<html><head></head><body><div style="font-family:garamond, new york, times, serif;font-size:16px;"><div>Submitted to the News-Gazette:</div><div><br></div><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">I have read with interest <i>News-Gazette</i> coverage of support for immigrant “Dreamers,”
especially concerning the self-described Jewish progressive organization Bend
the Arc: their conversation with Rodney Davis, trip to Washington, local march,
etc.</font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">Certainly, Dreamers deserve a clear and efficient path to
citizenship. Nevertheless, their plight is politically and morally exploited by
both supporters and detractors. At a fundamental level, this narrowly-construed
issue ignores the “bipartisan” corporate/neoliberal policy context of globalization,
the need for cheap immigrant labor, and the concurrent outsourcing of American industry,
leading to bigoted liberal/elitist denigration of so-called “deplorables.”</font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">Specifically, Democratic Party support for NAFTA in the
early 1990s (Bill Clinton/Gore) devastated both American factory workers and
Mexican small industry and farmers, contributing to the origins of Dreamers’ now-sympathetic
plight.</font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">Analogously, there are those liberals and so-called
progressives who claim to support refugees while not opposing ongoing American
wars at the root of their victimization. And there are those self-described
Jewish progressives who support the Dreamers but are silent regarding
Palestinian refugees and African refugees in Israel, the latter being
persecuted by Israeli authorities in ways that are not sufficiently photogenic
for a <i>News-Gazette</i> article.</font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">Moreover, the Dreamers have become a “model” immigrant
minority, providing a contrast that is historically familiar whether in terms
of immigration status, race, or ethnicity. Anis Shivani writes on Counterpunch:
“What exactly is a Dreamer? A Dreamer is the postmodern version of a slave,
embodying the pliant immigrant we seem most comfortable with, expected to be
grateful for grudging symbols of identity.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;"><font face="Calibri">David Green</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;"><font face="Calibri">Champaign</font></p>
<br></div></div></body></html>