There is no justification for closing U.S. borders
Megan Stewart
Issue date: 4/21/08 Section: Opinion

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Last week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents swept through five chicken-processing plants and rounded up 280 people who they believe to be illegal immigrants, according to a report published in The New York Times. The company, ironically named Pilgrim's Pride, said that many executives worked with the government officials to help "apprehend the people," spokesman Ray Atkinson told the Times.

The raid, the largest this year, will almost certainly be fodder for the immigration debate that has haunted the federal government for years following Sept. 11. It's already trickled down to this year's primaries, with candidates devoting a large chunk of time to talk about how they promise to "fix our borders." And who's not excited to hear Sen. John McCain and either Sen. Hillary Clinton or Sen. Barack Obama sit down for a debate on the high points of immigration reform?

Given that we live in New York City as members of one of the most diverse populations in the world, immigration policy and reform are particularly emotional, divisive issues. And NYU has been no model of grace. Last year's College Republicans' "Find the Illegal Immigrant" game typified crass ignorance, with little thought put into what immigrants, illegal or not, have suffered and what drives them to flee their countries to come to the United States.

It's kind of amazing that people don't appreciate what immigrants and foreign peoples have done for our country. Maybe I see the positive effects of immigration more because I came from a suburban Midwest town that has zero diversity, but this whole melting pot of cultures is a beautiful thing.

In fact, the diversity of New York City was one of the main things that drew me to NYU. Just compare the food you eat to what students at other schools eat. My friends at other universities grab lunch at chain sandwich shops and Dominoes. When I get out of class at 12:30 p.m., I can choose from a virtual world of cuisine options, all within 10 minutes of the Silver Center: French, Ethiopian, Spanish, Mexican, Japanese, Indian, Chinese, Italian, Thai, Middle Eastern or Mediterranean.

When we're hungry at 4 a.m., we order pizza or grab a falafel. That's not Southern soul food or American home-cookin'. We can sit in a classroom and learn Spanish, then go ride the subway for a couple of stops and speak the language with hispanohablantes ("Spanish speakers").

We live in a city where you can go somewhere (a park, a restaurant, a museum), talk to someone who has grown up in a completely different country with a completely different culture and walk away absolutely amazed at that immigrant's story.

Would you really want to lose that experience?

I understand the need for secure borders, but there are ways to keep a country safe short of building walls around it and deporting people who have entered illegally. Deportation doesn't just completely overturn someone's life; it can destroy entire families. And a 2,000-foot wall along the border would be impractical to the point of being useless.

Not to mention that those gun-toting minutemen who "guard" our borders and the people who support them are probably the descendants of immigrants themselves (unless they're Native Americans).

Some people believe that because immigrants broke the law by entering the country, they should be punished. But many immigrants come to the United States because they don't have money for food and other opportunities. They don't come here out of spite just to take "American" jobs. They come here out of necessity.

Immigration and immigrants are not destroying our nation. They're introducing us to new experiences and opening our minds. Why should we close our borders?


Megan Stewart is a columnist. E-mail her at opinion@nyunews.com.