Blank Slate Media Newspapers, Friday, March 15, 2019
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OUT OF LEFT FIELD
Immigration reforms — start deciding
H
ow do you feel about the H1B visas for highskilled foreign workers? What about the H2B visas for seasonal workers? When we move to other considerations of policies and practices, the complexities increase geometrically. How many immigrants should we admit each year? What should be the criteria for admission? How should we address distributions among nations and ethnicities? Last week’s hearings in the House spotlighted real, mounting emergencies on our Southern border, showing them to be humanitarian family crises, not invasions of terrorists. The U.S. chief executive has declared a national emergency to build a wall: Is that the best approach? The large global issue of refugees and asylees is seldom adequately explained or understood. Both the folks granted asylum and those accorded refugee status must prove that they have a “well-founded fear of persecution” if they remain in their own nation, but the
process and places for U.S. acceptance evaluations are hugely different. How should our nation respond to the nearly 11 million unauthorized immigrants (critics refer to them as illegals)? Should DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) initiated by President Obama be sustained to protect undocumented people who were brought to this country as children? How do you feel about such a decision being reached by executive order? Your own views and values on these enumerated issues can be more significant than you may realize. This list for immigrant decisions is far from complete. As indicated in my previous column, Hofstra University plans to be part of national conversations that bring citizens into the immigration deliberation process, using guidelines from the Kettering Foundation for National Issues Forums. It has been more than three decades since President Reagan and Congress agreed on some major actions. Then in
MICHAEL D’INNOCENZO Out of Left Field 2013, the Senate mustered 68 votes for comprehensive immigration reform, but that bill was blocked by the Republican Freedom Caucus in the House. We currently admit 1million immigrants a year, the majority of them guided by the landmark 1965 Immigration Act, which emphasized family reunification. Donald Trump has derided this as chain migration; he calls for new criteria seeking immigrants who can bring skills needed in the United States. The president also surprised many listeners by saying in his
State of the Union Address that he favors an increased number of legal immigrants. His only elaboration so far is emphasizing that approved immigrants should benefit the United States. Numbers of Americans who are supporters of Trump believe that we already have too much “pluribus” and not enough “unum” in our nation. Any new legislation will need to address their argument that reductions in numbers and in diversity (even pauses in annual immigration) are necessary to reclaim our cultural unity. Reducing numbers, they argue, should be accompanied by more explicit efforts to Americanize newcomers, including emphasis on use of English and ending bilingualism in schools. Do these advocates have a racial subtext in their cultural anxiety? Could they be comforted if standards are set so more immigrants will be white, not people of color? Some immigrant opponents also call on the United States to deport everyone who is here illegally.
They contend that people who operated outside the law should not be advantaged over those who have followed the process of waiting their turn in line. The nationalities of newcomers in recent decades have been determined by their relatives who preceded them (many were refugees and asylees in the 1960s and ’70s). The unanticipated ethnic consequences of the still prevailing 1965 family legislation mean that the overwhelming majority of newcomers are people of color. Congress has the power to legislate annual numbers and criteria for admission. When will our elected officials be inclined to act on issues that have gone unattended for decades? These unsettled matters continue to polarize our politics? The bipartisan 1986 immigration act during Reagan’s presidency sought to resolve the unauthorized problem by granting amnesty and a path to citizenship for three million people. Continued on Page 52
A LOOK ON THE LIGHTER SIDE
Are you smarter than a microwave?
A
ccording to a recent article in the New York Times, a stampede of smart appliances is heading toward the homes of America… perhaps even yours! Amazon invited reporters to its Washington state headquarters last September to show off a dazzling array of 70 new devices or services, all “smart” and internet-ready. One such item was a smart plug that automatically connects to WiFi and guarantees that any smart appliance plugged into it will obey your voice commands. That confuses me, though — how was the appliance smart before, if it needed a special plug for that? And just what kind of commands would you be giving an appliance anyway? After “coffee maker on!” and “coffee maker off,” what is there left to say? “Coffee maker, tell the toaster it’s a slacker?” Another smart gizmo was a microwave oven that was powered by Alexa. The Times
reporter was entranced by the possibility of someday avoiding “the fuss of having to push buttons to pop a bag of popcorn.” We might even be able to bark out instructions without ever leaving our sofas… except, who is going to take the box out of the cabinet, carry the popcorn to the microwave oven, open the door and put it in? And as long as you’re up, what’s so hard about pushing the button marked “popcorn?” My problem is that the folks who do the automating never automate the parts I most dislike. Let’s say I buy one of their smart refrigerators, which rats me out to Amazon whenever the flaxseed or kale runs too low. And let’s assume that their drone has found me, and succeeded at leaving the box of groceries on my doorstep. My question is, who’s going to do the tedious work of putting it all away? Not to mention throwing out all the fuzzy blue leftovers, to make room for the new stuff? Who’s washing out
JUDY EPSTEIN
A Look on the Lighter Side all the yucky Tupperware, and taking the garbage bag to the curb? Certainly not the coffee maker! That part doesn’t interest anyone in Silicon Valley, apparently. Amazon said it was working to make Alexa “more opinionated and personal.” That’s great. Just what every home needs: another teenager! A bionic one, to boot — so that not only does it think it’s smarter than you — that’s nothing new — but it can
turn off your lights and your phone if you violate its curfew. Amazon, Google, and Apple are racing each other to be the ones to supply us with smart doorbells, surveillance cameras and front door locks. What could possibly go wrong with that? You might even be able to access the video from your neighbor’s front doorstep. The corporations say it’s so we can see why our packages go astray, but I think we’ll be finding that many more things go astray than just packages. Not content with causing trouble around the neighborhood, the tech giants want to connect every home with the entire grid. That means a pretty big world. What I don’t see, anywhere, is how anyone will help us when that grid goes down. Or worse yet, when it’s been hacked. My own personal computer crashed last week for 36 hours, and my life was difficult enough, trying to type all my emails on my smartphone’s excuse for a key-
board: “PLs excxsuse tyyypos…” I did not look smart. But it could have been so much worse. At least my computer wasn’t running anything truly essential… like the front door lock… or the microwave… Or the toilet! The most amazing smart appliance now on offer is an internet-connected, smart toilet…for a mere $7,000, or thereabouts. I say that for that kind of money, it had better put the seat down itself. It had better clean itself, too. But even if it does all of that, still I have to ask: How smart does a toilet need to be? In fact, let’s just ask the toilet: “If you’re so smart, how come you’re still just a toilet? Don’t you aspire to anything higher in life?” “Like what? A bleeping microwave oven?” OK, toilet’s got a point. If there’s one thing I need less than a bionic teenager, it’s a smart appliance with a potty mouth.