The News Tribune (Lite) - End unfair, selective enforcement of immigration laws

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End unfair, selective enforcement of immigration laws

RICARDO SNCHEZ
U.S. Department of Homeland Security chief, Michael Chertoff, proclaims these days that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are doing all they can to “control our borders,” part of which entails workplace enforce-ment.

Truth is, since well before World War II, immigration authorities have selectively enforced our law. Selectively means, for one, not straying into agricultural fields during harvest seasons. To be fair, agriculture is only one of many industries that have thrived using undocumented workers. Count hotels, restaurants, forestry, fishing, construction, roofing and others in the mix.

So taxpayers believe that immigration officials are vigilant in their duties, periodically we see television footage of workplace raids where a handful of workers are detained. What we don’t see or hear about is more telling. None of us heard two weeks ago of ICE agents apprehending an 18-year-old at a South Seattle apartment complex getting into her car to go to high school, did we?

They guessed right. She was in the U.S without legal papers. Without providing or ensuring that she had legal advice, this frightened young woman went before a judge and was told that she could leave the country voluntarily or face further detainment and a hearing at a later date.

She chose to leave the country – dreams dashed for this high school senior who aspires to become a doctor. Another victory for ICE and U.S. taxpayers.

We’re easily duped. No, worse. We’re silently assenting to duplicitous immigration practices that keep immigration agents at bay during harvest seasons. Why? Because for consumers, it ensures we continue to pay lower prices for agricultural products than any industrialized nation in the world.

If Chertoff and ICE were to take their job of “controlling our borders” seriously, they would be camped out in the apple fields of Eastern Washington. But they know that members of our own congressional delegation would intervene to stop the raids, just as they have in recent years in Washington and across the nation.

The reason: Ill-timed raids would spell economic ruin for our state’s largest fruit-crop industry, valued at more than a billion dollars annually. Washington grows well over half of the apples consumed in our nation. The stakes are large. But individuals at bus stops or student scholars on their way to school remain fair game.

It’s been this way for decades, but it’s not my version of “The American Way.” If that ideal guided the national conscience, we might stand collectively and say to Chertoff and Congress: Unless you are willing to enforce our laws, no exemptions, keep your hands off innocent young people, especially promising students whose only “wrong” was obeying their parents when they were brought into the country, some as infants.

Next, we would stand to support our state’s two U.S. senators in calling for approval of the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, a bill that would provide a path toward legal residency for undocumented high school graduates we have educated and who have lived here for at least five years.

Perhaps then we could find our way to fair and sensible immigration reform that supports our industries and recognizes those whose work ethic and strong family values have benefited our nation.

Ricardo Snchez is chairman of the Latino/a Educational Achievement Project, and is a U.S. citizen who lives in Seattle. He can be reached at rsanchez@seanet.com.