THINKING FOR OURSELVES

A Better Country

By Shea Howell

Michigan Citizen, Jan. 20=26. 2008

There is much to celebrate in this election season. The triumph of Obama in Iowa made it clear to everyone that something new is happening. There is renewed hope that we can transcend the racial divide that has devastated this nation and its people since our founding.

In the midst of this hope, however, there is an ugly, persistent reminder of our worst selves. It is the refusal of any candidate to talk with honesty or compassion about the plight of people who have immigrated to this country.

The language used by Republicans has been the most outrageous, with Mitt Romney leading the pack in encouraging hateful, dehumanizing and punitive policies toward people who have come in search of survival.

Opposing proposals aimed at creating a so-called "path to citizenship," Romney said, "Those people should be invited to get in line outside the country with everybody else who wants to come here, but they should not be given a special right to stay here."

It was left to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to interject humanity into this debate. Romney attacked Huckabee for his support of state college scholarships for children of illegal immigrants. Romney hammered Huckabee about the issue during a November debate, saying illegal immigrants should not get "taxpayer-funded breaks." But Huckabee gained national attention when he stood by his position. "In all due respect, we're a better country than to punish children for what their parents did," Huckabee said. "We're a better country than that.” With that simple comment Huckabee took a higher ground than any of the Democratic candidates.

Neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton has helped people think about the realities of immigration. Today 14 million people are living inside the U.S. as documented immigrants and another 12 million are undocumented. The majority are people from lands south of the U.S. border. For the nearly 45 million citizens who trace their heritage to these countries, the current policies toward immigrants are a daily terror.

A recent study by the Pew Hispanic Center found that more than half of all Hispanic adults in the country worried that they or a relative or close friend could be deported. Nearly two-thirds said the failure of Congress to enact an immigration reform bill has made it more difficult for all Hispanics.

Obama, Clinton and the rest of the Democrats should be helping everyone understand the inhuman policies that assault immigrant communities. Every day families are ripped apart as ICE (Immigration) officials raid work places, roundup and deport mothers whose children are at school or fathers who planned to come home for dinner. Homes are invaded in the night without search warrants, people are taken off streets and out of businesses. Terror tactics paralyzing individuals, traumatizing families and horrifying communities are being used every day. Yet most of this happens out of sight. Instead of talking about immigrant people and their lives, the Democratic presidential candidates have tried to evade the issue. Such silence is a betrayal of leadership. Such silence allows the fears and prejudices fanned by Republicans to grow unchecked.

If Obama really wants to bring a vision of hope and a new kind of politics to America, he has to take the lead on immigration. He has to help people understand that today’s immigrant crisis is one of our own making, fostered by the policies of NAFTA, the World Bank and the IMF.

Visionary leadership has a responsibility to offer more than hope. It has the obligation to foster understanding. It has to have the courage to face what we would rather ignore. There is no other way to become better than what we are.

Email Shea Boggs Center,