Swain, a political scientist, focused on the economic and class effects of immigrant populations on African Americans. She argued that there is often displacement of African Americans in local economies when low-wage immigrant labor floods the market, and that this phenomenon should be part of the political conversation on the matter of immigration reform.
“There’s no way to argue that the urban black poor have not been adversely affected by the influx of low-wage, low-skill labor,” Swain said.
Swartz presented a different argument. A lawyer and advocate for refugees and immigrants, he focused more on the humanitarian facets of the immigration issue, framing the debate as one about how a society relates to immigrants as “the others.”
Loosely quoting President Truman in a veto of a “restrictive, anti-due process, fear-the-stranger” immigration bill in 1952, Swartz said, “What we do on immigration is central to our character as a nation and to our moral leadership in the global community. Something about how we treat ‘the stranger’ is a mark of our civilization.”
Despite their differences, the panelists agreed on many points. On the topic of last summer’s comprehensive immigration reform bill, for instance, the two were united in their opposition to such an approach. Gradual reform, rather than one large scale bill, will solve the immigration problems, they agreed.
“Even though Professor Swain and Mr. Swartz expressed strikingly opposite views, they did have points of agreement. Furthermore, I was surprised when I heard their views. Neither expressed the traditional ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal’ arguments about immigration,” said Carolyn Kendall ’09E, a member of the Student Steering Committee on the American Founding. But while the panelists did happen to agree that Congress had failed to provide an effective reform solution, they vehemently disagreed about how private citizens ought to react in the face of a federal government perceived as unresponsive to their concerns.
“I’m worried because history teaches us that ‘fear the stranger’ can get out of hand; ‘fear the stranger’ can be stirred. We have militias organizing in this country. They come by different names—the Minute Men and others. To date, there has been no apparent vigilante violence. But keep your eye on them,” Swartz warned.
Later, referring to immigration laws that the federal government has not enforced, Swain responded, “I think it’s important for us to have laws on the books that we are comfortable enforcing. And if the country decides it wants to be an open-borders nation—that we are going to erase the borders—that’s something for the people of the United States to decide.”
Nevertheless, while the discussion was lively and contentious at times, some in the audience felt that it was incomplete and that the panelists did not put forth convincing arguments or viable solutions.
“Both had pretty good points, but I didn’t agree with either completely,” said Jimmy French ’11. “Carol Swain didn’t persuade me very much; she wasn’t providing very many facts. Swartz took a more emotional response. But I wasn’t really persuaded by either one. Neither had a good plan for solving the immigration issue.”