Health care and the economy have crowded out most other issues in DC in recent months, but immigration reform advocates are finally getting some breathing room. Last Friday, Janet Napolitano, Homeland Security Secretary, gave a speech outlining a possible immigration reform. And as Arian Campo-Flores writes in a post for Newsweek, pro-immigrant groups are ready to seize the moment. Better organized than they have ever been, immigration reformers have new allies (the National Association of Evangelicals, and Liberty University’s Matthew Staver, to cite two unlikely examples) and they continue to refined their message.
From arguments about morality, or policy, activists have moved to rhetoric of “assimilation,” of supporting immigrants in their wish to become productive citizens.
Indeed, immigration policy debates often hinge on this fundamental question. Will today’s new immigrants assimilate to US society as did the descendants of Italians, Irish, and Polish?
A Country of Two Cultures?
Samuel Huntington wrote that the most serious threat to US identity comes from the large and continued influx of immigrants from Latin America, because these immigrants will be unable to replicate the assimilation ‘success’ stories of immigrants of the past. He considers Mexican immigrants particularly inassimilable due to their continued migration in large scale, proximity of the homeland, and the use of Spanish language in the communities in which they settle.
Huntington was concerned that as their numbers increased, Mexicans would become more committed to their own ethnic group and would have no incentive to participate fully in US society. He noted that rather than downplaying differences, these communities glorified divisions; he feared that continued Mexican immigration could divide the United States into a country of two languages and two cultures.
Welcoming the Stranger
But Huntington’s theories have been challenged by recent research at the intersection of religion and immigration. Three books in particular make a strong case for the positive role of religious community in facilitating new immigrants’ incorporation into the larger society.
In God Needs No Passport: Immigrants and the Changing American Religious Landscape (The New Press, 2007), Peggy Levitt uses the term “religious citizenship” to describe the way that Indian Hindus, Pakistani Muslims, Irish Catholics, and Brazilian Protestant migrants living in Boston carve out alternative sacred landscapes and imagined global religious communities. For these migrants, religion is no longer rooted in a single country; they can remain active members of their origin communities while becoming active participants in the society that receives them.
According to Levitt, this religious citizenship is based on civic activism across borders, which is better attuned to the globalized era in which we live. Thus, contrary to assumptions (based on studies of earlier migration waves) that migrants needed to break with their home communities in order to assimilate in the new society, Levitt demonstrates that the powerful resources that faith communities offer make both, the home communities and new social environments vibrant places in which migrants practice new forms of global civic engagement.
In the book Sacred Assemblies and Civic Engagement: How Religion Matters for America’s Newest Immigrants (Rutgers University Press, 2007), Fred Kniss and Paul D. Numrich examine in depth the link between civic engagement and religious participation, and highlight the central place that religion and congregating religiously still holds among today’s immigrants. In contrast to Levitt’s focus on religious activities across borders, Kniss and Numrich examine several congregations in one area. They look at similarities and differences in moral authority, moral project, and sectarian inclinations among Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist congregations in Chicago.
Through their comparative analysis, we learn how individuals act politically (in a general sense) and how a particular group works institutionally with other groups. The authors open up the analytical lens to examine immigrants’ civic engagement; thus, rather than focusing on a narrow set of activities, they discuss how religious beliefs shape marriage preferences and educational programs offered to immigrant children, as well as the language used to communicate with other groups. In this way, these authors go back to addressing the classic concern of how religious participation shapes immigrants’ incorporation in the new society. But focusing on new forms of Christianity, as well as on religious practices that did not receive research attention earlier, adds new perspectives and nuance to this longstanding question of immigrant assimilation through civic engagement.
In God’s Heart Has No Borders: How Religious Activists are Working for Immigrant Rights (University of California Press, 2008), Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo examines how the actions of religious leaders in the three Abrahamic religions contribute to lessening social suffering and exclusion among recent immigrants who have found an increasingly hostile context of reception in the United States. In contrast to the work of Levitt, or of Kniss and Numrich, Hondagneu-Sotelo does not focus on individual immigrants, but rather on what people of faith do to provide a more humane reception.
The actions of Muslim Americans in the area of civil rights, of Judeo-Christian clergy working for Latino immigrant worker rights, and of ecumenical Christian groups working at the U.S.-Mexican border to direct public attention to immigrant deaths at the border, Hondagneu-Sotelo argues, exemplify how people of faith rely on the “tools” their religions offer to mobilize for immigrants’ rights. Through activist work, individuals of faith seek to contest the lines that separate immigrants and citizens/natives and challenge state policies that exclude immigrants, and in the process create an inclusive, democratic society. Although Hondagneu-Sotelo does not address the question of assimilation directly, she focuses on how the activities of the religious activists seek to create a less hostile environment for immigrants’ incorporation.
These three books offer the rich perspective that comes from examining how immigrants straddle (at least) two sociocultural spaces in an increasingly globalized world, a wider and richer range of new religious practices in places of destination, as well as new forms of exclusion in democratic societies. Instead of dividing the country, today’s immigrants remain deeply connected to their communities of origin while at the same time participating actively in the social and civic lives of their new home. Through new and diverse forms of civic participation, new immigrants are expanding the classic notion of immigrant incorporation.
Tags: assimilation, churches, hindus, immigration, muslims, religion, samuel p huntington, sociology
Uneducated immigrants cost the society money. Educated immigrants contribute much more than they take. Read more in "In Search of Utopia" (http://andgulliverreturns.info) Books 1 and 4 as I remember.
Corrupt, LEGAL CITIZEN, politicians in BOTH political parties are sending our jobs oversees to workers in semi-slavery; bankrupting Social Security; stealing our pensions, destroying our health care system; taxing us out of our homes, and handing over the entire U.S. Treasury to the Federal Reserve Bankster and Defense Contractors, and they want us to worry about people working without a "Green Card"???
To save America we must prioritize issues and build bridges and coalitions with other Americans who are also victims of those same politicians and banksters. We need Hispanics and Blacks with us. Time is precious. The immigration issue is a DIVERSION, a RUSE. It takes our time away from the most serious issue: our Nation is being financially looted, economically bankrupted, dismantled industrially, politically isolated by forces that require all our attention.
Everyone knows that picking on the weakest is COWARDLY. The problem is it takes real guts and courage to take on the the UNCONSTITUTIONAL Federal Reserve Bank and Wall Street financiers that are bankrupting America and looting the U.S. Treasury. Only the ignorant, the naive or those that don't have the courage to take on the corrupt Globalist Establishment selling out our country, will use poor, illiterate, politically powerless and socially marginalized immigrants as their whipping boy.
Yes, corrupt politicians and the Federal Reserve banksters cost society immensely more money than all the uneducated immigrants in America. When do we start deporting corrupt politicians and banksters?
One of the reasons that the religious elites' efforts for amnesty and increased future immigration in the United States will fail in Congress is that they ignore the morality of community that tends to lie at the heart of feelings of people everywhere in the world.
The entire concept of self-determination and self-governance is backed by respect for -- and the necessity of -- community. Without a defined community, with clear definitions of who is a member, and with special responsibilities of the community for members of the community, it is not possible to have self-governance or any form of democracy.
In my testimony at a congressional hearing yesterday, I brought this concept down to very specific situations:
1. With 16 million members of our U.S. community actively looking for a job and unable to find anything -- burning through retirement plans, losing their houses, etc. -- is it likely that any politician running for re-election next year is willing to look into the eyes of the voters and say that illegal foreign workers have priority?
2. An estimated 7 million illegal foreign workers currently hold NON-AGRICULTURAL jobs that unemployed members of our own community want. That is, 7 million illegal foreign workers hold jobs in construction, manufacturing, transportation and service that are the same jobs being sought by far more than 7 million members of our own community (who have no more than a high school education) desperately want.
What form of morality says that these most vulnerable and hurting members of our own community should be told by the elites of the country that they must stay in the back of the line while workers from other national communities who have broken laws to be in this country are allowed to be at the front of the line and hold jobs?
3. Once a national community treats its most vulnerable members in this expendable way, there really is no community.
4. Dr. Swaim, an African-American professor at Vanderbilt, testified beside me yesterday, and provided the grim statistics that show that as horrible as the unemployment statistics for Americans as a whole are, they are far, far worse for Black and Hispanic Americans.
5. While millions of our fellow community members have suffered so much this year -- disproportionately the Black, Hispanic and disabled Americans -- our government has given out permanent work permits to another estimated 750,000 immigrant workers just this year.
What is the morality of that?
What politician when forced to confront that kind of information is going to tell voters that he/she believes it more important to continue this immigration program than to help the suffering members of his/her own community?
Not the politicians who have a competitive race.
For that reason, there will be no amnesty next year. There will be no "comprehensive immigration reform."
And religious leaders would be well advised to step back and take another look at this issue before they further diminish their moral authority among the religious masses of this national community.
As of January 1, 2008, all employers in Arizona, regardless of size, are required to use the federal E-Verify program to identify the status of new employees. Thirteen states have passed laws that have mandatory laws relating to the operation of E-Verify, with strict ruling, with others states pending. California seems to be living in an unreality of costs to its legal population. In hosting America's largest population of illegal immigrants, California bares a huge cost to provide basic human services for this fast increasing, low-income segment of its population. The expenditure according to (FAIR) in the costs of education, health care and incarceration of illegal aliens, and concludes that the costs to Californians is $10.5 billion per year. Among the key finding of the report are that the state's already struggling K-12 education system spends approximately $7.7 billion a year to school the children of illegal aliens who now constitute 15 percent of the student body. CAN WE EVEN IMAGINE WHAT THE GROWING COST BEING AT THIS LATER DATE?
California's addiction to 'discount' illegal alien labor is bankrupting the state and posing gigantic impediment on the state's shrinking middle class tax base," stated Dan Stein, President of FAIR. “California voters rebelled and overwhelmingly ratified Proposition 187, which sought to limit liability for mass illegal immigration. Since then, state and local governments have blatantly disregarded the wishes of the voters and continued to disburse publicly financed benefits for illegal immigrants It should be noted the Prop 187, was never allowed to reach the Supreme Court regarding whether it was constitutional? Today, California communities have been reduced to third world population, of illegal aliens families crammed into home garages and unscrupulous illegal alien landlords living on the proceeds.
We cannot accept our politicians paying lip service to the American population. Neither party has followed the true wishes of the majority of the US people? They have succumbed to the greed of special interest lobbyists and the open border Marxists. The Democrats have been infiltrated by anti-American, anti-sovereignty personages such as Liberal Billionaire George Soros. I watched the History Channels presentation of Second World War. Millions of American lived through the carnage in Europe and in the Pacific and now veterans remain homeless, while illegal alien families get priority in low income housing? WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS OUTRAGOUS PICTURE? This is the exact same story in the Great Britain and the rest of Europe. Now the President Obama wants to open the doors to this nation even wider, by forcing upon us another financially crippling AMNESTY? Does he not realize that millions upon millions more indigent people, will try to reach America before the Democratic Congress finalizes this so-called Comprehensive Immigration reform?
Read about corruption and sanctuary city policies at JUDICIAL WATCH. CAPWEB, ALIPAC, CAPSWEB, AMERICAN PATROL & THE DARK SIDE OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION. Hunt down you politician either over the phone at 202-224-3121, or go their in person. Tell them that they are--OUT--if they vote for any kind of AMNESTY. Tell them E-Verify must be made permanent, to start the "ATTRITION" enforcement procedure for every illegal worker in America? What can you do for AMERICA? We cannot afford overpopulation growth, or corrupt politicians pandering to illegal immigrant open border fanatics?
California is totally bankrupt because of the mismanagement and political corruption of its political leaders, not because of "illegal" immigrants. Billions are doled out in pork barrel contracts to cronies of Sacramento politicos, billions are wasted by the bureaucracy, and billions are lost due of tax exemptions doled to politically-connected industries and corporations. To pick on poor, politically powerless immigrants, is just what the corrupt politicians & Fed Reserve banksters want us to do.
Everyone knows that picking on the weakest is COWARDLY. The problem is it takes real guts and courage to take on the the UNCONSTITUTIONAL Federal Reserve Bank and Wall Street financiers that are bankrupting America and looting the U.S. Treasury. Only the ignorant, the naive or those that don't have the courage to take on the corrupt Globalist Establishment selling out our country, will use poor, illiterate, politically powerless and socially marginalized immigrants as their whipping boys.
Yes, we must secure our borders! But most importantly, we must secure the Halls of Government and our wallets from the legally-here, born and bred in America, political and corporate crooks that are raiding and looting America at the highest echelons of corporate and congressional power. When do we start deporting these corrupt politicians and banksters?
In all the world, Mexico has the 13th largest economy in the world. It is not a perfect society, but again, the World, the United Nations, and the United States all agree with Mexico when they say, it is a good place to live.
It is not perfect. But because some 89% of the people in that country are Catholic, of all the groups in the world that could change the country, the Catholic Church is number one. The people themselves could make that country an excellent place to live, and they have not done so. And until the real pressure to return the illegal aliens to their own countries began, both the Mexican Government and the Catholic Church praised the illegal aliens as they sent a rather large amount of money home to both the Government and the Church. Now, I would add, they are discussed in a more convientient form as we see above, and in the conversations, the Church refuses to reconize the law is being broken and that is NOT acceptable. Where once I want the illegal aliens deported per the law, I now want the Catholic Church dealt with per the law, and I believe I am with the majority now.
Who are the illegal aliens?
The prison records on the illegal aliens.
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The incrediable cost of amnesty?
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What have they done since they got here?
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La Raza has not once said the illegal aliens need to go home and be returned legally. They demand we change the laws of the land to accomadate these illegal aliens. And they have had a huge amount of money to do the constant lobbying effort to achieve the goal. That money came from this source rather than the people of this land.
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I don't want foundations and the Catholic Church speaking for the people of this country OR thugging us. I want the law to be for all equally, and not abridged and mangled for a special group.
I want the illegal aliens deported, and I want the birthright Citizenship children clarified per the 14th Amendment, and identified as illegal aliens.
It was only few weeks before Christmas and still, many are unemployed all across the country. The unemployed sector cuts through a very broad cross-section of the country. Since late 2007, some 8 million jobs have vanished, and the end is not yet in sight. The ranks of the unemployed have now swelled to nearly 16 million people. In the past, recessions have mostly hit blue collar and low level retail jobs, and white collar layoffs accounted for about 30 percent of job losses. By way of contrast, in the current downturn, nearly 50% of the vanished jobs have been managerial, professional, and skilled white-collar positions. Barring something truly unforeseeable, such as the creation of a whole new economy, we are likely to see an unprecedented recessionary shift toward permanent job losses.
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