Amnesty For Gang Bangers?
by Matt Saldaņa
July 18, 2007
During the recent national debate over the since-failed Senate immigration bill, pundits like conservative talk-radio host Kim Wade misrepresented the compromise bill as an "amnesty" for illegal immigrants. Partly because of this misrepresentation, many American citizens disparaged undocumented immigrants like Guadalupe Silva who demanded both human rights and a recognition of their rebuilding efforts.
"The display of e-mails and faxes and all of that that inundated D.C. (during the debate) is representative of the strong thread of racism that exists in the U.S.," said Bill Chandler, executive director of Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance.
Framing the bill as "amnesty" may have been key in derailing the compromise bill, which included a provision for heads of households, after paying a fine of between $5,000 and $10,000, to return to their native countries and wait up to 13 years before potentially qualifying for U.S. citizenship.
"We impose trade policy on Mexico with the North American Free Trade Agreement and destroy those economies, and people come here. For the people waiting to come here, it's a 12-year wait. Then the people that are here, we send them back to wait another 12 years. Is that amnesty?" Chandler said.
Throughout Silva's interviews with the Jackson Free Press, the former principal from Peru meditated on the implication of an unresolved immigration bill. She has gleaned much of her information about the bill—as well as her legal rights as an undocumented laborer—by attending immigrant rights association meetings. At one point, she said that she didn't think she could stay in the U.S. if a bill did not pass. However, she says even the compromise bill would have left her with few options.
"The companies will pressure me more. If every undocumented worker has to pay $10,000, it will be like war. Many factories and companies will have to close. It would be chaos," she said.
"The greatest power in the world should give the example of democracy, in every sense of the world. For example, homosexuals and lesbians are persecuted very drastically in other countries, because they are very conservative. But here, no. For us, we came here to work. We don't want to be millionaires, but to be able to live. Why? Because we can't work in our home countries."
Silva said that she had been affected by the racial undertone of the immigration debate, which included such soliloquies as Wade's: "The first wave (of Latinos) that comes over, yes, they're hard workers—but when their cousins come over, the ones who are gang bangers, we're going to see a total breakdown of our society."
"I know that they are not all so, but I know there are racists—'rednecks,' as they say in Mississippi," Silva said. "They are very racist, and don't want us. But there is no such thing as pure blood. Everything is mixed. More than anything, we came to support the country with our shoulders and work."
© Jackson Free Press, Inc.
