Immigrant Children, Not In My Backyard

By Victor Landa, NewsTaco

When a large group of angry protesters in Murrieta, California, blocked the path of a bus carrying immigrant children this week, the frequency and volume of the reports, opinions and angry commentary rose to a new high. The curious thing about the protest and the aftermath is that aside from the level of vitriol nothing in the story is new.

A similar thing happened a week and a half earlier in Lawrenceville, Virginia, when angry townsfolk protested a federal government plan to house 500 immigrant children in a nearby empty college. The sentiments of many of the town’s 1,400 residents were voiced by Brunswick County Sheriff Brian Roberts:     

” … 500 kids unaccounted for — illegal alien children in my little sleepy town — I just don’t think it’s the right fit for this community.”

An imperfect clash

What makes stories like these difficult to understand is that immigrant advocates and protesters see the issue from very different perspectives.

Immigrant advocates see children. They see a humanitarian crisis where tens of thousands of unaccompanied kids have flooded the border with Mexico, and they see the immediate need to provide comfort.  

The protesters don’t see children, they see an encroachment. It’s hard to reason with people who are talking (shouting, really) past each other.

The protests are not uncommon

It’s not hard to understand the immigrant advocate’s point. They’re looking after the welfare of children, who could be against that? The protesters, on the other hand, are looking to protect what they feel is threatened: their communities, their safety, their way of life. From the protesters vantage point this issue has sparked the same fight that many other communities have taken-on for different reasons over many decades – a fight against a common threat, real or imagined. The shorthand is NIMBY – here’s the urban dictionary’s definition:

Used to describe a person or an attitude, NIMBY is an abbreviation for Not In My Back Yard. A NIMBY might agree that a community or a neigborhood needs a half-way house for convicts transitioning back to society, but doesn’t want it placed too close to his or her own home or in the neighborhood. property values. too much traffic. ugly woobly boxes.

It’s not a recent thing. In fact, a Santa Clara University report categorizes NIMBY as a familiar syndrome. Communities have been organizing and protesting NIMBY issues for a variety of reasons. For instance:

  • Slate recently reported on a NIMBY case:  ” … Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America began circulating a petition in response to members of Open Carry Texas visiting a Dallas Chipotle. 
  • The CEO of ExxonMobile, Rex Tillerson, protested the planned building of a water tower next to his horse ranch. According to a Grist.org report “Not only is the tower a blight on Tillerson’s very own piece of  Texas forever, but it’s also going to bring all kinds of noise, traffic, and plebeians to his driveway.”
  • Religion-online.org has this to say: “Whether the proposal is for AIDS clinics, halfway houses for prison parolees or dumps for toxic and nuclear waste, it is usually met by the opposition of citizens’ groups who shout NIMBY — “not in my backyard!” Yet these components of modern life must exist in somebody’s backyard”
  • In July of 1991 an Advisory Commission on Regularity Barriers to Affordable Housing wrote this in a report to Pres. George Bush and HUD Secretary Jack Kemp: “The NIMBY syndrome is often widespread, deeply ingrained, easily translatable into political actions, and intentionally exclusionary and growth inhibiting. NIMBY sentiment can variously reflect legitimate concerns about property values, service levels, community ambience, the environment, or public health and safety. It can also reflect racial or ethnic prejudice masquerading under the guise of these legitimate concerns.”

It’s the last idea that  we should be concerned with, because it’s at the heart of what happened in Murrieta, and earlier in Lawrenceville.

Prejudice, in the guise of a legitimate concern

These protests are a manifested fear that grows from a deep seeded prejudice wrapped in “the guise of a legitimate concern.”

What makes these fears plausible is the blatant dehumanizing of the immigration issue. It’s easy to lump immigrants together with nuclear waste dumps or unsightly water towers when you side-swipe the immigrant’s humanity and focus your anger on housing, and a defense of local control.

What it doesn’t do, though, is hide the fact that other communities across the country have embraced the opportunity to welcome the children – turning their backs on the NIMBY attitude.  Dallas County will be taking in about 1000 immigrant children, and in Las Cruces, NM, the Catholic Diocese will welcome some 300 child immigrants. I’m sure there are many more and others are sure to follow.

My point is that the protests in Murrieta and Lawrenceville  are hateful but not new, and the attention they have received has been out of proportion to the immediate need. Other communities may follow, but I’m certain that for every Murrieta there are several Dallas County’s and Las Cruces waiting with open arms.

[Photo courtesy Los Angeles Times]

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