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HispanicVista Columnists

The 12 Steps of Immigration Anonymous

By Bill Dahl/HispanicVista.com

June 6, 2005

Steps 1-3

The immigration reform debate in the U.S. has become so discombobulating I had to check into a treatment center. I hope you might find the following useful, should you decide that you too may be a problem thinker, suffering from the disease of immigrationism.

Immigration Anonymous ( IA ) is a fellowship of U.S. residents who share their experience, strength and hope with one another that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from immigrationism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop stinking thinking. There are no dues or fees for IA membership; we are self-supporting through our own contributions. IA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution; does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to think soberly about U.S. immigration policy reform and help other problem thinkers to achieve sobriety.

The following are the first three steps of recovery:

tep One: We admit that we are powerless over illegal immigration and our borders have become unmanageable.

Playing the blame game just maintained my stinkin thinkin. Recovery is a process, not an event. It starts with me and it’s one step at a time, one day at a time. I’ve stopped blaming them. I am the problem thinker who is sick, not those who are crossing our borders. I am comforted by the truth expressed by Henri Nouwen: “Our brokenness is truly ours. Nobody else’s.”[i][1]

This step required me to begin to get real. The IA program specifically states: “Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually mean and women who are constitutionally in capable of being honest with themselves.”[ii][2]

I had to admit that I suffered from multiple delusions. I realized that my stinking thinking contained “shortsighted and perverse notions of charity.”[iii][3] I figured that we were doing undocumented immigrants a favor by allowing them to be in this country to get along the best they could, as long as they didn’t become a burden and contributed something to our society. Then, I was confronted with the following: “This kind of charity has no real effect in helping the poor: all it does is tacitly condone social injustice and to help keep conditions as they are – to help keep poor people poor.”[iv][4] The poverty of my own thinking became apparent. Maybe that’s what the folks in Alcoholics Anonymous figured out when they wrote in 1939, “Therefore, the main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind, rather than his body.”[v][5] Those of us in Immigration Anonymous know this to be the nucleus of our malady. My life became unmanageable because of the powerlessness that my own thinking produced.

Step Two: Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity.[vi][6]

Don’t expect your elected officials to do anything whatsoever to resolve this issue anytime soon. In case you’re wondering, a “guest worker permit program” will be about as effective as an aspirin for colon cancer. It is during my work in Step Two that I have come to appreciate the reality of the phrase, “Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point.”[vii][7] I have tried every method I can imagine to restrain, control or abstain from my stinking thinking. Nothing has worked. I had to surrender.

This step really put the disease of immigrationism in perspective for me: “Whatever our protestations, are not most of us concerned with ourselves, our resentments, or our self pity? Selfishness – self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self delusion, self-seeking and self-pity, we have made decisions based upon self interest that have placed us in a position to be hurt. So, our troubles are basically of our own making. Above everything, we must get rid of this selfishness.”[viii][8] Remember, the first thing a nut has to do to begin recovery is to become aware that “I’m nuts!” Thank God I’m not alone! I am so grateful that there are those who have recovered from this insidious disease who can share the path of recovery they’ve followed successfully with me.

I certainly hope the U.S. government refrains from any further reform of immigration policy guided by fear, resentment, delusion, selfishness and self-pity. The IA program has taught me that this is not the way to go in terms of thinking about the resolution of the immigration matter.

Step Three: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understand him.[ix][9]

I have come to believe that there is a God and neither I, nor the United States “is it.” To “reduce other people to things, whose value resides only in their usefulness, not in what they are in themselves”[x][10] is just plain wrong. When we became problem thinkers regarding immigration, “crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that God is either everything or else He is nothing. God either is, or He isn’t. What will our choice be?”[xi][11]

We need help. The solution must come from a power greater than ourselves, rather than relying upon Tom Ridge, ~~Bernard Kerik~~, or whoever they finally appointed to replace Ridge, who has not employed an undocumented housekeeper or subcontractor, dined knowingly at an eatery that employed undocumented workers, has stock in Wal-Mart or any association whatsoever with companies that have been/might be alleged to benefit from the economic usefulness of undocumented labor. We are all sinners in need of salvation here. Heaven help us all!

I like what Thomas Merton has to say about God’s will, as it pertains to the current state of the immigration debate in the U.S.: “ If you can never make up your mind what God wills for you, but are always veering from one opinion to another, from one practice to another, from one method to another, it may be an indication that you are trying to get around God’s will and do your own will with a quiet conscience.”[xii][12]

Tune in next week as we continue walking the path of recovery from immigrationism with Steps 4 through 6. Keep coming back! It works!

____________________________________________________________________________________

Bill Dahl, a contributing columnist to Los Angeles based HispanicVista.com (http://www.hispanicvista.com/) is a freelance writer and social justice advocate. Contact Bill at: wsdahl@pacbell.net or see his website at http://www.justjesus.us/ He tackles social issues from a Christian perspective. For the past fifteen years, Bill and his wife have been called to work with the poor, the oppressed and the marginalized as volunteer community youth workers. Bill is published in numerous professional publications, magazines, websites, newspapers and newsletters. He has been an on-air radio guest, and has appeared on both public and network television. He is the author of five manuscripts, presently under consideration for publication. Bill earned a Bachelors and Masters degree in liberal arts from Washington State University. He has taught at the university and community college levels. During his business career, Bill was an executive with several FORTUNE 500 companies including Chrysler, Nations Bank, Bank of America and GMAC. He also led a consulting practice providing strategic advice to companies for several years. He has traveled extensively throughout the U.S. and internationally. He has substantial public speaking experience and has led seminars throughout the United States. He is a member of the Christian Writers Guild and has been accepted to begin graduate study at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, CA. Bill and his family make their home in southern California.

Copyright © 2005 by Bill Dahl. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author. All rights reserved. Rights for publishing this poem, in part or its entirety, in other languages, audio and any other form are contracted to Bill Dahl.
Requests for permission to make copies of or reprint any part of the work should be mailed to: Bill Dahl, wsdahl@pacbell.net

Bibliography and Notes

2Alcoholics Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. New York, New York © Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. 1939,1955, 1976 p.58

5 Alcoholics Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. New York, New York © Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. 1939,1955, 1976 p.23

6 Alcoholics Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. New York, New York © Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. 1939,1955, 1976 p.59

7Alcoholics Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. New York, New York © Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. 1939,1955, 1976 p.59

8 Alcoholics Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. New York, New York © Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. 1939,1955, 1976 p.62.

9Alcoholics Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. New York, New York © Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. 1939,1955, 1976 p.59.

11 Alcoholics Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. New York, New York © Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. 1939,1955, 1976 p. 53.