Immigrants are vital community members

By Dr. Andre M. Perry
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
Reprinted – by Texas Metro News”
https://spokesman-recorder.com/

Let’s start acting like it

Somewhere between the wrenching ICE raids that tear families from the places they call home and the political battles those raids spark lies a question we have never fully confronted: What does it mean to belong? And what do we owe people who live, work, worship and contribute alongside us yet lack a single document that would recognize them as citizens?

Undocumented immigrants occupy a strange and familiar space in American life: They are members without membership, participants without protection. 

Like Black Americans who built the nation while being denied its promises, or women who sustained our democracy while being barred from the ballot box, many undocumented people meet nearly every expectation of citizenship. They pay taxes, raise families, attend our schools, and strengthen our communities, yet remain vulnerable in ways even our most marginalized citizens do not.

Repeating history 

The current debate over immigration is not new, but its urgency is unmistakable. America has always wrestled with who gets to belong, who deserves rights, and who must wait outside the circle of membership. 

Citizenship has long shaped our social order, distributing benefits and protections unevenly. As sociologist T.H. Marshall observed, citizenship has often been used to “legitimize” inequality. The very institution meant to guarantee fairness instead becomes a tool to justify exclusion.

And yet, global movements after World War II expanded our understanding of human rights, pushing nations to provide basic protections to all residents. Philosopher Michael Walzer argues that members of a community are those committed to sharing its social goods. Belonging, then, is not just a legal category; it’s a lived relationship of mutual obligation.

By that standard, millions of undocumented immigrants are already members. They are de facto Americans and deserve the de jure recognition that comes with citizenship.

Misplaced blame

Much of today’s tension stems from fear that undocumented immigrants drain public resources. But this narrative collapses under scrutiny. Many undocumented workers pay billions annually in payroll taxes through falsified Social Security numbers they can never use. They subsidize a system that excludes them, contributing to benefits they will never receive.

Meanwhile, they are scapegoated for economic challenges they did not create, from rising housing costs to broken health care and tax systems crafted by policymakers, not foreign-born workers. The blame placed on immigrants reflects anxieties about belonging, not economic reality.

Redefining belonging

Our political discourse reduces belonging to a binary: legal or illegal. But the real questions are deeper. Are undocumented residents already living as members? Should their demonstrated commitment earn a pathway to citizenship? And what does it say about the integrity of citizenship itself when we deny recognition to people who meet its responsibilities every day?

To withhold citizenship from people who have woven themselves into the fabric of American life is not only unjust, it is incoherent. It denies the reality of the communities we have already built together.

Citizenship should affirm contributions, not erase them. If we continue to ignore the membership that exists in practice, we erode the very principles that hold a democracy together: reciprocity, recognition, and shared commitment.

Immigrants are vital community members. It’s time our laws reflected that truth.

This commentary first appeared in Word in Black. It has been revised for style and length. For more information, visit www.wordinblack.com.