The Role of Citizenship in Immigration Reform

We have circumscribed ourselves in fear. In wake of the events which took place on September 11, 2001, the United States, both government and citizenry, have since adopted an entirely new sense of xenophobia. The very idea of “the melting pot” society, a xenophobic idealization of heterogeneity and a rather clandestine approach to the hegemonic imposition upon minority ethnic groups in the United States, has seemingly transformed into a complete rejection of individuals of cultural diversity (Hirschman, 1983, p. 400). This ill-perceived notion of outsiders, or foreigners, or, more heinously, aliens, has manifested itself into the formation of unconstitutional laws that promote profiling and stigmatization; an issue which is not only racially prejudiced, but class motivated. The importance of this issue is that it does not simply possess negative constitutional implications, but also illuminates the shadowed construct of nationalism enveloped within our notion of citizenship.

One’s acceptance of their label of ‘citizen’ is a recognition and adherence to a sovereign. Citizenship, a rather new societal convention popularly believed to have origins in Ancient Greece, was developed as a means for protection from the outside (Heater, 2004, p. 6). According to Heater, however, the ancient Greeks and Romans were welcoming of multiethnic citizens and were not fearful of outside individuals but outside threats such as empire-building nations (Heater, 2004, p. 32). In the United States, however, there has been an increasing fear of the influx in multiethnic cultures as they are perceived as a threat to our wellbeing. This has become evident in certain regions of the country where White-Americans have already become minorities, yet, remain reluctant upon handing over their majority label. The United States Census Bureau predicts by 2060 the country will become a “plurality nation” where “non-Hispanic white remains the largest group, but no group is the majority” (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012). The construction of our xenophobic rendition of the outsider can, then, be perceived not as a threat to our wellbeing as a perceived threat to the power and control currently possessed by the white population. Laws enacted such as the state of Arizona’s SB 1070 (and the number of copycat laws inscribed into law by a number of states across the United States), which permits the use of racial profiling and class profiling against perceived illegal immigrants based on the subjectivity of probable cause, can be viewed as an attempt to curb the rising rate of population in the Hispanic community.

Due to the heavy involvement of the media and everlasting debates in the political spectrum, this issue has and continues to be a heated topic in the public and has seen a number of days in the courtroom. The Supreme Court case Arizona v. United States, the Supreme Court upheld the part of Arizona law SB 1070 law which allowed law enforcement officers to demand citizenship papers upon request and seemed disinclined to reject a number of aspects of the bill (Arizona v. United States, 2012). This allows for the subjugation of illegal immigrants to stigmatization from not only law enforcement officers but ‘noble citizens’ attempting to help the law enforcement; however, it is never recognized how many illegal immigrants are not criminals and are simply working in the United States to provide for their families.

The court case Pyler v Doe in 1982 open the floodgate to a plethora of court decisions for prospective college students of illegal immigrant parents The DREAM Act, for example, provided “young unauthorized migrants who were brought to the United States as children” lawful status as long as they attend college or serve the military (Motomura, 2008, p. 1128). This is a step in the right direction for a legislative overture. Citizenship is an identity of being. To disallow a certain group of law-abiding individuals from citizenship is not only immoral but inhumane. If citizenship is an identity of being, the disallowing of an individual’s certain rights simply due to an arbitrary, conventional label which they do not possess is a complete disembowelment of its meaning for the sake of reformation. We have seen the reformation of the notion of citizenship since the aftermath of September 11, 2001, to represent something more along the lines of isolation and reclusiveness. This transformation is a blatant indicator of the social construction of citizenship and its arbitrary nature.

A number of support groups for immigration reform are continuously fighting to re-inscribe the notion of unity and oneness that was provided to us within the Constitution of the United States. Organizations such as The Fair Immigration Reform Movement, Reform Immigration FOR America, and Progressive for Immigration Reform are just a few of numerous groups and organizations which fight for ethnic equality. Though many of these organizations are commendable in their fight for equality, there must be more done in order to see true results. The instilled fear within the American public of foreigners is a manifestation of our newly recognized notion of citizenship. There must be a systemic transformation of the defining characteristics of citizenship. Acceptance is only the first step in this shift of cognitive thought. As a society, it is imperative to lose our nationalistic sense of unity for the development of a more holistic definition that is not defined by abstract or arbitrary manifestations of conventional ‘wisdom.’

In foreshadowing, I see a bleak future of events taking place in the fight for immigration reform. I believe the issue will become progressively worse as more states attempt to copy Arizona’s SB 1070. The Supreme Court’s ruling to uphold several controversial issues with Arizona’s bill only opens the door to many more states looking to do the same. The very wording in Arizona’s SB 1070 bill recognized illegal immigrants as “aliens,” a negative connotation which possesses the undertone of unfamiliarity and strangeness, or an extraterrestrial, an invader (Arizona v. United States, 2012). It is simple wording and subconscious references as these which pose a long and arduous journey in the fight for inequality.

References

Heater, D. (2005). A brief history of citizenship. Choice Reviews Online, 43(02), 43-1226-43-1226.

Hirschman, C. (1983). America's melting pot reconsidered. Annual Review of Sociology, 9(1), pp. 397-423.

Motomura, H. (2012). Making legal: The dream act, birthright citizenship, and broad-scale legalization. Lewis & Clark Law Review, 16(4), pp. 1127-1148.

Newsroom. (n.d.). U.S. Census Bureau projections show a slower growing, older, more diverse nation a half century from now. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/population/cb12-243.html

Supreme Court of the United States. (2012). Arizona et al. v. United States. Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office.