Monday, December 20, 2010
A Call for Change in the Political Dialogue on Immigration
This weekend I watched Karan Johar’s movie, "My Name is Khan", and the theme of the movie inspired me to comment on the political state of immigration the U.S. today.
"My Name is Khan" follows a Muslim immigrant, Rizwan Khan, on his journey across the United States to meet the President on his press tour. On Rizwan’s journey the audience learns of his life, the people in it, and how he began his quest to meet the President. We find out that Rizvan has Aspergers Syndrome, a developmental disorder, and see the contrast of his life in San Francisco pre and post 9/11. The movie chronicles how Muslims and those mistakenly perceived as Muslims were victimized after 9/11 because they were all stereotyped as terrorists. Rizvan wanted to meet the President to simply tell him “My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist.”
The hostility faced by the immigrants in this movie reminded me of the hostility in the tone of the political conversation, or lack thereof, on immigration reform. It is the general consensus that comprehensive immigration reform is necessary. As we’ve heard it from the President, and many other commentators, “our immigration system is broken.” Ok great, now we all agree, however, practical solutions to solve the actually problems in the system are seldom agreed upon. In today’s political landscape any conversation about immigration reform that does not include deporting all undocumented persons is deemed amnesty and unacceptable. For instance, the DREAM Act was passed by the House and came up for a vote in the Senate on December 18th, however, it failed since they could not get enough bi-partisan support to reach the 60 votes necessary.
Many who opposed the DREAM Act termed it “backdoor amnesty,” but we cannot fix the immigration system by deporting all undocumented persons. Estimates show that there are approximately 11 million undocumented individuals currently in the U.S. The cost associated with finding and deporting all of those individuals would be astronomical and wholly inefficient. However, politicians don’t seem to want to explore other options. The DREAM Act would not have fixed the U.S. immigration system; however, it would have been a fair and just start. It would have been a way to give immigration status to productive and intelligent young people whose parents chose to bring them to the U.S. illegally. It would also have been a way to help reduce the U.S. deficit using the revenue gained from the penalties attached to the DREAM Act.
Today’s political dialogue on immigration ignores the fact that America is a nation built by immigrants who bring much needed innovation to every aspect of American society. For instance, Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish immigrant, created and operated the Carnegie Steel Company, one of the largest businesses in the world in the late 1800s and later founded Carnegie Mellon University and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Jerry Yang the Taiwanese co-founder of Yahoo; Levi Strauss the German founder of Levi Strauss & Company; or Andrew Grove, the Hungarian founder of Intel Corp. Let’s also not forget Albert Einstein a German-born immigrant recognized as a genius worldwide and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics or Yo-Yo Ma, French immigrant and one of the most highly revered cellists of the 20th and 21st century. The list of exceptional and innovative immigrants to the United States is long and can continue for pages. Politicians and the general public need to recognize that immigrants are the people who help to bring culture, innovation and economic growth to this country. Our politicians need to change the dialogue and our immigration system to open our doors to the talented and innovative immigrant pool rather than continue with the current hostile closed door immigration policy.