1 00:00:00,472 --> 00:00:04,930 We often hear these days that the immigration system is broken. 2 00:00:04,954 --> 00:00:09,600 I want to make the case today that our immigration conversation is broken 3 00:00:09,624 --> 00:00:13,968 and to suggest some ways that, together, we might build a better one. 4 00:00:14,735 --> 00:00:17,634 In order to do that, I'm going to propose some new questions 5 00:00:17,658 --> 00:00:19,022 about immigration, 6 00:00:19,046 --> 00:00:20,252 the United States 7 00:00:20,276 --> 00:00:21,599 and the world, 8 00:00:21,623 --> 00:00:26,669 questions that might move the borders of the immigration debate. 9 00:00:27,495 --> 00:00:31,655 I'm not going to begin with the feverish argument that we're currently having, 10 00:00:31,679 --> 00:00:36,189 even as the lives and well-being of immigrants are being put at risk 11 00:00:36,213 --> 00:00:38,969 at the US border and far beyond it. 12 00:00:39,567 --> 00:00:42,201 Instead, I'm going to begin with me in graduate school 13 00:00:42,225 --> 00:00:45,905 in New Jersey in the mid-1990s, earnestly studying US history, 14 00:00:45,929 --> 00:00:49,344 which is what I currently teach as a professor at Vanderbilt University 15 00:00:49,368 --> 00:00:51,120 in Nashville, Tennessee. 16 00:00:51,602 --> 00:00:53,088 And when I wasn't studying, 17 00:00:53,112 --> 00:00:55,356 sometimes to avoid writing my dissertation, 18 00:00:55,380 --> 00:00:58,203 my friends and I would go into town 19 00:00:58,227 --> 00:01:03,064 to hand out neon-colored flyers, protesting legislation 20 00:01:03,088 --> 00:01:06,533 that was threatening to take away immigrants' rights. 21 00:01:07,481 --> 00:01:10,289 Our flyers were sincere, they were well-meaning, 22 00:01:10,313 --> 00:01:12,537 they were factually accurate ... 23 00:01:12,561 --> 00:01:15,156 But I realize now, they were also kind of a problem. 24 00:01:15,642 --> 00:01:16,815 Here's what they said: 25 00:01:16,839 --> 00:01:21,342 "Don't take away immigrant rights to public education, 26 00:01:21,366 --> 00:01:24,090 to medical services, to the social safety net. 27 00:01:24,114 --> 00:01:25,661 They work hard. 28 00:01:25,685 --> 00:01:27,581 They pay taxes. 29 00:01:27,605 --> 00:01:29,460 They're law-abiding. 30 00:01:29,484 --> 00:01:32,451 They use social services less than Americans do. 31 00:01:33,054 --> 00:01:35,111 They're eager to learn English, 32 00:01:35,135 --> 00:01:39,539 and their children serve in the US military all over the world." 33 00:01:40,419 --> 00:01:43,918 Now, these are, of course, arguments that we hear every day. 34 00:01:43,942 --> 00:01:47,420 Immigrants and their advocates use them 35 00:01:47,444 --> 00:01:51,174 as they confront those who would deny immigrants their rights 36 00:01:51,198 --> 00:01:53,721 or even exclude them from society. 37 00:01:54,453 --> 00:01:57,098 And up to a certain point, it makes perfect sense 38 00:01:57,122 --> 00:02:01,944 that these would be the kinds of claims that immigrants' defenders would turn to. 39 00:02:02,595 --> 00:02:06,424 But in the long term, and maybe even in the short term, 40 00:02:06,448 --> 00:02:09,299 I think these arguments can be counterproductive. 41 00:02:09,996 --> 00:02:11,501 Why? 42 00:02:11,525 --> 00:02:13,613 Because it's always an uphill battle 43 00:02:13,637 --> 00:02:16,888 to defend yourself on your opponent's terrain. 44 00:02:17,669 --> 00:02:21,633 And, unwittingly, the handouts my friends and I were handing out 45 00:02:21,657 --> 00:02:25,051 and the versions of these arguments that we hear today 46 00:02:25,075 --> 00:02:27,844 were actually playing the anti-immigrants game. 47 00:02:28,701 --> 00:02:31,437 We were playing that game in part by envisioning 48 00:02:31,461 --> 00:02:33,690 that immigrants were outsiders, 49 00:02:33,714 --> 00:02:36,855 rather than, as I'm hoping to suggest in a few minutes, 50 00:02:36,879 --> 00:02:40,930 people that are already, in important ways, on the inside. 51 00:02:42,303 --> 00:02:45,840 It's those who are hostile to immigrants, the nativists, 52 00:02:45,864 --> 00:02:48,658 who have succeeded in framing the immigration debate 53 00:02:48,682 --> 00:02:50,889 around three main questions. 54 00:02:51,588 --> 00:02:56,657 First, there's the question of whether immigrants can be useful tools. 55 00:02:57,235 --> 00:03:00,752 How can we use immigrants? 56 00:03:00,776 --> 00:03:04,799 Will they make us richer and stronger? 57 00:03:05,751 --> 00:03:08,667 The nativist answer to this question is no, 58 00:03:08,691 --> 00:03:11,318 immigrants have little or nothing to offer. 59 00:03:12,993 --> 00:03:17,201 The second questions is whether immigrants are others. 60 00:03:18,201 --> 00:03:21,586 Can immigrants become more like us? 61 00:03:22,705 --> 00:03:25,371 Are they capable of becoming more like us? 62 00:03:25,395 --> 00:03:27,028 Are they capable of assimilating? 63 00:03:27,052 --> 00:03:28,795 Are they willing to assimilate? 64 00:03:29,477 --> 00:03:31,812 Here, again, the nativist answer is no, 65 00:03:31,836 --> 00:03:36,220 immigrants are permanently different from us and inferior to us. 66 00:03:37,157 --> 00:03:41,784 And the third question is whether immigrants are parasites. 67 00:03:42,745 --> 00:03:46,359 Are they dangerous to us? And will they drain our resources? 68 00:03:47,177 --> 00:03:50,757 Here, the nativist answer is yes and yes, 69 00:03:50,781 --> 00:03:54,126 immigrants pose a threat and they sap our wealth. 70 00:03:55,761 --> 00:03:59,846 I would suggest that these three questions and the nativist animus behind them 71 00:03:59,870 --> 00:04:03,960 have succeeded in framing the larger contours of the immigration debate. 72 00:04:03,984 --> 00:04:08,835 These questions are anti-immigrant and nativist at their core, 73 00:04:08,859 --> 00:04:14,753 built around a kind of hierarchical division of insiders and outsiders, 74 00:04:14,777 --> 00:04:16,340 us and them, 75 00:04:16,364 --> 00:04:19,014 in which only we matter, 76 00:04:19,038 --> 00:04:20,294 and they don't. 77 00:04:21,201 --> 00:04:24,617 And what gives these questions traction and power 78 00:04:24,641 --> 00:04:26,805 beyond the circle of committed nativists 79 00:04:26,829 --> 00:04:31,476 is the way they tap into an everyday, seemingly harmless sense 80 00:04:31,500 --> 00:04:33,227 of national belonging 81 00:04:33,251 --> 00:04:35,916 and activate it, heighten it 82 00:04:35,940 --> 00:04:37,626 and inflame it. 83 00:04:38,740 --> 00:04:43,181 Nativists commit themselves to making stark distinctions 84 00:04:43,205 --> 00:04:45,719 between insiders and outsiders. 85 00:04:45,743 --> 00:04:50,180 But the distinction itself is at the heart of the way nations define themselves. 86 00:04:50,658 --> 00:04:54,416 The fissures between inside and outside, 87 00:04:54,440 --> 00:04:59,122 which often run deepest along lines of race and religion, 88 00:04:59,146 --> 00:05:02,458 are always there to be deepened and exploited. 89 00:05:03,370 --> 00:05:07,493 And that potentially gives nativist approaches resonance 90 00:05:07,517 --> 00:05:11,352 far beyond those who consider themselves anti-immigrant, 91 00:05:11,376 --> 00:05:15,550 and remarkably, even among some who consider themselves pro-immigrant. 92 00:05:16,325 --> 00:05:20,731 So, for example, when immigrants act allies 93 00:05:20,755 --> 00:05:23,957 answer these questions the nativists are posing, 94 00:05:23,981 --> 00:05:25,318 they take them seriously. 95 00:05:25,342 --> 00:05:28,497 They legitimate those questions and, to some extent, 96 00:05:28,521 --> 00:05:31,541 the anti-immigrant assumptions that are behind them. 97 00:05:32,414 --> 00:05:36,130 When we take these questions seriously without even knowing it, 98 00:05:36,154 --> 00:05:39,975 we're reinforcing the closed, exclusionary borders 99 00:05:39,999 --> 00:05:42,180 of the immigration conversation. 100 00:05:43,458 --> 00:05:44,625 So how did we get here? 101 00:05:44,649 --> 00:05:48,932 How did these become the leading ways that we talk about immigration? 102 00:05:49,523 --> 00:05:50,952 Here, we need some backstory, 103 00:05:50,976 --> 00:05:53,308 which is where my history training comes in. 104 00:05:53,332 --> 00:05:59,538 During the first century of the US's status as an independent nation, 105 00:05:59,562 --> 00:06:03,274 it did very little to restrict immigration at the national level. 106 00:06:03,298 --> 00:06:05,823 In fact, many policymakers and employers worked hard 107 00:06:05,847 --> 00:06:08,362 to recruit immigrants 108 00:06:08,386 --> 00:06:10,008 to build up industry 109 00:06:10,032 --> 00:06:13,738 and to serve as settlers, to seize the continent. 110 00:06:14,948 --> 00:06:17,537 But after the Civil War, 111 00:06:17,561 --> 00:06:22,555 nativist voices rose in volume and in power. 112 00:06:23,371 --> 00:06:28,283 The Asian, Latin American, Caribbean and European immigrants 113 00:06:28,307 --> 00:06:31,081 who dug Americans' canals, 114 00:06:31,105 --> 00:06:32,904 cooked their dinners, 115 00:06:32,928 --> 00:06:34,620 fought their wars 116 00:06:34,644 --> 00:06:36,845 and put their children to bed at night 117 00:06:36,869 --> 00:06:40,428 were met with a new and intense xenophobia, 118 00:06:40,452 --> 00:06:44,015 which cast immigrants as permanent outsiders 119 00:06:44,039 --> 00:06:47,124 who should never be allowed to become insiders. 120 00:06:48,148 --> 00:06:50,865 By the mid-1920s, the nativists had won, 121 00:06:50,889 --> 00:06:52,611 erecting racist laws 122 00:06:52,635 --> 00:06:58,254 that closed out untold numbers of vulnerable immigrants and refugees. 123 00:06:59,158 --> 00:07:02,331 Immigrants and their allies did their best to fight back, 124 00:07:02,355 --> 00:07:04,829 but they found themselves on the defensive, 125 00:07:04,853 --> 00:07:08,070 caught in some ways in the nativists' frames. 126 00:07:08,775 --> 00:07:13,609 When nativists said that immigrants weren't useful, 127 00:07:13,633 --> 00:07:16,012 their allies said yes, they are. 128 00:07:16,932 --> 00:07:21,874 When nativists accused immigrants of being others, 129 00:07:21,898 --> 00:07:24,434 their allies promised that they would assimilate. 130 00:07:25,789 --> 00:07:31,819 When nativists charged that immigrants were dangerous parasites, 131 00:07:31,843 --> 00:07:34,951 their allies emphasized their loyalty, their obedience, 132 00:07:34,975 --> 00:07:37,439 their hard work and their thrift. 133 00:07:38,293 --> 00:07:41,746 Even as advocates welcomed immigrants, 134 00:07:41,770 --> 00:07:48,189 many still regarded immigrants as outsiders to be pitied, to be rescued, 135 00:07:48,213 --> 00:07:50,024 to be uplifted 136 00:07:50,048 --> 00:07:52,193 and to be tolerated, 137 00:07:52,217 --> 00:07:58,089 but never fully brought inside as equals in rights and respect. 138 00:07:59,194 --> 00:08:05,890 After World War II, and especially from the mid-1960s until really recently, 139 00:08:05,914 --> 00:08:08,271 immigrants and their allies turned the tide, 140 00:08:08,295 --> 00:08:11,697 overthrowing mid-20th century restriction 141 00:08:11,721 --> 00:08:16,317 and winning instead a new system that prioritized family reunification, 142 00:08:16,341 --> 00:08:17,960 the admission of refugees 143 00:08:17,984 --> 00:08:20,838 and the admission of those with special skills. 144 00:08:21,642 --> 00:08:22,812 But even then, 145 00:08:22,836 --> 00:08:27,458 they didn't succeed in fundamentally changing the terms of the debate, 146 00:08:27,482 --> 00:08:29,697 and so that framework endured, 147 00:08:29,721 --> 00:08:34,628 ready to be taken up again in our own convulsive moment. 148 00:08:35,744 --> 00:08:38,260 That conversation is broken. 149 00:08:38,793 --> 00:08:42,681 The old questions are harmful and divisive. 150 00:08:43,486 --> 00:08:46,003 So how do we get from that conversation 151 00:08:46,027 --> 00:08:50,576 to one that's more likely to get us closer to a world that is fairer, 152 00:08:50,600 --> 00:08:52,171 that is more just, 153 00:08:52,195 --> 00:08:53,711 that's more secure? 154 00:08:55,036 --> 00:08:57,375 I want to suggest that what we have to do 155 00:08:57,399 --> 00:09:01,088 is one of the hardest things that any society can do: 156 00:09:01,112 --> 00:09:05,089 to redraw the boundaries of who counts, 157 00:09:05,113 --> 00:09:08,287 of whose life, whose rights 158 00:09:08,311 --> 00:09:10,808 and whose thriving matters. 159 00:09:11,485 --> 00:09:14,284 We need to redraw the boundaries. 160 00:09:14,308 --> 00:09:17,747 We need to redraw the borders of us. 161 00:09:19,242 --> 00:09:24,521 In order to do that, we need to first take on a worldview that's widely held 162 00:09:24,545 --> 00:09:27,056 but also seriously flawed. 163 00:09:27,080 --> 00:09:29,348 According to that worldview, 164 00:09:29,372 --> 00:09:33,079 there's the inside of the national boundaries, inside the nation, 165 00:09:33,103 --> 00:09:37,234 which is where we live, work and mind our own business. 166 00:09:37,766 --> 00:09:40,841 And then there's the outside; there's everywhere else. 167 00:09:41,635 --> 00:09:45,459 According to this worldview, when immigrants cross into the nation, 168 00:09:45,483 --> 00:09:48,449 they're moving from the outside to the inside, 169 00:09:48,473 --> 00:09:50,534 but they remain outsiders. 170 00:09:51,145 --> 00:09:55,313 Any power or resources they receive 171 00:09:55,337 --> 00:09:58,744 are gifts from us rather than rights. 172 00:09:59,371 --> 00:10:04,212 Now, it's not hard to see why this is such a commonly held worldview. 173 00:10:04,236 --> 00:10:08,018 It's reinforced in everyday ways that we talk and act and behave, 174 00:10:08,042 --> 00:10:11,397 down to the bordered maps that we hang up in our schoolrooms. 175 00:10:11,727 --> 00:10:15,355 The problem with this worldview is that it just doesn't correspond 176 00:10:15,379 --> 00:10:17,616 to the way the world actually works, 177 00:10:17,640 --> 00:10:20,092 and the way it has worked in the past. 178 00:10:21,111 --> 00:10:25,796 Of course, American workers have built up wealth in society. 179 00:10:26,391 --> 00:10:27,583 But so have immigrants, 180 00:10:27,607 --> 00:10:31,461 particularly in parts of the American economy that are indispensable 181 00:10:31,485 --> 00:10:34,287 and where few Americans work, like agriculture. 182 00:10:34,840 --> 00:10:36,438 Since the nation's founding, 183 00:10:36,462 --> 00:10:40,741 Americans have been inside the American workforce. 184 00:10:41,660 --> 00:10:46,982 Of course, Americans have built up institutions in society 185 00:10:47,006 --> 00:10:48,731 that guarantee rights. 186 00:10:49,199 --> 00:10:50,675 But so have immigrants. 187 00:10:50,699 --> 00:10:54,071 They've been there during every major social movement, 188 00:10:54,095 --> 00:10:56,551 like civil rights and organized labor, 189 00:10:56,575 --> 00:10:59,870 that have fought to expand rights in society for everyone. 190 00:11:00,364 --> 00:11:03,812 So immigrants are already inside the struggle 191 00:11:03,836 --> 00:11:06,708 for rights, democracy and freedom. 192 00:11:07,979 --> 00:11:12,101 And finally, Americans and other citizens of the Global North 193 00:11:12,125 --> 00:11:14,516 haven't minded their own business, 194 00:11:14,540 --> 00:11:16,882 and they haven't stayed within their own borders. 195 00:11:16,906 --> 00:11:19,059 They haven't respected other nations' borders. 196 00:11:19,083 --> 00:11:21,418 They've gone out into the world with their armies, 197 00:11:21,442 --> 00:11:23,898 they've taken over territories and resources, 198 00:11:23,922 --> 00:11:27,593 and they've extracted enormous profits from many of the countries 199 00:11:27,617 --> 00:11:29,405 that immigrants are from. 200 00:11:30,402 --> 00:11:36,075 In this sense, many immigrants are actually already inside American power. 201 00:11:37,268 --> 00:11:42,156 With this different map of inside and outside in mind, 202 00:11:42,180 --> 00:11:45,119 the question isn't whether receiving countries 203 00:11:45,143 --> 00:11:47,453 are going to let immigrants in. 204 00:11:47,899 --> 00:11:49,544 They're already in. 205 00:11:50,033 --> 00:11:52,948 The question is whether the United States and other countries 206 00:11:52,972 --> 00:11:57,030 are going to give immigrants access to the rights and resources 207 00:11:57,054 --> 00:12:01,009 that their work, their activism and their home countries 208 00:12:01,033 --> 00:12:04,815 have already played a fundamental role in creating. 209 00:12:06,468 --> 00:12:08,803 With this new map in mind, 210 00:12:08,827 --> 00:12:13,350 we can turn to a set of tough, new, urgently needed questions, 211 00:12:13,374 --> 00:12:17,093 radically different from the ones we've asked before -- 212 00:12:17,117 --> 00:12:21,424 questions that might change the borders of the immigration debate. 213 00:12:22,509 --> 00:12:26,774 Our three questions are about workers' rights, 214 00:12:26,798 --> 00:12:28,473 about responsibility 215 00:12:28,497 --> 00:12:30,266 and about equality. 216 00:12:32,933 --> 00:12:35,818 First, we need to be asking about workers' rights. 217 00:12:36,405 --> 00:12:40,695 How do existing policies make it harder for immigrants to defend themselves 218 00:12:40,719 --> 00:12:42,591 and easier for them to be exploited, 219 00:12:42,615 --> 00:12:46,244 driving down wages, rights and protections for everyone? 220 00:12:46,742 --> 00:12:50,378 When immigrants are threatened with roundups, detention and deportations, 221 00:12:50,402 --> 00:12:52,514 their employers know that they can be abused, 222 00:12:52,538 --> 00:12:54,967 that they can be told that if they fight back, 223 00:12:54,991 --> 00:12:56,690 they'll be turned over to ICE. 224 00:12:57,460 --> 00:12:59,710 When employers know 225 00:12:59,734 --> 00:13:03,070 that they can terrorize an immigrant with his lack of papers, 226 00:13:04,161 --> 00:13:06,217 it makes that worker hyper-exploitable, 227 00:13:06,241 --> 00:13:09,093 and that has impacts not only for immigrant workers 228 00:13:09,117 --> 00:13:10,733 but for all workers. 229 00:13:12,375 --> 00:13:15,361 Second, we need to ask questions about responsibility. 230 00:13:16,004 --> 00:13:19,930 What role have rich, powerful countries like the United States 231 00:13:19,954 --> 00:13:22,439 played in making it hard or impossible 232 00:13:22,463 --> 00:13:25,536 for immigrants to stay in their home countries? 233 00:13:26,331 --> 00:13:29,562 Picking up and moving from your country is difficult and dangerous. 234 00:13:29,586 --> 00:13:33,300 But many immigrants simply do not have the option of staying home 235 00:13:33,324 --> 00:13:35,507 if they want to survive. 236 00:13:35,531 --> 00:13:37,258 Wars, trade agreements 237 00:13:37,282 --> 00:13:39,932 and consumer habits rooted in the Global North 238 00:13:39,956 --> 00:13:44,554 play a major and devastating role here. 239 00:13:45,489 --> 00:13:48,540 What responsibilities do the United States, 240 00:13:48,564 --> 00:13:50,593 the European Union and China -- 241 00:13:50,617 --> 00:13:52,860 the world's leading carbon emitters -- 242 00:13:52,884 --> 00:13:57,615 have to the millions of people already uprooted by global warming? 243 00:13:59,979 --> 00:14:02,996 And third, we need to ask questions about equality. 244 00:14:03,569 --> 00:14:07,617 Global inequality is a wrenching, intensifying problem. 245 00:14:08,037 --> 00:14:11,480 Income and wealth gaps are widening around the world. 246 00:14:11,504 --> 00:14:14,832 Increasingly, what determines whether you're rich or poor, 247 00:14:14,856 --> 00:14:16,171 more than anything else, 248 00:14:16,195 --> 00:14:18,033 is what country you're born in, 249 00:14:18,057 --> 00:14:21,109 which might seem great if you're from a prosperous country. 250 00:14:21,133 --> 00:14:25,696 But it actually means a profoundly unjust distribution 251 00:14:25,720 --> 00:14:30,773 of the chances for a long, healthy, fulfilling life. 252 00:14:31,464 --> 00:14:34,151 When immigrants send money or goods home to their family, 253 00:14:34,175 --> 00:14:37,324 it plays a significant role in narrowing these gaps, 254 00:14:37,348 --> 00:14:39,391 if a very incomplete one. 255 00:14:39,771 --> 00:14:42,806 It does more than all of the foreign aid programs 256 00:14:42,830 --> 00:14:44,813 in the world combined. 257 00:14:46,778 --> 00:14:49,349 We began with the nativist questions, 258 00:14:49,373 --> 00:14:51,983 about immigrants as tools, 259 00:14:52,007 --> 00:14:53,618 as others 260 00:14:53,642 --> 00:14:54,983 and as parasites. 261 00:14:55,666 --> 00:14:59,156 Where might these new questions about worker rights, 262 00:14:59,180 --> 00:15:00,777 about responsibility 263 00:15:00,801 --> 00:15:02,355 and about equality 264 00:15:02,379 --> 00:15:03,602 take us? 265 00:15:04,400 --> 00:15:09,370 These questions reject pity, and they embrace justice. 266 00:15:09,888 --> 00:15:13,614 These questions reject the nativist and nationalist division 267 00:15:13,638 --> 00:15:15,059 of us versus them. 268 00:15:15,083 --> 00:15:18,275 They're going to help prepare us for problems that are coming 269 00:15:18,299 --> 00:15:22,517 and problems like global warming that are already upon us. 270 00:15:23,493 --> 00:15:27,284 It's not going to be easy to turn away from the questions that we've been asking 271 00:15:27,308 --> 00:15:29,560 towards this new set of questions. 272 00:15:30,281 --> 00:15:31,699 It's no small challenge 273 00:15:31,723 --> 00:15:36,324 to take on and broaden the borders of us. 274 00:15:36,874 --> 00:15:40,902 It will take wit, inventiveness and courage. 275 00:15:41,228 --> 00:15:43,837 The old questions have been with us for a long time, 276 00:15:43,861 --> 00:15:46,577 and they're not going to give way on their own, 277 00:15:46,601 --> 00:15:48,661 and they're not going to give way overnight. 278 00:15:49,907 --> 00:15:52,077 And even if we manage to change the questions, 279 00:15:52,101 --> 00:15:54,043 the answers are going to be complicated, 280 00:15:54,067 --> 00:15:57,484 and they're going to require sacrifices and tradeoffs. 281 00:15:58,377 --> 00:16:01,656 And in an unequal world, we're always going to have to pay attention 282 00:16:01,680 --> 00:16:05,153 to the question of who has the power to join the conversation 283 00:16:05,177 --> 00:16:06,451 and who doesn't. 284 00:16:06,878 --> 00:16:09,315 But the borders of the immigration debate 285 00:16:09,339 --> 00:16:10,697 can be moved. 286 00:16:11,098 --> 00:16:13,630 It's up to all of us to move them. 287 00:16:14,542 --> 00:16:15,750 Thank you. 288 00:16:15,774 --> 00:16:18,698 (Applause)