"ICH BIN EIN ILLEGAL"
A Sermon Delivered July 25, 2010, by the Reverend Dennis McCarty
At the Unitarian Universalist Church of Bloomington Indiana, July 2010

READING: from "Gone but not Forgotten," by Jane Bosveld

The great Sonoran Desert stretches from deep in Mexico to the middle of Arizona, a dun landscape dotted with 20-foot-tall saguaro cacti and scraggly sagebrush. With its mind-blurring heat, this is not a place where you want to be left behind--but people are all the time. Ranchers, county sheriffs, and the government patrols that guard the United States-Mexico border find them with grim regularity, the bodies of illegal immigrants who slipped across the border but did not survive the journey on the other side. Remains not found for weeks or months may amount to a few decaying bones. Sometimes an animal drags the body off, or a person strips down under the onslaught of the heat, leaving behind nothing more than a pair of worn shoes and a faded shirt.

More than 200 bodies a year turn up in the Sonoran [Desert], a number that has increased over the past decade as immigrants avoid urban areas and attempt to reach the United States by more remote routes, often through Arizona. After crossing the border, they sometimes walk 70 miles or more to reach a safe point of entry, often traveling without water and in temperatures that can reach 110 degrees Farenheit.

Authorities suspect that the bodies turning up inside our borders are migrants from Mexico or Central America. Their guides, popularly known as coyotes, may have abandoned them in the desert if they fell behind or got sick. "It's hard to know what happened," says Lori Baker, a molecular anthropologist at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and one of the leading experts in identifying the remains. "Some coyotes just take their fees, which can be $1,500 [dollars] or more, and then leave the people in the desert. Sometimes they're dead before they even get to the border."

For Baker, the granddaughter of a migrant worker, the issue is not whether America's immigration laws should be tighter or looser; the issue is how to respond to the tragedy and loss. "I can't imagine anyone's begrudging a family the explanation of what happened to their loved one," she says. "How do you say, 'Sorry, I don't want you to find out what happened to your 15-year-old son." . . . [Baker sadly told about] the case of Rosa Cano in June 2003. A single mother, she had set out to find work in the States. When weeks went by without a word, her mother (also named Rosa) contacted authorities, who put her in touch with Baker. It turned out that DNA from. . . bones. . . sent to Baker matched a DNA sample from the family. "I had just found out I was pregnant with my first child," Baker remembers, "And trying to imagine this mother finding out that her own child had died? It broke my heart."

SERMON: "Ich Bin Ein Illegal"
This morning's Reading came from an article in this month's Discover magazine, about scientific methods used to identify all the human bodies found each year in our southwestern desert. Sometimes, there's not much left, but those bodies were once human beings. They hoped and dreamed and loved and suffered, same as you or I. They died trying to get into the United States, seeking work and a better life.

One example from the article, is a couple who reached the U.S., worked hard, and saved their money. Then they sent it to their teen-age children, to hire a guide and follow the parents north. Hiking across the desert, one daughter, Josseline, got sick. The guide wouldn't slow down--they rarely do--and the group left her behind. Later, her bones were found and identified by her DNA. The article concludes, they "were too late to save Josseline's life. But at least science was able to recover her name."

For two centuries, new immigrants have made their way to this country. All that time, previous generations of immigrants have hated them for it. In the early 1800's, it was Irish immigrants who were despised. My great-grandfather, Tom McCarty, jumped ship in Philadelphia and made his way west, an illegal immigrant before anyone invented the term. He kept a very low profile for the rest of his life. Even when he died forty years later, it took a week for the local newspaper to pry his full name out of his relatives. Then it was eastern Europeans who were despised. And Asians--even more despised. For the last couple of generations, it's been Hispanics.

Folksinger Woody Guthrie wrote one of his most famous songs, "Deportee," as a protest that we treated Mexican migrant workers no better than the fruit and vegetables they picked. "To fall like dry leaves and rot on our topsoil, And be known by no name except deportees." Heartbreakingly, the only thing that's changed in sixty years, is that now we say "illegal" instead of "deportee." Arizona's anti-immigrant Senate Bill 1070, is just the latest phase of that tragedy.

I never had to cross a desert without water, but I have been a foreign worker. Back in the 1990's, I spent three years teaching English in the Republic of South Korea. My experience was a lot easier than what Hispanic migrants face. Even at that, it was tough to be that far away from from friends and loved ones for that long. It was tough to be a cultural minority, not knowing how to negotiate one's way. It's hard to not know the language. You don't travel that far to work, expecting it to be fun. Or if you do, you don't last long.

You also don't learn what it's like to be a foreign worker just by flying overseas to represent your American company, or even by serving with the American military overseas. It's one thing to travel as a function of your American job--or be stationed on an American military base. It's quite another to be at the mercy of a foreign employer's whims, subject to that land's laws and customs and the kindness--or lack thereof--of its police, shopkeepers, and even school children, month after month, without a break.

At our school, teachers signed a one-year contract. Teachers who left early, had to forfeit twenty per cent of their salary, which was held back for that purpose. Even so, most teachers did leave early. The first month is an adventure. Then comes the culture shock--from the language barrier, different cultural standards--not to mention negative stereotypes about Americans. Despite high wages, the average American teacher lasted only six months. Few hung in there for the whole year, to collect their full salary.

Most Koreans are polite. But every so often, someone would let slip the stereotypes that lurk just beneath the surface. Americans have no culture or history, someone told me. Americans have no family values, another man told me. Americans are all sexual perverts. American women are "dirty" and "promiscuous." Americans are all on drugs. Americans are "weak" and "lazy" and can't survive without machines and minorities to do our work for us. Finally, there was the young man who told me quite seriously, that white Americans treat our pets better than we treat our racial minorities.

If that paragraph didn't make you bristle, you're mellower than I am. I didn't like being stereotyped. But if I was going to keep my job--and finish my contract--and collect all my money--I had to suck it up and keep a straight face no matter how angry I got inside. I survived by remembering, we are all human and we all have flaws. Americans stereotype people, too. Most people I met really were decent and friendly. Most Koreans are terrific students. I had many wonderful experiences. But the difficult moments would eat you alive if you didn't work hard to keep a positive attitude. But again, I had it easy compared to what Hispanic workers face in the United States.

Our stereotypes can be just as nasty--and groundless--as any I heard in Korea. I have read claims that undocumented Hispanic immigrants only come here to sell drugs, collect welfare, and live off American taxpayers. I've never figured out--how do you pay welfare to someone with no working social security number?

The reality is quite the opposite. Just as one example, a study by the Texas comptroller general shows, undocumented aliens in Texas alone, add more than fifteen billion dollars a year to that state's economy. Studies in state after state show that social security and income taxes are withheld from about half of all undocumented workers. Since they don't have working social security numbers, the money winds up in the general fund. The reality is, the vast majority of illegal aliens work hard and pay more in payroll and sales taxes than they ever get back in services.

They're also subject to swindles and abuse by ruthless people, ranging from human traffickers, to American employers. A few years ago, I happened to talk with an American-born day laborer in Chicago. His complaint was that on the day labor market, illegal immigrants were often chosen ahead of him. The reason was, illegal immigrants didn't dare report abuses such as overly long work hours, lack of break time, unsafe working conditions, or being short-changed on wages. On that market, an American who knew his rights, was a less desirable employee than an illegal alien who didn't dare complain. But is that the fault of the people desperately seeking work--or employers profiting on their vulnerability?

Multiple reliable sources, explain that undocumented immigrants provide crucial low-skill labor. They put roofs on our houses, mow our lawns, butcher our livestock, and pick our fruits and vegetables. It's not quite accurate to say they only do work no American would do. They do work for lower wages and under poorer conditions than an American will accept. But they're here because they're being paid to be here.

Some employers may not know whom they're hiring--but some definitely do. Hiring undocumented immigrants can unethically boost profits and also helps keep consumer prices low. Twelve million undocumented workers in the United States, are not all just pulling the wool over their bosses' eyes. Our current system is not just unfair to them--it's unfair to American workers who have to compete with them.

As a foreign worker, I never had to face the perils undocumented workers face in the United States. Even once they find a job, they rarely report crimes committed against them, including labor violations, for fear of being sent back. I never had to worry about that. My employer did commit labor violations, such as failure to provide government-mandated health insurance. But that was relatively benign. Even so, again, every English teacher I knew was mighty glad to get back to America.

If the Mexican economy were as good as ours, I suspect most Mexican labor, documented or otherwise, would prefer to stay home. Of course, it's not. Mexico is a poor nation, with tremendous unemployment and poverty. Just as bad, violence between rival Mexican drug cartels, and also between cartels and the Mexican government, has turned parts of Mexico into a virtual war zone.

Let me put this into context. Nine years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, have killed about five thousand Americans. Three and a half years of drug wars in Mexico--using guns purchased mostly with American-paid drug money, I might add--have killed over 23,000 Mexicans.

Suppose I were from a northern Mexican state and couldn't get a job, watching my children do without things they needed. You bet I'd accept employment north of the border, maybe even move my kids north someday, to a place they could be safe and live better lives. That same motive has brought people--including my own ancestors--to this country for hundreds of years. Now suppose, while my kids went hungry, I had to watch Americans dither over immigration law--while knowing that a soybean farmer in Michigan or Indiana was willing to give me work and even provide transportation to get there. I have to tell you, I would not be much of a man if I didn't go. By virtue of my own ancestry--by virtue of what I would do if I were in the same situation--I, too, am an "illegal," to use the latest dehumanizing term that's gained currency.

We do need realistic immigration reform. But totally stopping immigration, is not realistic. Even if we could, which is no sure thing, it would be hugely expensive. Economics professor and immigration expert Gordon H. Hanson notes that even if we could stop illegal immigration, the expense would cost far more than we would save. Immigrant labor, including illegal immigration, contributes crucially to our economy. Far better, he says, to create a system to bring the immigrant labor we need into the country legally, have them pay a fine or tax--or have their employers pay a tax. Of course, that would make immigrant labor more expensive. Which is precisely why people who profit from the current mess, continue to oppose practical changes--while telling us they don't want so-called "amnesty." They're making more money just the way things are.

It is true that drug smuggling is a problem in border states. So is drug related kidnapping, violent and highly publicized. But that's done by professionals. The vast majority of Hispanic immigrants, with or without documents, tend to live low-profile lives. Same as my great grandfather did. Stereotyping them as murderous drug runners--is precisely the same as stereotyping all Americans as weak, lazy, promiscuous drug addicts.

According to F.B.I. statistics, Phoenix, Arizona, is one of the safer large cities in America--far safer than our own state capital, Indianapolis. Violent crime in Arizona has been dropping for the last decade. What's more, with the economic slowdown--and added border patrol agents--illegal immigration has actually gone down 18% in the last two years. Claims that Arizona's Senate Bill 1070 is justified by ballooning crime and immigration--are simply not true.

For the record, Arizona hosts far fewer illegal immigrants than California, Texas, Florida, or even Illinois or New York. Yet it's Arizona that's passing reactionary anti-immigrant legislation. What's really going on, here?

In the last ten years, Arizona's population has shot up 30%. That's a huge increase. Big changes are scary. What's more, 42% of Arizona's population is now non-Anglo. Illegal immigration is going down, so that's not the real reason behind the Arizona law. Violent crime is going down. What you do have, is a mostly-white, reactionary state legislature, unnerved by a degree of very visible violence--and more importantly, by a growing sea of non-white faces.

If you think I'm wrong, take a look at Arizona ethnic measures passed this year alone. House Bill 2281 is geared specifically to stop a popular ethnic studies program in Arizona's Tuscon school district. Then there's the state proclamation that teachers with "strong" accents--whatever that means--no longer be allowed to teach English in Arizona. Then there's the recent excitement over the overly dark-skinned mural outside a grade school in Prescott, Arizona. Or pending legislation to deny citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants, born in the United States. Beneath all the rationalizations, it is all about race.

Senate Bill 1070's preamble proclaims its intent to drive "unauthorized immigrants" out of the state with harassment. Anyone an officer "realistically" suspects to be an "unauthorized immigrant," has to show documentation or face arrest. But what does an "unauthorized immigrant" "realistically" look like? The S.B. 1070 orientation video produced for Arizona police officers, is a welter of confusing doublespeak, basically about how to racially profile--without profiling.

But again, undocumented immigrants tend to stay out of sight--precisely because they don't want to be sent back. The people touched most often by this law are going to be brown-skinned legal immigrants--or American citizens--with accents, who speak Spanish or other languages, including Native American languages, at home. Heaven help us if we start, in effect, legislating the languages families speak in the privacy of their own houses.
I think we're kidding ourselves if we pretend any of us are totally free of fear and prejudice. Human beings are not by nature rational creatures. I've never been able to make my fears and prejudices go away completely--including racial fears and prejudices--despite sincerely trying. We all have our shadows, me included. But we owe it to one another as human beings--to own our own fears and prejudices. My inner shadows don't in themselves make me reprehensible. What would make me reprehensible, would be for me to blame my fears and prejudices on the people I'm afraid of.

Change is tough. So are very visible incidents of violent crime--even if they don't reflect the general trend. But it's not okay to let our insecurities drive us to counterproductive, knee-jerk reactions that single out the weakest among us for unjust treatment. To me, laws like Senate Bill 1070--are not okay. For what it's worth, a broad majority of Unitarian Universalists also see them as not okay. The real controversy within our ranks is, what do we do about it?

My experience is, you can plead and reason against the irrational side of human nature all you want. But reason rarely persuades the irrational. Sometimes accountability does. Nationally, multiple social justice groups have called for boycotts against Arizona tourism and Arizona businesses.

Speaking only for myself, my home town is less than a hundred miles from the Arizona border. Personally, it would gripe my soul to support businesses that support Arizona Senate Bill 1070 or House Bill 2281 while they're on the books. I'm just one person. I know I won't change anything on my own. But I can still stand in solidarity with the most vulnerable among us--and I consider it my religious duty to do so.

But it's not even that easy. Some Arizona businesses, not to mention a lot of Arizona citizens, are implacably opposed to Arizona's anti-immigrant legislation. This tension has struck right to the core of Unitarian Universalism as a religious movement, not least because we're contracted to hold our 2012 General Assembly--our national convention--in Phoenix.

This was, to say the least, a hot topic at this year's G.A., last month in Minneapolis. I have to say I had very strong and conflicted feelings going in. So did a lot of other people. On the one hand, many of us hated the idea of subsidizing Arizona's tourist industry. Unitarian Universalists of color also hated the thought of having to carry their passports or birth certificates and facing an uncharted river of profiling, just to go to Phoenix and "vote on our budget," as one U.U. minister of color put it. On the other hand, other delegates worried about forfeiting more than a half million dollars we had guaranteed Phoenix hotels. Finally, Arizona Unitarian Universalists who fought hard against the legislation, were begging us to come to Phoenix in 2012, to join them in acts of witness.

It's not exaggerating to say, we faced a potentially devastating floor fight over this issue. Heaven knows, anyone who's seen Unitarian Universalist democracy in action, has seen floor fights. This had the potential to divide and cripple our movement in a way that's not happened in more than a generation.

I can report, it was no easy fix. Opposing voices spent a lot of time--not just talking--but also listening to one another. There were many negotiations in caucus rooms, lasting till the wee hours of many mornings. But in the end, they did came up with a democratic solution I believe every Unitarian Universalist can feel truly proud of. We will hold our 2012 General Assembly in Phoenix, but we will not just be "voting on the budget." It's been designated a mass act of witness--our Association's first "Justice G.A."

Speaking only for myself, I am deeply committed to the commonality of the human condition. I happen to be a human being who is an American citizen--but with roots among those who came here without permission, seeking something better than what they had where they were. If you were wise enough to choose more prudent ancestors--or wealthier ancestors--congratulations. I wasn't. I will lift my voice in common cause with my fellow human beings in Phoenix in 2012. I will also lift my voice against hateful laws in southern Indiana long before that. I invite you to join me.

In the end, neither your voice nor mine, will matter all that much. Even where we hold our convention in 2012, won't matter all that much in the eternal scheme of things. What always will matter--is that many voices, speaking together, do make a difference. That we do what's not popular or easy: stand in solidarity with our fellow children of God. Amen. May it be so.

CLOSING WORDS
The words inscribed on our Statue of Liberty proclaim what we say makes this a special nation:
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
Those are stirring words. Do they continue to mean something--or do we just use them to make ourselves feel good in the moment, and ignore them any time they seem inconvenient? Our Pledge of Allegiance does not say:
"With liberty and justice for some."