A Decade Later, We’re Still A Haven

(Opinion) ​“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” Kica Matos intoned from a makeshift stage at the eastern corner of the New Haven Green. It was April 10, 2006, and Matos, then the Director of Junta for Progressive Action, invoked the famous inscription on the Statute of Liberty, calling the ​“wretched refuse” and ​“the homeless, tempest-tost” to America’s land of promise.

Supporters of comprehensive immigration reform rallied around the country in cities like New Haven that April day. Although advocates simultaneously pushed local remedies to help the plight of immigrants, national success seemed, at the time, tantalizingly close. Few of us expected that ten years later, the debate about immigration would involve talk of making Mexico pay for a wall along the United States’ southern border and barring Muslims from entering the country.

Since the pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, immigrants from foreign lands have sought to write their own destiny in America. Despite modern terms like ​“illegal immigrants,” immigration law has always been within federal government’s civil jurisdiction and not a matter of criminal law.

Being undocumented in the United States has historically been treated by law as the moral equivalent of speeding – a violation remedied by paying a fine.

But in 1996, that all changed when Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. Since then, any undocumented immigrant who wants to normalize his or her status is required to leave the country for anywhere between three and ten years.

After 1996, federal courts no longer had the power to review deportation orders based on a person’s continuous physical presence in the United States, his or her good moral character, or the degree of hardship that would result from the deportation. Legal aid attorneys who received federal funds were prohibited from representing undocumented immigrants.

The path to legal immigration has been compounded by the fact that federal law prohibits immigrants from many countries — Mexico, India, Brazil, China, Guatemala, Haiti and others — from receiving immigration visas unless they are members of a special profession – like a doctor – or have immediate family members in the United States.

Put another way, if my grandparents – or the relatives of many other Americans – were prospective Mexican or Haitian immigrants today, there would be no legal way for them to immigrate to the United States. The much popularized idea that immigrants should return to their country and ​“wait in line” is almost always a fiction because, for most prospective immigrants, no such line exists.

With few legal options available to the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the number of undocumented immigrants unsurprisingly soared. In 1996, undocumented immigrants accounted for about 1.9 percent of the population or approximately $5 million people; by 2006, that number had more than doubled. At the start of the century, an average of 700,000 undocumented immigrants were coming to the U.S. yearly. Although federal deportations skyrocketed following 9/11, the government still expelled less than 250,000 immigrants a year. Even if federal expulsions had doubled, they would still account for less than the number of undocumented entering the country annually, not to mention the immigrants already here.

Amidst this reality, New Haven sought to be true to its name and make peace with reality.

In March 2005, Junta for Progressive Action and Unidad Latina en Acción presented City Hall with seven suggestions for how to more formally integrate New Haven’s immigrant population into civic life. In October 2005, with the assistance of Yale Law School’s Legal Services Organization, the groups memorialized six of those ideas into a proposal titled A City to Model – the most well-known of which was New Haven’s resident ID card. (Disclosure: I was part of the team that helped write the ID proposal.) In 2007, the proposal was brought before the Board of Alders for approval and passed.

The ID card has ​“made a huge difference,” according to Junta’s current Director, Sandra Trevino. She noted that, when undocumented immigrants are the victims of crimes, they need to be encouraged to report those crimes to the police and be able to identify themselves. Parents need identification to pick their children up from schools and daycares.

“When you don’t have anything, who are you?” Trevino asked. ​“It’s terrible to need this piece of plastic, but it’s where we are.”
In 2005 and 2006, change seemed close. President Bush had a longstanding commitment to immigrants and made clear that he wanted to pass comprehensive immigration reform. In 2006, a Democratic majority took over Congress, claiming it had the same aims. After President Obama was elected, he even temporarily enjoyed a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. And still, no change.

“There were times we thought we were very close,” Trevino said. ​“It has been very disappointing.”

Hostility toward immigration has deep historical roots, from the Know Nothings to the Chinese Exclusion Act. Even the great luminaries of our past were not immune to it.

“Those who come hither are generally of the most ignorant Stupid Sort of their own Nation,” Benjamin Franklin famously said. ​“Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion?”

These days, when the presidential election has been consumed by comments like ​“immigrants rape and kill,” it seems that a reform of the nation’s immigration laws is a distant dream. But the United States has not abandoned its self-conception as a nation of immigrants. Today’s anti-immigrant sentiment is loud, but not widely accepted. Most Americans oppose a ban on Muslim immigration and comprehensive immigration reform continues to hold significant public support.

“It’s never a black and white line,” Trevino said, reflecting on this dynamic. ​“It’s always grey with immigration.”

In the end, American history has tended to bend eventually – if slowly – toward greater integration and acceptance. But, until the federal government reforms its byzantine immigration system, cities and towns will have to find local ways to adapt to the country’s reality. Ten years ago, New Haven put itself at the forefront of this effort and, as it has been throughout its history, the Elm City remains a haven for a new generation of immigrants.

Liam Brennan is an assistant United States attorney and a visiting clinical lecturer in law at Yale Law School. Any views expressed in this piece are his own.