I like the shot of the food.

Thanks, B!X. I'm going to call it my "Portland Monthly."

Sorry I didn't make it; I got drunk at home instead. Were both sides of the issue represented? I can't picture a Rick Hickey or someone like that being there.

Scott played "devil's advocate," but we decided against inviting OFIR. Make of that what you will!

Don't invite them until they can pass a spelling test.

I've already sent this letter to the Mercury, but I just thought I should post it here, too.

Sincerely,

The girl sitting behing the MC.

Immigration as it stands right now in Congress is far beyond the social science rhetoric of “being about brown people.” The immigrant population in Portland is made up of a much more diverse contingency than just Mexicans. If you go to IRCO – the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization in Portland, you will find that they are teaching English classes to people whose languages include Farsi, Arabic, Vietnamese, Maay, Congolese, Laosian, Chinese, and a plethora of others.

The panel on Tuesday was largely representative of the Mexican and Central American farm worker population but not at all reflective of the Canadian, Indian, Chinese, Filipino, German, Taiwanese, or any other national population that also helps to comprise the immigrant worker population that keeps Portland (and the rest of Oregon) on its feet. To see that, in a town so full of diversity – both in immigration advocates and immigrants themselves – the Bus Project and the Portland Mercury choosing to adhere to such a narrow population runs entirely counter to what I had expected the intentions of the debate to be: informative to a population who, to this point, may only be aware of the migrant farm/factory worker, and also, A DEBATE.

Instead, Portland received another bleeding-heart teach-in with an idealistic but largely unrealistic panel of “experts.” While I appreciate and admire the credentials of the panel members, socialist arguments for “spreading the wealth among all the people” and “taking responsibility for global capitalism” do little to inform the perhaps confused masses about WHY immigration reform is an issue and WHAT legislators are trying doing about it.

At the end of the day, whichever laws are passed will effect a) immigrants b) the entities that monitor, enforce, and grant legal status (aka the Department of Homeland Security) and c) the legal advocates for both of these sides. NGO assistance will help direct these immigrants towards these entities and are thankfully in place to help take care of the individual where the system has failed them. However, NGOs whose function is to provide education, housing, and food to immigrant families have no ability to grant these individuals anything more than assistance and can therefore only offer limited professional knowledge on Congressional lawmaking issues.

This is exactly why I was so dismayed that there was not a single person on the debate panel that was actually any sort of expert on the LAW. Rontoms is almost equidistant between the Portland District Office of Customs with Immigration Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (who was in charge of the Del Monte raids) and the largest immigration law firms in the State of Oregon. The panel mediator did mention that local and national legislators were unavailable for the debate, but legislators get the “informed” part of their “opinions” generally from people other than themselves. And those people were right at the fingertips of the Bus Project and the Portland Mercury and were not accessed for a more well-rounded and informative discussion. Of course, as some of these panel members are NGO employees, they have seen the effects of the current immigration law, and perhaps have even come to understand some of the nuance of their particular contingency. But I seriously doubt that anyone in attendance left that debate with any better understanding as to what Congress is even mulling over on the Senate floor for immigrants AS A WHOLE.

Congress isn’t writing legislation for Mexicans. It’s not writing legislation for migrant farm workers. It’s not even writing legislation for children of Indian doctors. It’s writing legislation for IMMIGRANTS, and to focus so intently during a public forum “debate” on that particular population does exactly what the panel members had accused Congress of doing: it makes it a racial issue. And it makes it a class issue. Immigration is an IMMIGRANT issue. And not every immigrant had the same reason for coming here.

Sincerely,

Anna Corbett

p.s. I still love the Bus Project and the Portland Mercury. But I’m an immigration paralegal and I think you could have done a much better job. Hey, at least you know I was paying attention.

Anna, we've got your email, and on a lot of points, agree with you. I think there'll be a response on Blogtown later.

We did have a pretty tight focus on Mexican/Latino immigration, because that's largely where the national debate has focused (no one's trying to build a wall to keep out Canadians or Russians), and where several local issues (like the Del Monte raid, and the day laborer conflict happening at 6th and Ankeny) intersect.

I completely hear you on the "other side" situation. I'm all for tension and conflict, and think it elicits strong a stronger response almost any time someone is directly challenged. That said, we had a tough time finding that person for this panel—though I personally wanted to get someone from OFIR, the group was a non starter for the rest of the panel (their rhetoric can be highly inflammatory and offensive). With just a few days to assemble the panel (we originally had a less timely topic), we struggled to find a less-inflammatory "anti-immigration" representative available while the legislative session is still going on. We'd hoped the Oregon GOP would send someone, but they didn't return calls.

All that said, I think last night's conversation was insightful, interesting, and (as evidenced by a few conversations I was pulled into afterward) debatable. It did lean toward preaching to the choir, however, and I personally will be making sure July's Debate Club has more tension built in.

On that note—anyone have July topic suggestions? We've got a list of possibilities, but ideas are always appreciated!

Well, since you asked...

I'd like to see July's event be an actual debate with audience questions following. This was a debate in the way the Presidential Deabates are debates. Debates have propositional and oppositional positions, conflict, evidence, cross-examination, etc. (This also doesn't mean a Lars Larson-type should be invited to provide opposition; there's plenty to disagree about within the Left) Following the audience question & answer period and final statements people could be encouraged to stay after to discuss w/alcohol in smaller groups. Some shuffling of chairs and tables following could help with this. Allowing people to discuss afterwards also makes big umbrella topics like immigrations more manageable.

As for topics I'd like to see a debate between someone favoring private/public development partnerships (although dominant, losing favor) versus purely public developments.

Or, here's another one: Resolved: Government bureaucracies are inherently less responsive than private organizations (for or non-profit) to the people they serve.

This is a trial period and it'll get better. I'm just glad the Mercury and Bus Project are organizing this.

Hey Anna,

Thanks for your comments. I do disagree with you, however, about this being an "immigrant issue" only aside from race or class (or, for that matter, cultural oppression).

Yes, the asylum system, due process, civil liberties, family reunification and other "immigrant issues" are at the heart of the federal immigration reform proposal in the Senate. But it is clear to me from watching C-SPAN and following the growing anti-immigrant movement (an independent social movement, mind you) that the term "immigration" has become coded language for talking about race (and to some extent, class) without ever having to say the words RACE -- much the way "welfare queen" was coded language for Blacks 15 years ago.

The majority of folks in the US are not immigration paralegals, so they would not necessarily see the reform bill as you see it. Most people don't know much about the complicated immigration system, the difference between refugee or asylee, types of visas, etc. They get their information about immigration from pre-packaged opinions spewed by pundits, whether right or left.

Personally, I think the Bus Project and the Portland Mercury did a great job of picking the panelists! Who wants Chris Matthews HARDBALL or lawyers! I want real people who live and work in Portland. Nice work.

Yes! I've never been to an actual debate before with scores and judges and the "pro" and the "con" or whatever.

I think the next debate should be two debators going at it, toe to toe, winner take all!

All I want to know is - since when did being a lawyer put you on "the other side"??? The only immigration lawyers I know are hard-leaning leftist advocates for the rights of immigrants. I just think the general public has such scant knowledge of the legal - and subsequent Congressional - side that it would have been nice to have someone from that community represented.

I doubt any Portland immigration attorney would have raised much of a fight in that crowd, they only might have introduced insight that went beyond the sound-bite nature of newspapers and C-SPAN. Immigration is a very difficult and complex topic and I simply don't think that the panelists took the discussion outside of the realm of what's already considered public knowledge: it's hard to be undocumented. It's a daily risk to be in public. People are mistreated by their bosses.

But did anyone leave that discussion knowing anything about the potential ramifications of a "touch-back" requirement? Or did they know that, without any news coverage or vote by Congress, the cost of obtaining ANY sort of immigrant benefit is going to increase by an average of more than 200% in less than 5 weeks? All I'm saying is that one-sided as it was, it was also lacking an academic thoroughness that Portland has the ability to accomodate.

Yeah! Who wants lawyers in a debate about a legal issue? It's not like they could explain things or anything.

who's that really hot guy holding onto a blue helmet?!
HE'S GORGEOUS!
How come I didn't see him yesterday?
Man...

"Iva": I think that's our intern, Tom Lundby. But I've got a feeling you might already know that...

Anna: I agree that Portland can accommodate the academic rigor you're describing, and would like to see it included in the next debate. Having said that, we're the Mercury. Poop jokes are our stock in trade and always will be, praise the Lord.

I also agree that being a lawyer doesn't put you on the "other side." My brother's partner is a former Wall Street attorney who has since morphed into one of London's foremost immigration attorneys and now uses his considerable skill to fight heroic battles for (sometimes) regular people.

Using one's talents, education (which is as much a commodity in this society as a green card), and so on for the greater good is what it comes down to.

With that in mind, I'm glad you showed up last night and that you've been forthcoming with your insights for the betterment of our forum. Please come to the next one!

Matt: Did you know that the acronym for the Portland District Office is POO? Yeah, POO. Just in case you needed, you know, some more poop jokes. They're HUGE in Portland immigration circles.

Thanks for the kind responses!

Acutally, I don't blame the panelists. Aerica from CAUSA is very knowledgable about the > immigration reform bill as well as current law, Kayse Jama from CIO teaches classes on immigration policy ... and I'm sure the other two panelists also know quite a bit about immigration law. The questions were really simplistic and framed the debate in such a way that immigration policy could not be addressed. I don't think there were any Mexicans on the panel unless the prof from PSU was ... but he might be Chicano. Romeo Sosa is an indigenous man from Guatemala, Kayse is from Somalia, Aerica is a US-born white ally. Wasn't the panel's fault. Questions could have been better.

oooh, yeah, the food is bee-you-tee-full.