Is A Global Community In The United States Still Possible?

Immigration Is A Defining Asset Of The United States. Here’s How To Restore Confidence In Our System.

In a recent Washington Post editorial, former Republican President George W. Bush called for bipartisan immigration reform.  His stance is a strong contrast to the position embraced by Donald Trump and many current Republic Party officials.

Rather than engage in the propaganda war to demonize immigrants, Bush emphasized the need to restore “the people’s confidence in an immigration system that serves both our values and our interests.”

The op-ed comes at a time when the U.S. is seeing a new surge of migrants coming to its southern border, which has increased the political divide between those who support and those who oppose reform has widened.

There are some colleagues of mine who find Bush’s recent comments to be hypercritical.

I disagree.

Having practiced immigration law for over two decades, I recall Bush suggesting the idea of a special immigration program for immigrants from Mexico during his first year in office.

Though disliked by some immigrant advocates, the concept was well reasoned.

Historically, the largest contingency of immigrants have come from Mexico. This is not surprising.

The U.S. and Mexico are neighbors.

Many families have a long history of living on both sides of the border as well as having relatives on both sides of the border.

The Bush Plan never got off the ground.

The 9/11 attacks took place. Any idea of immigration reform was shelved.

That infamous day was 20 years ago.

In some ways, we have moved on since that day in our view of foreigners.  Yet, for many, the negative attitudes towards all immigrants has not subsided.

And such feelings, during the Trump Administration, came out of the public closet.

Fortunately, such views struck a nerve with many law-abiding, well-intended citizens. The attempts to demonize immigrants fleeing political chaos, violence, and poverty did not succeed.

Alas, one election is not enough to eliminate such stench from our political discourse.
There are those who still want to push this hostile narrative.

Over time, the American public is beginning to realize that the vast majority of immigrants  are not arriving to steal jobs from citizens and abuse public benefits.

They simply seek what we all want – stability and security in their lives.

Clearly, immigrating to the U.S. is not the only solution.

But it is one they are spoon fed by those who want to manipulate them for purely selfish economic purposes.  The vast majority have limited knowledge of the true situation, politically, socially, and economically, in the U.S.

As a result, now is the time to rethink our antiquated immigration policies, which have grown more and more ineffective with the passage of time.

This point was recognized by Bush.

“The help and respect historically accorded to new arrivals is one reason so many people still aspire and wait to become Americans,” Bush wrote, “So how is it that in a country more generous to new arrivals than any other, immigration policy is the source of so much rancor and ill will?”

“The short answer,” he continued, “is that the issue has been exploited in ways that do little credit to either party. And no proposal on immigration will have credibility without confidence that our laws are carried out consistently and in good faith.”

Yet, we can do this.

Together, we can build a more effective immigration system that better fits today’s global realities, necessary to replace the immigration system built over 50 years ago for a world that functioned quite differently from the one in which we now live.

In fact, we must do this for the many generations that will follow the path we lay forth.

By Carlos Batara

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