Last week, the Mass Media published an article in the form of an open letter responding to an unknown vandal who, in a stairwell at the back of the Campus Center, scribbled a message on the wall in permanent marker. The message read, “no one is illegal.” I have no doubt that the anonymous respondent is eager to see their work provoke a response from some pro-immigration liberal, and knowing that they are likely reading this very issue, I will write from this point onward in an open letter format.
Dear Anonymous,
First off, I think you’re hyperbolizing a bit with regards to the authorship of “no one is illegal.” While it is entirely plausible that this message was written by, as you assert, an undocumented immigrant, I myself have seen many lawn-signs, bumper-stickers, and other such communicators with this same sentiment lauded in big, bold letters, strewn about the greater Boston area. I wonder then, does your supposition extend to these other achievements? If that were the case, each street in Arlington would have at least one family of undocumented immigrants dwelling on it. Just about every Quaker or Unitarian Universalist Church in the country has a sign like this somewhere; would you immediately assume then that all Quakers and Unitarian Universalists are also undocumented immigrants? I hope that you are able to see the error in reasoning that only an immigrant could write a pro-immigrant phrase; by automatically deciding that an undocumented immigrant must be the vandal, you deny the fact that many legal citizens (especially in this area) support immigration reforms and the rights of undocumented immigrants.
After making this blatantly politically-motivated assumption, you assert that, by writing “no one is illegal” on a stairwell wall, the perpetrator has “validated the stereotype that undocumented immigrants like to commit crime.” Thenceforth, I’ll admit, I found your central claim a little difficult to follow. Your argument seems to go: some people think that undocumented immigrants “like” to commit crimes, and this one person who you think is an undocumented immigrant committed an act of vandalism, making this stereotype true in this one instance, and this study proves that there are upwards of 22.1 million undocumented immigrants in the country (1), so we should all be afraid of them because it would be scary if there were that many unlicensed surgeons running around? By using an actual study to define the number of immigrants but using a sample size of just one vandal (whom you have to baselessly assume is an undocumented immigrant) for the criminal argument, you’ve cleverly weaved your way out of having to prove that these 22.1 million undocumented immigrants are all the criminals you think we should be afraid of. You framed your argument this way, I assume, because none of the reputable studies in this area come to the conclusion that these immigrants are anything but law-abiding citizens.
For example: a 2017 study published in the “Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice” reported that, “although classical criminological and neoclassical economic theories would predict immigration to increase crime, most empirical research shows quite the opposite” (2). Boston even made it into their study, and a handy graph featured in a New York Times article about the study (3) shows that, since 1980, our city’s violent crime rate has dropped by almost 500 per 100,000, while the population of immigrants has risen by about 12,000 per 100,000 people (I know that immigrants and undocumented immigrants are separate categories, I was unable to find any studies pertaining to undocumented immigrant crimes in Boston, but a 2018 study by the Cato Institute regarding crimes committed by undocumented immigrants in Texas (4) showed that the crime rates rising from both documented and undocumented immigrants were relatively similar, with the latter hedging only slightly higher. I believe that, given the circumstances, there is no reason why we can’t assume that the same correlation exists in Boston).
But your letter isn’t only about criminality. You also dissect the phrase “no one is illegal,” coming up with several interpretations for what it may or may not mean. Well, let me help you: it means that a person’s state of being cannot and should not be classified as illegal; “cannot” in an ideological sense, and “should not” in a legislative sense.
You argue that the use of the term “illegal immigrant” is appropriate, just as someone who performs surgery without a surgical license would be called an “illegal surgeon.” This is a factually incorrect statement, however, as the proper English term for this person would be “unlicensed surgeon,” with the act of their surgery being “illegal,” not the surgeon themself. This is true also of the term “illegal immigrant,” as it is their act of immigration that is illegal, while the person themself is an “undocumented immigrant.” This linguistic discrepancy is indeed part of the slogan’s purpose, but not the whole purpose—more on that later.
Along this line, your surgeon comparison is further impertinent when one considers what exactly the process is that the “illegal surgeon” has neglected. One goes to medical school and acquires a license because surgery is an incredibly high-stakes activity—sometimes a person’s life is on the line. It takes many years to become a surgeon because there is so much to learn before you can even attempt the procedure without guarantying that your patient will die. Meanwhile, all you have to do to become a U.S. citizen is be born in a place that, several-hundred years ago, some people decided they owned because they won a war. If that genealogy does not apply to you, then even setting foot in the U.S. (let alone establishing it as your permanent residence) can be an absurdly arduous task.
To answer the question posed at the bottom of the third paragraph of your paper: I would have a problem with you cutting open my chest, as you would definitely kill me; I would not, however, have a problem with the person walking down my street who has not passed our unnecessarily rigorous entrance standards, as, statistics say, they’re less likely to kill me than my fellow countrymen.
This gate-keeping is what people are most infuriated by, and what slogans like “no one is illegal” rally people in opposition toward. You say that it is erroneous to make such a statement because it is an undeniable fact that there are immigrants here illegally. To this I argue that we are not trying to describe the present as is— we are trying to signal what our future could be. You assert that it is absurd to protest the grammar of the phrase “illegal immigrant,” by scribbling it on the wall. We are not protesting the grammar, but the culture and context that caused such dehumanizing grammar to be. We don’t want to eradicate this singular phrase by forcing everyone to use a different word for these people; we want to eradicate the word’s usefulness by progressing the legislation and culture, so that no person would be described as “illegal.”
To clarify: I am not condoning this person’s vandalism. Rather explaining why, I think, this message is worth spreading, and, more importantly, why your dismissal of the message is unfair, uninformed, and lacking empathy. By shinning a spotlight on this one graffiti you have implied that it is unique in its existence. I’m sure you have, at some point, used the restrooms in Healey; where is your letter to those vandals? Are they not political enough? I’ve seen my share of pro-Trump etchings about town; does that make you assume that all Trump-supporters are criminals? And are you always so pedantic with political slogans? In this very issue of the Mass Media, an ad for Campus Republicans—a group which, based off of the ideas expressed in your letter, I must assume you are on some level affiliated with—reads to “be the elephant in the room.” Does it infuriate you that this ad asks people to become elephants despite the fact that such an act is physically impossible? Or is it only wrong when liberals use non-literal slogans?
Finally, I want to address how you end your letter: smugly, with a quote from our president, Drumpf as you call him, stating that, “when Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best.” This statement is implicit—not only the ludicrous idea that undocumented immigrants are “sent” to us by Mexico (a conspiracy theory which I sincerely hope you don’t believe)—but also the idea that immigrants are all Mexican (or all the bad ones are, at least). I want to think that you’re not racist. You go through your entire letter without mentioning race, and as immigration discussions seem so inextricably tied to racial politics, I was quite glad to see that your contribution was lacking in this particular topic. But regardless of how secular your points all were, this statement is racist, and signing off with it certainly colors your letter in a more unfavorable light. I still don’t want to call you racist, but if you really aren’t, you should be careful who you stand with; looks can be deceiving.
Sincerely,
Mitchell Lloyd Cameron
(1) https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0201193
(2) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15377938.2016.1261057?scroll=top&needAccess=true
(3) https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/30/upshot/crime-immigration-myth.html
(4) https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/irpb-4-updated.pdf