Immigration advocacy loses its pulpit when it insinuates that racism motivates officials and legislators who deal with border control. Rather than simply making the accusations directly, it draws analogies to the civil-rights era [“Swift Justice,” Dec. 8, 2011; “Deportation Factory,” Feb. 2, 2012; Five Spot, April 12, all City Weekly].
In law, segregated pupils in the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision held unqualified right to equal schools. Immigration is a privilege each country grants or denies at its own discretion. Use of community information sources to discover unauthorized entry is not Jim Crow. The system, neither broken nor operating at random, responds to well-defined pressures from citizens on both sides of this issue.
If the advocates hope to prevail the field, they need better rhetorical tactics than lately seen in the City Weekly.
Jesse Baker
Ogden
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