The Invisible Aliens

Rhetoric is rising like a tide, being whipped into a frenzy, Anderson Cooper wearing the latest in journalist chic is only one of the many media pundits camped out by some remote border town and some enterprising folks have built a 400-yard long section of fence to keep out the illegal immigrants. Legal Hispanic immigrants are regularly trotted out to bolster the case against illegal immigration. “Look we did it the right way. We have a right to be here. Those other brown folks don’t.” The legitimacy of the word immigrant usually attached to illegal has been stripped away. Illegals. That’s all they are. Illegals.

In a time of war, when gas prices are skyrocketing, consumer confidence is low, perhaps fear of the illegals might resurrect a president’s sagging ratings. But what makes people sitting thousands of miles away from the Mexican border, in places like Kansas City and Boston, care about this issue so much?

This not a new issue. The US-Mexico border has always been porous. Heck, less than 200 years ago, some of those parts were actually in Mexico. Lines may be drawn on a map but they don’t always translate into hard, impermeable borders for people.

As I contemplate this supposed flood of illegals, it strikes me that they are the ultimate Diasporic people, just as the Jews were. Persecuted, often poor, they truly see no borders. They just look at the other side and see food on the table for their family, money to secure their future and an open sky of opportunities. A line on a map means nothing to them. They are ready to be scattered for a little bit of opportunity. They are looking for their promised land and it just happens to be in another country.

Unlike those of us who applied by legal channel (some would argue because we had the means to do so), these illegals live sometimes invisible lives. They work in sweat-shops, labor under the hot sun picking fruit and lettuce, mow our lawns, clean our houses and look after our children.

Whether one is for or against illegal immigration, what cannot be denied is the recent frenzy. After all, people from Mexico have been coming into the US for years. In some ways, the US economy depends on them. Yes, they drive down wages but then they are exploited by employers who would not dream of asking an American worker to do the same tasks.

What I find insidious is the sudden hatred—from the Minutemen on the border, to the proposed wall—and the fact that this has become such a major issue. Is it because elections are looming and a new ‘gay’ issue is needed? Does the sudden rise in this issue coincide too neatly with Rove’s return as a strategist after his stint as chief of staff?

Human rights, racism and political ambitions have coalesced into this one issue as people debate all sides of the issue. But the flow over the border has not stopped.
Through the desert and rivers, they still arrive and until their country makes it attractive for them to stay they will continue to do so. Is there any real solution to this problem? Is it really a problem? Will it recede into the background once the elections are over? Time will be the judge.

Until then, perhaps we should contemplate lines and borders and what they mean to a Diaspora of any kind. Legal or illegal, all of us immigrants have gone beyond truly being bound by borders. We all see land, adventure and opportunity and look past the no-man’s lands in between.