Five Questions with R Jay Pearson

Ed.: I got in touch with blogger and activist Robb "R Jay" Pearson a while back after he spoke to 9500 Liberty about how his views on immigration had radically changed and Chris blogged about it at Citizen Orange. Recently, I asked R Jay four questions and left the fifth for him to ask and answer (an idea I borrowed from Nezua).

Q: What initially led you to get involved in immigration activism?

A: In late 2006 the Daily Record, a major daily newspaper serving northern New Jersey, brought me on as a blogger to blog about national political and social issues. The name of my blog was "Life & Liberty" and I mostly took a moderately conservative position on most issues. Among those issues was illegal immigration, and my position was typically conservative, i.e., "rule of law" must be inflexibly upheld and people who come here illegally (and who I always referred to as "illegal aliens" with intentional contempt) should be identified and deported, without regard to their life circumstances (which I often described as "not our problem").

As the immigration issue reached yet another boiling point in May of 2007, my readers (who had the ability to comment on my blog) were becoming noticeably more fervent in their positions against illegal immigration. Then, in June of 2007, after I wrote a rather anger-filled blog post (which was colorfully titled "Round 'em up, send 'em home") denouncing a newspaper quote of a local undocumented day laborer who felt the United States had no right to deny him residence, my readers went ballistic. And with essentially all my readers up in arms about "illegals" always coming together to demonstrate, they were all asking one consistent question: where are the groups of CITIZEN protestors? It was at this point that I began to organize and plan a rally in Morristown, New Jersey, using my blog's popularity to help spread the word. And six weeks later, on July 28, 2007, the "ProAmerica Rally on Morristown Protesting Illegal Immigration" took place, gathering over five hundred people, including about one hundred counter-protestors, and with a presence of nearly one hundred regular, undercover, and riot police to maintain order.

Q: What caused you to part ways with the "anti-illegal" movement in New Jersey?

Ironically, my rally is what actually sparked my reversal of position on the issue and which inspired me to cease my activism against "illegal immigration" and disassociate from the movement altogether.

I had carefully and painstakingly planned the rally as a peaceful and respectful protest against an issue -- as well as to advocate for the 287(g) program which the mayor of Morristown had applied for -- but instead it became a disgustingly hateful and disrespectful display of irrational and contemptuous intolerance toward a certain group of people (i.e., immigrants who are slightly more tan than the average white American and who don't speak English), whom several of my speakers derided and degraded. Additionally I discovered a number of my speakers cared little about the issue at all but were merely using it to promote their election campaigns, business objectives, or increase their own activist visibility. With perhaps one or two exceptions, it was clear my speakers' intentions were illegitimate to the purpose of my rally, and their rhetoric useful only for fanning the flames of intolerance among the hundreds assembled. I was ultimately ashamed for being a central part of all that, and felt compelled by my own conscience to change.

What eventually completed my reversal on the issue of immigration, though, was a series of severe personal crises, both economic and medical, which I suffered in late 2007 and early 2008 and which resulted in the loss of my job of many years, the loss of my savings, the loss of my home, and the need to take refuge at my parents' home in Pennsylvania.

It was the type of situation that causes one to seriously reevaluate life, and that's what I did. Where my former position on illegal immigration was concerned, I realized I had blindly objectified an entire group of people whom I had never encountered, whose situations I never conscientiously considered, and not one of whom I had actually ever personally met or spoken to. Furthermore, in realizing my own circumstances at this point, I had to confess that I had now in a very similar way become that which I had once spoken against without qualification: a man in suffering circumstances whose only recourse was to migrate away from his home and seek refuge in order to rebuild his life.

I found my former position to be grossly unfair and hypocritical, and endeavored to make appropriate changes in my approach. By mid-2008 I had made massive changes to my life and my viewpoints, and began embracing the powerfully motivating notion of our "common humanity" and utterly rejecting divisive nationalism and the irrational deification of "rule of law" which I had once heralded.

Q: The U.S. Government Accountability Office and Justice Strategies recently released reports questioning the efficacy of 287(g) programs that give local law enforcement officers the authority to enforce federal immigration law. How do you believe these programs impact local communities?

Firstly, let's not kid ourselves. Removing criminal elements from our communities is extremely important. No reasonable individual will argue that. But when considering the acknowledged lack of federal oversight upon local law enforcement agencies who participate in 287(g), and the misapplication (if not outright abuse) of specified authority by some of those same agencies, the potential for racial profiling per 287(g) is immense and as a result invites tremendous negative impact upon local communities (and in fact has already negatively impacted certain communities, such as Prince William County, Virginia for example). This is completely counterproductive to any effort aimed at addressing the serious crime for which 287(g) was supposedly intended.

Furthermore, this issue goes beyond the debate over federal vs. local purview. This is a moral issue.

As I see it -- and I say this as one with intimate experience -- those engaged on the "anti-illegal immigration" side of the debate are not as concerned about violations of "rule of law" as they are inordinately focused on despising those whom they perceive to be its violators. And unfortunately this approach has pervasively informed the conservative side of the immigration debate, as well as the way in which policies are created and implemented in certain locales. In my opinion this also includes the way 287(g) has been implemented in participating communities.

And I use the word "perceive" intentionally, because enforcement of 287(g) by local police agencies appears in a number of instances to be driven by racial profiling, i.e., targeting those whose skin color and cultural appearance is "perceived" as Hispanic/Latino, which many prejudicially assume to be "illegal". One need look no further than Prince William County, Virginia as a prime example. In April of last year their Board of County Supervisors had no choice but to amend (via Resolution 08-500) certain provisions of its prior year's unanimously passed "Illegal Immigration Enforcement Resolution" (Resolution 07-609) because it clearly allowed for racial profiling.

(It is worth noting, by the way, that a production group called "9500Liberty" has just completed creating a compelling documentary revealing the negative impact of "anti-illegal immigration" activism, policy, and enforcement in Prince William County, Virginia. The trailer and related videos can be seen here).

From my perspective, 287(g) is dangerous as an enforcement tool in the hands of local police. If it is to remain faithful as a mechanism for identifying undocumented individuals who are committing serious crimes in the United States -- which Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) indicates is the intended purpose of the 287(g) program -- then such identification should be done after individuals have been arrested for such serious crimes, not before.

Q: What is the way forward on the issue of immigration policy? How do we get from where we're at now to an immigration system that works?

This may seem like a non-answer (though trust me, it isn't), but the way forward needs to begin with transforming our perspective as to what the purpose of law is: it is not an end unto itself, and exists to serve not to be served. Deification of the law today is the most massive barrier to the very justice it is intended to serve.

Accordingly we must re-envision immigration policy to be a tool for vigorously facilitating constructive coexistance with our immigrating neighbors which more broadly serves our common interests, the cause of compassion, and authentic human justice, rather than being a mechanism for erecting statutory walls designed to serve only our own interests and preserve America's hubristic notion of its own sovereignty.

This isn't academic. What I'm talking about here is a complete reformulation of how we approach and create policy. We have to begin anew with the fundamentals and retill the soil of our policy-making field, especially now that a new season has begun in America.

If reform is to take place then its seeds need to be planted where it truly counts: by totally re-creating how we see ourselves and others in the world. Because thus far the people who ironically have been largely left out of the policy debate on immigration are immigrants. They have been dismissed and rendered invisible, yet are conveniently objectified by those with a stake in the arena of political posturing. This is wrong. It is immoral.

If we want "change we can believe in" where immigration policy is concerned, then we must completely reform the dynamic of political activism. Because the flaw of political activism is that it always demands the outward voice of many without requiring an inward transformation of the individual. As such, political activism, while often politically relevant (obviously), is ultimately morally impotent in that activists seek policy changes for others to implement without implementing their own life changes which would (1) demonstrate the moral urgency of their positions, and (2) actually facilitate the very changes they seek.

The political voice, if it is to inform policy-making, is useless without the moral hands and feet necessary to give it effect.

In short, the way forward is not to take the higher ground but to build upon new ground altogether, starting with ourselves. As for how we arrive at an immigration system that works, we must create an entirely new system. Such is the authentic burden of true political activism.

We've done it before. And I suspect time and circumstance are inviting us -- no, in fact imploring us -- to do it again.

Q: What activism (if any) have you taken part in since altering your position on immigration, and what are your plans for the future now that you've undergone such drastic changes in your life and views?

While I wouldn't necessarily call it activism, since altering my position on immigration I've endeavored to be a voice of fairness and authentic human justice for immigrating people (and their children) who have been demonized, marginalized, and politically objectified by many in the "anti-illegal immigration" movement. I've been able to do this in simple yet broadly impacting ways, such as through my writing and in interviews.

When I publicly announced my change of position last July (2008) on the first anniversary of the rally, the Daily Record (the paper I once blogged for) wrote a front page article on my announcement, which honestly to me was rather unexpected. But as it turns out the article's online version was picked up by scores of sites across the Internet, both nationally and internationally, and helped propel my "new" voice and message in a way that surpassed what I had done with my anti-immigrant rally the year prior.

One site which picked up that article was "anti-BVBL" from Prince William County, Virginia, where the immigration issue has polarized the community. Designed and promoted to offer a fair voice on the immigration issue (and which so far has been extremely successful), it was created in 2008 to counter a severe anti-immigrant website operated by a group which the Southern Poverty Law Center has tagged as extremist.

After discovering "anti-BVBL" had picked up the Daily Record article, I began participating in their blog discussions, which was instrumental in helping me structure and formulate my new position and the vision which informed it. In September of 2008 I was invited by the site's administrators to come and speak to the 9500Liberty production group for an interview, which they released in two parts in January of this year. It is that video which caught your attention at Change.org's Immigration blog, and which has resulted in this interview.

It is in such simple yet continuously growing ways that my voice has so far been carried in advocacy of authentic human justice for immigrating people, and it pleases and humbles me that so many have so far been inspired by my story in such positive ways. And I wish to continue the trend.

As for my plans for the future . . . six months ago (February 2009) some friends and I exchanged ideas and insights and put form to a vision I had developed last year and which today has become a small movement called "Pathforgers". With the website having launched only a couple weeks ago, the vision of Pathforgers more broadly expands upon the "common humanity" ethic which I had embraced last year. It's purpose is simple: to inspire inward transformation and create the Oneness which many people intuitively realize is a natural human aim and purpose, but which is often frustrated by the present model of political and economic systems.

Put simply, Pathforgers -- which is non-religious, non-secular, and non-political -- is about achieving authentic human justice in ways that are counter-ordinary, and which demands we first change ourselves in order to demonstrate our moral urgency and facilitate the change we seek in our relationships, in our communities, in our nation, and in our world.

My plan for the future, therefore, is to expand the Pathforger vision and encourage others to embrace it, to the ultimate end of inviting all people to sit as equals in joyful celebration at the table of our common humanity.