NEW ORLEANS ADVOCATE October 20, 2007 By JORDAN BLUM The Mexican immigration “crisis” affecting the nation – and Louisiana more and more – is the result of 100 years of failed political policies, said Douglas Massey, a Princeton University sociology professor. Massey, an immigration and segregation expert, said the U.S. must solve its self-inflicted problems by offering a combination of amnesty, guest worker and earned citizenship programs while speaking Friday for the LSU Chancellor’s Distinguished Lectureship Series. “These people deserve a pathway,” Massey said. “It is substantially a crisis of our own making.” The influx of Mexicans into the U.S. has remained stable for decades, Massey said. But more are coming in illegally and staying permanently now. Border blockades in California and Texas and a lack of worker programs have forced Mexicans to sneak in at different locations and go beyond just California and Texas. Because it is so expensive and dangerous for them to cross now, Massey said, undocumented Mexicans stay in the U.S. once they get in the country even if they want to go back. “We cut the out-migration in half,” Massey said. “We’ve transferred immigration from a regional phenomenon affecting three states to a national phenomenon affecting all 50 states.” Massey’s three-point plan involves offering full amnesty to Mexicans who came to the U.S. as children for being “guilty of no sin except obeying their parents.” Massey also would establish a firm guest worker program, because many Mexicans in the U.S. — now without strong roots here — would participate. For those with strong roots planted, Massy would offer them temporary residence and have them earn citizenship through a points system by paying taxes and learning English. What most people do not realize, Massey said, is that Mexican immigration has been a major issue for 100 years with cycles of guest worker programs, massive deportations and illegal border crossings. Although Mexicans do not have much political strength in Louisiana, Massey said it is a sign of the times that two of the top candidates for governor are children of immigrants. U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal is the son of immigrants from India. The father of New Orleans businessman John Georges was born in Greece. “It’s happening all over America,” Massey said prior to his lecture, noting that today’s Louisiana election is a sign of change in the South. The immigration “crisis” began impacting Louisiana more and more in the 1990s, Massey said. But the Mexican influx has surged since Hurricane Katrina. Mexican immigrants — legal or not — were in the best situation to take advantage of the short-term, post-Katrina labor and construction demands in southern Louisiana, Massey said. The demographic changes also are affecting race relations, he said. Many white people want Mexicans out of their neighborhoods and black people see the Mexicans as competitors. “There’s a real period of adjustment,” Massey said. “People in Louisiana are going to have to get used to Latinos as a permanent presence here.” Jefferson Parish may be fighting the growth of “taco carts,” but Massey noted that such carts are part of most neighborhoods in cities such as Chicago. Mexican food may be the country’s most popular cuisine now, he said. “Hot dogs were once a foreign invasion from Germany,” Massey said. “Now they’re as American as apple pie.”
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