Paradoxes and Realities

While the debate over the budget and national debt is at the center of attention, diverse bodies in the U.S. continue passing laws to pursue, punish and deport those who are working where they are needed but lack the documents to do so.

Now, in the state of Georgia, a law was passed that was similar to the one passed in Arizona, which will give police the authority to detain and verify the immigration status of persons whom officers presume could be undocumented. The governor waits to sign the legislation and with it fulfill his campaign promise to “implement a law similar to Arizona’s” in a state with nearly 500,000 undocumented immigrants. It is also very likely that a federal judge will order a stay on a majority of the provisions while its appeal is pending with the federal authorities, which is what happened in Arizona.

Some governors complain about the lack of border control by the federal government, and thus, with the complicity of the state legislatures, they have decided to implement their own immigration laws to contravene the Constitution, which establishes that the only body responsible for immigration policy is the federal government. The argument that spending on education and health care for the undocumented is responsible for the financial breakdown is . The undocumented pay local taxes for the products they acquire, which are a substantial part of the budgets for municipalities. Contributions are also deducted by the businesses where they are working, part of which remains in the state.

At the heart of it, in some states, the anti-immigrant laws have an openly xenophobic bend and serve as a bulwark to give free rein to the most racist instincts of large sectors of the population.

If the arguments of those who enact these laws had any truth, there is then a great paradox hidden in the entirety of this issue. The governors of the bodies where these laws have been decreed, as well as their legislators, are Republicans. But the paradox is that the Republican legislators in Congress are those who oppose debating and voting on an immigration law to resolve the problem. Yet, in an act of partisan schizophrenia, their fellow party members in the states are blaming Washington as being responsible for the nation’s immigration disarray.

One might suspect that in reality it’s really about burying legislation that could resolve the immigration problem. Exploitation of those who live in the shadows is easier and less onerous; and, on top of that, political campaigns to scapegoat them bring in votes. Meanwhile, the government of the destination for the majority of those undocumented workers, where they continue to arrive, keeps saying the poor are better off already — now they have TVs and refrigerators.

What a world!