the world I imagine now

When Margi asked us to imagine a “better” world for one of our last delegation activities, many things came to my mind; and I soon realized those things now I imagine to be in a better world are fairly different from what I would have imagined a few months ago. The experience of two month here definitely affected my point of view in many substantial ways.

I now imagine a better world to be where people are treated according to their talents not there nationalities. DREAM Act students who have grown up in the US for the most part of their lives and have some kinds of valuable abilities, not only limited to SAT scores, should have the same chance to be educated as any other “American” students. They deserve way more than what they get right now.

I now imagine a better world to be where people in Latin American countries, or any other countries in the world, live in economically, socially, and politically better societies. Before coming here, I knew almost nothing about economic, social, and political push and pull factors all organically working to force people migrate without documents. I assume the US government would have known that better than I; but they are still working on treating the symptoms rather than the causes. I want the government and other people who have the substantial power to change the situation to work on solving the root problems such as economic disparities.

I now imagine a better world to be where immigration process is more accessible and difficult and expensive “naturalization” process is not required when one only wants to work in another country for a relatively short period of time of his life. If one wants to live his entire life in the US, for example, going through the naturalization process makes sense. However, when one only wants to work for a couple of years to earn some money and go back to his family after that, I personally do not see the point of going through it. This may be a biased opinion, since I myself want to work in the US in the future and feel burdened about the possibility of going through green card process if I want to get a really good and influential job which is not very accessible to aliens without green card.

I now imagine a better world to be where people listen to the other sides’ opinions without looking down on it. I have met many people here who were deeply enthusiastic about their works. Sometimes, however, I saw some people who seemed too emotional or blindly and extremely devoted to their positions, which made them unable to listen to the other side. I believe lack of communication only worsens the conflict. As I wrote in the last blog posting, I want people to try to listen what the people on the opposite side say without any prejudice; because if you don’t do it, the other side will not do it either. Mutual respect between two opposite sides seems to be needed in the current situation.

This is my last posting in Tucson. However, I don’t want this to be the real last one – things I have been experienced here which have changed me in many ways will keep me thinking and writing more and more even after I leave here.

what Arizona gave me

Don’t get me wrong – I have learned a lot here especially from people who are pro-immigrant humanitarian workers and I consider myself as pro-immigrant as well. Still, in Arizona, the heart of immigration issues, I have also learned a lot from anti-immigrant people as I listen and read their arguments. I actually do not understand their arguments; most of the time, it seems their arguments lack a proper logic and rather make me more pro-immigrant. Yet I always try to listen and read them as seriously as possible, because I know that maybe my – or our as pro-immigrant – arguments would seem ridiculous to them just as theirs seem to me. One of the biggest lessons I have gained here is the fact that everybody – pro-immigrant, anti-immigrant, or immigrants themselves – has different stories, and one should not dismiss others’ stories; I listen what anti-immigrant people say because I want them to listen what we say.

Also, I have learned why people cross the border regardless of the unfair label of ‘illegal’ they would get. Before coming here, I thought it was not immigrants themselves but only their children who had no choice but to cross with their parents – that was why I supported the DREAM Act. Now, I understand the lack of options in Mexico or other Latin American countries.

And that made me even more interested in the legal or political facet of immigration issue than I had been before. If there are strong push and pull factors that force people to cross, creating border walls or increasing the deportation rate will not help to solve the root problem at all. It is those push and pull factors that should be treated, and I think those treatments have to be made from the legal or political approaches – to ameliorate economies of Latin American countries, to make immigration process accessible, or to establish appropriate programs such as the guest worker program.

With those deepened understandings of multifaceted immigration issues, I now look forward to even more enlightening experiences during the 10 days left ahead of me and after that as well.

Dura lex, sed lex?

Last week, we had a community dinner with Kathryn Ferguson from the Samaritans, the immigrant-aid organization. Sharing kabab and rice, and Sarah’s-unforgettably-delicious chocolate chip cookies, we also shared her stories and thoughts which have enabled her to help lots of immigrants. Hearing first-hand experiences from one who spends most of her time in the dessert was interesting.

However, for me, the basic ideology of the Samaritans was somewhat more interesting – they try to help the immigrants as much as possible, in so far as their deeds do not break the law.

One of the questions that keep bothering me is whether it is appropriate to help the immigrants for the sake of humanitarianism when the law prohibits it. Many people we met during our one week delegation period said it is. Yet personally, I cannot totally agree with them. Though I know we should treat them not as ‘undocumented immigrants’ but as ‘people dying,’ I still wander between being a humanitarianist and being a politician.

Thus the Samaritans’ activity attracted my attention. Kathryn of course deeply sympathizes with the immigrants she meets in the dessert and tries to help them from the heart. However, she does not give them a ride to cross the dessert or take them to the hospital, since it is unlawful to do those things.

Some people might say it is too harsh to meet an exhausted immigrant, give them some water and food, and leave them without any further help. They are so vulnerable. As she herself mentioned, nobody knows what will happen to them within the next half an hour; the heat of the dessert, border patrols, dehydration, etc. – basically anything can happen, and the chance of something good happening is sadly low.

I believe, however, their behaviors are justifiable. It will be dangerous, though not as dangerous as the dessert is to the immigrants, for them to do something unlawful, especially in Arizona where so many people are eager to be harsh against immigration issues. They can end up in jail if they do – Kathryn gave us some examples of people being caught and spending some time in jail. And it will not help to ameliorate the situation of immigrants, for it means that the number of people willing to help the immigrants decreases and it may give more incentives to the border patrols and other anti-immigration factions to enforce their law more strictly.

Dura lex, sed lex. I used to debate this statement with my father. I agreed on the statement, while he did not. We both do not know the right answer yet – or there is none. Whenever I look to ways of dealing with the undocumented immigrants issue these days, this statement comes across my mind. What is right and what is wrong? Of course the law is seriously wrong, but which one is worse: following the skewed law just now and trying to change it or breaking the law and helping as many people as possible right now? Well, though I should admit that I am slightly lopsided toward the former, I cannot make up my mind firmly just yet. Maybe, this is the most difficult question I should work on during, and also after, the month lying ahead of me.

Learning the reality from the game

Yesterday, I helped a group of students from Minnesota play the immigration simulation game. Each was given a role: Mexican family, farm owner, landowner, storeowner, factory employer, coyote, bus driver, border patrol, etc. Mexican families had to start from the Mexican countryside (which was the parking lot), move to the border city (which was the lounge), and finally migrate to the US (which was the kitchen). Other players had their own roles; for example, farm owner in Mexican countryside checked whether families worked hard enough and paid them accordingly. I was a timekeeper in the border city, telling people to buy food and pay the rent as every month, which was actually seven minutes, passed.


What interested me was that it was much more realistic than I had expected.


Mexican families in the countryside had to pick beans in the scorching sun for months to earn money just to pay off their debts and interests.
Mexican families in the border city barely made enough money to send some to families left in Mexico and to save some to pay coyotes for migrating to the US.
Some people had to cheat or steal others’ money just to make livings.
People had absolutely no power to resist even though landowners or storeowners priced unreasonably or discriminatorily.
People could not trust anyone except their own family members.
Though they had enough money to pay coyotes for themselves, most people rather chose to stay at the border city longer to wait for their other family members to come and join.
Though they end up working in the US, people had to live in fear of border patrols every day.
Coyotes did not earn that much money, which actually surprised me.


Of course, it was just a game played for about an hour. Still, it reflected the reality: it is not easy and desirable at all for people to migrate, especially without documents, to the US. Especially because I was in the border city, I could see people having difficulties even before they cross the border – they had to pay bus drivers to come to the border city, ask for factory owner’s mercy to get jobs, or deal with how to buy food, pay the rent, and send money back to family members in the countryside at the same time.

how to see 'illegal' undocumented immigrants

In most cases, I do not like to be emotional when dealing with specific issues, since I believe being emotional tends to disturb making rational decisions. Thus I usually try to view those issues in the unattached manner if possible. The same rule applies to the immigration issue. During the past two weeks, I have learned the difficulties of undocumented immigrants; they cross the border to live, not having a choice to stay in and live peacefully as legal citizens of their own country. Still, it does not change the fact that they are ‘illegal’ in terms of the US immigration law. Therefore, I think it is not helpful enough just pitying them and trying to make them seem innocent by appealing to people’s emotions. Though they are victims of the dire law, they are victims who decided to violate it.

Of course, I understand their situation. I assume even my parents would choose to cross the border if my sister and I were dying of hunger. Also, as Mike Wilson told us, there exists the higher law of humanity above the US immigration law enacted by humans. Moreover, the process of trial such as operation streamline seems not legal or constitutional enough to gain legitimacy for criminalizing them. The points of dealing with those problems are, however, as I mentioned in the earlier post, to ameliorate the Mexican economy to give them more jobs, to guarantee humane treatment to them when they go through legal processes, and to make legal immigration process more accessible to them. What we should do is not to explain why they keep crossing the border illegally but to find out – and act – how to stop them from crossing the border illegally.

In that sense, REPAIR proposal drew my attention. While studying materials about the DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act last week, I got to read one article about it. I soon became interested and researched more. REPAIR (Real Enforcement with Practical Answers for Immigration Reform) proposal is a bipartisan project proposed by Senators Schumer, Reid, Menendez, Leahy, Durbin and Feinstein on April 29, 2010. According to an article by Schumer and Graham, "the proposal contains four big pillars: “requiring biometric Social Security cards to ensure that illegal workers cannot get jobs; fulfilling and strengthening our commitments on border security and interior enforcement; creating a process for admitting temporary workers; and implementing a tough but fair path to legalization for those already here.”

I believe it is a good approach to be made, though some specific contents are still disputable. It clearly states that undocumented immigrants are illegal and thus should be dealt with firm legal processes. On the other hand, it also offers those people opportunities to legally work and live in the US without waiting a few years for documents when their families are starving. Moreover, it awards green cards to immigrants who receive a PhD or master's degree from a U.S. university. I agree with Schumer and Graham on that “it makes no sense to educate the world's future inventors and entrepreneurs and then force them to leave when they are able to contribute to [the US] economy.”

I am not saying that I totally support this proposal. It does not deal with some deeply rooted causes of immigration problem such as NAFTA and Mexican economy. Biometric Social Security cards or stronger commitment on border security may seem too harsh to enact within a few years. Providing opportunities of getting green cards to college graduates may attract poor parents even more to cross the border with their children for their future. Yet I think some of its underlying purposes are still worth being considered further:

Immigration without documents is illegal and should be stopped – “for the 11 million immigrants already in this country illegally, we would provide a tough but fair path forward. They would be required to admit they broke the law and to pay their debt to society by performing community service and paying fines and back taxes. These people would be required to pass background checks and be proficient in English before going to the back of the line of prospective immigrants to earn the opportunity to work toward lawful permanent residence. The American people deserve more than empty rhetoric and impractical calls for mass deportation.”

However, while strictly dealing with the illegal immigration problem, the process of opening another door for people to find legal ways should also be accompanied – “ending illegal immigration cannot be the sole objective of reform. Developing a rational legal immigration system is essential to ensuring America's future economic prosperity.”

why in Tucson, the heart of 'undocumented' problem

“Not fully documented.” I found the phrase describing what I had felt one and a half years ago. When I was applying for colleges, I ran into the biggest debacle I had ever experienced in my life. During the three years in a specialized high school in Korea that prepares students for applying to colleges abroad, I had been trying to persuade my parents who were concerned about not being able to pay the high tuition by ensuring them that I would apply for financial aids. However, now colleges were saying I could not even get a chance to apply for financial aids since I did not have a few digits of number called SSN. I definitely did not have the document they wanted me to have. It was frustrating. I saw all the hard work I had done for three years becoming worthless. Eventually I am now here as a Duke student thanks to one private scholarship donator, yet I still remember how exasperating the experience was.

This memory helped me to become more interested in and – though I do not know if it is proper to say this – to sympathize better with the reality undocumented immigrants should face in the US. It is unfair not to give students who have worked as hard as, if not harder than, other American students the opportunity to study only because they were not born in the US, especially considering that most of them did not come to the US because they wanted to – their parents brought them when they were young. I wished to help them, but I did not know how. I found out about the hardship DREAM Act was going through, but what could I do? Then, I saw Duke Engage Tucson program.

I came to Tucson because I wanted to learn more about them to help them more effectively. It is easy to say to them not to give up despite the current situation – I had to contact, and was rejected by, several people whom I did not know at all to finally meet one donator. However, I also know it is not that simple. To cure this problem of unfairness completely, it is not the symptom but the cause that has to be treated. If we want to reduce the number of undocumented immigrants coming into the US, we should not criminalize them but make getting documents easier, cheaper, shorter, and more accessible. If we do not want to have undocumented immigrants coming into the US to work, we should not deport them but find the way to make Mexican economy function better – especially when it is the US who drove Mexican economy into a corner with NAFTA.

Of course, it is illegal to cross the border and enter the US without proper documents. However, to gain legitimacy for judging and criminalizing those illegal behaviors, the process itself should be legal. For example, let’s see the operational streamline now practiced five day a week in Tucson. Is it legal to try five or six people as a group at the same time? Is it legal to assign six people per lawyer and to give those lawyers only three hours to talk with all six? Is it legal to put no obligation to explain the process or the consequence of streamline to those who are randomly selected among numerous apprehended undocumented immigrants to go into the streamline? Are those practices legal and constitutional enough to judge human beings’ lives?

Isabel Garcia said that some people would not like the fact that immigrants’ children, like her, can become lawyers or have any other socially influential jobs. I want to work and live in the US in the future, but I do not want my children to be treated like that. Just as much as I want to have a socially influential job, I definitely want my children to have socially influential jobs too – and I do not want having those jobs to be difficult for me or for them just because we are immigrant or immigrant’s children. Unfortunately, I have already experienced the difficulty once when applying to colleges. Just imagine, if this unfair anti-immigrant sentiment makes even me who has a student visa worry about my future, how much it would affect Mexican immigrants who have no documents at all?

However, they keep crossing the border because they have to. Since I myself decided to come to the US because I wanted to, I might have assumed unconsciously that many undocumented immigrants also did so; however, I was wrong. I came here to study, but they came here to live. Just to sustain their lives. Just to sustain their families’ lives. What kind of parents would remain still when their children are crying out of hunger and they have nothing to eat? It is unreasonable to tell them to wait for a couple of years to get legal documents. As long as there are jobs in the US but none in Mexico, and as long as it takes long to legally immigrate to the US, they will try to cross the border illegally. Thus, as I said above, it is impossible to solve this undocumented immigrants problem without treating the causes – inaccessible immigration processes and destitute Mexican economy. To be able to achieve them some days, I am now here, learning from the heart.