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We often hear these days
that the immigration system is broken.

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I want to make the case today that
our immigration conversation is broken

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and to suggest some ways that together
we might build a better one.

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In order to do that, I'm going
to propose some new questions

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about immigration,

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the United States and the world,

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questions that might move the borders
of the immigration debate.

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I'm not going to begin with the feverish
argument that we're currently having,

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even as the lives and wellbeing
of immigrants are being put at risk

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at the US borders and far beyond it.

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Instead I'm going to begin
with me in graduate school

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in New Jersey in the mid-1990s
earnestly studying US history,

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which is what I currently
teach as a professor

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at Vanderbilt University
in Nashville, Tennessee.

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And when I wasn't studying,

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sometimes to avoid
writing my dissertation,

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my friends and I would go into town

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to hand out neon-colored flyers

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protesting legislation

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that was threatening to take away
immigrants' rights.

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Our flyers were sincere,
they were well-meaning,

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they were factually accurate,

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but I realize now they were also
kind of a problem.

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Here's what they said:

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"Don't take away immigrant rights
to public education,

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to medical services,
to the social safety net.

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They work hard. They pay taxes.

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They're law-abiding.

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They use social services
less than Americans do.

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They're eager to learn English,

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and their children serve
in the US military all over the world."

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Now these are of course arguments
that we hear every day.

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Immigrants and their advocates use them

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as they confront those who would
deny immigrants their rights

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or even exclude them from society.

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And up to a certain point,
it makes perfect sense

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that these would be the kinds of claims
that immigrants' defenders would turn to.

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But in the long term,
and maybe even in the short term,

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I think these arguments
can be counterproductive.

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Why?

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Because it's always an uphill battle

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to defend yourself
on your opponents' terrain,

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and, unwittingly,

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the handouts that my friends
and I were handing out

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and the versions of these arguments
that we hear today,

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we're actually playing
the anti-immigrants' game.

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We were playing that game
in part by envisioning

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that immigrants were outsiders,

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rather than, as I'm hoping
to suggest in a few minutes,

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people that are already,
in important ways, on the inside.

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It's those who are hostile
to immigrants, the nativists,

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who have succeeded
in framing the immigration debate

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around three main questions.

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First, there's the question of whether
immigrants can be useful tools.

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How can we use immigrants?

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Will they make us richer and stronger?

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The nativist answer
to this question is no,

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immigrants have little
or nothing to offer.

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The second questions is whether
immigrants are others.

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Can immigrants become more like us?

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Are they capable of becoming more like us?
Are they capable of assimilating?

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Are they willing to assimilate?

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Here, again, the nativist answer is no,

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immigrants and permanently
different from us and inferior to us.

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And the third question is whether
immigrants are parasites.

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Are they dangerous to us?
And will they drain our resources?

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Here, the nativist answer is yes and yes,

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immigrants pose a threat
and they sap our wealth.

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I would suggest that these three questions
and the nativist animus behind them

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have succeeded in framing the larger
contours of the immigration debate.

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These questions are anti-immigrant
and nativist at their core,

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built around a kind of hierarchical
division of insiders and outsiders,

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us and them,

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in which only we matter and they don't.

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And what gives these questions
traction and power

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beyond the circle of committed nativists
is the way that they tap into

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an everyday, seemingly harmless
sense of national belonging

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and activate it, heighten it,

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and inflame it.

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Nativists commit themselves
to making stark distinctions

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between insiders and outsiders,

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but the distinction itself is at the heart
of the way nations define themselves.

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The fissures between inside and outside,

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which often run deepest
along lines of race and religion,

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are always there to be
deepened and exploited.

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And that potentially
gives nativist approaches

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far beyond those who consider
themselves anti-immigrant,

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and remarkably even among some
who consider themselves pro-immigrant.

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So, for example,

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when immigrants act allies

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answer these questions
the nativists are posing,

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they take them seriously.

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They legitimate those questions,
and, to some extent,

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the anti-immigrant assumptions
that are behind them.

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When we take these questions seriously
without even knowing it,

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we're reinforcing the closed,
exclusionary borders

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of the immigration conversation.

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So how did we get here?

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How did these become the leading ways
that we talk about immigration?

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Here we need some backstory, which is
where my history training comes in.

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During the first century

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of the US's status
as an independent nation,

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it did very little to restrict
immigration at the national level.

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In fact, many policymakers
and employers worked hard

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to recruit immigrants

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to build up industry

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and to serve as settlers,
to seize the continent.

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But after the Civil War,

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nativist voices rose
in volume and in power.

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The Asian, Latin American,
Caribbean and European immigrants

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who dug Americans' canals,

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cooked their dinners,

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fought their wars,

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and put their children to bed at night,

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were met with a new and intense xenophobia

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which cast immigrants
as permanent outsiders

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who should never be allowed
to become insiders.

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By the mid-1920s, the nativists had won,

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erecting racist laws

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that closed our untold numbers
of vulnerable immigrants and refugees.

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Immigrants and their allies
did their best to fight back,

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but they found themselves
on the defensive,

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caught in some ways
in the nativists' frames.

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When nativists said
that immigrants weren't useful,

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their allies said yes, they are.

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When nativists accused
immigrants of being others,

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their allies promised
that they would assimilate.

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When nativists charged that immigrants
were dangerous parasites,

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their allies emphasized
their loyalty, their obedience,

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their hard work, and their thrift.

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Even as advocates welcomed immigrants,

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many still regarded
immigrants as outsiders

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to be pitied, to be rescued,

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to be uplifted and to be tolerated,

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but never fully brought inside
as equals in rights and respect.

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After World War II, and especially
from the mid-1960s until really recently,

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immigrants and their allies
turned the tide,

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overthrowing mid-20th century restriction

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and winning instead a new system
that prioritized family reunification,

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the admission of refugees,

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and the admission of those
with special skills.

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But even then,

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they didn't succeed in fundamentally
changing the terms of the debate,

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and so that framework endured,

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ready to be taken up again
in our own convulsive moment.

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That conversation is broken.

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The old questions
are harmful and divisive.

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So how do we get from that conversation

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to one that's more likely to get us
closer to a world that is fairer,

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that is more just,

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that's more secure?

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I want to suggest that what we have to do

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is one of the hardest thing
that any society can do:

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to redraw the boundaries of who counts,

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of whose life, whose rights,

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and whose thriving matters.

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We need to redraw the boundaries.

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We need to redraw the borders of us.

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In order to do that, we need to first
take on a worldview that's widely held

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but also seriously flawed.

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According to that worldview,

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there's the inside
of the national boundaries,

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inside the nation which is where we
live, work and mind our own business,

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and then there's the outside,
there's everywhere else.

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According to this worldview,
when immigrants cross into the nation,

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they're moving from
the outside to the inside,

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but they remain outsiders.

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Any power or resources they receive

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are gifts from us rather than rights.

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Now it's not hard to see why
this is such a commonly held worldview.

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It's reinforced in everyday way
that we talk and act and behave

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down to the bordered maps
that we hang up in our schoolrooms.

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The problem with this worldview
is that it just doesn't correspond

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to the way the world actually works
and the way it has worked in the past.

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Of course, American workers
have built up wealth in society,

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but so have immigrants,

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particularly in parts of the American
economy that are indispensable

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and where few Americans work,
like agriculture.

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Since the nation's founding,

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Americans have been inside
the American workforce.

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Of course, Americans have built up
institutions and society

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that guaranteed rights,

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but so have immigrants.

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They've been there during
every major social movement,

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like civil rights and organized labor,

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that have fought to expand
rights and society for everyone.

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So immigrants are already inside

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the struggle for rights,
democracy and freedom.

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And finally, Americans
and other citizens of the Global North

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haven't minded their own business,

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and they haven't stayed
within their own borders.

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They haven't respected
other nations' borders.

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They've gone out into
the world with their armies,

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they've taken over
territories and resources,

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and they've extracted enormous profits
from many of the countries

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that immigrants are from.

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In this sense, many immigrants are 
actually already inside American power.

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With this different map
of inside and outside in mind,

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the question isn't whether
receiving countries

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are going to let immigrants in.

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They're already in.

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The question is whether
the United States and other countries

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are going to give immigrants
access to the rights and resources

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that their work, their activism,
and their home countries

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have already played
a fundamental role in creating.

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With this new map in mind,

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we can turn to a set of tough,
new, urgently needed questions

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radically different from the ones
we've asked before,

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questions that might change
the borders of the immigration debate.

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Our three questions are
about workers' rights,

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about responsibility

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and about equality.

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First, we need to be asking
about workers' rights.

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How do existing policies make it harder
for immigrants to defend themselves

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and easier for them to be exploited,

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driving down wages, rights
and protections for everyone?

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When immigrants are threatened
with roundups, detention and deportations,

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their employers know
that they can be abused,

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that they can be told

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that if they fight back,
they'll be turned over to ICE.

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When employers know

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that they can terrorize an immigrant
with his lack of papers,

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it makes that worker hyper-exploitable,

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and that has impacts
not only for immigrant workers

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but for all workers.

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Second, we need to ask questions
about responsibility.

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What role have rich, powerful countries
like the United States played

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in making it hard or impossible

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for immigrants to stay
in their home countries?

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Picking up and moving from your country
is difficult and dangerous,

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but many immigrants simply do not
have the option of staying home

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if they want to survive.

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Wars, trade agreements,

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and consumer habits
rooted in the Global North

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play a major and devastating role here.

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What responsibilities
do the United States,

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the European Union, and China --

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the world's leading carbon emitters --

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have to the millions of people
already uprooted by global warming?

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And third, we need to ask
questions about equality.

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Global inequality is a wrenching,
intensifying problem.

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Income and wealth gaps
are widening around the world.

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Increasingly what determines
whether you're rich or poor

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more than anything else
is what country you're born in,

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which might seem great
if you're from a prosperous country,

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but it actually means
a profoundly unjust distribution

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of the chances for a long,
healthy, fulfilling life.

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When immigrants send money
or goods home to their family,

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it plays a significant role
in narrowing these gaps,

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if a very incomplete one.

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It does more than all
of the foreign aid programs

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in the world combined.

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We began with the nativist questions,

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about immigrants as tools,

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as others, and as parasites.

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Where might these new questions
about worker rights,

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about responsibility,

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and about equality,

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take us?

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These questions reject pity

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and they embrace justice.

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These questions reject
the nativist and nationalist division

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of us versus them.

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They're going to help prepare us
for problems that are coming

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and problems like global warming

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that are already upon us.

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It's not going to be easy to turn away
from the questions that we've been asking

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towards this new set of questions.

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It's no small challenge

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to take on and broaden the borders of us.

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It will take wit, inventiveness

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and courage.

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The old questions have been
with us for a long time,

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and they're not going
to give way on their own,

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and they're not going
to give way overnight.

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And even if we manage
to change the questions,

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the answers are going to be complicated
and they're going to require

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sacrifices and tradeoffs.

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And in an unequal world, we're always
going to have to pay attention

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to the question of who has the power
to join the conversation

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and who doesn't.

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But the borders of the immigration debate

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can be moved.

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It's up to all of us to move them.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)