Critical Reflection #6 — Immigrants and Imprisonment
Immigration has always been an issue, especially in the past few years with Donald Trump’s strict immigration/deportation laws. “In 1973, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) detained only 2,370 people every day… But by the last months of the Obama administration, ICE held roughly 40,000 people daily, a number that would soon rise under President Trump, surpassing 42,000 daily in 2018.” (Hernandez, p. 10). Even if the immigrants had proof or reason to be in the United States, they are prone to poor treatment, and constantly fear being deported. Many Mexican immigrants came to the US as part of the Bracero Program, which allowed hundreds of thousands of Mexicans to come to the US and work for cheap. This was around the time of WWII, so there was a shortage of labor. The US saw this as an army of low-wage laborers who took the place of actual army men who were shipped to the battlefields in Europe and Asia. On the other hand, Mexico saw this as an opportunity to flee poverty. Mexicans were given transportation, a job, and permission to cross the border. The employers took advantage of the immigrants and decided to pay the workers below the prevailing wage and they treated them poorly. The Mexican workers didn’t really have a choice, but to follow their employers’ orders. If the laborers dared to request better treatment and higher wages, Border Patrol agents would show up and they would get detained and deported. I think it is important to realize how poorly immigrants have been treated in the past and in the present because they are often are seen as bad people when most of the time they are just human beings trying to make a living.
“Despite the common refrain that immigration law is ‘broken,’ immigration imprisonment is a sign that the United States immigration policy is working exactly as designed. The system hasn’t malfunctioned. It was intended to punish, stigmatize, and marginalize — all for political and financial gain.” (Hernandez, p. 12). This quote stood out to me the most because it states that immigration imprisonment is intentionally made to punish immigrants (even those who have permission to come to the US) and the government profits hundreds of millions of dollars annually from it. Private prisons especially make a big profit and they often force their prisoners to work for little to no money. It is important for us to build a critical consciousness about these structures and myths because we can make a difference. We must be aware of how poorly people are being treated and how corrupt our system is. In one of the stories, Hernadez explains a child who grew up in prisons. Put yourself in his shoes and imagine what it would’ve been like to grow up in that type of environment. Immigrants are humans too and they deserve to be treated better.
In 1942, Marin City was developed for housing to accommodate wartime shipyard workers and other migrants to California. This included many African Americans from the South during the Great Migration, which is why Marin City has such a large African American population. At my community partner, the majority consists of African Americans, and there are also many Latinx. I am not sure about any particular students’ background or history of immigration, and I don’t really know anyone personally who has had issues coming to America. In my family, I am the 3rd and 4th generation living in America. I am not really familiar with the struggles that my great-grandparents and grandparents had to go through to get to America from China and Japan.
“Countering the dehumanizing spirit of the bipartisan embrace of the immigration prisons needs to begin with a wholesale embrace of the imperfect humanity of migrants… Migrants aren’t imperfect because they aren’t citizens. Migrants are imperfect because they are people. Just people” (Hernadez, p. 166). I think this point is very powerful and real. Migrants are just people. It doesn’t matter where they come from, or what race they are. They are still humans. All humans make mistakes. Migrants don’t deserve to be placed in a box with actual criminals when all they did was try to make a better living. Even children are being hugely affected by immigration laws. This whole structure was built to benefit the Whites. People of color are disproportionately mistreated and locked up in prisons. Like we’ve discussed in class before, schools that have police officers on campus, are likely to feed the prison with predominately African American males. Many people are wrongfully accused and sent to prison. When we were talking about this in class last week it reminded me of the Netflix series “When They See Us,” which is based on a true story. Several young African American boys were wrongfully accused of raping and attempting to murder a white woman. They just happened to be in the right place at the wrong time. The police interrogated many boys, who at the time were minors, without their parents present. The boys were basically forced to admit to accusations because the police were so rough on them.
Children are very aware of the many issues going on in our society. If their parents or a family member are locked up, it is very likely that they too will end up in the prison system. Statistics about prison rates are dehumanizing. Once someone goes behind bars, they are labeled by their crime and stripped of their name. Racism plays a huge factor in the prison system and it is still seen today here in Marin with the whole desegregation order placed on the school district in Marin City. I think in general, the whole education system can be seen as dehumanizing because we are taught to think a certain way (the way that the White superiors want us to think).
