Immigrants and Hurricane Harvey
Among the potential victims of the Hurricane Harvey are hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who live in Houston and other hard-hit parts of Texas. The storm is devastating the region just days before a new state law cracking down on sanctuary cities is scheduled to take effect. Advocates say it presents an entirely new set of challenges for a population already reeling from accelerated state and federal enforcement of immigration laws.
I looked at the impacts of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 on immigrant communities in this article. The article may be useful in evaluating the governmental responses to Hurricane Harvey.
Part I of the Article summarizes the context surrounding the Hurricane Katrina disaster and how the stage was set for a racially-charged debate over the government’s actions in response to the disaster as well as the mistreatment of immigrants. Part II critically analyzes how government harshly treated immigrants in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and how political failure within administrative agencies contributed to this treatment, just as it has throughout U.S. history. This structural flaw further helps explain why we know so little about the silent suffering of immigrants in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and, more generally, in American social life. It also suggests deep problems with the lack of political accountability of the immigration bureaucracy to noncitizens.
As it turns out, Hurricane Katrina is symptomatic of a more general problem in the governance of the United States. A shadow population of millions of undocumented immigrants who are abused and exploited, live in the United States and lack any formal input into the political process. They, along with many lawful immigrants, hold second class status in U.S. social life and, more specifically, are part of a low wage caste of color. Although more diluted than the old racial caste in place in the days of Jim Crow, it is a racial caste no less, marked by a subordinated status and subject to exploitation. To make matters worse, the democratic problem identified in this article is not limited to the immigration bureaucracy, but is a more general problem of U.S. government.
KJ