August 26, 2009 9:01 AM
When I heard that Ted Kennedy had GBM brain cancer, I knew he was unlikely to live long. My wife was killed by the same illness, and the survival rate beyond one year is less than 25%, even with the latest treatments. I've been thinking about Kennedy and his struggle for immigrant rights since I first realized he was likely to die. He served on the Judiciary Committee, and at times led the Immigration Subcommittee, throughout most of his life. He helped change our immigration laws profoundly, and I asked myself what his legacy is. My conclusion; Kennedy's legacy is modern America.
When Ted Kennedy entered the Senate, it was almost impossible for anyone from Asia or Africa to immigrate to the United States. For the few Asians who were allowed to immigrate, it was illegal for most of them to become U.S. citizens even in the early 1950s. Ted Kennedy changed that.
Jack Kennedy had been a big proponent of removing racially discriminatory provisions from the immigration laws. These holdovers from the late 19th Century created a Jim Crow system in which your chances of being able to immigrate depended mostly on the whiteness of your skin. When JFK was murdered, writes historian Roger Daniels, many thought that his reform of the immigration system would be buried with him. But, when the bereaved freshman senator from Massachusetts took up the cause, the 1965 Immigration Act embodying a color-blind approach to immigration, was passed.
If your family immigrated to the United States from Africa or Asia after 1965, you might say a prayer of thanks for Senator Kennedy's leading role in tearing down the barriers that would have kept you out.
During the Second World War, thousands of Jewish refugees hoping for a safe haven in the United States were informed by the State Department that they would have to remain in Hitler's Germany to face whatever fate the Nazis had in store for them. This disgraceful failure to rescue the persecuted weighed heavily on Senator Kennedy's conscience. In 1980 he sponsored the Refugee Act and pushed it unanimously through the Senate. This marked the first law in United States history that mandated that the country accept the victims of persecution.
If your family came to the United States as refugees, or received asylum here after 1980, you can thank Senator Kennedy for saving your life.
Up until the 1990s it was illegal for homosexuals to come to the United States. Immigrants who were gay or lesbian were stopped at the border. Kennedy saw this as ridiculous discrimination and helped to end the practice.
Anyone who would have been told that they couldn't come here because the only real Americans are heterosexual Americans owes a debt of gratitude to Kennedy.
Then there are the Central Americans who fled the wars in El Salvador and Guatemala during the 1980s and 1990s. Kennedy had a particular concern for them. The Reagan Administration refused to fairly apply Kennedy's own Refugee Act to these people escaping death squad regimes the United States supported in the last days of the Cold War. So he worked with others in the Senate and House to come up with a series of protections that eventually gave these refugees a humanitarian safe haven in the United States.
If you are one of the 20,000 Salvadorans and Guatemalans on Long Island who received protection under TPS or permanent residence under NACARA, you can thank Senator Edward Kennedy that you are still alive.
A few years ago, the National Immigration Forum celebrated its 25th Anniversary. I was priviledged to be listed on an Honor Roll of people who had advanced immigrant rights. My gratitude was magnified when I saw Ted Kennedy's name on the same Honor Roll.
For the millions of families who got a shot in America because of his work-Thanks Teddy!
Thanks for this moving article, Pat. I join you in mourning Ted Kennedy's death and celebrating his life and accomplishments.
By Lauris Wren August 26, 2009 01:53 PM
Thanks Lauris.
By Pat Young August 29, 2009 10:36 AM