Judith Butler is a resident of Wilmington.
Did you hear the news? After terrorizing hardworking immigrant families with threats, raids and deportations, and calling them “criminals,” President Donald Trump has begun to recognize their enormous contribution to our economy: “Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace.”
In response to the president’s sudden revelation, Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations unit has instructed its regional leaders to halt investigations of the agricultural industry — including meatpackers — as well as restaurants and hotels. Before long, construction work, landscaping, trucking and jobs in the “care economy” — older adult care and child care — are likely to be added to the list.
And this is how it happens: Immigrants seeking a better life for their loved ones arrive in the U.S. without proper documentation. Business owners looking for “cheap labor” hire them to do menial, unappealing work for low pay and few, if any, benefits. This is work that Americans avoid: mushroom farming; chicken farming and processing; fruit and vegetable harvesting; housekeeping in hotels, hospitals and nursing homes; and cleanup in restaurants and commercial buildings. Immigrants comprise a large portion of our direct care workforce, including child care workers, home health aides and nursing assistants in residential facilities.
Truth be told, these immigrants meet so many of our needs, it’s impossible to capture the full extent of their contributions to our communities and our economy. Rather than rounding them up and deporting them, perhaps we should be honoring them with an Immigrant Appreciation Day. Even better, we should call on our U.S. senators and representatives to lay out a path to citizenship for these hardworking, decent people, as President Ronald Reagan tried to do when he signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.
This act was the last full-fledged legislation aimed at controlling and deterring illegal immigration. It increased border security, offered amnesty and a path to legal residency for nearly 3 million immigrants, and imposed sanctions on employers who knowingly hired unauthorized workers. In the decades since, the failure to enforce parts of the IRCA, especially the sanctions on employers, has brought us to where we are now, with millions of undocumented immigrants filling critical roles in our workforce for low wages and limited benefits.
Instead of treating hardworking immigrants like criminals and deporting them, it’s time for Congress and the president to do their jobs and fix our broken immigration system.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
