American Passage_ The History of Ellis I - Vincent J. Cannato [230]
To take the belief in the universalist creed to its logical end means to deny the relevance or justice of borders and boundaries, which are by definition designed to exclude. American sovereignty, under which the nation secures our freedoms, liberties, and democracy, sits uneasily with the notion of the United States as a refuge for the world’s poor and oppressed. Similarly, the United States has increasingly sought to erase invidious forms of discrimination in its laws, but discrimination is at the heart of any immigration policy. How can these beliefs be reconciled?
As Barbara Jordan, the chair of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, put it in 1995, “immigration to the United States should be understood as a privilege, not a right,” and has been so held for most of our history. But as Jordan’s own life as a female, lesbian, AfricanAmerican politician demonstrates, the late twentieth century witnessed the legal and social explosion of a rights revolution that has expanded liberties to women, minorities, and homosexuals. The logical next step was an expansion of rights not just to immigrants legally residing in the country, but also to those who seek entry into the country and who traditionally have possessed fewer constitutional rights.
Much of the discussion of expanding rights has been rooted in the human rights revolution that followed World War II. Universalist notions of human rights and a greater emphasis on international law strike at the heart of the nation-state. There is a contradiction in one of the bedrock documents of international law—the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It grants all human beings the right to asylum in other countries, the right to flee persecution, and the right to change their nationality if they please. However, the document does not say that nations have the obligation to accept such refugees and grant them entry and citizenship. It is an unenforceable one-way right. The authors of the Universal Declaration created these rights, but in their silence upheld the sovereignty of nation-states.
As Americans, we believe that all individuals are created equal and that this is a democracy where the people are allowed a voice in the writing of their country’s laws. We believe in the sovereignty of the United States and the sanctity of borders, but we recognize the moral obligation and historical legacy of this country as a sanctuary for those who no longer can abide the conditions in their homeland. That we believe all of these things—often at the same time—comes out most starkly when we talk about immigration. It is this confusion and intellectual schizophrenia that has helped muddle how we think and talk about immigration.
To make matters more complicated, many recent social, economic, political, and ideological trends are helping to weaken the idea of national sovereignty. We live in an era of rapid globalization, which has diluted the idea of national borders. Money, goods, and jobs flow back and forth across borders with little regulation in a world of increasing free trade.
As migrants continually cross borders, ideas of transnationalism are taking root and challenging notions of sovereignty. In an era with relatively easy access to airplanes, telephones, and satellite television, immigrants are able to stay connected with their homelands in ways unimaginable in earlier years. Combine these technological innovations with the ideological ascendancy of multiculturalism over assimilation, and you get the realization of an age of transnationalism whose outlines Randolph Bourne could only have sketched in 1916.
The plenary power doctrine, which has dominated immigration law since the late nineteenth century, is slowly losing its hold. It gives