[Peace-discuss] Letter to the editor

[David Green]

Submitted to the News-Gazette:

I have read with interest News-Gazette coverage of support for immigrant “Dreamers,”especially concerning the self-described Jewish progressive organization Bendthe Arc: their conversation with Rodney Davis, trip to Washington, local march,etc.

Certainly, Dreamers deserve a clear and efficient path tocitizenship. Nevertheless, their plight is politically and morally exploited byboth supporters and detractors. At a fundamental level, this narrowly-construedissue 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.”

Specifically, Democratic Party support for NAFTA in theearly 1990s (Bill Clinton/Gore) devastated both American factory workers andMexican small industry and farmers, contributing to the origins of Dreamers’ now-sympatheticplight.

Analogously, there are those liberals and so-calledprogressives who claim to support refugees while not opposing ongoing Americanwars at the root of their victimization. And there are those self-describedJewish progressives who support the Dreamers but are silent regardingPalestinian refugees and African refugees in Israel, the latter beingpersecuted by Israeli authorities in ways that are not sufficiently photogenicfor a News-Gazette article.

Moreover, the Dreamers have become a “model” immigrantminority, providing a contrast that is historically familiar whether in termsof 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 begrateful for grudging symbols of identity.”

David Green

Champaign

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