EDITORIAL
The Utah Compact
Published: December 4, 2010
Not all the political news this year involves the rise of partisan extremism and government by rage. There has been lots of that. But maybe there is a limit, a point when people of good sense and good will band together to say no. As they have just done in Utah.
Editorial Series
Political, business, law-enforcement and religious leaders there have endorsed what they call the Utah Compact. It is a statement of principles meant to address, with moderation and civility, “the complex challenges associated with a broken national immigration system.” What a welcome contrast it draws with the xenophobic radicalism of places like Arizona.
The signers, who hope to influence the shape of state immigration policy, include the mayors of Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County, the state attorney general, two Republican former governors, a former United States senator, and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City, the Chamber of Commerce and a host of other civic groups and citizens. The prominent and powerful Mormon Church did not sign on but issued a “statement of support” calling the compact “a responsible approach to the urgent challenge of immigration reform.”
A clearer expression of good sense and sanity than Utah’s would be hard to find. It says immigration is an issue between the federal government and other countries — “not Utah and other countries.” It says local police agencies should focus on fighting crime, “not civil violations of federal code.” Because “strong families are the foundation of successful communities,” it opposes policies that unnecessarily separate them. It recognizes immigrants’ value as workers and taxpayers.
It ends by urging a humane approach to the reality of immigration: “Utah should always be a place that welcomes people of good will.”
South of Utah in Arizona, the political establishment, top law-enforcement officers and voters have lined up behind a radical go-it-alone strategy to uproot and terrorize unwanted immigrants. That hard-line fever is spreading, with lawmakers in other states scrambling to pass their versions of the infamous Arizona law that empowers the police to demand people’s papers.
Immigration hard-liners are used to using the harshest words possible for newcomers, and condemning calls for restraint and humane behavior — as the Utah Minutemen already have — as the same old liberal, pro-amnesty mush. But red-state Utah is nobody’s idea of an open-borders fantasyland. The architects of the compact are conservative Republicans who have simply decided not to toe the simplistic party line.
This page has always insisted that reform can be — must be — pro-immigrant, pro-business, pro-family, pro-law-enforcement, all at the same time. These values are complementary. Law enforcement is strengthened by bolstering immigrants’ rights. Assimilation is more American than mass expulsion. It is also cheaper: a new study by the liberal Center for American Progress calculated that Arizona had lost hundreds of millions of dollars in convention and other business, thanks to the notoriety from its immigration crackdown.
from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/opinion/05sun1.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=utah+compact&st=cse
My parents legally immigrated here when I was 8 or 9 years old. Because of this I've had some interesting opinions expressed to me about immigrations. Questions of whether it is fair to allow illegal immigration when some work so hard to do so legally. It wasn't easy and it definitely wasn't cheap.
ReplyDeleteImmigration laws are already harsher than most might expect. I wasn't that upset to hear of Arizona's new laws when I first read them because many of those regulations already exist federally. I've been back and forth on this issue and I'm glad to hear that the church has come out with a more official opinion on the matter. I'm also fairly impressed by Utah officials in supporting this compact.
My feelings are that letting more diversity into this country will strengthen it and the US is only hurting itself by making immigration so difficult.
~ Michael Leavitt
Immigration is something that has been in my family from many generations. My great-great parents were from Italy and France, who then immigrated to Spain. My Spaniards grandparents then immigrated to Chile. My parents, due to political reasons, decided to leave Chile and move to Brazil, where I was born and raised.
ReplyDeleteI believe that most of the times, immigrants would rather stay in their home country where among many other things, they can enjoy the social and emotional support of having their family around rather than adventuring themselves in a new country. However, survival and self- realization motives can be so strong that people can actually decide on immigration as an option, even knowing the hardships they will face. It is not easy to be an immigrant in the United Sates. Throughout my years at BYU, I’ve realized that there exist social forces that indeed affect people’s behavior and perception toward themselves as minorities and how they are sometimes viewed by others.
The issue of immigration in the U.S (and specially its illegal form) definitely does not have a simple answer. However, as we ponder about solutions to the problem, we should always consider the our basic religious beliefs to love our “neighbor” and “that includes all of God’s children, in all places, at all times” and that “forced separation of working parents from their children weakens families and damages society”.