Diary: Immigration: Don't Criminalize It

Thom Hartmann is a sincere progressive, so I can understand his motivation for shifting blame away from migrant workers by turning attention to employment. It's not an "illegal immigrant" problem he says, but an "illegal employer" problem. He offers compelling facts about the near extinction of law enforcement at work sites, under leadership of the same president who now thinks troops are the best idea.

But we want to quibble with Hartmann a little bit, and encourage him to go back to square one. Why should we redefine the issue in terms of a criminal problem? The migrant movement that I see is full of opportunities. I see opportunities in the workers every day. I see opportunities in the walkouts and marchas. I see opportunities in people on the move.

While Hartmann's attention to "illegal employers" begins to shift our attention from workers to employers, and from employers to the politics of state power, not only is there an opportunity he is missing in his failure to refute the framework of a criminalizable problem, but there is a risk he is taking by legitimizing an election-year wave of employer crackdowns.

Instead of buying into the "illegal problem" framework, I think we need to ask ourselves why the politics of this election year have once again duped the American people out of their peacemaking minds? In many ways that count, day to day, the people are in fact learning to live together. There is nothing we need to suddenly criminalize.

In this respect, Mayor Bloomberg of New York offers a more promising basis of analysis. Migrant workers are foundational to our economic life. They offer enriching contributions on a daily basis. Fundamentally, the problem is therefore on the side of instigators and provacateurs who think they can ride scapegoat on the backs of migrant workers and look important doing it.

Where is the leadership in America who will remind the people of their ability to make peace?