Looking at All Sides

By Broadside Correspondent Muhammad Ghazi

With the ongoing national debate on the current immigration policies for the United States and their effects on citizens becoming more publicized, the voices speaking out on this concern are gaining publicity and varying in the perspectives and main objectives.

This was evident in the recent panel that consisted of four guest speakers and Dr. Claire Snyder who is Campus Coordinator for the Democracy Project for George Mason University, Director of Academics and Higher Education Program Associate Professor of Government and Politics in Political Theory. It was Snyder, collaborating with those affiliated with the Democracy Project at Mason, who worked to organize a panel to present views, issues and concerns pertaining to the immigration policies.

The Democracy Project is a group at Mason geared towards informing and reflecting on the role of the democratic government and a citizen’s involvement within this structure. The Democracy Project focuses on similar ideas and shares the goals of a national group called the American Democracy Project, but have opted for a different name to include all variations of diverse peoples who are a part of the Mason community.

“The goal is to get students thinking, talking and acting to affect society on campus and off,” Snyder said. This was the overarching goal of the panel and discussion, which took place last Thursday, April 10 in the front ballroom of the SUB II. The panel, which included Dr. Carol Cleaveland who is assistant professor for the Department of Social Work at Mason, Cristina Finch who is a representative for the Human Rights Campaign serving on the Senior Counsel, Dr. Peter Mandaville who is co-director for the Center of Global Studies at Mason and Deirdre Moloney who is a Coordinator for Postgraduate Fellowships and Scholarships for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and Affiliate Faculty for the History Department and Women's Studies at Mason.

The speakers each had a specialized theme under the topic of immigration policies, which called upon their personal affiliations and expertise. Cleaveland used her experience as an ethnographer to provide insight on the immigration debate.

“We have a long history of allowing Mexican migration when it benefits us and of Mexican workers taking unwanted jobs, but as soon as the economy tightens, we want to send them back,” Cleaveland said. “Also, we now have very divided communities.”

Finch’s approach to the immigration debate looked at the lack of rights for same-sex couples from different nations. The main issue is that same-sex couples are not allowed to obtain citizenship because their unions are not recognized under federal law and do not apply to the Defense of Marriage Act. Any heterosexual couple would be permitted to, if one partner was not a natural citizen, use their marriage as means to obtain citizenship.

“Thousands of same-sex couples live in constant fear of being stopped by officials and are sometimes left to immigrate to countries that do recognize same-sex couples,” Finch said. “Human Rights Campaign is involved in this issue because it has a devastating effect on these couples.” As for the viewpoint of Dr. Moloney, who specializes in United States immigration and policy, there was a great regard for statistics and trends throughout recent history, as well as specific cases and the role of the media.

“Media coverage has had a profound effect on immigration around the world and the implications of immigration on a certain country are enormous,” Moloney said. “There is room for a lot of debate in the public sphere.” The final speaker from the panel was Mandaville who presented his views on the global perception of Americans, as well as the experience for many Muslim affiliated immigrants to the United States.
“The debate has become deflected and immigration and immigrants are thought of as physical threats to the United States,” Mandaville said. “There is this term we use, ‘homeland,’ that pertains to our relations with the Muslim world.”

Overall, the panel presented four variations of perceptions on the national immigration policy debate for the Mason community, which served to spark interest and lead the audience to develop their own personal viewpoint.