that’s what we..I started doing in 1983.
Utrice Leid: Well, that brings us to the end of our program today. Thank you very much. Sam, Lewis, Anna, Antonio, Una, Carol, Frank and Abdi, thank you all for your questions and your comments. They were very insightful today. We’ll be back from 3 to 5 tomorrow, when Arthur Helton will co-host again another segment on immigration, this one focusing on refugee issues. Keep tuned. Stay tuned to Behind the News, with Sumori Marxman coming up next. We’ll see each other tomorrow. Thanks. Bye-bye.
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