Worse and worse for migrants

It always seems to happen when times are bad--citizens go after the migrants and the immigrants. It happened to the Irish and the Italians and many other immigrant groups. Right now the rancor and even hatred are being poured on the heads of migrants coming from Mexico and Central America. People like Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado and Lou Dobbs of CNN feed the flames day in and day out.
This situation is just plain nuts. For decades, the unspoken--and often even spoken--invitation went out from America's farmers and builders and service providers that undocumented migrants were welcome. People desperate for work, desperate to support their families back home, came for jobs year after year, returning home for a while in the winter. Crossing the border around the towns and cities was easy.
But about 13 years ago, the feds began to close off the traditional urban crossing points. So people crossed into the US in remote areas, most of all here in Arizona. And they died by the hundreds.
So far this fiscal year (which began last Oct. 1), there already have been at least 41 known migrant deaths just on the Arizona-Mexico border. (Many bodies are never found, especially on the O'odham reservation, which is the size of Connecticut.) Soon the high heat will return, as it always does. (One summer we had 99 days of triple-digit temperatures.) And the migrants will continue to die, mostly in the agony of dehydration and hyperthermia.
The border issues are complex, but the fact of all these unnecessary deaths is not. Many groups are working to avoid the deaths, the deportations, and now the imprisonment of workers and even of whole families. But only congressional action will turn the deadly tide. And not much progress will be made there until the tirades against struggling, hard-working migrants stop getting air and press time. The dehumanizing of the migrants is dehumanizing our country.