America's biggest unfinished business in 2013: immigration reform

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/21/obama-immigration-reform-unfinished-business

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When witnessing others' pain makes us feel uneasy or uncomfortable, it is easy to turn the other way. When those people are different, turning away is even easier. The things I have seen and heard in my work this year are what most people deem inappropriate for dinner conversation: decomposed bodies, orphaned children, soldiers with licenses to kill, military checkpoints, snipers, black hawk helicopters, drones, violated women, more casualties, teenagers sprayed with bullets. This is not Syria, Afghanistan, or Iraq. I am describing America's current border region, our nation's own backyard under siege. In a peaceful demonstration in Washington DC last month, the Southern Border Communities Coalition (SBCC), a group of 60 organizations in the border region, laid upon the Washington Mall a border-wall quilt, similar to the AIDS quilt, memorializing the families suffering under the current militarized state of the border region in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. When the panels came in to Washington DC, they were more disturbing and horrific then I could have imagined. They spoke of people's shattered lives and broken dreams, they spoke of hopelessness and desperation, mourning, fear, death, and pain. The panels were begging for change in the region in sometimes an empty and pathetic way. For some who sent panels to Washington, it was clear that they had nothing left. There were panels quilted out of migrants' clothes found in the desert, tributes to mothers and fathers separated from United States citizen children and spouses after a decade or more in the US, memorials to the uninvestigated deaths of 20 unarmed people known to be gunned down by border patrol agents in the past three years, poems and letters by children, a memorial to a teenage "dreamer" Joaquin Luna Jr of Texas, who committed suicide because he could not go to college and become an engineer.

One section consisted of 136 square feet, or 17 panels, filled with fine print of the names of men, women, and children and the unknown who have been found in the Tucson, Arizona sector of the border, the only region where they have a body count process through an organization called Humane Borders.

The reality of the severe consequences of militarization in the border region that affects communities totaling approximately 15 million people is a little known fact in America. Maybe this can be attributed to the mainstream media's tendency to ignore stories about brown America and the poor. The border wall quilt, in fact, was not featured by a major English-language media outlet. It did get press some coverage and the Hispanic caucus and other members of congress did visit the quilt. It also inspired 20 members of Congress to send a letter to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to "discuss in greater detail CBP's plan for improving its use of force policies and practices including oversight and accountability mechanisms", and to request a "detailed discussion of [the agency's] plan to improve [its] complaint, investigation, and disciplinary process", as well as a published use of force policy handbook, and a timeline for implementation of CBP's September changes in its use of force policy.

But what the quilt did not achieve was to change the national narrative or congressional focus on the border region. Nor did the quilt bring immigration reform to the US Senate floor. It got a brief mention in President Obama's year-end press conference, but only as "unfinished business". So now that 2014 is days away, I am asking, "so what?" What do these people have to do to get Congress' attention and understanding that immigration reform is an issue that is not going away and needs to be refocused away from militarization and toward the consideration of the wellbeing of people in the border region? If nearly 500 cocker spaniels were found dead in Arizona in 2012, would Congress have already passed a protection law so that it would not happen again? At the very least, I can be sure that every household in America would know about it.

The effort to pass comprehensive immigration reform legislation in 2013 was not only a failure, but also showed a profound lack of concern for the safety and wellbeing of the people living in the border region. The current focus on militarization is an insulting and ominous foreboding into the future of the border region and shows that Congress is out of touch with the needs of the 15 million people who live and work there, many of whom lack basic infrastructure such as roads, disaster relief services, garbage collection, electricity, schools, hospitals, and rapid international points of entry from Mexico.

The changes to the Leahy amendment in the last immigration reform bill presented an increased border surge plan that showed a clear lack of understanding of the current state of the border region. It included $43bn in tax dollars for private defense contractors, an arbitrary increase in an already swollen number of border patrol – from 21,000 to 40,000 agents, an increased jurisdiction zone for border patrol agents – from 50 to 100 miles inland of the international border, 700 new miles of border fence that has already been proven to be ineffective, and the list goes on and on. The continued focus on the failed militarization strategy shows that Congress is more interested in lining the pockets of private defense contractors than improving the lives and safety of the Americans who live in the border region.

America has an opportunity this year for a very meaningful New Year's resolution: to stop looking the other way. Congress' complacency has reached an embarrassing new low in 2013 when the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for America's border inhabitants continues to be in grave peril. Let us resolve to stop looking the other way, to move out of our comfortable complacency, to overcome ignorance, and to look straight ahead at the United States' immigration reform crisis.

Only by facing the border region's suffering straight on can we build national support for Congress to change the focus from militarization to revitalization of the dynamic border region and make desperately needed and meaningful reforms.

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