Our immigration conversation is broken -- here's how to have a better one

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

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

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

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

about immigration,

the United States

and the world,

questions that might move the borders
of the immigration debate.

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

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

at the US border and far beyond it.

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

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

which is what I currently teach
as a professor at Vanderbilt University

in Nashville, Tennessee.

And when I wasn't studying,

sometimes to avoid
writing my dissertation,

my friends and I would go into town

to hand out neon-colored flyers,
protesting legislation

that was threatening to take away
immigrants' rights.

Our flyers were sincere,
they were well-meaning,

they were factually accurate ...

But I realize now, they were also
kind of a problem.

Here's what they said:

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

to medical services,
to the social safety net.

They work hard.

They pay taxes.

They're law-abiding.

They use social services
less than Americans do.

They're eager to learn English,

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

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

Immigrants and their advocates use them

as they confront those who would
deny immigrants their rights

or even exclude them from society.

And up to a certain point,
it makes perfect sense

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

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

I think these arguments
can be counterproductive.

Why?

Because it's always an uphill battle

to defend yourself
on your opponent's terrain.

And, unwittingly, the handouts
my friends and I were handing out

and the versions of these arguments
that we hear today

were actually playing
the anti-immigrants game.

We were playing that game
in part by envisioning

that immigrants were outsiders,

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

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

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

who have succeeded
in framing the immigration debate

around three main questions.

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

How can we use immigrants?

Will they make us richer and stronger?

The nativist answer
to this question is no,

immigrants have little
or nothing to offer.

The second questions is whether
immigrants are others.

Can immigrants become more like us?

Are they capable of becoming more like us?

Are they capable of assimilating?

Are they willing to assimilate?

Here, again, the nativist answer is no,

immigrants are permanently
different from us and inferior to us.

And the third question is whether
immigrants are parasites.

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

Here, the nativist answer is yes and yes,

immigrants pose a threat
and they sap our wealth.

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

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

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

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

us and them,

in which only we matter,

and they don't.

And what gives these questions
traction and power

beyond the circle of committed nativists

is the way they tap into an everyday,
seemingly harmless sense

of national belonging

and activate it, heighten it

and inflame it.

Nativists commit themselves
to making stark distinctions

between insiders and outsiders.

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

The fissures between inside and outside,

which often run deepest
along lines of race and religion,

are always there to be
deepened and exploited.

And that potentially
gives nativist approaches resonance

far beyond those who consider
themselves anti-immigrant,

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

So, for example,
when immigrants act allies

answer these questions
the nativists are posing,

they take them seriously.

They legitimate those questions
and, to some extent,

the anti-immigrant assumptions
that are behind them.

When we take these questions seriously
without even knowing it,

we're reinforcing the closed,
exclusionary borders

of the immigration conversation.

So how did we get here?

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

Here, we need some backstory,

which is where my history
training comes in.

During the first century of the US's
status as an independent nation,

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

In fact, many policymakers
and employers worked hard

to recruit immigrants

to build up industry

and to serve as settlers,
to seize the continent.

But after the Civil War,

nativist voices rose
in volume and in power.

The Asian, Latin American,
Caribbean and European immigrants

who dug Americans' canals,

cooked their dinners,

fought their wars

and put their children to bed at night

were met with a new
and intense xenophobia,

which cast immigrants
as permanent outsiders

who should never be allowed
to become insiders.

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

erecting racist laws

that closed out untold numbers
of vulnerable immigrants and refugees.

Immigrants and their allies
did their best to fight back,

but they found themselves
on the defensive,

caught in some ways
in the nativists' frames.

When nativists said
that immigrants weren't useful,

their allies said yes, they are.

When nativists accused
immigrants of being others,

their allies promised
that they would assimilate.

When nativists charged that immigrants
were dangerous parasites,

their allies emphasized
their loyalty, their obedience,

their hard work and their thrift.

Even as advocates welcomed immigrants,

many still regarded immigrants
as outsiders to be pitied, to be rescued,

to be uplifted

and to be tolerated,

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

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

immigrants and their allies
turned the tide,

overthrowing mid-20th century restriction

and winning instead a new system
that prioritized family reunification,

the admission of refugees

and the admission of those
with special skills.

But even then,

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

and so that framework endured,

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

That conversation is broken.

The old questions
are harmful and divisive.

So how do we get from that conversation

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

that is more just,

that's more secure?

I want to suggest that what we have to do

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

to redraw the boundaries of who counts,

of whose life, whose rights

and whose thriving matters.

We need to redraw the boundaries.

We need to redraw the borders of us.

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

but also seriously flawed.

According to that worldview,

there's the inside of the national
boundaries, inside the nation,

which is where we live, work
and mind our own business.

And then there's the outside;
there's everywhere else.

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

they're moving from
the outside to the inside,

but they remain outsiders.

Any power or resources they receive

are gifts from us rather than rights.

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

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

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

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

to the way the world actually works,

and the way it has worked in the past.

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

But so have immigrants,

particularly in parts of the American
economy that are indispensable

and where few Americans work,
like agriculture.

Since the nation's founding,

Americans have been inside
the American workforce.

Of course, Americans have built up
institutions in society

that guarantee rights.

But so have immigrants.

They've been there during
every major social movement,

like civil rights and organized labor,

that have fought to expand
rights in society for everyone.

So immigrants are already
inside the struggle

for rights, democracy and freedom.

And finally, Americans
and other citizens of the Global North

haven't minded their own business,

and they haven't stayed
within their own borders.

They haven't respected
other nations' borders.

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

they've taken over
territories and resources,

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

that immigrants are from.

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

With this different map
of inside and outside in mind,

the question isn't whether
receiving countries

are going to let immigrants in.

They're already in.

The question is whether
the United States and other countries

are going to give immigrants
access to the rights and resources

that their work, their activism
and their home countries

have already played
a fundamental role in creating.

With this new map in mind,

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

radically different from the ones
we've asked before --

questions that might change
the borders of the immigration debate.

Our three questions are
about workers' rights,

about responsibility

and about equality.

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

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

and easier for them to be exploited,

driving down wages, rights
and protections for everyone?

When immigrants are threatened
with roundups, detention and deportations,

their employers know
that they can be abused,

that they can be told
that if they fight back,

they'll be turned over to ICE.

When employers know

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

it makes that worker hyper-exploitable,

and that has impacts
not only for immigrant workers

but for all workers.

Second, we need to ask questions
about responsibility.

What role have rich, powerful
countries like the United States

played in making it hard or impossible

for immigrants to stay
in their home countries?

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

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

if they want to survive.

Wars, trade agreements

and consumer habits
rooted in the Global North

play a major and devastating role here.

What responsibilities
do the United States,

the European Union and China --

the world's leading carbon emitters --

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

And third, we need to ask
questions about equality.

Global inequality is a wrenching,
intensifying problem.

Income and wealth gaps
are widening around the world.

Increasingly, what determines
whether you're rich or poor,

more than anything else,

is what country you're born in,

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

But it actually means
a profoundly unjust distribution

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

When immigrants send money
or goods home to their family,

it plays a significant role
in narrowing these gaps,

if a very incomplete one.

It does more than all
of the foreign aid programs

in the world combined.

We began with the nativist questions,

about immigrants as tools,

as others

and as parasites.

Where might these new questions
about worker rights,

about responsibility

and about equality

take us?

These questions reject pity,
and they embrace justice.

These questions reject
the nativist and nationalist division

of us versus them.

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

and problems like global warming
that are already upon us.

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

towards this new set of questions.

It's no small challenge

to take on and broaden the borders of us.

It will take wit,
inventiveness and courage.

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

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

and they're not going
to give way overnight.

And even if we manage
to change the questions,

the answers are going to be complicated,

and they're going to require
sacrifices and tradeoffs.

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

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

and who doesn't.

But the borders of the immigration debate

can be moved.

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

Thank you.

(Applause)