Comparing Newspapers Essays

Jose Antonio Vargas takes his seat

The success of a civil rights movement depends on people who are willing to take extraordinary personal risk. Yesterday Jose Antonio Vargas, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, did just that by outing himself as an undocumented immigrant in the New York Times, the nation’s leading newspaper of record. Not only did he lay bare his unlawful immigration status, but, in painstaking detail, and at personal great risk, he took his readers on a trip through the web of immigration dysfunction which forces good, honest, hard-working people to live in a world of lies and deceit.

It is compelling that Vargas outed himself days after ICE Director John Morton issued a new memorandum on Prosecutorial Discretion which offers ICE field agents and trial attorneys an architecture by which they can implement smart, targeted enforcement throughout the country. The ICE memorandum makes clear that law enforcement resources should be aimed at those who would do the country harm, people who threaten national security, violent offenders, and drug dealers. We need not waste limited resources on breast feeding mothers, hard working fathers, elderly grandparents, or promising children, students and young adults. Frankly, it is smarter to go after the bank robber than the jay walker. And when it comes to undocumented immigrants who are victims of crime or civil rights violations, the Morton memo suggests that special care be taken to protect their rights as victims and witnesses. Immigration enforcement that targets immigrants who are victims of domestic violence, potential witnesses, or victims of discrimination destroys trust and cripples local law enforcement’s ability to investigate crime and keep the community safe. Morton’s memo, taken at its word, appears to be an attempt to put smart enforcement into action. Of course what the country doesn’t need is yet another edict from Washington which is ignored by ICE agents and trial attorneys charged with enforcing the law throughout the U.S. I take Director Morton at his word that he is serious about his latest policy guidance and I am eagerly waiting to see how ICE implements it in the communities it is charged with serving. Of course, to many lawyers who represent immigrants in enforcement proceedings, the greatest concern is that ICE field agents and trial attorneys will simply ignore the memo and continue to enforce the immigration law without regard to the administration’s enforcement priorities. It is high time the administration put its money where its mouth has been. The Morton memo provides the structure to do just that. Vargas, an extraordinarily talented journalist with a promising career, simply threw up his hands and said “I’m done running. I’m exhausted. I don’t want that life anymore.”  He was talking about the double life of lies and deceit forced upon him by a twisted immigration law. His words were personal, but he also spoke for the millions of undocumented immigrants, in particular for the DREAMers, who have been relegated to immigration limbo – not accepted in the country they have struggled against all odds to enrich – and forced to fear being handcuffed and jailed by for boarding a train or a plane without proper papers. Vargas, who was inspired by several DREAM activists, who, at great risk to themselves, walked from Miami to Washington, D.C. to bring attention to the plight of DREAMers across the U.S., has now upped the ante. Not only has he admitted his undocumented status, but he has outlined specific acts–such as checking “U.S. Citizen” on an I-9 Form–which could expose him to serious civil, perhaps even criminal, penalties. His revelations are also the first major test of the Morton memo. Vargas is clearly not an enforcement priority. But will his very public revelations, in particular his recounting of specific immigration violations, lead to an ICE enforcement action against him? How will the administration react to the howling likely to emanate from the likes of Sen. Chuck Grassley or House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith (himself an original proponent of meaningful prosecutorial discretion)? Will ICE go after Vargas, or will it be true to its word and consider him as a human being who has strong ties to the U.S., completed a university education, and added to our social fabric? The Morton memo teaches that ICE should target serious criminals and terrorists, not promising journalists. To be sure, the anti-immigrant restrictionists will seize on Vargas’ article to paint him and all undocumented immigrants as faceless “illegal aliens;” law breakers deserving of nothing short of immediate removal from the U.S. They will do their best to dehumanize him with name calling and half truths. But such a reaction is merely an attempt to steer people away from the point of Vargas’ essay. One cannot read it without concluding that the immigration law is not merely broken, it is mean spirited. It forces otherwise stellar citizens into a life of lies and deceit. What kind of country tolerates a policy that forces the best and the brightest to navigate a web of dysfunction that requires them to choose between survival and adherence to an unworkable statute? Vargas may be a law breaker, but is he a hero too? Sometimes heroes and heroines break the law. After all, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat at the front of a Montgomery Alabama bus she broke the law too.

Short Current Essays: The Value of Things That Work

Researchers at Stanford University have long been interested in what archaeological conclusions could be drawn from a regression study based on modern forms of DNA.  Although there is very little material evidence such as bodies or camp sites available to provide the sort of clues usually employed for studies of our more modern ancestors, a fairly credible model can be derived by analyzing the nature of the changes to DNA revealed in the "latest chapter" -- that is, the most modern -- chapter of the story. Human beings may have had a brush with extinction 70,000 years ago, an extensive genetic study suggests. The human population at that time was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought, according to an analysis released Thursday. The report notes that a separate study by researchers at Stanford University estimated the number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000 before numbers began to expand again in the early Stone Age. Those ancient humans who successfully responded to that prehistoric drought in Africa probably took a little time to figure out that they needed to pack up their spears and sandals and walk away from it before it killed them.  Importantly, there was no "central commission" for the cave men.  This problem was solved in "little groups," each one of which took the necessary action for its survival. So, rather than planning to take this minimalist, survivalist refuge in our "spears and sandals," we modern humans have, in a helter skelter sort of way, gradually established social institutions with the goal of "evening out the bumps" as we wandered forward to our own cultural -- and species -- future.  Now, when we face something unsettlingly similar to what confronted those ancient humans, we must look to these elements of our social culture for the tools we intend to use to solve our own, modern challenge. MeanMesa suggests that this over populated planet is now facing a "Malthusian correction" phase where the current, unsustainable population levels will be reduced by the sheer force of Great Nature.  Although we might, at first, consider such forces as famine, pestilence and great wars as the fundamental cause of such a problem, a current newspaper offers a somewhat simpler explanation.

Essays in the economic history of the Atlantic world

Essays in honour of Michael Bliss, figuring the social

Museum of foreign literature, science and art

The Independent

How to Write an Essay