The immigration debate erupted into front-page news with the passage of a punitive House bill and mass demonstrations across the country, complete with a sea of Mexican flags.
With angry flag wavers on one side and angry vigilantes on the other, immigration has changed into a life-and-death matter, one that impacts every American, including every Jewish American.
On the surface, immigration appears to divide the country along liberal-conservative lines. Liberals want to allow a more hands-off policy, arguing that immigrants benefit the economy, perform work most Americans shun, and that all people deserve humane treatment once here. Conservatives counter that illegal immigrants drain public resources, and that flouting the law makes the law meaningless.
But immigration is too complex an issue to permit easy explanations or pat solutions.
Most Americans agree both sides have merit. But extremist solutions — whether mass deportation and 700-mile-long fences, or unrestricted immigration — don’t help society resolve the problem. Even President Bush repudiated hardliners in his own party, arguing for a revamped guest worker program and against the deportation of 11 million people.
How should the Jewish community respond to the debate?
As our two diverging op-eds this week suggest, there is no monolithic Jewish response. We are as conflicted as the rest of America.
However, we believe there are fundamental criteria for assessing an approach to immigration, and all are grounded in Jewish ethics.
For one, we must not fail to provide medical and humanitarian assistance to anyone within our borders, whatever the cost. Not only would it be inhumane to do so, it would be self-defeating. Allowing those with infectious diseases to go around untreated is to court disaster for all.
For another, the notion of building an impenetrable fence along the border is absurd. Not only would it cost countless billions, it would prove both ineffective and an environmental disaster.
Before anyone accuses us of runaway liberalism, we hasten to add that unrestricted immigration has demonstrably ill effects on society, and should not be allowed to continue.
However, we agree with the President that mass deportation is unworkable and should be abandoned as an option. We also urge Congress come up with a better bill than the draconian HR 4437.
And as Jews, we echo Rachel Biale’s admonition from our Torah to “remember the stranger.” However one comes down on the immigration debate, we must remember we are talking about fellow humans. There is nothing “bleeding heart” about that.