Let’s Get Off Our High Horse About Illegal Immigration

Both in my work life at HIAS, and in my personal interactions in the Jewish community, I am amazed at the frequency of the statement “I love what you do, but not your support for illegal immigrants…why don’t they come legally like my relatives did.”  This statement is amazing in both its utter disregard for history and its failure to see the humanity in people who are displaced by economic, political, social and even environmental forces beyond their control.

First the required disclaimer.  Undocumented/Unauthorized/Illegal immigration is a bad thing.  It is bad for the immigrants who risk death on their journeys and face exploitation in the workforce with no one to turn to for protection.  It is bad for lower skilled legally authorized workers who must compete with a desperate shadow workforce largely unable to fight for better conditions.  It is bad for our country because we have lost control of our borders have created a massive haystack of illegality where real criminals can hide.  And it is bad for our culture and society because it winks at illegality and undermines the rule of law.

On the other hand, it is good for human traffickers, document forgers and bad actor employers who want to undercut competition by hiring workers at the lowest wages and with the least rights.

But how do we address this type of problem if we are convinced that it is about “them,” not “us.”  Our eyes are clouded by the righteous indignation we feel about people who appear to have taken “the easy path” instead of following the law like our ancestors did.  But did they really? And if they did, isn’t this apples and oranges from the standpoint of immigration law?

The claim that Jews, unlike today’s immigrants, came legally misses the crucial point that until the immigration acts of 1921 and 1924 there were no numerical caps on immigration. Also, only 1% of the 25 million immigrants from Europe arriving at Ellis Island were excluded between 1880 and World War I.   These essential statistics and analysis of the historical question of illegal vs. legal immigration can be found in a fascinating report from the Immigration Policy Center (IPC).

Those of us who trace our ancestry to the massive wave of Jewish immigration between 1880 and 1920 — 2 million newcomers — can be thankful that we faced a relatively clear path to America.

But what happened after 1921?  While I have not found an exhaustive study of illegal Jewish immigration to the United States, I frequently hear of people who mention that they have family who went to Canada and walked across the border, or jumped ship while offshore, or “somehow got here and then somehow got papers.”

A wonderful article by Marian Smith, Senior Historian at US Citizenship and Immigration Services, published in the Jewish Genealogical Society of Michigan’s Generations and posted on the HIAS website, offers a window into one chapter of the Jewish illegal immigration story.  This piece tells of Jewish immigration through Vera Cruz, Mexico, in the early 1920s and stresses that news of the impending immigration quota law sparked a rush for the U.S. with “immigrants deciding to move before Congress “changed the rules.”"

Smith chronicles the arrest of Jewish immigrants in New Mexico and Texas in 1921 and the use of smugglers to enter illegally.  She notes that from February to April of 1921 80% of those apprehended by immigration authorities in El Paso were Jewish.  Later in 1921 the number of Jews apprehended declined significantly but one inspector wrote, “It is impossible to say whether this decline in [the] number [of] Hebrews apprehended [is] due to [the] efforts of the Hebrew Societies or increased skill in evading officers.”

Jewish immigrants also took advantage of a loophole in the law that permitted them to wait in Mexico for one year before applying for admission as “Mexicans.”  This rule would later be changed to five years eliminating this as a viable option.

To understand how engaged Jewish organizations in the U.S. were at this time, Smith discusses the Loredo Lodge of B’nai B’rith.  She notes that they “wanted the Immigration Service to adopt a “middle ground” policy. While the aliens had admittedly entered illegally, the Laredo Lodge wanted them released on bond, and their prosecution for that crime (and deportation) to be delayed indefinitely.”

The law remained, and in the 1930s and 40s we witnessed desperate Jews trapped in Europe without the kind of free immigration safety net that earlier generations of Jews had used when persecution or poverty forced them to seek a better life in the United States.

While the racist elements of the quota act are gone, the strict limitations on numbers of legal immigrants in many categories remain.  And this brings us back to the question of why “they” don’t come legally.  Again the IPC has a very useful briefing paper on this topic.  We need to remember that individuals fleeing extreme poverty, environmental devastation, generalized violence and many other catastrophes don’t quality for refugee status; that family visa categories are capped and that our economic and immigration realities are out of sync (only 5,000 low or unskilled worker visas are available each year).

What I take away from all of this:

1. In 1911 an unskilled Jewish immigrant from Poland had a 99% chance of being admitted.  Today, he or she would have to compete with millions of others from around the world for one of those 5000 visas.
2. When Jews because of individual or communal necessity needed to seek admission to the United States, but no legal avenue was available, we tried to come anyway.
3. While the undocumented certainly have their bad actors who should be detained and deported, millions of individuals with personal and family stories no less worthy than many of our own are labeled as “illegals” who therefore deserve neither compassion nor assistance.  This is wrong.
4. The U.S. immigration system is broken and must be fixed.  But with a more honest understanding of where we come from, as well as the circumstances that today’s undocumented face, we  will have a firmer basis from which to seek to end illegal immigration than the self-congratulatory posture of one who simply knows his or her “roots are legal.”