Llewellyn King: Borders are mostly sealed, now forgive many who are here

WEST WARWICK, R.I.

Here is a disturbing game: Try to spot the illegal immigrant. 

Is it the waitress, the winning one from Bulgaria, or is it the charming emergency room doctor from Pakistan, or is it one of the Mexican men working on the housing site at the corner? Maybe it is the Haitian caregiver in your home, whom you adore and are afraid to ask if employing her will compromise you.

You look hard at them because if they are illegal or also referred to as undocumented immigrants, ICE could pounce. 

They are a shadow underclass, productive members of society and they are part of our national fabric.

Many of us are silent conspirators when it comes to these immigrants. We know and don’t tell. We don’t reach for the phone and if they are arrested, we feel it personally

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Some would want you to believe that a majority of these people are rapists, murderers, thieves or drug dealers. If they are, they should be arrested, tried and imprisoned. That is what the police and the FBI should be doing, not the extracurricular, often barbarous ICE.

The trouble starts with the very word “illegal” which conjures visions of an underworld of evil. Undocumented workers are indeed living in an underworld, doing essential jobs that others won’t. That labor force is part of the grease that keeps America’s wheel turning. 

Whether cleaning houses, minding elderly parents or children, building houses, repairing roads or plucking chickens, immigrants, legal and illegal, are an essential part of the functioning of our society. Failure over decades to enact sensible immigration laws has left us persecuting those we depend on for so much.

The paperless came here chasing a dream which was also the legendary American Dream: a better life in a fairer, happier, safer place, where you can trade a day of work for a day of pay, even if the work was rejected by the rest of society.

Behind all crimes is motive. The motive of the person who walked across the southern border or overstayed a tourist visa is the same: a better life, a life worth living. It is the same motivation that has always brought the needy to these shores whether it was for religious freedom in the 1600s, the Irish famine in the 19th Century or escaping Hitler. 

The true asylum seekers came to avoid death, an unquestionable motive.

My plea is for those who are here and have established lives of merit, not for open borders. Migration is a global challenge exacerbated by war, climate change, religious persecution, and political oppression. It causes fear that an existing culture will be overwhelmed, as when migrants bring in a different language or a disruptive religion.

These are real concerns, but should be less so for the United States than Europe or Australia. This nation is so large, has benefitted so hugely from immigration, that it should tailor its policies to local reality not global fear.

The politics of immigration are murky. Both Democratic and Republican administrations have had vigorous deportation regimes — but the statistics are skewed for President Biden and President Trump’s first administration because of the COVID crisis.

Under both the administration of Presidents Obama and Biden, enforcement was active but less conspicuous, while the southern border remained porous. Under Obama, deportations reached their zenith with 400,000 expulsion orders. In the second Trump administration, deportations will probably exceed the Obama removals total.

Among the immigrants themselves there is confusion as to their status. There are those from 13 countries who had special protected status, which included allies from the Afghanistan war, Haitians and Venezuelans, who wonder why they have lost it.

Then there are those who wrongly believe their Social Security numbers will protect them; and those who have work permits but don’t have the right to abide by a bizarre legal contradiction.

ICE agents with their thuggish demeanor appear to relish arrests and deportations. We are told ICE has numeric targets for arrests. Whenever its agents appear, they strike fear into the hearts of otherwise innocent people who wanted to share a dream.

None of us choose where to be born. Those born in awful circumstances and who come here without permission are guilty of breaking the law even while signing on to the American dream.

Now that the borders are essentially sealed, how about some American forgiveness?

Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS, and an international energy sector consultant. His email is llewellynking1@gmail.com,and he’s based in Rhode Island.