If you are here legally, you have rights

From Fox News:

A judge this week ruled this week that Texas can no longer deny driver’s licenses to legal immigrants with temporary visas and must issue standard licenses instead of non-standard ones approved by a state panel three years ago. …

 Gov. Rick Perry, a popular choice among Republicans looking for a 2012 GOP presidential contender, supported the policy that was a blueprint for a new law that is set to take effect at the end of this September. Under the law, all legal immigrants with visas authorized for less than one year or scheduled to expire in less than six months are still entitled to standard-issued driver’s licenses.

“The governor continues to support requiring driver’s license applicants to prove they are in the country legally before being issued a license,” Perry spokeswoman Lucy Nashed said in an email to FoxNews.com. …

In Texas, the ruling is a victory for immigrant rights groups who said that thousands were denied standard-issued licenses even though they had valid immigration documents issued by the federal government. …

If you are here legally, you have rights. If you read further into the story, what really happened was that the legal immigrants were not really issued the non-standard licenses either quickly or easily. And, the policy was never approved by the state legislature, rather it was a bureaucratic ruling by a state board. And, the policy is not even backed by the current Republican governor of the state! More than that, many of the immigrants who were in effect denied licenses were coming in temporarily to work under the government’s H1B visa program. In other words, this is a policy that stank of xenophobia and the judge and the state’s Republican governor and its legislature found it so. Why do I say that? Read the story above again and notice that the state legislature and governor stepped in and even before the judge’s ruling and had already approved a new law set to take place in September which repudiated the bureaucratic board’s decision. So, let Father Orthoduck send a big “thank you” to the elected representatives and to the judiciary of the State of Texas.

What is the H1B visa program and why were so many people so horrified over the board’s decision?

The H-1B is a non-immigrant visa in the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act, section 101(a)(15)(H). It allows U.S. employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty occupations. …

The regulations define a “specialty occupation” as requiring theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge in a field of human endeavor including but not limited to architecture, engineering, mathematics, physical sciences, social sciences, biotechnology, medicine and health, education, law, accounting, business specialties, theology, and the arts, and requiring the attainment of a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent as a minimum (with the exception of fashion models, who must be “of distinguished merit and ability”.) Likewise, the foreign worker must possess at least a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent and state licensure, if required to practice in that field. H-1B work-authorization is strictly limited to employment by the sponsoring employer.

Notice that (except for the fashion models listed) in order to receive an H1B visa, you must have at least a Bachelor’s degree. In reality, many of you have already met people with H1B visas. They are the professionals with foreign accents who are now found in so many companies in the USA, including hospitals, etc. Many of them go on to become permanent residents and good productive citizens of the USA after a time. Why are they here? Bluntly speaking, because there are not enough USA citizens choosing to specialize in the professions in which these have majored. In many hospitals, nurses with foreign accents are here because of a nearly crippling nursing shortage in USA hospitals. They come in on a variation of the H1B visa and end up being approved for permanent immigrant status. Nurses are highly paid professionals, but also work very hard. Sadly, despite our unemployment levels, not enough young men and women choose to go into this field. The same is true with certain types of engineers, physical scientists, etc. Those immigrants are here doing jobs that our own youth will not train to do.

Can you see why there was such horror in Texas over this board’s decision? If it had stood, those specialized immigrants could have been sponsored to any other state in the union to a waiting ready job. Texas would have quickly faced a brain drain which it could ill afford. And, since those immigrants are here legally, they were not going to be deported, they would simply have been picked up by other companies. This is why governor, legislature, and judicial branches all reacted so strongly and (for government) so quickly.

But, it also points out the danger of a shotgun approach to the word “immigrant” And it also points out a danger that is current in America, and that is the danger of overusing words, devaluing them, and ginning up overly broad reactions. This board’s actions show that the reality for many in this country is that they no longer distinguish between the word “legal” and “illegal” when it comes to immigrants (or any of several other matters). This is not the first time that legal immigrants have been injudiciously punished because they are not citizens, even though they are here legally. For instance, Fox News also reported in January of this year that a British legal immigrant who had held a gun permit in South Dakota for several years was denied a gun permit renewal because of a new State of South Dakota law that denied gun permits to anyone who was not a citizen. A lawsuit has already been filed, and rightly so. If you are here legally, you have rights.

And that is what worries so many of us Latinos. Already Fox News has reported on citizens of Hispanic descent who have been stopped by immigration officials (and other officials) and told that they should carry “papers” to show their citizenship. Having served my country in the military, and serving my country now in a VA Medical Center, Father Orthoduck strenuously objects to second-class status. In various states we are seeing that feelings about “illegal immigrants” has spread not simply to legal immigrants but also to citizens of the USA, based simply on our perceived looks or names or even accents. In some states, such as South Dakota, it applied simply to any immigrant. And that is the definition of xenophobia. That is, it is an unreasoning fear of foreigners that gets extended even to foreigners who are here legally. You can also see that in the unreasoning attempts of many communities to prevent any mosque from being built in their area. Xenophobia is always masked by what are seemingly plausible arguments. But, court rulings and revised laws such as the ones cited above show that those seemingly plausible arguments are really illegal and immoral attempts to limit the liberties of a disliked group. And, that is why the Bill of Rights was written. It was written to stop a majority from illegally and immorally attempting to limit the liberties of a disliked group.

Additionally be very aware that when those feelings are applied to natural-born citizens of the USA who happen to be of a particular identifiable ethnic background, it is called racism. One can always find arguments as to why a particular ethnic or racial group should be held to special scrutiny. But, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights ensure that all citizens are to be treated alike and the courts consistently have ruled that way. The reason the Constitution gave such powers to judges chosen for life was precisely because the Founders knew that any person elected for a term would be subject to the pressure of popular feeling on any given subject. For all that there is a quite reasonable argument over whether judges should be “strict constructionists” or not, please note that even strict constructionist judges have joined in opinions to declare quite a few laws unconstitutional. In addition, our own Congress and States have passed amendments to the Constitution, such as the XIVth (and others), to reinforce the Constitutional protections that apply to citizens (and legal immigrants) of this country.

So, let’s give a big cheer to the State of Texas in all its branches. And please become involved in countering the type of speech that tries to “dirty” the idea of either legal immigrant or naturalized citizen or even of natural born citizen of a particular ethnic or racial background. We cannot cite God in the Declaration of Independence (… endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights …) to then turn right around to try to take (or minimize) those rights away.