Immigration reform an inside job

HUMBERTO CASPA

James Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project, was just a few

miles away from Costa Mesa last month to give a speech at the

California Coalition for Immigration Reform headquarters in Garden

Grove. There’s little reason to doubt his love for this country --

but his tactics raise many concerns.

Gilchrist is the man who led the controversial and highly

publicized border patrols along the U.S. and Mexican border in

Arizona a month ago. He has said he would like to extend his

vigilante approach to California. I can imagine a few anti-immigrant

groups in Costa Mesa would love to invite his group to secure the

Eastside from Westside infiltration.

Instead of making scathing remarks against immigration in Garden

Grove, or Costa Mesa or any city in Orange County, Gilchrist and his

group should be in Washington, pushing President Bush as well as

congressional leaders on Capitol Hill to change our country’s

economic policies toward Latin America. That’s where the immigration

issue really resides, not at the U.S. and Mexican border.

During the 1970s and 1980s, people from Central America moved to

the United States for political reasons. The Reagan administration’s

commitment to stopping the spread of communism in the region deepened

our involvement in these countries’ ongoing civil wars. Little by

little, though without officially committing any troops, we got

pulled in to the political turmoil in Nicaragua, Guatemala and El

Salvador.

At the height of the civil war in El Salvador, thousands fled that

country to seek political asylum in the United States. Costa Mesa,

like other cities in Orange County, became safe havens for Salvadoran

immigrants. A few moved out but most stayed and settled for good.

This, in part, explains why the “pupuserias” -- traditional

Salvadoran restaurants -- have operated successfully in our city.

Unlike that wave of immigration, people now coming here from

Mexico and other Latin American countries are doing so for economic

reasons. Since the 1980s, our government has forced Latin American

leaders to practice a version of open market economics. And under the

International Monetary Fund’s insistence, most policies benefit

international interests rather than local industries. These policies

include privatization, downsizing of the public sector, lowering of

trade barriers and other trickled-down economic mandates.

On the positive side, most countries’ economies grew steadily

during the last two decades and inflation rates also declined.

However, because markets in Latin America ended up unprotected

against modern enterprises and cheaper products from the United

States and other industrial powers, most local industries lost

strength. Economic development never really took off.

Today, unemployment is up, poverty has increased and drug

trafficking has risen dramatically because these governments have had

little resources to fight criminal organizations and petty thugs. Of

course, government corruption has made the situation more difficult.

As a result, many people were left in desperate conditions and

with few choices. In short, they had more reasons to abandon their

homeland. A lot of them have tried to reach the United States to

better their lives despite the risks of crossing the border towns,

and of being apprehended by immigration officials and, in April, the

Minutemen.

My guess is that sometime in the future, Gilchrist might show up

in Newport Beach or Costa Mesa to stage his usual rallies against

immigration and also to broaden his political base. I’m sure many

people here might agree, and rightly so, with his stance against

illegal immigration.

His strategy, though, is a deceptive scheme and accomplishes

little, if anything. It only creates animosity among ethnic groups,

generates divisions on the basis of race and promotes tensions among

Latinos and white Americans.

Illegal immigration is a major issue today; I wouldn’t be writing

on this topic if it weren’t that way. But the best approach in

reducing illegal immigration isn’t by standing up and getting burned

by the intense heat along the U.S.-Mexican border.

Instead, people should press their representatives in Congress as

well as President Bush to stop pushing governments in Latin America

that implement market economics that hurt local industries. These

policies do work for us, but they don’t for them.

* HUMBERTO CASPA is a Costa Mesa resident and bilingual writer. He

can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].