The Salt Lake Tribune ran a story April 4 detailing the plight of Brenda Guzman, an undocumented immigrant and 22-year-old mother of five who’s in danger of being deported. In drawing attention to Guzman’s case, people such as Raymi Gutierrez of the Salt Lake Dream Team, a nonprofit whose mission is to inform the public about immigration issues, want us to “look at the humanity of this … to know what these families are going through — that the broken immigration system is going to take the mother [of these children].”
However, Gutierrez downplays the reasons for Guzman’s prospective deportation — namely Guzman’s criminal infractions — including attempted forgery and identity theft and several missed court appearances.
Considering Guzman’s irresponsibility, it’s absurd to expect tax-paying Americans to finance her court proceedings, probable jail stay and other required services.
Moreover, Gutierrez’s appeal to humanity and “breaking up the family” is essentially a straw man argument. Guzman’s problems are largely self-inflicted, and nothing prevents her from bringing her children back to her home country. Granted, deportation is ugly, but actions do have consequences.
As Ronald Mortensen, co-founder of the Utah Coalition on Illegal Immigration, told the Salt Lake Tribune, “If an American citizen committed the same offenses, would you expect them to go to jail and be separated from their families? Does being here illegally give you special status not to be separated from your family in that case? Where’s the compassion for the victim? Maybe they now have to contend with the bad credit caused by [Guzman’s attempted identity theft].”
In his letter to the Salt Lake Tribune editor, attorney Mark Alvarez exhibits the same aura of ill-conceived entitlement and presumptuousness that makes Gutierrez’s pleas so irksome.
Alvarez wrote, “[Undocumented immigrants] have waited for reform long enough … They [will] accept background checks and reasonable fines … [but] their path to residence and citizenship … should be direct and unencumbered.”
From a meeting held in Spanish at Centro Civico Mexicano, Alvarez relates an undocumented man’s frustration because “no politician has ever come to [his] home and seen how [he lives]. Nobody has asked [him] what [he] wants.”
Apparently, the top priority of American legislators should be the concerns of non-citizens.
Furthermore, these non-citizens — whose presence in the United States is criminal and disrespectful of our laws — should be given the bargaining high ground. The undocumented will allow certain bureaucratic loopholes but damn those processes that might encumber them. Politicians should spend less time courting American citizens — their constituents — and more time pandering to illegal immigrants.
The presumption and lack of irony in both Gutierrez’s arguments and Alvarez’s letter is utterly ludicrous and would be laughable if immigration reform was not such a large issue.