Here’s a headline from WCAX:
Should illegal farm workers get Vt driver’s licenses?
The article summary reads:
They don’t live in Vermont legally, but illegal immigrants want the right to drive here. And several state senators support the idea. Why the idea is so controversial.
So here’s the problem with this framing: the phrase “illegal immigrants” is that it classifies the people themselves as illegal. You can argue that they’re here illegally and you can argue that it’s against the law for them to be here, but you can’t legitimately call the people themselves illegal. They are human beings. They are not acts. They are behaviors. They are people.
And, frankly, when media outlets frame things in these terms, it feeds easily into right wing and anti-immigration arguments. In fact, the use of the term “illegal” to refer to undocumented workers frames pretty much every argument about their presence here. It’s shoddy and reprehensible journalism to lead your piece with such a thorough and non-objective approach to the issue.
because someone else is employing them “illegally.”
Such an extraordinarily important part of the immigration conversation. As we see so often in the framing of issues (a la the stories, language and “issues” raised as the state and media ramp us towards wars), the first step is to de-humanize those people who we’re meant to turn against. The concept of “illegal people” is one that jives with no responsible logic, nor any meaningful spiritual/religious thought for that matter. It does, or can, build and play-off our fears and mis-understandings.
The thing that gets lost in this debate is that illegal immigration is a paperwork crime. It’s not illegal to be a farmworker. It’s not illegal for someone from Mexico (or wherever) to come to the U.S. It’s illegal to come to the U.S. and be a farmworker without going through a particular raft of paperwork. Paperwork that takes an average of seven years, by the way. Tough for an impoverished Mexican to give up eating for that long while the process grinds on.
Let’s talk amnesty. How many people have exceeded the posted speed limit on the highway? Hands? Everybody? Ok then. Speeding is a crime that actually kills thousands of people a year. More people than died on 9/11, to make an odious comparison. Speeding is not just a paperwork crime, it’s a crime that inevitably results in a certain amount of annual negligent homicide. We don’t have to do it to make a living. But we’d all like a pass on that. Everybody? Nobody going to turn themselves in on principle? Nobody?
Right then. If we can forgive ourselves and desire amnesty for playing vehicular Russian roulette, we can forgive some poor individual for milking a cow without the proper paperwork. And let them get a drivers license, for chrissakes.