immigration
Interview with Edwidge Danticat
FPIF’s E. Ethelbert Miller talks with Edwidge Danticat about her new memoir, U.S. immigration law, and U.S.-Haitian relations.
Remittances: For Love and Money
Yania Marcelino was a six-year-old girl in the Dominican Republic when her mother left their family to find work in another country. She went first to Puerto Rico, then later to New York City to work as a seamstress. There she began sending money back to Marcelino and her three siblings and four cousins. The children often had to travel 15 or 20 kilometers to get to the wire transfer agency, and sometimes the money sent was lost.
NAFTA: Kicked Up a Notch
The North American Free Trade Agreement is the world’s most advanced example of the U.S.-led free trade model. It’s not just about economics any more. The expansion of NAFTA into the Security and Prosperity Partnership reveals the road ahead for other nations entering into free trade agreements. It is not a road most nations — or the U.S. public — would take if they knew where it led.
Walls, Amnesty, and False Choices
The national immigration debate largely is split between two camps.
Mexican Election Could Lead to Immigration Shift
Mexico’s presidential and congressional elections Sunday will have significant implications in the United States.
A Marshall Plan for Mexico? Well …
President Bush’s plan to deploy National Guard troops along the U.S.-Mexico border conjures the image of a war on immigrants.
No Surprise in Bush’s ‘Emergencies’
President Bush has yet another supposed “emergency” on his hands. This time it’s illegal immigration. His response is to deploy thousands of National Guard troops along the Mexican border. The tactic is eerily familiar: send soldiers on a murky mission under the pretense of promoting homeland security and the war on terror.
Dual Allegiance is Inconsistent with American Democracy
The heart of American Democracy is the principle that sovereignty resides in “We the People.” For more than 200 years immigrants seeking American citizenship have taken an oath renouncing prior allegiances and transferring sole political allegiance to the United States. In the political sense, naturalized immigrants have left a previous “people” and joined the “American people.” This is the main reason for America’s great immigration success. The concept of “dual allegiance,” where some Americans have political allegiance to both the U.S. and a foreign state, is inconsistent with the moral foundation of American democracy. Dual allegiance citizens belong to another “we the people” (in the civic, not ethnic sense). Dual allegiance citizens exist in a political space beyond the American constitutional community and as members of another “people,” (i.e., a foreign political community) they have different (and in some cases, competing and conflicting) responsibilities, rights, interests, and commitments. These foreign interests and commitments–of objective practical necessity, as well as moral obligation–dilute their commitment, attachment and allegiance to the United States.
The Benefits of Dual Citizenship
A tempest in a teapot has been brewing over the more than 150 nations—a number that is rising—that allow their citizens to hold passports of more than one country. Opponents of dual citizenship argue that it is dangerous for America because it can lead to conflicting dual loyalties. This overblown fear is based on two misconceptions: first, that immigrants’ efforts to improve their homelands represent misplaced loyalties that are bad for the United States, and second, that immigrants’ ties to their countries of birth are something new. In reality, dual citizenship benefits America by helping to promote U.S. ideals and values around the globe. It promotes U.S. understanding of and connections to the world, to our own benefit politically and economically, and removes practical obstacles to naturalization. Loyalty to another government certainly can be dangerous, especially in times of war. During World War II, some U.S. states were within their rights to ban meetings of the German-American Bund, a political group that portrayed itself as an American arm of Hitler’s Third Reich and promoted ethnic hatred. Yet this was the exception that proves the rule. In reality, citizens of hostile foreign governments are far more likely to oppose than to support the despots who rule their homelands. Throughout history—with the exception of the Iron Curtain nations during the Cold War—governments generally have been thrilled when their opponents flee into exile. Because those who leave a land are most likely to be displeased with its existing government, until recently the fiercest opponents of dual citizenship and absentee voting have been unpopular ruling governments that feared the paper votes of citizens who already voted with their feet. Emigrés often have other reasons for wanting to vote in their homelands that have nothing to do with emotion but everything to do with practical issues—especially if they have left behind family they care about and want to visit and support financially. In many countries, you must be a citizen to own land, work legally, or participate materially in certain kinds of business. Jesús Galvis, a Hackensack, New Jersey City Councilman, ran for a newly created seat in Colombia’s Senate in 1988, because he felt that it was important that Colombians abroad to have a say in policies that affected them, like the excessive time and cost for renewing passports and delays in getting packages through customs. (He never expected to win, but if he had would have had to give up his U.S. citizenship, like other dual citizens elected or appointed to national office.)