Mr. Speaker. I rise today to enter into the RECORD. an editorial. entitled From Civil Rights to Immigrant Rights. published in the May 16. 2006 edition of the New York Carib News. by Basil Wilson on the CaribOpinion page. Mr. Wilson raises some pertinent issues and questions about the highly polarized immigration debate. The Republican immigration bill wants to criminalize illegal immigrants and individuals and organizations that support them. Claiming that illegal immigrants are a costly burden on legitimate taxpayers. legislation is being discussed to deny medical services to undocumented workers. Fearing that "Latinization of America" is a threat to American values. the conservatives plan to militarize the southwestern border but policing 1.900 miles border is very difficult. not to mention costly. The shocking revelation is that this antiimmigrant sentiment is not only backed by economic concerns but also by academic ideology. Samuel P. Huntington and the like are "for immigration provided the dominant culture of white Protestantism is preserved." Recalling the Know Nothing Party of the 1840s whose goal was to expunge the "foreign and unassimilatable Irish Catholics." Mr. Wilson deplores the generalization of the supremacists that Mexican immigrants are unwilling to be integrated into American society. Even if that were the case. the history of Black America proves that assimilation alone is not the answer. The civil rights movement abolished the institutionalized segregation but racism has not disappeared from America. More importantly the power relation with white America has not changed. "The black commitment to integration did not ease the white backlash and the immigrant assimilation will not mitigate the resistance to the browning of America." The struggle of todays immigrants is about first class citizenship. The 11.5 million immigrant workers who are an integral part of the American society deserve their rightful place. I join Mr. Wilson in urging that the movements for civil rights. immigrant rights and social justice should join forces to free America from the grip of its historical racism. [From the New York CaribNews. May 16. 2006]
Identified stereotypes
Generalization that Mexican immigrants are unwilling to integrate into American society.