Democrats discuss illegal immigration in NPR debate

On Tuesday, Democratic candidates participated in an NPR-hosted radio debate in Iowa, almost exactly a month before the January 3 Iowa caucuses. Besides Hillary's support of a resolution that deemed the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a 'terrorist organization'--a move that now looks even more ridiculous given the latest National Intelligence Estimate indicating that Iran put their nuclear weapons program on hold in 2003--illegal immigration again emerged as a source of lively discussion. When asked whether or not they believed it was the duty of every American citizen to turn any person living illegally in the US over to the authorities, all seven candidates present joined in a unanimous 'no'. Instead, they agreed, it should be the responsibility of the federal government to enforce an immigration law that provides adequate channels for legalization.

Tracking down illegal immigrants, the candidates said, is the job of the government, not civilians. But the moderators pressed the issue, pointing to what they suggested were inconsistencies.

After Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said she did not think that civilians should be “enforcing the broken laws of our federal immigration system,” Steve Inskeep of NPR asked her, “If a citizen witnessed some other kind of crime, wouldn’t you want them to report it?”

“It’s a very clever question, Steve,” Mrs. Clinton replied, “but I think it really begs the question. What we’re looking at here is 12 to 14 million people — they live in our neighborhoods, they take care of our elderly, they probably made the beds in the hotels that some of us stayed in last night. They are embedded in our society. If we want to listen to the demagogues and the calls for us to begin to try to round up people and turn every American into a suspicious vigilante, I think we will do graver harm to the fabric of our nation than any kind of person-by-person reporting of someone who might be here illegally.”

Senator Barack Obama responded to the question by saying that “we are not going to deputize a whole bunch of American citizens to start grabbing people or turning them in.”

Representative Dennis J. Kucinich said, “We don’t encourage vigilantism in this country.”

More than the scripted response of the candidates--I mean, they couldn't actually endorse giving every American a badge, patting them on their back and wishing them luck in "saving your country from them darned alien invaders"--the mere fact that the radio host pushed the issue reveals the success of the 'demagogues', to whom Hllary refers, in portraying illegal immigration as a threat to the integrity of our pure WASP blood. Besides, the question ignores the distinction that exists between a civil offense and that of a criminal nature. Despite efforts of backers of H.R. 4437, the act of living illegally in the US is still a purely civil offense. As long as it is, suggesting that Americans can report it to the cops as if they had witnessed a murder, doesn't jive with the law and besides that, it isn't wise.

Perhaps more importantly, as I mentioned above, if the right has their way we'll soon be knee deep in a "McCainism" (I'm working on getting a copyright for that) that has us more paranoid of illegal immigrants than my grandparents' generation was of 'reds' over 50 years ago. Let's prove to ourselves and the world that we've moved past those 'bad old days' and that we now have the ability to accept others into our country regardless of what they look like or which economic system they happen to prefer. This is the only way we can go about gaining others' sympathy in exercising our inalienable right to take measured, but sensible and just steps in protecting our nation's borders, and essentially, its citizens.