Criminal Defense of Immigrants

(B)  Reframing the Issues.  Modern political thinking has embraced the concept of reframing issues, to make it more likely agreement can be reached with others whose values may differ.[34]  While these ways of thinking were developed in the context of bridging the gap between members of “red” and “blue” political communities, there is no reason these “reframing” techniques cannot be used to try to convince prosecutors that compassion and flexibility are as American as apple pie.  George Lakoff has described the progressive and conservative “frames” regarding undocumented immigrants as follows:

                For instance, both conservatives and progressives use stereotypes of immigrants, though very different ones.  One stereotype is that they are “illegals” – felons who don’t speak English, are uneducated and uneducable, take jobs away from Americans, use local up funding for education and health, and who, as criminals, are not to be trusted.  This is common in conservative arguments.  Another stereotype, common in progressive arguments, is the “undocumented worker” – the honest, hardworking, good family man or woman, doing essential work that Americans don’t want to do for low pay, making our lifestyles possible, and seeking to find the American dream, just like Americans.[35]

Obviously, we need to stress the progressive view in our negotiations.  Lakoff shows how to reframe immigration issues as follows:

Here, conservatives again took the initiative and defined the problem as “illegal immigration.”  The roles in this frame are the immigrants and American agencies concerned with immigration (under the Department of Homeland Security.)  The principal cause of the problem is the immigrants, and the secondary cause is the inability of the agencies to stop the immigrants from crossing the border.

            Under such framing, the immigrants have committed the crime of crossing the border and are seen as felons; by “taking jobs from Americans” and making use of social services, they are putting a strain on local governments and “taking money out of taxpayers’ pockets.”  Possible “solutions” flow from that framing: founding up immigrants and deporting them; granting citizenship to those here longest and deporting those here less than two years; instituting a “temporary worker” program to legally admit workers here for a short time, denying them many basic rights and any hope of citizenship.

            Such framing overlooks many concerns of progressives, such as the essential work undomented immigrants perform, the basic denial of civil rights, the trade policies that have forced people into unemployment in Mexico, or the way our economy drives wages down to the lowest possible level.

            Let’s see what happens if we reframe the issue and define it as a problem of “illegal employers.”  Now the problem becomes the employers who are hiring undocumented workers so they can pay workers less or skirt paying taxes.  Employers are recognized as driving down wages, hurting American workers, and exploiting immigrants, many of whom have already fled oppressive circumstances.

            The possible solutions that flow from such framing are much different: Fine or punish employers for hiring undocumented workers or provide a way for these workers to get the proper documents and work with due protection of the law.  This is a way to unite immigrants and American workers, ensuring that all have access to decent wages, rather than dividing them – by pitting their interests against one another – and overlooking the system that drives down all of their wages.

            There are other ways of framing the issue that focus on progressive values.  An “immigrant gratitude” frame, which honors their contributions and compensates them with necessary social services and a reasonable path to citizenship.  A “cheap labor” frame, which focuses on the forces in the economy that are really hurting American workers – seeing labor not as an asset but as a resource whose cost must be minimized if profits are to be maximized.  A “creating immigrants” frame that focuses on what causes people to flee their homes and come to the United States – poverty and/or political oppression in their native country and, in certain cases, American trade policy that impoverishes people elsewhere. Any solution would require a reevaluation of our foreign policy toward such nations and our “free-trade” policies. [36]

            What these exercises show is simple: Frames not only define issues, problems, causes, and solutions; they also hide relevant issues and causes.  Moreover, policies and programs make sense only given issue-defining frames. 

The essential themes to stress, to try to reverse the harsh and punitive “anti-immigrant” frames often employed by prosecutors, are therefore as follows:  Immigrants are hardworking, family-oriented, low paid, exploited, pay taxes but often do not use social services, are essential to our economy by performing work Americans do not want to do.  They have been forced to come here, as everyone else had come before them, because of political oppression and economic necessity, seeking a better life.

[34] G. Lakoff, Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate (2004); G. Lakoff, Thinking Points: Communicating Our American Values and Vision (2006).

[35] G. Lakoff, Thinking Points: Communicating Our American Values and Vision 128 (2006).

[36] G. Lakoff, Thinking Points: Communicating Our American Values and Vision 34-35 (2006).