Que Se Puede?

Under Brazilian, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rican, and Cuban banners, protestors demanded inclusion into United States society.

The son of an immigrant, I too am pro-immigrant, as long as it’s done through the appropriate legal channels. While these channels are in many cases broken and must be revised to make the process more equitable, there is one tenet which must be followed: the law may be changed, but its integrity must not be compromised.

The (very) general theme of the protest was a stance against HR 4437, a bill making illegal immigration a felony and thus subject to harsher penalties. The bill also called for improved border control, a plan which many fear could include a “fence” in select areas (though it never states that the U.S. should build a 2,000 mile fence). I agree with the aim of defeating HR 4437 and replacing it with the three Senate bills that would strengthen the border but also allow a path to citizenship; the law would be changed, its sanctity intact.

The protesters may have agreed with me, but they did not show it. Rather, they appealed for a new world, a kind of citizenship without borders. There were signs proclaiming “No Fence, No Borders, Free Movement for All.” They called for the rights for “all citizens of the world” and a “general human rights for all.”

They wished to be within a border, but would rather it did not exist at all.

Yet American citizenship is not a human right. The U.S. does not have an obligation to systematically clothe, feed, and protect the citizens of other countries. (We may do so, but it is not an obligation.) What’s at stake here is civil and political rights, not economic and social rights. And civil rights presume citizenship. Its benefits—economic and social rights—cannot be systematically dispensed to those without it. The protesters, therefore, should have supported citizenship, not a citizen-less, stateless, world.

The protesters pledged solidarity with all immigrants, consistently referring to illegal immigrants simply as immigrants. But this is to misunderstand the real debate, which does not pit those who are pro-immigration against those who are anti-immigration. Rather, this is a legal question and question of extent: How should we change our laws, and how many immigrants should we let in each year? Few are opposed to immigration; many are opposed to uncontrolled immigration. Besides, to conflate illegal immigrants with immigrants is an egregious affront to America’s 50 million legal immigrants if ever there was one.

The protest was also against being “tied to the corporate structure” and included other socialist references, invoking the previous spirit of the May Day protests.

Yet this situation is not about corporate America; it is not about a stateless world; and it is most certainly not about legal immigrants. This is about illegal immigrants who are trying to find a decent life in America and a country that’s attempting to accommodate them.

The walkout protest could have achieved a great deal. Had there been a cohesive message, either supporting illegal immigrants, elevating downtrodden legal immigrants, or offering a way to improve immigration policy, there may have been far wider support. Instead, a loose and unrelated conglomeration of protestors milled about, confusing legality and illegality, state and statelessness, and haranguing about corporate America, handily ignoring the real issues that are facing the country.

Chants of “Si, se puede,” “Yes, it is possible” were heard the entire hour of the protest, but if only they had asked—and coherently answered—“Que se puede?” “What is possible?”


Shai D. Bronshtein ’09, a Crimson editorial editor, lives in Matthews Hall.