Janice D. Schakowsky (interview)
 

23 May 2003

By Aziz Haniffa

   India Abroad

Three-term Congresswoman Janice D. Schakowsky, a Democrat who represents
the Ninth District of Illinois - one of the most diverse districts in the
nation with a significant population of mostly working class South Asians - is
among the fiercest pro-immigration advocates in Congress.

She believes The Patriot Act pushed through Congress in the aftermath of
9/11 - which she voted against - is a draconian measure that impinges on the
civil liberties of citizens, but is particularly damning against recent
immigrants trying to reach for the American dream.

Schakowsky, who serves on the House Democratic leadership as chief deputy
whip, vows that she is committed to dismantling un-American provisions of the
legislation.

Q: Last month you held a major press conference and a sort of town hall
meeting with several pro-immigration advocacy, civil rights and community
groups and released a list of the top 10 anti-immigrant policies of the White
House you intended to challenge. What prompted you to do this in the heart of
the city?

A: In the last two years, there has been mounting pressure on immigrants
in the United States. Unwarranted and punitive acts taken that deeply affect
some ethnic groups within my community. People who want nothing more than to
provide for their families, to hold down good jobs, to pay taxes, to become
citizens of the US. Hardworking, peace-loving people in the community, who
have now become targets of new immigration laws and policies feel fear in their
homes. We find people are even leaving the country, or considering leaving the
country. We've seen families that are being separated and there's a different
atmosphere now. We had this event on Devon Avenue highlighting the top 10 hit
list - my least favorite immigration policies. It certainly wasn't an
exhaustive list.

Q: You held this meeting on Chicago's Devon Avenue, which is the heart of
the Indian American and South Asian community and which has traditionally been
where new working class immigrant groups, including the Jewish community in
Illinois had its beginnings. Was this why you chose it as a venue?

A: In some ways it is exemplary of the kind of district we have where
people live in peace and work together and should be really what America is all
about. Instead, a lot of that atmosphere of collegiality and American pride
has been replaced by fear. When Attorney General John Ashcroft said the FBI
can get engaged in the enforcement of civil immigration law, it puts fear in
the heart of any immigrant to report crimes to law enforcement officials,
because all of a sudden they may get caught up in some minor immigration
infraction, and before they know it they are in detention or in deportation
proceedings. To conduct one's daily life in safety and security has become a
challenge for many people. That is why I wanted as much as anything to stand
with them and say they are not alone. That in Congress I am representing them
and I am not afraid to stand up. That is because there has been an atmosphere
of intimidation even from members of Congress that wait a minute, are you not
really for security here? What about homeland security? We have to get tough
on immigrants.

Q: Obviously, you do not believe the stand you are taking on behalf of
these new immigrants in no way compromises security?

A: I am as much for security as anyone of the immigrant people standing
with me. They want to live in safety too. They do not support acts of
terrorism. We have to be able to distinguish between terrorists and
immigrants. It is not one and the same thing. But that's the way it's being
treated.

Q: After 9/11, a lot of immigrants have been detained with no access to
counsel or family for minor infractions, and this has devastated families.
Among the thousands held, very few, if any, have anything to do with criminal
activities, least of terrorist connections...

A: That's exactly right. Absolutely. I want them to be able to have
access to counsel. To be in a jurisdiction where their family can be nearby.
Where their lawyers are nearby. But the process itself has been
short-circuited now with the Board of Immigration Appeals reduced now to one
judge instead of three. They have reduced the number of judges from 23 to 11 -
cut it more than in half. What you get are these one-line responses in these
cases and it is not a surprise that in one year the rate of rejected appeals
has skyrocketed 46 percent. It has gone from 59 percent rejections to 86
percent of these appeals now. You can't tell me that there has been some
change that would warrant that huge increase. The change has been attitude -
attitude toward immigrants.

Q: How do you answer critics who turn around and say, too bad, after
9/11, it's a whole new world? That you have to infringe or compromise on some
civil liberties we are used to for security?

A: I think what we have to be un-defensive about is saying what is it
about the United States of America that makes it worth defending in the world.
That makes it worth exporting our values and the things that are great about
our country. At the top of the list is that we value and respect civil
liberties of individuals. Now the rules of the game are being changed such
that individual liberties are being compromised way beyond where it should be.
There is always a balance that should be struck between security and liberty.
But if you sacrifice liberty for security, as Thomas Jefferson said, you will
have neither.

Q: You believe that's the situation we are in now?

A: Absolutely. We have gone too far when ordinary people have to worry
when they go to a library and log on to the Internet that where they go may be
tracked. We are developing a total information awareness system. Data-mining.
Putting together all kinds of information about individuals who are just
ordinary citizens. Big brother at work here.

Q: So what should people who are bothered by all of this do?

A: All Americans should say, I am the patriotic one when I stand up and
say, enough is enough.' Let's not target loyal, patriotic, hardworking
Americans.

Q: Are the goalposts of The Patriot Act for example being moved further
and further afield as people try to comprehend what it's all about? Even
attorneys and counsels are finding it difficult to explain to clients where
they stand and what their recourses are...

There is another element there. You don't always know exactly where the
goalposts are because there's a lot going on in secret. You can as a
non-citizen be detained indefinitely without due process. That's very
dangerous in the US. We cannot tolerate that. It's totally un-American. So
much is shrouded now in secret hearings and secret detentions. Even
conversations between the lawyer and client aren't private anymore. All these
things are very difficult for people to know. What are the rules of the game?
How do you play this game? The administration is very careful to name things
like US Patriot Act. So if you are not for the US Patriot Act, well, what are
you then? You must be unpatriotic. You know, they frame the discussions in
that way. It's like George Orwell's 1984. Doublethink. You have to always
think the opposite of what the name is to understand what's going on.

Q: Is there a more expansive Patriot Act 2 in the offing?

A: Yes. Even though this has not emerged as a real bill, I am at the
point now where I believe that even ideas launched as trial balloons are the
real intention of this administration. I worry about it and in the Patriot 2
Act, native born citizens could be stripped of citizenship the attorney general
deems they have been supporting in some way a terrorist organization as defined
by the attorney general. All Americans, naturalized citizens, all residents,
citizens or non-citizens are to worry about the direction we are going when it
comes to the erosion of civil liberties.

Q: Hasn't all this xenophobia manifested in almost blatant racial
profiling of minority groups and immigrants?

A: There is no question about it that there has been an increase in
racial profiling and that has certainly affected a lot of people here in my
community who may wear a head covering of some sort, men or women. I talked to
a young man who came up to me at a street and introduced himself. I said,
'Haven't we met?' He said, 'Yes, the last time we met my name was Muhammad and
now its Adam. I changed my name.' That made me so sad. I felt like crying
when he said that.

He must have been in his early 20s and he felt that as he sets out into
the world in the United States, he didn't have the right name and had to change
it. I can't help but think that it was more than just a spelling change. That
he gave up something very important to do that and made a decision to do that.
In the US, people shouldn't have to do that.

Q: You have pledged to fight for the resurrections of these civil
liberties and rights, but aren't you going up against a brick wall?

When it will change is when more and more Americans recognize that it is
their own civil liberties I am talking about. Citizens who really haven't
really paid attention to the problems immigrants are facing so much. We have
to get the world out that their own privacy, individual rights, to maneuvering
from the Internet to associating with people they want to, is being challenged.

I sense we are getting to that point. That they the administration are
overreaching and that there was a lot of shock and awe if you will at the
notion of Patriot 2. I am hoping there will be a critical mass achieved when
people say, 'Stop, enough, this is not right.'