Mary-Charlotte Domandi:
Hi, how are you?
Teresa Leger Fernandez:
I’m good. I’m good. I’m watching clouds play with our mountains. They’re dancing.
MCD:
One of the things I wanted to ask you about is immigration. You’re part of the Hispanic caucus and the House of Representatives. Lay out the problem for us and the legislative solutions that you guys are looking at.
TLF:
The congressional Hispanic caucus has been one of the leaders with regards to comprehensive immigration reform. And so we have a set of policies that we have been pushing for, and that we reaffirmed and it’s a 17-point policy. So it just sets it out. The bill is actually very long, but it really does address all the main issues.It goes from the Dreamers, that we need to move them so that they’re not in deferred action but rather that they are permanent legal residents and they have a right to citizenship, even perhaps a quicker right to citizenship than you have with the regular, permanent legal residents. So it goes from them to essential workers, to agricultural workers, to families, to increasing the caps. I know because there are too many ways in which the caps are too low, refugees, asylums.
So it’s, it’s comprehensive. And it’s also meant to address part of what’s problem with the immigration system right now that then leads to what we have right now. So you need to increase the caps and recognize that the United States, relies on immigrants to keep our economy going and keep our lettuce picked and our nursing homes covered. And in so, so many ways, we’re talking about essential workers, it is immigrants. And the bill I’m personally working on is a bill to provide that all of those families that were separated at the border under the zero tolerance policy, that they would automatically show that they were subject to the policy. They would receive legal, permanent residence, and that we would create an ombudsman because we have to find them and let them know they have this. And you know, it’s not easy to file all the paperwork that we would also provide an ombudsman to be able to identify the group that were impacted so that they know this is available to them, provide funding to places like Catholic Charities and many others that provide the legal services to assist in sending in your application.
And then the second half of it would be, there is actually already the office of refugee services that we would then provide funding and make sure that these children especially, but also their parents, have access to the services that they’re going to need to overcome the trauma that Trump’s zero tolerance policy inflicted upon them. So that’s what my bill looks like, because I mean, it’s basically a criminal it’s so inhumane, it’s, it’s contrary to all of what our values should be and contrary to international law with regards to refugees. And we’re really excited about the possibility. Now everybody’s saying, no, you’re not going to be able to get anything through. You’re not going to get everything though, you know, we’re not going to pass it. You know, we need to just, all of that is in the newspaper I think to kind of dissuade us from trying.
And so we are going to keep pushing for, and we are optimistic that we will get some key elements of it passed, of a comprehensive immigration reform. And we think that is very strong support for key elements of that. And we will push as hard as possible to get as much of it done as possible. I think we’ll get it out of the House. And then the issue is out of the Senate. A lot of that turns on what will they do with filibuster, but a lot of what we’re talking about fits within reconciliation, because it has such a positive impact on our budget. The comprehensive immigration reform would create a $1.3 trillion. Did you hear the T R I L I O N $1.3 trillion, a positive economic impact to the country.
MCD:
Why is that?
TLF:
Because when people come out of hiding, immigrants—most immigrants pay taxes that you do it through the ITIN numbers, but then when they come out, you have a greater number of immigrants who actually pay taxes.
They start earning more money because they don’t need to stay hidden so they can fully participate. They can start those small businesses they want to start. There’s just such an, array, they get the education they need. So then they then become higher paid earners. But the other piece about it is that we actually have history. So the immigration control and reform act that was done in 1987, 19, I worked on it actually… they did a study of that impact and it was about a $1.3 trillion impact. So we have history and then now the estimates are $1.2.
MCD:
So that’s a huge sum. And the opposition, I mean the sort of anti-immigrant sentiment has been with us really since the founding of our country. I remember reading, an anti-immigrant piece about how Germans were swarthy and stupid. I mean, in the late 18th century, this is a very long standing kind of, you know, “our grandparents were immigrants, but you guys can’t come in” kind of thing. It seems absurd to me—
TLF:
Shut the door behind you. Yeah.
MCD:
Yeah. Shut the door behind you.
TLF:
Yeah, you and I don’t understand it because we work and walk and celebrate in a world where diversity is our strength and our joy. And I think that it comes from, let’s admit it, that it comes from white supremacy, which has ascended now. Racism is both an economic weapon and it’s also a way of, if you can get people to blame immigrants for things, then maybe they might not look at what’s really causing the problem. And so what Trump was brilliant at doing was blaming immigrants for problems that had nothing to do with immigrants. But that way he got everybody mad at immigrants when maybe they should have been mad at the fact that we have such wealth inequality and that corporations hold too big of a sway. I mean, that’s the way in which immigration has often been used, is to detract from really what are the issues that should be addressed and today, and what Trump has done, that’s a lot of it.
But yeah, well, I never knew that the derogatory term “wop” for Italians was “without papers.” So it’s like, they were garlic eaters, right. I just saw It’s a Wonderful Life for the first time. I’d never seen It’s a Wonderful Life before, and that’s such a beautiful movie, that Christmas movie, but they had the horrible banker evil person referred to the Italians as those garlicky, stinky garlic-smelling people. So it was the Irish, it was the Germans. Prohibition was targeted to the Irish and Germans. So it’s a long history of trying to be better than somebody else, rather than looking at an inclusiveness rather than an exclusiveness. And I hope, my goal is, to move our country and move all of us towards a place where, or be part of the movement. I’m part of the movement of those who want us to move to a sense of more inclusivity, because that’s just makes us a stronger society in general.
MCD:
I think also we should really mention at least the fact that the conditions under which people are still being held, not only the separation of parents and children, I don’t know that that’s going on to the extent that it was before, but the horrifying conditions in essentially prisons that immigrants, including asylum seekers, are being held in. It’s very important for people to understand what a human rights atrocity it is.
TLF:
Yeah. Another one of our members of the congressional Hispanic caucus has a bill that talks about that even if you are going to detain people, we must have some key basics of, how do we treat whoever we detain for whatever reason. Whether it’s for a criminal act or something, which should not be criminalized, which is immigration. So that is another piece. Some of the lawsuits the ACLU has brought really go to the conditions of detention. And there are bills that my colleagues in the congressional Hispanic caucus have introduced about that as well.
MCD:
Have you seen any of this firsthand what’s going on in these detention centers?
TLF:
No. No. I haven’t been able to visit them, but that might be something we do.
