Immigration Redux

After the surreal events of the past few weeks, and after a conversation with an Indian (South Asian) friend of mine, I realized that after trying to suppress the incredulity and the anger and the shit spewing forth like an untamed geyser, that we have regressed back to late 2016. Back to reality. Back to the cleansing. Back to the deportations.

Deportations. Immigration. What would the United States be without immigrants?

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

–Emma Lazarus, 1883

So goes “The New Colossus”, the inscription on the Statue of Liberty.

I don’t think it applies anymore. Not to this country.

I tried to capture the angst that permeated America back in 2019 in my novel, Left on Rancho, where immigration is one of the reasons why anyone would take a left on Rancho Road.

In an early scene, Andrew Eastman, the protagonist, is driving in the early hours of the morning when he comes across a mass of people protesting outside a private prison, FDN.

To his [Andrew’s] left was a bonfire and a large crowd. Some of the men and women in the crowd held placards, while others held dummies of a fat orange man hanging by a noose. One dummy hung upside down. A dozen cars, headlights on, enveloped the FDN facility in a hellish, yellow glow. Opposite the protesters stood a score of uniformed guards, clad in brown shirts and brown jackets with brass buttons shining in the headlights, arms folded across their chests.

A single voice, coming from a small woman brandishing a megaphone standing majestically on the hood of a pickup, called out, followed by a unified response from the crowd. At first Andrew couldn’t make out what they were saying. He rolled down his window. Queremos . . . justicia para Porfirio. Queremos . . . justicia para Porfirio. Over and over.

Andrew was not surprised. Pro and anti-immigration protests were common. The immigration “problem” had transmogrified into a vitriolic political issue. It was fanned by fools and zealots who listened to the rabid media, radio talking heads, and who sourced their online “news” from disreputable sources: Facebook feeds, YouTube channels, and Twitter handles whose content was provided by offshore troll farms, bots, and nation states trying to destabilize the United States. They were galvanized by the success of the 2016 election and the inability and unwillingness of the social media platforms to do anything to stop it. Andrew knew this. He had been in the bowels of the Valley, late-night discussions with colleagues, debating the pros and cons of the immigration issue into the wee hours. Concentrated Attention was the business model. The longer eyeballs were focused on a platform, the longer the platform controlled what they saw, the more ads served, the more money the platforms raked in, and the more the stock was worth. Algorithms ensured hate nurtured hate, xenophobia compounded xenophobia, and ignorance ran rampant. And beyond the damage done to the hungry, the poor, and the destitute, he couldn’t hire talented, eager software engineers.

I wrote that three years ago.

There’s more. In his quest, Andrew finds himself in the office of an immigration attorney, Gene Walla. Here’s another excerpt from the novel that captures the plight of those defending the immigrants.

Andrew was about to speak, but Gene Walla, gesturing with his cigarette at Andrew, said, “My friend, I am going to tell you my story.” He flicked errant ashes from his vest. “I came here thirty years ago to go to university. I got my degree, I got a job, with the visa, you know, F-1, H-1, that sort of thing. I got a green card in the lottery—back then they gave out a lot,” he slammed his palm on the desk, making Andrew jump, “a lot of green cards.” Cigarette ash floated in the air. “I went to master’s school and got a law degree. I am still here, a US Citizen, helping the families, getting their relatives permits, finding work for these people, helping them start a new life here in the United States.” He inhaled again. “I could not do this today. No way!” His voice rose to a high pitch as he stood up, his round frame obscuring the chair. “If I come to the United States an educated man now, today, I am treated like a criminal. An intruder. An alien. So you see, Mr. Andrew,” he lowered his voice, “they are sending everyone back. Zero tolerance, you heard that? With very, very few exceptions.”

“I know about the zero-tolerance thing.”

“Your friend, Livia, and a few others are doing something, trying to do something. Very few people care.” He lit another cigarette with the butt of the dying one. “Bad for business. For me. For everyone. Before 2017, it was good, fair, reasonable. Now, I have very few clients, I work with nonprofits. They have no money. I am creating useless paperwork, knowing it will be rejected. Everyone is being sent back. What is there left for me to do?”

We’ve turned back the clock. When we all thought the nightmare was behind us. Both my Indian friend and I are here because of the “F-1, H-1, that sort of thing.” Would we be here if the policies now being espoused by crawling, boot-licking sycophants were applied to immigrants in the eighties?

I don’t think so.