Mike Bouchard, the former Republican Senate candidate who ran against Democratic Party Senator Debbie Stabenow for one of Michigan's Senate seats, wrote an editorial yesterday in the Detroit News that advocates "securing the borders" and equates immigrants with criminals and terrorists.
Bouchard, who is currently an Oakland County sheriff, wrote that the immigration legislation recently defeated in the Senate would have amounted to "amnesty" for "criminals." Bouchard asserts that the immigration reform bill would have given people "a pathway to citizenship with relative ease" despite the fact that the proposed "path to citizenship" was complex and far from being a general "amnesty." Moreover, the guestworker program touted by the bill's proponents had been criticized by some as being a means through which foreign workers would be systematically exploited.
Most disturbingly, in his editorial Bouchard advances the idea that undocumented immigrants are potentially dangerous criminals that might be here to "cause harm to the American way of life." He quickly moves from describing how undocumented immigrants must commit identify theft into an attempt to associate undocumented immigrants with more serious crimes. In the editorial, Bouchard highlights two incidents in which immigrants committed terrorist attacks or crimes:
As part of an amnesty program in 1986, Mahmoud "The Red" Abouhalima was granted legal status in the United States, even though his application information was fraudulent. Little did we know that "The Red" was a terrorist who eventually became one of the leaders in the attacks against the World Trade Center in 1993. Moreover, his conveniently acquired legal status allowed him the freedom to travel and participate in terrorist training overseas.
Even closer to home is a recent incident where a Romanian refugee entered the United States illegally -- twice. His story ended after he beat, cut and kidnapped a couple from Rochester Hills before turning the gun he stole on himself.
Neither of these incidents are representative of the contributions of immigrants to society, instead they simply highlight the common rightwing technique of seizing on isolated events to attempt to link undocumented immigrants with violent crime.
Bouchard ends his editorial with a lengthy quotation from Theodore Roosevelt in 1919 that has been frequently cited by rightwing commentators opposing immigration:
In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American. ...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag we have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.
Absent from Bouchard's citation of the quote is the context in which it was written, or further information about Roosevelt's positions on immigration. It is clear from the quote that Roosevelt's comments were xenophobic, as was much of the United States' immigration policy during the "third wave" of immigration from the 1880s to the 1920s. It was the period of the heaviest immigration to the United States, with around 25 million immigrants coming to the United States. The United States government attempted to oppose much of the immigration during this period, passing legislation including the Chinese Exclusion Act that was designed to restrict immigration. For his part, Roosevelt spoke of the "threat of Japan (http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/trjapan.htm)" and argued that the United States must not allow Japanese immigration. Roosevelt was also president when the Chinese Exclusion Act was extended indefinitely,/a>. Moreover, during the era, it was common for immigrants to be set against white workers and immigrants of color were frequently the victims of verbal--and in some cases--physical attack.
Similarly missing from Bouchard's overall analysis is any explanation of why people immigrants are seeking entry into the United States. Bouchard makes no mention of the realities of immigration to the United States, which in the case of immigration from Mexico and Central America, is driven in large part by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and other neoliberal policies often enacted at the behest of the United States.
