Jewish Perspective on Immigration Reform

Jewish Perspective on Immigration Reform
"Immigration Reform: Can Godly People ‘Welcome the Stranger’ and Tackle
the Immigration Problem?" - Rabbi Lisa Hochberg-Miller, Temple Beth Torah,
Ventura, Yom Kippur Morning, Sept. 22, 2007
  It was hard to tell if the man’s body or soul felt more burdened. His body, to be sure:
the labor was backbreaking, the salary meager. To be injured in the daily toil meant only
to be replaced, for there were always more workers. To complain about the conditions,
the hours, the work: he had no power, and, then who would support his wife, his
children? Not his wife’s pittance, earned working in a palatial home, as a childcare
worker. To work in the hot sun, laboring in construction as he did, was thankless, all to
support the greatest economy in the world. A worker in the richest of countries, yet
there was no kindness or compassion to the worker, a human being with few human
rights, certainly no rights accorded to a citizen. Once welcomed into this land, it was
clear: he and his kind would always be strangers in a strange land; even speaking in his
native tongue was to arouse the ire of the natives. Perhaps it was his soul that was
burdened more though: to be laboring in this thriving economy by building this great
storehouse for grain, to be contributing so much to the strength and stability of
Pharaoh’s kingdom and yet to always feel that there would be no opportunity for you
or your children because you, Amram, father of Moses, were an Israelite.
  A reality from long ago...but is not the story of our servitude and abuse and our
subsequent Exodus to human freedom not a timeless story, one we are bidden to retell
each Pesach? In our very history as Jews we learn why today’s controversy over
undocumented immigrant workers is a Jewish issue.
  Why our issue? Because we have know what it is like to be the worker, a history that
began in Pharaoh’s Egypt and that has stretched to the factories of the lower east side;
  Why is there a Jewish imperative? Because we have known what it is like to be
immigrants, to want to move to a new country to make a better life for our children;
  Why not just call 12 million people illegal, and be done with them? Because we know
what it is like to be declared illegal, a term which too often is used to dehumanize, to
objectify, to scape-goat and to justify unconscionable solutions.
  Why speak up? Because our Torah is far from silent on the issues of justice, ethical
treatment of the worker, and creating moral laws. When Torah says, “you know the heart
of the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt,” I hear that as an imperative
that we must never become so comfortable in society that we stop listening to the plight
and the pain in the heart of the stranger. Our rabbis teach that Pharaoh’s greatest moral
crime is that once he allowed his heart to be hardened, he discovered how easy it was to
continue to harden one’s heart. We of all people must be the voices in the national
conversation insisting on a moral solution to illegal immigration.

And to enter wise voices into the debate on immigration reform, we must know our own
history, as one of the world’s most migrant people, and we must know some of the
history of the anti-immigrant, called nativist, movements in our country’s history. And
we must know the truth about Jewish immigration to America.
   What is our own migrant history? “lech lecha: go! Leave your home, your father’s
house,” God says to Abram, “and go to a land that I will show you.” Through 4,000
years, whether for economic opportunity, or to escape political oppression, we have
migrated: not for naught have we earned the badge “the Wandering Jew.” Some of our
families took the route from Persia and Babylonia to North Africa, Spain, Turkey, Egypt
and to the Land of Israel. Some of our families went from the Land of Israel to Italy,
France, Poland and Germany to the United States or Israel. Along the way we left
communities in places as far-flung as South Africa, Australia, Argentina and Belarus.
While we sit comfortably in this sanctuary today, most of us as third and fourth
generation Americans, we are implored to never forget our own history, for on Yom
Kippur afternoon, in synagogues in every one of those communities we will read from the
Holiness Code, Lev. 19: “Vahavta l’reicha Camocha: You shall love the stranger as
yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Our history is filled with nothing
if not stories of our migrations, and the pain that we have known to always be considered
a stranger, an outsider to good and decent society, as the natives in each of these countries
have defined it.
  And in every land where there is immigration there is an anti-immigrant movement. It is
right for a country to discuss how many immigrant workers their society can support,
and the character of the country they want to retain. But too often the anti-immigration
conversation is driven by nativist voices, raising the unfounded fears: they won’t learn
our language, they disdain our laws, customs, and values, they are bringing a criminal
element, they will refuse to be Anglified. This is the xenophobia our Yom Kippur liturgy
decries as sinful. America’s past testifies to the truth that we are a Nation of Immigrants
who live blending our many cultures into the United States, not many balkanized states.
  In light of this anti-immigrant mindset, its’ vital for us to understand how much we
Jews were not wanted in this country. When the Jews first arrived in 1654, the governor
of New Amsterdam tried unsuccessfully to return them to the Netherlands. White, Anglo-
Saxon, Protestant, nativist groups in the 1800’s politicized and protested the arrival all
non-Anglo-Saxon or Nordic people, most especially the Irish Catholics. Their protests
took the form of burning Catholic churches, creating anti-immigrant political parties, and
anti-citizenship legislation. During years dominated by Western and Northern European
Immigration, German Jews immigrated, but not in threatening numbers. But understand
that it was, in large part, the great exodus of Russian and Eastern European Jews who
came starting in the 1880’s and right through to after World War I, that was the impetus
for the United States to create its first immigration laws; to stop our people, amongst
others, from coming to this country. Almost 60% (57%) of the next 25 million immigrants
were from Eastern Europe. The Eastern European and Mediterranean immigration raised
the usual questions anew: would the dark-complected Hungarians, Poles, Yugoslavs,

Italians, Greeks, Ukranians, and Jews spurn American customs, values and laws, speak
their native tongues and refuse to be Anglicized?
  This period of immigration was critical for the Jews of Eastern Europe, who had begun
to take flight after the 1880’s had brought brutal pogroms through czarist Russia. At the
end of WWI, there were at least 2 million Jewish refugees in Europe. But this time
period—the 1880s- through 1920s, was also a time of vocal anti-immigrant movements
and a post-WW I hatred of Europeans, and fear of Russians. Early in 1921, Albert
Johnson, chair of the House Immigration Committee, reported to the House that Eastern
European Jews had been coming through Ellis Island, in unprecedented numbers in the
previous months. He quoted an unnamed HIAS worker as saying “If there was in
existence a ship that would hold three million human beings, the three million Jews of
Poland would board it to escape to America.” Johnson quoted the head of the U.S.
Consular Service, who after surveying the ports in Europe reported that the Polish Jews
were the worst of potential immigrants: “filthy, un-American and often dangerous in their
habits...lacking any conception of patriotism or national spirit.” Johnson succeeded in
creating the 1921 Emergency Quota Law, a draconian and racist law based, not on need,
but on nationality, that stood in this country until it was abolished in 1965. That 1921
Quota Law dictated that immigration from any country was limited to 3% of the total
nationality that lived in America, those numbers to be taken from the most recently
available census, that of 1910.
  Overtly and unapologetically biased against Jews, Slavs, and Italians, Albert Johnson
pushed ahead, creating the 1924 Johnson Act that further reduced the number of
immigrants to just 2% of the total number of that nationality which existed in the U.S.,
but that 2% was to be based now on the 1890 census, taken before the massive Eastern
European immigration! Johnson was aided by Henry Laughlin, secretary of the House
Immigration Committee. Using eugenics, a “science” to prove hereditary inferiority,
Laughlin testified to Congress that Jews, Italians and Slavs were of lower intellectual and
moral stature, they were the least bright of all the American groups. He showed five
complex charts of standardized intelligence tests and reported that, of recent immigrants,
the English were the brightest, and the Russians, Greeks, Italians, Belgians, and Poles
were almost totally stupid. The political fear-mongering of the nativist and anti-
immigrationist groups had triumphed, even as major religious organizations de-cried its
racism.
  Because we have known discrimination, because we have a proud history of speaking
out for those who labor, because we carry a moral imperative of “justice, justice shall you
pursue” we American Jews must add to the discussion on current immigration. The issues
are complex but just solutions can be found, as we grapple with the future of perhaps 12
million or more undocumented immigrants. The issue of immigration has become a multi-
headed monster: there is a quota system that doesn’t accurately reflect our dependence on
low-skilled workers from Mexico and Central America. There is a bureaucracy that is too
slow to process immigration requests, keeping families separated for many years, creating
human suffering, leading many to opt for illegal entry. There has been a lax approach to

enforcement, indeed many industries work to subvert the law for their success is based on
the low wages and hard labor of Latino workers. In our frustration at this multi-headed
monster, we have watched our country respond in the most appalling of ways, a
hardening of the heart that bespeaks of the worst kind of societies. We watch a crack-
down on deporting hard-working immigrants, but there are hardly any real reprisals for
the agricultural, construction, grounds maintenance, and food processing industries who
have encouraged immigrants to work undocumented and unprotected by labor laws. Some
600,000 workers are facing deportation—these are not gang-bangers and violent criminals,
the majority are hard-working people, raising families, paying taxes, buying homes, doing
what your and my great-grandparents did when they came to this country. We listen as
the nativist rhethoric fills the airwaves and newspapers again, hidden under the guise of
being the “true Americans”, like the Minutemen Project and Save Our State; scratch
beneath the surface and you will find the racist refrains that will make you wonder if they
really hate law-breakers, or if they just hate immigrants. We question: if they are really
fed up with the immigration problem why aren’t they protesting in front of the homes of
construction executives, or presidents of ag industries, in front of Congress, rather than
carrying on like thugs to intimidate Latinos? We listen to the rantings from congressman
and lobby groups who decry “amnesty” and refuse to make any path to citizenship for
these 12 million people and wonder about their true motives, for we have never had a time
period where were didn’t create a path to legalize our immigrant workers here. Most
appalling is that billions of dollars are going toward constructing a barrier on our southern
border, billions that could be better invested in enforcing U.S. labor laws, or funding
industries which sponsor their workers for citizenship. Our national debate on
immigration reform and immigrant rights is ugly, its emotional, its fed by sweeping
misinformation and stereotypes, and we, as American Jews, must insist that we do not
de-humanize the people who are at the heart of this; the men, women and children who
live in real fear each day. We, a nation of immigrants, are becoming xenophobic against the
newest immigrants, and nobody, nobody more than we can speak to the humiliation of
living in a country where more and more we are portrayed as the cause of a nation’s woes.
In what we say and do, we must keep the humanity of this situation before us. We are
proud that the Anti-Defamation League inspired the resolution passed this summer by
both California Legislatures and now on its way to the President and the U.S.Congress
which calls upon all government officials to “recognize basic human rights and denounce
all forms of xenophobia and racism when considering immigration policies.”
  We are responsible for our immigration problem. The illegal immigrants who are here are
here because for the entire last century, we courted them into our country to be our
agricultural workers, to be our construction workers, our roofers, to labor in our
landscaping industries and to be the next generation of factory workers in our meat and
food packaging factories. You and I have set the limits on how much we will pay for food
in restaurants, and restauranteurs oblige by hiring undocumented workers who do not
have the force of law behind them to ask for minimum wage or benefits. You and I do not
want to pay $3 for a cucumber, so we tolerate and encourage a multi-billion dollar

agricultural industry that pays workers a pittance for backbreaking work. How long could
you bend over in a field harvesting strawberries? The men and women we see in Ventura
and Oxnard fields make $. The crisis we are at today is because America has circumvented
many of the hard-fought labor laws so that businesses could survive and comfortably
profit. Illegal immigrants come when there are jobs for them, and we have jobs for them.
One in five of our housekeepers is undocumented. More than a third of those who are
insulation workers are; meatpacking is the most dangerous job in the United States, with
an injury rate three times higher than other factory jobs. Guess who is standing in those
factory lines? We cannot begin to point the finger in the immigration war at the people
who come to take the jobs we offer. We are far too comfortable in our affluent society
that prospers, as did Pharaoh’s Egypt, on unethical labor practices. That is why the
solution rests with us, not with them.
 What can be done and should be done? We must deal ethically, and yes, legally, with
workers. We must deal economically, and yes, legally with business. We must deal
morally with families. We must deal harshly with bigots. Here are a few thoughts.
  First, Deportation. It is ludicrous to contemplate deporting 12 million people; why
would we devastate our economy by pulling out millions of workers who do jobs that the
4% of our unemployed workers do not want to do? 90% of California’s farm workers are
undocumented. Their labor helps make us the six largest economy in the world. Likewise,
we cannot carry the financial burden of bringing legal proceedings against every
undocumented worker here.
  Second, Citizenship. It is unprecedented to say that there can be no path to citizenship
for these people who live and work next door to us. While this is what members of
Congress are being encouraged to do, by vocal, angry anti-immigration groups, we must
insist that their response be two fold: first, deal with the fact that they have broken the
law. In America we punish non-violent crimes with monetary fines; this should be
proportional to family economics, so we are punitive but don’t economically destabilize a
family, causing them to need governmental services; that would be counterproductive. But
the consequence of illegal entry to the U.S. should be more than monetary fines. When
you and I break a traffic law, we are required to go to traffic school. Undocumented
workers should be required to go to English language and American civics classes. Imagine,
punishing by education. Successful completion of this financial and educational fine
would allow one to apply for citizenship.
  Third, Business. We must work with the industries who hire the largest number of low-
skilled workers so that they can be profitable businesses while paying workers a living
wage. The right to unionize in this country was brought about by the sweat and the lives
of our Jewish grandparents: we can only support a system of labor where workers are
treated fairly and are not afraid they will be turned over to legal authorities if they report
workplace dangers. This protection is missing in current “guest worker” proposals,
making immigrants vulnerable to real abuse. Workplace immigration raids must cease; it is
not commensurate to fine an employer but exile a father or mother from their family

forever.
  Fourth, Families. We need to prioritize families in the immigration process. To not re-
unify families is inhumane. Our country has always prioritized the applications of
parents, spouses, and children of current citizens. Recent legislation suggests we
prioritize not by family but by one’s perceived economic marketability. Given that many
immigrants came to the United States to earn money to send home in support of family, it
would be unconscionable to not create a way for families who want to live together to do
so.
  Currently, more than 3 million children who are U.S. citizens have one parent or more
who is not here legally. Before 1986, any parent of a U.S. citizen had the possibility, over
time, of attaining legal status. After 1986, this was not the case. How could this be in our
country’s best interest? Current laws require judges to deport all undocumented
immigrants, giving them no latitude to determine if this would cause extreme hardship to
the child. We must prioritize for citizenship those adults who live in this country already
who are raising children who are U.S. citizens.
  In recent months, a New Sanctuary Movement has emerged across the country to call
attention to the plight of families caught in the immigration mess. Contrary to hysterical
diatribes, the churches and religious institutions involved are not breaking any laws, for
they are not concealing fugitives. Indeed the very opposite: they are publicizing the
stories of a system that is so imperfect that people who are not trying to evade the law,
people who are even trying to apply for legal status, find themselves misguided,
misunderstood, taken advantage of, or often unable to navigate the complexity of the
Immigration behemoth, and are ordered deported. The New Sanctuary Movement is doing
what I ask you to do; to put a human face, human families, in front of a monstrous
political problem for which many would rather not find a just solution. The 80 members
of the United Church of Christ in Simi Valley are people just like you, except that they
have refurbished their parsonage and invited Liliana, a 29- year old mother of three to live
there in hopes that by being part of the sanctuary movement they can encourage our
country to review its deportation policies. At tremendous public expense, government
agencies pursue the deportation of a woman nursing a 10 month old son, whose three
children and husband are all U.S. citizens, as are members of her extended family. Liliana
came illegally at age 19 after every member of her family was legally allowed to come but
her requests for student visas were continually denied. Thugs stand across from the
church property, happy to declare Liliana illegal but not too vocal about the illegal
practices of American companies. That we are at a place of such extremes and ugliness
only speaks to the great failure of our governmental and business leaders to create
thoughtful, effective legislation. I implore you, as a country already discussing the 2008
elections, we have to hold our candidates and legislators to this issue. And if we as a
country choose not to deal broadly and systematically with the mess we have created, we
have only ourselves to blame, and not the immigrant worker. It is complex, yes; but
America’s moral imperative demands that we deal with this.

In a few moments we will turn to the Torah reading for Yom Kippur morning,
Nitzavim. We read, ‘you stand this day, all of you, before Adonai, your God, from the
heads of your community to the wood choppers, from your judges to the ones who draw
water, your women, your children. We are taught that we stand as one people, from the
most influential to the most vulnerable, those who labor so that we might all have
firewood to warm us, and water to cook our meals. May our hearts never become so
hardened that we can’t see that it takes all of us in society for us to be able to stand as
one before God.
Reference: Facts to Know in Discussing Immigration Reform

                    Facts to know in discussing Immigration Reform
       History:
       •
The 1921 Quota Laws, which mandated immigration restriction based on nationality, set
no limits on Mexicans or Central Americans; as we were encouraging these workers to
work in agriculture. The State Department’s policy was of “Pan-Americanism.”
•
The 1965 Law abolishing nationality for quotas set the first quotas for Mexicans and
Central Americans. This created the “illegal” immigration problem, when the U.S began to
limit the workers previously encouraged.
         Figures:
         •
It is estimated there are between 11-20 million illegal immigrants currently in the U.S.
•
California has the sixth largest economy in the world; agriculture accounting for a
significant portion. The United Farm Workers estimates 90% of California farm workers
are undocumented. To deport or not hire undocumented workers would be catastrophic to
the agricultural industry and the California economy.
•
It is estimated that 3 million people enter illegally/year, triple the authorized figure. They
hold 12-15 million jobs, 8% of the labor market.
•
The current U.S. unemployment figure is 4%.
•
Undocumented immigrants are only 26% of the foreign-born population.
•
Of undocumented workers: 78% Latin America, 13% Asia
•
65,000 visas annually for high skilled workers; 5,000 for low-skill workers
•
Made mandatory for a judge to deport a undocumented worker.
•
200,000 people deported annually.

•
3.1 million children in the US have one parent who is undocumented.
•
There is a current backlog of 20 years for family-sponsored immigration.
        The cost and contributions to U.S. Taxpayers:
        Based on facts from the U. S. Social Security Administration, the I.R.S., the
National Academy of Sciences, the Pew Hispanic Center, and the Dean of the Kennedy
School of Government at Harvard University:
             •
Undocumented immigrants are net contributors to economy, providing more in taxes paid
and work than received in public benefits.
•
They pay $8.5 billion annually in Social Security and Medicare taxes.
•
$50 billion in federal IRS taxes, 1996-2003.
•
They are unable to receive SSI, Medicaid, Food Stamps, Temporary Assistance for
Needy Families, government programs their tax dollars subsidize.
•
They are unable to receive post-secondary education benefits.

        Health Care:
        2000-The Rand Corporation, study: only a small fraction of spending on health
was for services to undocumented immigrants. About $1.1 billion spent annually in
federal, state and local government health care for working age undocumented immigrants
This represents two-tenths of one percent of total government funds toward health care.

         A Call to Action:
Be vocal in supporting Sen. Feinstein, speaking out to Rep. Gallegly:
Senate failed in June to pass a broad bi-partisan bill; Sen. Feinstein currently introducing
an AgJobs program to given permanent legal resident status to agricultural workers, after
5 years of work. Also, amendment to give conditional legal status to young illegal
immigrants.
         ADL inspired Assembly Joint Resolution 16, passed California Senate (Aug. 30),
and Assembly (June 7.), that local, state and federal government must “recognize basic
human rights and denounce all forms of xenophobia and racism when considering
immigration policies.”
         Write Simi Valley City Council, Mayor Paul Miller, at 2929 Tapo Canyon Rd,
S.V., 93063 or pmiller@simivalley.org. if you would like to respond to the City Council’s
bill to the United Church of Christ of almost $40,000 in un-requested police services,
after Save Our State announced they would hold a protest there, last Sunday morning.
         For a religious and interfaith response to immigration issues:
         Progressive Jewish Alliance at www.pjalliance.org

Rabbi Laurie Coskey, Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice, www.iwj.org.
Download their booklet “For Once You Were a Stranger.”
       Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism: www.rac.org
       Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice www.cluela.org
       www.unityblueprint.org
“Our quarrel is not with Jews who are different, but with Jews who are indifferent,”
Stephen S. Wise, social justice and human rights advocate
“Justice, justice shall you pursue that you may live” Deut. 16:20

                               The New Colossus (1883)
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows
world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
'Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!' cries she With silent lips. '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-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the
golden door!'

                             Emma Lazarus 1849-1887
(Critically-acclaimed Jewish poet wrote this and other poems responding not just to the
conditions in Europe but in response to the anti-Semitism and anti-immigration sentiments
in America. She did not live to see it engraved on the Statue of Liberty.)