A4 •
COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL • JULY 11, 2018
O PINION
Guest Viewpoint
On Independence, Immigration and Inhumanity
By Marshall Gause
of Cottage Grove
I
n the July 3 publication of her week-
ly “Chatter Box” column in Th e Sen-
tinel, Betty Kaiser made a good faith
eff ort to learn more about immigration in
America. I would like to respectfully con-
tinue the discussion.
Th e Declaration of Independence quite
explicitly encouraged immigration, taking
the King of England to task for his tyran-
nical eff orts to thwart it. Th e document is
essentially a list of the “Abuses and Usur-
pations” the authors felt King George III,
referred to throughout as “HE”, had vis-
ited upon the colonies. Out of more than
two dozen grievances, the seventh one
listed makes it pretty plain, stating:
“HE has endeavored to prevent Popula-
tion of the these States; for that Purpose
obstructing the Laws of Naturalization of
Foreigners, refusing to pass others to en-
courage their Migration hither, and rais-
ing the Conditions of New Appropriations
of Lands.“
Th e signers of the Declaration wanted
laws to encourage foreigners to migrate
to America — full stop. In fact, over 1/7th
of the signers of the Declaration were im-
migrants, most having been born in En-
gland, Ireland or Scotland, and brought to
America as children. In addition, 1/6th of
the signers were fi rst generation residents
of the colonies — “anchor babies,” if you
will.
But of course, one of the reasons the
signers encouraged immigrants to join
them was because they had decidedly poor
relations with the original inhabitants of
America who they refer to in the Declara-
tion as, “merciless Indian Savages.”
And while the Declaration is best
known for the loft y assertion that “all men
are created equal,” (“men” not women,
mind you), 43 of the 56 signers were slave
owners, men who actively forced people
into, or maintained them in bondage,
profi ting from their labor and buying and
selling them as property. Th ese were peo-
ple who weren’t even aff orded the dignity
of immigration, but instead came as cargo.
Slavery was the original family separa-
tion policy — children were taken from
their parents; husbands and wives, broth-
ers and sisters were torn apart never to see
each other again.
If we want to celebrate the aspirations
embodied in the American vision, we
must also confront the violence, greed and
hatred at the core of slavery and the cen-
turies of racism and intolerance that have
followed. We must confront the systemic
dehumanization of people as “merciless
savages” in our history and as “animals”
— or an “infestation” in our present polit-
ical culture. Th is history of hatred is part
of our legacy, too. As is the capacity to al-
low such polices to persist and turn our
immigration situation into a “mess” where
inhuman practices can persist.
Some more facts to consider:
According to the American Immigra-
tion Council, immigrants — even those
that are unauthorized — are less likely
than native-born persons to engage in
crime. From 1990 to 2013, the share of
the U.S. population that was foreign-born
went from 7.9 percent to 13.1 percent
while, during the same period, the FBI
found that violent crime declined by 48
percent and property crime declined by
41 percent.
Despite this evidence, ICE is the sec-
ond largest criminal investigation and
enforcement agency in the U.S., only the
FBI is larger. And yet ICE operates with-
out accountability from the Department
of Justice. Instead they are under the aus-
pices of the Department of Homeland
Security, an agency that has only existed
since 2003 and represents one of the larg-
est expansions of the federal government
in decades.
ICE is the only U.S. criminal enforce-
ment agency that has a bed quota. It is
required by law to fi ll 34,000 beds with
migrants every day at a cost to taxpayers
of more than $120 per detainee — or more
than $2 billion per year.
It needs to also be noted that arriving at
a designated port of entry and requesting
asylum from violence or oppression, as
many migrants from countries like Hon-
duras and Guatemala are doing, is not ille-
gal immigration. In fact, is absolutely legal
in accordance with U.S. and international
laws governing asylum.
For over 30 years sociologists Doug-
lass Massey and Jorge Durand have run
the Mexican Migration Project, the most
detailed database tracking Mexican immi-
gration to and emigration from the U.S.
Th e U.S. government uses it as its primary
source of data on the issue rather than the
Border Patrol itself, whose data is notori-
ously unreliable.
In 2016 Massey and Durand published
the results of a rigorously researched study
called “Why Border Enforcement Back-
fi red.” Th ey found that between 1986 and
2010 the U.S. spent $35 billion on border
enforcement, but rather than decrease,
undocumented migration doubled.
Th is is because for nearly a century,
migration from Mexico was circular in
nature. Th at is to say Mexican migrants,
mostly men, would come to the U.S. for
seasonal work and then return to Mexico
for the winter months. As border enforce-
ment increased, crossing became more
dangerous, so rather than return, mi-
grants would remain in the U.S.
Massey and Durand conclude that if
the U.S. had maintained pre-1986 bor-
der enforcement policies, eff ectively done
nothing new and saved billions of dollars
in taxpayer money, undocumented immi-
gration would be a third lower than it is.
When I consider how we, as Americans,
have allowed such an inhuman, ineffi cient
and indefensible approach to immigration
enforcement persist for so long, I am re-
minded of another passage from the Dec-
laration of Independence:
“Mankind are more disposed to suff er,
while Evils are suff erable, than to right
themselves by abolishing the forms to
which they are accustomed.”
Have we grown so accustomed to suf-
fering a violent, militaristic approach
that we can’t let logic, compassion and
tolerance guide us in all people’s pursuit
of “Life, Liberty, and Happiness?” One fi -
nal passage we all should know comes to
mind, which reads: “Whenever any Form
of Government becomes destructive of
these Ends, it is the right of the People to
alter or abolish it.”
Abolishing ICE, a sprawling, wasteful,
and authoritarian overreach of federal
power is a good place to start. But refusing
to let others suff er Evils that we have the
power to change, refusing to see others as
less than human and refusing to succumb
to hatred... those are the endless endeav-
ors that our lives will be measured against.
Marshall Gause is a writer, musician,
and farmer in Cottage Grove
LETTERS
Clearcut Eyesore
Th e clear-cut hills north and
east of town are such an eyesore.
I thought Lane County want-
ed to attract local tourism, not
drive it away. I know it is private
land, but clear cuts increase the
fi re threat. I don't want to have
a Labor Day weekend anything
like last year’s.
With the awful fi res last year,
this isn’t going to help because
the ground gets dried up so
badly. Selective logging prom-
ises more continuous, ongoing
work and isn’t as destructive.
I have to ask: Is clearcutting
the only option we got?
—Kerstin Britz
Cottage Grove
We are people fi rst,
citizens second
Th e light of American free-
dom does not end nor grow dim
at America’s borders. In fact, it
is at these physical boundaries
we can increase in ourselves
both the light of knowing free-
dom and the clarity of a con-
science raised in freedom.
We can enjoy a deepening in
both character and conscience
at those physical boundaries
precisely because it is at these
physical boundaries that we not
only must confront the legal do-
main of freedom, but we must
also confront the arguments of
those who think freedom is a
privilege allocated to a precious
few — and not a space created
by the promise of Life itself to
all those who share the precious
gift of life.
Do not think like a selfi sh
person who has the habit of see-
ing every good thing that some-
one else has as having been sto-
len from their own plate.
Instead think like this: When
we increase someone else’s good
fortune we increase the sum to-
tal good fortune and goodwill
of the world we all share.
Allow me to quote from the
fi rst section of the 14th Amend-
ment. Aft er determining the
nature of the citizenship of the
United States of someone either
born in the United States or be-
come naturalized, the second
sentence reads: “... Nor shall
any state deprive any person of
life, liberty or property, without
due process of law; nor deny to
any person within its jurisdic-
tion the equal protection of the
laws.”
I want to point out that this
quoted text does not use the
word “citizen,” but instead uses
the word “person.”
I cannot help but believe that
the discussion I opened this
letter with indicates the best
and most truly American con-
text to interpret both the word
Person and my quote from the
14th Amendment to Th e Con-
stitution of the United States of
America.
—Leo Rivers
Cottage Grove
The First Amendment
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religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridg-
ing the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of
the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition their
Government for a redress of greivences.
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representatives
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District 4 State Senator
PO Box 11511
Eugene, Ore. 97440
Phone: 541-342-2447
Email : sen.fl oydprozanski@
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• Rep. Cedric Hayden
Republican District 7 State
Representative
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Salem, Ore. 97301
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contact/email-peter
Phone: 541-465-6732
• Sen. Ron Wyden
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Eugene, Ore. 97401
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Phone: 541-465-6750
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