The New York Times Magazine has a long piece up by Jose Antonio Vargas about his life as person without papers in the USA. Vargas is no Bob Woodward, but anyone who follows the news closely would be familiar with his name (for example, he was commissioned to write about Mark Zuberkberg for The New Yorker). There’s a similar case profiled over at Sepia Mutiny. Many of the comments are not sympathetic in the latter case. They speak not from a place of nativism, but from those who have gone through the legal immigration route, and resent those who did not go through the same gauntlet. And a gauntlet it is. My family went through the process when I was a child, and my impression is that it’s gotten much more harrowing and backlogged over the years.
In any case, I do want to bring up an issue which I think needs to be put into the record when discussing people who arrive here without papers: many of them are often rather from somewhat privileged backgrounds in terms of the lands from which they come. I’m not saying they’re upper class or wealthy, but if someone is not from Mexico, the cost to be smuggled into the USA on with false papers is not trivial. Vargas’ family had connections to this this country because of the nature of chain migration. This means he already had a major leg up in comparison to the typical Filipino. Those without papers who come from the eastern hemisphere and overstay tourist visas and such are invariably far more privileged than the majority of their fellow citizens. There are hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants from India apparently. I doubt very many at all are from the ~20% of India’s population which is Dalit or tribal. That’s because getting to the USA often requires connections, and those people often have no such connections, whether in India or the USA.
Of course I grant the reality is that if someone is over here it is not the same as if they are over there. Millions of poor people around the world die of ailments which are commonly treated in emergency rooms across the United States, no matter the person’s immigration status is. If you live in this country, you will get a different level of consideration than if you are afar. We can take an abstract view and wonder as to the justice of this, but it’s the natural a human way, right or rational. Those who are near, who are our neighbors, matter more to us, and are more real as people than those who are out of sight and mind.
But I think it is important not to totally ignore the abstract utilitarian aspect to this. For the vast majority of the world’s poor undocumented migration to the USA is not feasible. The distances are too great, and they lack the funds and connections. If Jose Antonio Vargas was deported to the Philippines he could still make a living by freelancing and being a foreign correspondent, he has so many connections now. Deportation is not going to be a catastrophe for him, though it will be a major come-down perhaps from the upper middle class life he’s obtained through his hard work.
In any case, those who argue for the rights of illegal immigrants appeal to our sense of justice and compassion. And they are right to do so. Our basic nature finds many of their stories appealing. But, we need to remember that there are many who also deserve our hearing who are unheard because they are far more marginalized and without means to have their voices heard. When making a moral case one must peel apart the layers of ethical complexity, and not fall prey to Manichaean dichotomies.