Illegal Immigration as a form of Civil Disobedience
Illegal Immigration as a form of Civil Disobedience
Introduction
The issue of illegal immigration in the United States is one of many differing viewpoints, attitudes and perspectives. In the Philosophy class Global Justice we have discussed many ways in which government and citizens conceptualize the issue of both legal and illegal immigration and how it affects the nation state. In the article “The Ethics of Labor Immigration Policy” authors Martain Ruh and Ha-Joon Chang advocate for more organized guest worker programs. They open the article with “as of 2000, there were around 175 million people living temporarily or permanently outside their home countries, which is about 3 percent of the world’s population and more than double the number in 1970. Sixty percent of the world’s migrants currently reside in the more developed regions (including 56 million in Europe and 41 million in North America), where almost one in every ten persons is a migrant”(Ruhs 2004, 69). By recognizing that immigration, be it legal or illegal is a phenomenon that nations must acknowledge and deal with; it is easy to see that this is a global issue and should be addressed as such.
Illegal Immigration
People are motivated to immigrate to another country for a wide range of reasons some of which being political, economic, and religious. Navigating the bureaucracy of the immigration system in the United States and attaining legal immigration is not a likely occurrence for most as the quota for immigrants is small relative to the amount of people aspiring to immigrate. Work programs and work visas are another option besides permanent residency. These programs are also highly sought after and hard to attain. This leaves many people without a legal option for immigrating to the United States, and some choose to enter illegally. Some would see the work that undocumented laborers do in the United States as an injustice towards those American citizens who are here legally. In this perspective the undocumented workers are taking the jobs that rightfully and legally belong to United States citizens. An opposing point of view would acknowledge the injustice being committed against the illegal immigrants, as they are without representation in civic and political matters. It is easy to see the perspectives and claims that each group makes towards injustice but hard to determine which claim is more just.
In Chapter eight of the book Global Justice: Seminal Essays, Joseph Carens offers his paper “Aliens and Citizens: The Case for Open Borders”. In this essay he defends the rights of immigrant people and condemns the use of violence against them. He questions the right of the nation to impose such strict and harsh punishment onto immigrants who are and not “criminals, subversives or armed invaders” but peaceful, refuge seekers who want a safer life. He questions the irrationally hostile response to these peaceful people and muses over ways to justify open boarders and allowing the freedom of movement amongst free nations.
Civil Disobedience
In our Global Justice Philosophy class we reviewed the definition of civil disobedience set forth by John Rawls. Rawls contends that civil disobedience must be public, nonviolent, conscientious, and aim to change the law or policy. The act or demonstration must be public in order for the movement to gain attention and support for the cause. The action must be nonviolent or else it will be met with force and seen as criminal behavior instead of civil disobedience by the government. This point is key to the success of the tactic because once violence is added into the equation then there is a shift in focus from the policy and law to safety and security and reestablishing order on the part of the government. It is important to differentiae between civil disobedience and mere criminal behavior because in the case of civil disobedience the individual knows the law and is knowingly breaking it to show their disagreement with it, while willingly accepting the punishment and not avoiding arrest. This behavior contrasts with a criminal who has no intention of getting caught for the laws that he or she may break. And lastly the whole project must show how the law or policy is unjust and faulty in order to encourage citizens and institutions to contemplate and reconsider their position on the matter.
Civil disobedience can only be successful in liberal societies due to the standards of human rights that are in place. A dictatorship which may not value the rights, views, and perspectives of its people may choose to respond with force instead of entertaining the idea of changing its policies. This means that civil disobedience is only an option for some citizens in certain political situations. The success of civil disobedience is in getting the government officials to realize that a law or policy actually violates proclaimed or founding principles of that government. If the government in question has no history of proclaimed principals or values to appeal to then civil disobedience cannot succeed. In the context of the United States one example is the statement “all men are created equal” which is found in the declaration of independence. This statement was later used during the civil rights movement as a way to appeal to the proclaimed ideal of the nation. At the time of the movement African Americans were not being given equal rights in the south, so they broke laws that discriminated against them to protest the hypocrisy of the laws. The use of civil disobedience showed the glaring inconsistency in the laws when measured against the founding principals of the United States and encouraged both civilians and government to reassess their views and stance on the issue.
Attaining documents
In the article “Constructing Citizenship Without a License: The Struggle of Undocumented Immigrations in the USA for Livelihoods and Recognition” the author Fran Ansley discusses the controversial move by the state of Tennessee to grant illegal immigrants drivers licenses. Allowing illegal immigrants to attain driver’s licenses is viewed by some as an acceptance of criminal behavior, but by others it is understood to be a matter of human rights. Proper state issued identification is a necessity in modern life and a requirement for attaining a bank account, library card, and many other day to day transactions and activities. By framing the issue as a public safety concern the proponents of driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants were able to gain more support for their cause. The actual motivation behind their project was the human and civil rights of undocumented workers but by appealing to road safety they managed to change in the law that was seen as unjust.
Businesses benefit from the cheap labor that illegal, undocumented workers provide. Immigrants are in a situation of exploitation and have no rights provided by the government of the United States that does not acknowledge their status within its borders. Because of this employers are free to take advantage of undocumented laborers as workplace safety laws, minimum wage, social security and other benefits and protections do not cover or apply to them. The United States government grants these benefits and protections to citizen workers but not to all workers within the nation.
Ansley frames the struggle for illegal immigrants in an inspirational way by stating, “The Tennessee driver’s license campaign is a paradoxical but significant site for studying rights and citizenship. It was part of a wider mobilization that continues today in the USA; one in which undocumented immigrants - people with no standing as U.S. citizens or even as legal residents - are “making a way out of no way,” offering the rest of us a much-needed windows on to the global landscape, demonstrating new models, and inviting us to reinvent our own citizenship.” (Ansley 2010, 173). This quote is a call to United States citizens to recognize the power they have to shape their government. Some citizens are disillusioned by the state of politics today and feel that they may not have a voice, to which Ansley is giving us an example of a group of noncitizens who definitely do not have a voice in the legal sense but are still managing to get some amount of attention, activism, and change for causes that they believe in.
Illegal Immigration as Civil Disobedience
So after establishing the terms of civil disobedience and exploring some of the issues surrounding immigration and undocumented workers, I move to asking the question “is illegal immigration a form of civil disobedience”? When looking at the criteria that Rawls presents for civil disobedience illegal migrants fit three out of four categories. The first criteria are that the action is public, which in this case does not hold true. Most illegal immigrants are reluctant to make it known who they are, and where they reside because of the fear of being deported. Illegal immigrants live in fear because if the authorities find out they are here without proper documentation they will be arrested and thrown out of the country. This is the largest impediment to the claim of civil disobedience. Some within the migrant population have been petitioning for the government to acknowledge and accept them as members of the nation and communities in which they live and work, which has been done in a nonviolent way. The law that illegal immigrants are consciously breaking is the law against illegal entrance to the country and not going thought he proper governmental and political institutions to be in the country with accordance to the law. These are the very laws that illegal immigrants are seeking to change. This group of unrecognized peoples would like to see their presence and contribution to society recognized by the government.
Ansley can see the parallels between the actions of illegal immigrants and civil disobedience which leads him to state, “The mass migration itself, which can in come ways be best appreciated as a kind of collective civil disobedience”(Ansley 2010, 173). He is aware of how the immigrant community is seeking to change the laws in order for their rights and liberties to be acknowledged by the United States government.
Rights are only valid if there is an organization or institution behind them charged with enforcement and preservation of said rights. According to the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas, human rights must be an extension of civil rights. In this arrangement the governments are not only charged with providing civil rights, but human rights as well. This provides for more accountability and stability in how human rights are handled. Without grounding human rights through civil rights the accountability of nations to enforce human rights is not apparent, and therefore human rights may be brushed aside when seen as an impediment to other national objectives. Interpreting human rights as a component of civil rights in the context of illegal immigration is simple; the citizens of the United States believe in the constitutional principals of liberty and equality but then deny those very principals to noncitizens. Why should national identity override the more virtuous and powerful concepts of liberty and equality? Illegal immigrants are exposing this contradiction by entering the United States illegally and then requesting the same rights as their new neighbors.
Conclusion
As I have shown illegal immigration is a complex issue with the interests of many groups at stake. In this context, when the rights and liberties of one group are upheld they come at the cost of another group. I am inclined to side with the illegal immigrants because human rights are being violated in the form of being unacknowledged by the United States government or protected by any of the laws and programs granted to citizens. These injustices are at a far more basic level than that of alleged job loss, as some American citizens claim is the more pressing injustice committed against them. Our country is vast and we are all relatively recent immigrants to these lands. The best way to minimize these symptoms of global inequality is to make and enforce policies that bring stability, equality, and harmony to the arrangement of all nations. By recognizing the human rights of all and not fixating on only the rights of fellow citizens we may begin to see what change equal rights will bring in the world. If the conditions in the home countries where immigrants originate were peaceful, prosperous, and stable they would be less likely to leave. The economic and security instability in the world is what drives immigration. How can a person be faulted for desiring to escape danger and destitution for safety, security, and opportunity?
Works Cited
Allen, Michael. “Civil Disobedience, Transnational” Encyclopedia of Global Justice. Business Media.
Ansley, Fran. “Constructing Citizenship Without a License: The Struggle of Undocumented Immigrations in the USA for Livelihoods and Recognition.” Studies in Social Justice 4 (2010): 165-178
Pogge, Thomas and Darrel Moellendorf. Global Justice:Seminal Essays. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2008.
Ruhs, Martin and Ha-Joon Chang. “The Ethics of Labor Immigration Policy” International Organization 58, no. 1 (winter 2004): 69-102.
