Billboards: Threatening Signs for Illegals

Driving through Somerville and then onto Interstate 95, you may notice two or three big billboard signs. They are plain white with blue print and read: "Don't get left behind. Apply for legalization by May 4." They are put up by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), a federal agency, and address those illegal aliens who entered the United States before 1982. If those lucky people get to a lawyer in time, they can relax about deportation fears for the rest of their lives. Of course, they will receive a special identification card to prove their status; any legal worker in this country, immigrant or not, will have to prove their "19" status at the will of the authorities. That was part of the bargain.

The bargain was the Immigration Reform Act passed in 1986. It sacrificed greater vigilance against illegal aliens for what was considered a generous amnesty offer, provided the aliens registered by May 1988. But only a brave 6 percent of the expected applicants had taken advantage of the offer by November, the halfway point. Illegal immigrants, especially non-English speaking ones, are scared; for them the INS is an institution set up to prosecute them, to return them to places where they would be in great danger.

In Haiti and Central America, the homelands of the bulk of the immigrants eligible for amnesty, the authorities are not protectors but predators of the average citizens. And judging from their experiences here, the U.S. authorities are not much different. As noted by Rep. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), sponsor of a bill to extend the application deadline, "To [the illegal aliens], the INS is the agency that is supposed to throw them out of the country."

In light of this, you might think on your drive down the highway that those billboard signs are not the most appropriate means of convincing illegals to get in touch with the INS. An English message in harsh colors spelling out threateningly "Don't get left behind," visible only to those with cars and legal driver's licenses is a big waste of advertising space. Is it possible that the INS does not realize this? Or do they not want too many people to notice the signs.

This would be nothing new for the U.S. federal agencies, who at the moment are working on reducing the number of refugees not just from the countries we support or ignore, like El Salvador or Haiti, but from our communist "enemies" as well. Reagan's proposed budget plans a 25 percent cut in the funds for resettling refugees. So, at a time when Thailand is completely closing its borders to an overflow of Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees, the U.S. has decided to reduce their legal numbers by 6000 per year. This will make room for the potential influx of Jews and Armenians from the Soviet Union. Possibly the only way to prevent Thailand from turning back the Indo-chinese escapees is for the U.S. to guarantee the refugees additional space, allowing Thailand to harbor them temporarily. Yet our reaction is the exact opposite.

It is hard to believe that the Soviet refugees will expand our population so much that other groups must be kept out. The U.S. is not a balloon that will burst if 6000 more people enter it. It is also hard to believe that we are reducing aid to refugees who just 13 years ago were our allies in a civil war we helped fight. Why do we insist on keeping the outsiders outside?

We can easily blame the Republicans, who have a tendency to be more conservative on immigration policies. But xenophobia is in every stripe of politician. Democrat Dick Gephardt is making a bid for the presidency by engaging in Asia-bashing. A ranting protectionist is not likely to limit his hostility toward other countries to matters of trade. But maybe some of us don't think it is such a bad idea to keep the outsiders outside.

There is the fallacy that Mexicans, Salvadorans and Haitians threaten our jobs--a fallacy because these are jobs that even the poorest American citizens refuse to take. And the prejudiced stereotype of Asians as miracle-brains seems a good excuse to limit our sympathy. Xenophobia is nothing less than and insidious form of racism.

Those of us who ascribe to the "We were here first" reasoning are hypocritical; witness the history of our treatment of Native Americans. Those of us who don't, at least not consciously, are still implicated in our country's ironic policies. Without actively combatting the not-so-new wave of ethnocentrism--writing to our representatives, for example--we cannot expect the politics of xenophobic hostility to fade away.

Meanwhile, we send deportees to almost certain death in their repressive countries. The only newcomers we ever willingly admitted, the Black slaves, were brought in by force. The rest of us are here through the luck of ancestors squeezing through America's legal or illegal barriers. How can any of us deny that same opportunity to others?