Immigrants to the United States face harsh treatment and unfair deportation, experts at Boston College said.’
Law professor Daniel Kanstroom and political science professor Peter Skerry debated on the current immigration situation in the U.S. before an audience of about 40 attendees at BC Tuesday in a panel titled, ‘I Speak English: The Immigrant Experience.’
Kanstroom said the state of deportation protocol and immigrant law in the US is greatly flawed.
‘The country has a rather schizophrenic attitude about deportation,’ he said. ‘This goes back to the very founding.”
He said past administrations have gone back and forth on policy, starting with George Washington in a speech he made to Irish immigrants in early 1783.’ ‘
‘[America] is open to those immigrants even if they’re poor, whoever they are, if by merit and propriety of conduct they deserve it,’ Kanstroom said, paraphrasing.’ ‘ ‘
Deportation is an issue that any non-citizen in the U.S. could potentially face, Kanstroom said. In the last 30 years, about 3 million illegal immigrants have been at risk of being deported.’ ‘
The panelists said in a slideshow that the deportation system is harsh, as immigrants must undergo mandatory detention, have no right to counsel and no jury trial.
However, Skerry said living in America is still economically beneficial for immigrants, despite the risk.
‘[Coming to America] increases their hourly wages by eight fold,’ Skerry said. ‘Undocumented immigrants are joining labor unions in large numbers; at least up until the financial crisis, they were buying homes.’
Professors said immigrants play a central role in the nation, though America’s reputation as a ‘melting pot’ makes it difficult to draw boundaries.
BC sophomore Cindy Velasquez said she attended the lecture to learn more about the issues immigrants are facing in America because her parents have only just recently received permanent residency.
‘I saw the experience first-hand, but I didn’t really know much about it because it’s something that they kept to themselves,’ she said. ‘They didn’t want me and my sister to worry about it.’
Velasquez said even college students are facing the immigration and racial issues the panel discussed.
‘Even in our own school, unfortunately, we just had an article where our school is ranked seventeenth out of the schools that [have the fewest] students of color,’ Velasquez said.
BC junior Noel Munoz said he came to Boston from Los Angeles where he knew many people who were affected by America’s immigration policies.’ ‘
‘My parents are Mexican immigrants,’ Munoz said. ‘Going into higher education, I feel like I should be more informed about this issue and coming here is just giving me more information about things I didn’t know.’
BC junior Loretta Battistoni said she, like the panel, believes immigrants in the US are mistreated.
‘We’re all immigrants, like they say in history,’ she said.’ ‘I just think it’s really wrong that people are being deported the way they are.’
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
