Senate Told to Vote Hysteria
José de la Isla     [Photo]

A new form of guilt by association may be in the offing, one that is faintly reminiscent of the Joseph McCarthy dark days of the 1950s. This time it is not what individuals do but who U.S. senators hear.

When news hit that Latin American countries are sending delegations to Washington to talk to fellow legislators about border security and illegal immigration, Chris Simcox, of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, for one, seems to have gone berserk. He insists that our senators are vulnerable to placing the interest of Latin America ahead of the United States. He claims in a press statement that “those governments are too inept and corrupt to provide a bright future” for their own people. Why then should we hear what they have to say?

Simcox’s group, we ought to understand from the outset, is no cheery, feel-good Pied Piper, itself. Its leader, who led the Minuteman operation in Arizona last April has a checkered, gun-toting background. The Southern Poverty Law Center describes him among “celebrity extremists.”

He, of course, is no advocate of cross-border dialogues. One ought to be wary of this caution.

For instance, earlier this month Sylvia Hernández, a Mexican senator from Queretaro state, was in Washington, D.C. with a delegation to speak to members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. She informed them that Mexico too is concerned about people and goods and services moving across the border. In both directions.

That includes an ungodly number of illicit firearms manufactured or originating in the USA going to her country, reportedly to equip narco-traffickers and others who cause conflict, injury, harm, death and instability. We have a lot to learn from Latin America, especially when its elected representives offer this type of sobering perspective.

Right in Simcox’s own home territory, just a few miles from his former base at Tombstone, Ariz., the problem is really not as much about how many people cross the border illegally as it is about the rights violations by human traffickers who are crooks and opportunists trading in other people’s misfortunes, drugs, guns, and anything that turns an illegal profit.

A right-wing group, RightMarch.org, is asking its members to “flood the Senate with calls, faxes and e-mails” to protest “nearly a dozen” Latin American countries that have an interest in what the U.S. Senate will do.

Yet, these “patriotic” groups appear to want the U.S. senators to craft solutions without getting closer to people who have an important perspective to provide. How else will our representatives get to the bottom of why our laws are not well enough enforced against human traffickers (some of the real villains in immigration), or how to keep weapons from getting into the wrong hands in border trade, and why so many people die crossing the border in search of a low-wage job or family reunification-

Unfortunately, one finds too many yahoos on the border, packing heat, trying to convince us that their posse approaches will resolve a humanitarian problem and economic issues seeking public-policy answers.

Attacking migrants (40% of them women, some hauling children) vigilante-style doesn’t meet my definition of a heroic act, especially bullying people who have been terrorized by thugs as they attempted to reach the United States.

It’s a good time to heed the Edward R. Murrow whose heroics were captured in the movie “Good Night and Good Luck.”

On March 9, 1954, Murrow took on the extremists of his day. He said into the television camera that night, “We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason …” He said, “we are not descended from fearful men, not men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes which were for the moment unpopular.”

Before he got specific about the transgressions by the alcoholic Wisconsin senator who caused so much havoc, Murrow said, “This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy's methods to keep silent. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result."

Sobering words. The issue is whether extremists have kidnapped a public concern about immigration and now want to control the outcome by screening out the voices our representatives need to hear.

(José de la Isla, of Houston, Texas, is a contributing columnist with Hispanic Link News Service. He may be reached by e-mail at jdelaisla@houston.rr.com)

© 2006 Hispanic Link News Service
02/26/06
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