Immigration complexities and hypocrisies

By Ellen Ratner
A friend's recent story highlights the complexities – and the hypocrisies – of the immigration issue now being argued on American streets and the halls of Congress. My friend needed some rooms painted and received a bid from a local contractor, born in the United States. Looking at the number, her eyes nearly popped out of her head. "I could go to Home Depot tomorrow morning and hire a few of those illegals who always hang around the parking lot looking for work," she said. "I could get this job done for half this amount!"



"No, you don't want to do that," her contractor patiently explained. "For one thing, it's against the law. For another, you'll be putting American citizens out of work. And I'm not sure that we ought to do anything to encourage people to take desperate chances crossing those deserts down there. Many never make it." My friend has a large and law-abiding heart, and was persuaded. She gave the man her business.

A week later, when she walked into her house, she found three strangers busily painting her rooms. Her contractor came in and introduced her to his workers. "This is Wilson, Smith and Jones," he said, gesturing toward the men. They smiled and my friend realized that despite these Anglo-Saxon names, not one of the three spoke a word of English. Later, she discovered they were illegal immigrants from Mexico, hired at rock-bottom rates, while her contractor charged her at the top of the market.

Today my friend is convinced that if a pollster asked her contractor about illegal immigration, he'd be the first to start screaming about how "those" illegals are sneaking into America, ripping us off for welfare benefits and free medical care, filling up our prisons while sending whatever money they do earn back to Mexico.

Welcome to the immigration debate.

On one side, there are those who favor punishing immigrants who illegally cross our borders, mostly drawn by the same economic opportunities that lured our own ancestors here in times past. These Americans want to criminalize immigrants' status to felons, build a wall so high and dug so deep that it can neither be scaled nor tunneled under, and then commence the forcible deportation of an estimated 11 to 12 million people – surely one of the largest ethnic cleansings in world history.

At the other extreme are those who favor erasing the border altogether – let anyone in who wants in and our laws, budgets and national security be damned. Let the immigrants fill our sweat shops, wash our dishes, clean our toilets and cut our lawns, stock shelves at Wal-Mart, flip burgers at McDonald's and paint our houses. These Americans are less interested in rule of law, decent working conditions for all U.S. residents and border security than they are in making big bucks from brown people.

These are the extremes. So who is in the middle? The perplexing answer is that all of us are in the middle, including many of those allegedly on the extremes – and that is what lends so much falsehood and hypocrisy to the debate. Most Americans, whether they will admit it or not, work, play, shop, employ, go to school with, and ride the bus or subway with illegal immigrants. And most Americans will tell you that the illegal immigrants they know personally are usually hard-working, deeply religious, and hold moral and civic values that put to shame many citizens.

But when asked about illegal immigration – those others who are pouring across our borders in one brown, lawless mass – most Americans will describe criminals, welfare cheats and parasites. Manuel who cuts your lawn is a great guy; Rosa who watches your kids, or does your wash, or serves you coffee in your neighborhood restaurant is a wonderful lady. But those illegal immigrants? Make them felons, deport them, build a wall, dig a moat.

But the truth is more complex. The anti-immigration voices have a point – America is a nation of laws and Congress should have the guts to either legalize everybody's status or reform the immigration law. Even those who shamelessly exploit immigrants have a point – immigrants come because what is exploitation to us is a major opportunity for them, in light of the non-existent jobs available in the Mexican countryside.

My belief is that we do need better border security, but we also need to address the status of the immigrants already here. Most Americans, even those who demand deportation, would recoil in horror at the sight of 12 million illegal immigrants being forcibly uprooted from their homes, jailed and led at gunpoint across the border. Humanity requires some sort of process to regularize the status of those illegals already here. This, together with tighter borders, is the only practical answer to a tough, tough, question.

Iraq Dispatch Number 4

By Richard Miller
Iraq Dispatch #4

This morning I witnessed something that was both mundane and extraordinary. In one sense, it was only a meeting to discuss security arrangements for a march. City and state authorities were present as were representatives of the marchers; the route was discussed and the role of law enforcement in providing security was planned. Such meetings probably occur weekly in cities like Boston, where peaceful demonstrations and holiday parades are commonplace.



But this wasn't Boston. It was Aldijail, Iraq, the same town that witnessed atrocities for which Saddam Hussein is now being tried. Indeed, representing the marchers at this meeting was a man who recently testified against the former dictator. Also present was the head of Aldijail's city council, as well as Col. Shakir of the Iraqi Security Forces [ISF] and Gen. Mohammad Watif of the Iraqi Police [IP]. And coaching this meeting—to say that he led it would be inaccurate—was Col. Jeffrey Vuono, Battalion Commander of the 3-29 Field Artillery, part of the 4th Infantry Division. Col. Vuono is a trim, alert, professional soldier who was, like many of his men, trained as an artillerist. However, unlike many of his men, Col. Vuono holds a masters degree in international law and diplomacy from Harvard's Kennedy School and has clocked time at Tuft's Fletcher School of Diplomacy. But like the rest of his command, Col. Vuono has adapted to the requirements of this war. This morning, that meant functioning as a ward heeler, diplomat, cop, and city planner. All of this in a city which has never had real political parties, reliable cops, much diplomacy or any planning. The meeting, a regularly scheduled event known as the JCC [Joint Communication Center] is an ongoing opportunity for Coalition forces, the ISF and IP to discuss security issues. This meeting also illustrated the promise and pitfalls of attempting to reorganize Iraq as some version of democracy.

The subject at hand was a religious pilgrimage planned by local Shiites. Tradition calls for the march to begin on foot, through Aldijail's streets and up the heavily traveled Route One, the main road to Baghdad. These days there are other hazards beside convoys of trucks. Insurgents, especially those currently attempting to foment a civil war, would a gathering of Shiites as an ideal opportunity to commit mass murder. The certainly have the will as well as the means—mortars fired from secluded spots, homicide bombers and of course, the killing machine of choice—roadside bombs, known in militarese as IEDs. There are no guarantees against violence in today's Iraq, but the odds can be greatly reduced by close coordination between Coalition forces, the ISF, and the IP. As Col. Vuono made clear during the meeting, whatever the wisdom of conducting a march under these circumstances, it's not the role of the Coalition to deny Iraqis the right to gather peacefully for whatever reason. However, this is Aldijail, a town that dreads reprisals from Saddam loyalists for the role its citizens have played in bringing the former dictator to trial.

Because this isn't Boston, there were problems. Col. Vuono's first task was to gently kick back Iraqi requests that "the Coalition do it" in providing security. He encouraged, where feasible, the Iraqis to take responsibility for their own security.

Other problems proved less tractable. The IP's Gen. Watif walked into the meeting two hours late. Worse, within a few minutes, as Col. Shakir of the ISF was mid-sentence in proposing a joint effort for security with the IP, Watif and his aide rose, and without so much as a fare-thee-well, calmly walked out of the meeting. It was a sign of disrespect to Shakir, and Vuono, a veteran of these meetings, decided he had had enough. He fetched Watif back into the room.

"You were two hours late for this meeting, and this is supposed to be a security meeting," Vuono said. "You're supposed to be working with Col. Shakir, yet you walk out just as he's trying to work with you." Col. Vuono's tone was correct yet extremely unhappy. He reminded Watif that whenever he contributes anything in these meetings, it's always to complain about the Col. Shakir's ISF. "I don't want to know from you what the ISF is doing. Col. Shakir keeps me fully informed about that. What I want to know is what you're doing with your 500 men. Where are they? Can you tell me their positions?" Watif, stung, admits that he doesn't know.

Now the meeting begins to make some progress on security issues. Col Vuono has drawn a line, and at least for now, Watif respects that line. But when the time comes for Vuono to add his closing statement to those made by the Iraqis, he makes sure that it will leave no hard feelings. "It's nothing personal," he assures Gen. Watif. "I just want you and Col. Shakir to make security the best it can be so that your people are safe and secure." Col Vuono pauses and a thoughtful look crosses his face. "You know, as you say, Inshallah—God willing," he finally says. "I believe that here, God is willing—if you are."

This meeting and other things I have witnessed since being in-country convinced me that there exists a growing bond at every level between American soldiers and the ISF. I saw it in the way Col. Vuono dealt with his counterpart, Col. Shakir. Just as importantly, I have seen it in the positive attitudes, genuine handshakes, and friendly, offhand, behind-the-back comments (and trust me, these defy scripting) made by our grunts towards their ISF counterparts. Whether the ISF can rise to meet the troubles of Iraq is unknown, but thus far, it is the most unambiguously, mutually friendly relationship between Americans and Iraqis that I've yet seen.

Iraq Dispatch Number 3

By Richard Miller
Iraq Dispatch #3

Anyone genuinely interested in why an immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, a la Cong. Jack Murtha's proposal, is out of the question, need only ask Mr. Adnan Jasim Mohamad, headmaster of the school in the village of 14 Ramadan. I met Mr. Mohamad today while on a Humvee patrol with the 3-29 Field Artillery (which functions more like infantry than artillery these days), a unit which belongs to the 3rd Heavy Combat Brigade Team of the 4th Infantry Division from Fort Carson, Colorado.



Before relating Mr. Mohamad's take on affairs, I must first relate the circumstances of this meeting. These are important because they reflect not just how American units are grappling with this new kind of war, but how the war itself has transformed these same units. The 3-29 Field Artillery dispatched an infantry patrol (in Humvees) to recon the area—but the lay of the land they sought to discover was not topographic but social and political. Accompanied by personnel from Psy-Ops and Civil Affairs (all of which are resources available to the 3rd Heavy Combat Brigade), the unit's mission was to talk to Iraqis and ask some simple questions: For example, do you have clean water? Is your local council making available adequate resources for your needs? Has the Iraqi Security Forces [ISF] or the Iraqi Police [IP] been around?

Mr. Mohamad, a neat, earnest and polite man whose concern for his 207 pupils would be recognizable to anyone who has stood before a class, was finally asked this question: Do you have any objection to the IP or ISF coming around for a visit to the school? The soldier asking these questions, tall, burly Master Sergeant First Class Tim Berger has been dealing with local Iraqi concerns for years, and understands that this is a sensitive issue.

For the first time during this interview, Mr. Mohamad shifts uncomfortably followed by an awkward pause in what had been a businesslike discussion. He finally clears his throat, and through the Army's translator, makes this request: That ISF and IP forces not stop at the school unless they are accompanied by the Americans.

His reasons might make sense even to the editorialists at the New York Times. "Sometimes terrorists come," he explains through a translator, "and use the uniform of the Iraqi Army or Police to attack local people." Simply put, he doesn't yet trust central authority—at least not around the children who attend his simple, two story, cinder-block school.

When we came to Ramadan 14 we were not greeted as liberators (I had one truly bizarre experience from one of the older boys who angrily insisted, "America is Yehudi! America is Yehudi!" [America is Jew, America is Jew] For all I know (although I very much doubt it), Mr. Mohamad is of the same opinion. But for now, he needs us and he knows it. We also need him, if Iraq is to emerge as something other than one more failed state. Those who (foolishly, in my view) insist that Iraq is on the verge of civil war need consider this—if they truly believe it, then they also have the means to prevent it—keep U.S. forces in-country in sufficient quantities in order to prevent one.

Iraq Dispatch Number 2

By Richard Miller
9 March, 2006-03-09

At 12:10 hours we—a group of journalists and soldiers—boarded the brown colored armored box-on-wheels better known as the Rhino-Runner for an hour plus journey to Sadr City, a name likely to inspire fear in the hearts of cable television audiences everywhere. The Rhino seats 23 uncomfortably behind bullet-proof glass windows and steel plates thick enough to take a hit from a 30 caliber, 166 grain bullet traveling at a mere 2850 feet per second. It's also good against many IEDs although the manufacturer is understandably reluctant to discuss tolerances, and few are the embedded journalists willing to honor the "public's right to know" on that sensitive question. Today's sky matched the color of the Rhino, as a moderate sandstorm had blown over Baghdad, blowing fine dust into lungs, cameras, laptops and exposed electrical contacts.



Sadr City is often referred to by media as a "Shiite slum." But whoever first called this area a slum must have been at a loss for words for what he saw and so snatched the first term that came to mind. Sadr City is no mere slum—it's a ruined, broken expanse of densely crowded ramshackle buildings, sometimes separated by shallow wetlands on which donkeys, dog packs and children compete for space over the same piles of rusted junk, stinking garbage and fetid streams clogged with indescribable organic refuse. Meanwhile, a few miles down the road one can see the public monuments and official buildings constructed by Saddam, all in such bad taste that would have likely offended even Stalin's architects.

This place used to be called Saddam City, but after the U.S. invasion, was renamed after Mohammad Sadr, a revered imam killed by Saddam Hussein. When the place was first named Saddam City, the dictator himself appeared in the Municipal Building to make a speech then reportedly never darkened its door again. "There are three things I do not understand why God made," Saddam supposedly once said. "Persians [Shiites], flies and Jews."

But there are more than a few hints of a future here. We passed through one Sadr neighborhood that hosts suppliers of building material. Colored tiles, mounds of concrete-ready sand, and enormous stacked palettes of bricks suggested a building boom. And indeed, an Iraqi I spoke with confirmed that prices for these materials are rising steadily, reflecting demand. Moreover, the street merchants were selling whole walls of new-in-box refrigerators, air conditioners, and generators, followed by clothing, shoes, and hats. But perhaps the most precious commodity filling the sidewalks and storefronts were hundreds of children. Most combat journalists and soldiers know that when the locals let the kids out to play, danger is unlikely.

So here's the rub: despite criticism that "embedding" with the military equals "in-bed" with the military, the one thing beyond anyone's power to script is street life. The hour's ride there and back to Sadr proved that the cable talking heads and editorial writers back home, the experts and their out-country blogs and Op Eds who describe Iraq as in the grip of a civil war are wrong. There is sectarianism aplenty, to be sure. Traveling through Sadr one sees Shiite militia men garbed in black, often lurking near the red-bereted Iraqi Security Forces and blue-shirted police. But the streets were otherwise full of people living their lives in normal civilian rhythms.

I came here in part to investigate claims of a civil war. However, thus far, I've seen nothing of the sort. There are many who have invested cash, manpower or political capital hoping for such an outcome—the Iranian and Syrian governments, the Western hard left, jihadis, and so forth all come to mind. But without Iraqi help, the outsiders and local opportunists will succeed only in killing a lot of people. And thus far, it is the Iraqis who seem to have drawn a bright line at a brink they will not cross.

Iraq Dispatch Number 1

By Richard Miller
Dispatch from Iraq, No. 1

7 March, 02:50

It's Zero-Dark-Thirty in military parlance, and a group of contactors mill around, smoke, and swap war stories in front of KBR's [Kellogg, Brown and Root's] "villa" at Kuwait City's Hilton Resort Hotel. A service road is lined with a string of these wishfully named low-rise apartments, most available by week or weekend to families who seek a beach, a massage or good eating. But KBR's business here is longer-term. The Texas company can be found wherever the U.S. military is based in Kuwait and Iraq. Among a thousand other services, KBR is responsible for delivering contractors, officials and the occasional reporter to an airport within Kuwait. From there a U.S. military C-130 will fly them to Baghdad. Perhaps it's the wee hour, or the middle age of most of the contractors waiting for final processing, but the comfortable breeze wafting towards the warm waters of the Persian Gulf seems to bear a weariness that sifts through shadows cast by the yellow fluorescent lights.



Weary-that's it. The word sags like the current mood and provokes the inevitable recollection. "Not weary" was what I remembered of OIF-I, watching the fighters launch from the USS Kitty Hawk's deck. I remember wondering at the time whether the pending liberation of Iraqis was at all comparable to the liberation of the Jews from Egypt, set to be celebrated at Passover then just a few weeks away. When I embedded last exactly one year ago, I remember feeling wary, not weary. Things then seemed to be at some tipping point but were hopefully tipping our way. Improvised Explosive Devices might be everywhere and enemy snipers still took the occasional pot shots. But Fallujah had been retaken in Operation Al Fajr, elections loomed, and hope might be found even among the more reasonable opponents of the invasion.

In the year since, I've joined many other Americans in simply growing weary. Civilian fatigue is a common phenomenon of long wars, and one has to be careful not to confuse emotional states with convictions about their country's interest. Nevertheless, the vacuum that the Realpolitikers had warned of-the one that was predicted to occur should Iraq emerge as a weak or failed state-is being filled (as predicted) by an obnoxiously resurgent Iran. When I planned this current embed, its purpose was to report on American troops on a tactical level-how they fought, how they communicated during battle and other aspects of military life in a combat zone. What one would expect of a military historian. And that remains on the agenda. But now another question has rudely elbowed its way on to my list: Is there a "there-there" to this thing we call Iraq? Or is "Iraq," as some have argued no more than three former Ottoman provinces bolted together during the 1920s by the British Foreign Office and sustainable only by the thuggery of a Saddam Hussein?

If Iraq-the-Nation is sustainable only by thuggery, then the U.S. effort is much like trying to inflate an already punctured balloon. We may exhaust ourselves to no end. I've always been more optimistic about the situation, but never at the expense of trying to understand matters as they stand. And one indication of how they stand can be drawn from my seat on this long bus, noisily making its way along the dark highways of Kuwait towards an airport that journalists are forbidden to name. We are to meet a flight for Baghdad whose take-off and landing times are classified for perfectly good reasons of security.

This was true last year as I was en route to Fallujah and nothing has changed since that time. The war is approaching its fourth year. So this morning we prepare to enter Baghdad, not quite like the conquerors we briefly were in April 2003; nor like the Viceroys we imagined ourselves briefly being in the months afterwards. Instead, we will steal into Baghdad in the dead of night, too fatigued to feel afraid and, lest I forget, very, very weary.