Immigration Stalemate

GirlGeek · Posted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 5:55 am Post subject: Immigration Stalemate

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB115750314424954584-PBjfcOTbC4QhO7k4d72C6OpVobo_20061005.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top

Immigration Stalemate

Congress's Failure to Resolve Issue
Feeds Ire of Activists on Both Sides
By JUNE KRONHOLZ
September 6, 2006; Page A6

Riverside, N.J., passed an ordinance this summer that would bar illegal immigrants from holding a job or renting an apartment there. When Riverside's Latino community held a prayer vigil to protest the measure a few weeks later, counterdemonstrators showed up to chant "go home" and "scram."

One demonstrator waved a Confederate flag, and a few people gave Nazi salutes. "It was shameful," says the Rev. Miguel Rivera, who organized the vigil and adds that he knows who to blame: Congress.

By raising illegal immigration as a political and national-security issue -- and then doing nothing about it -- Congress has given new life to an anti-immigrant movement that had long been relegated to the political fringes, say some policy watchers and think tanks.

"The conduct of members of Congress has given it license and credibility," Rev. Rivera says. With a national election around the corner, and control of Congress at stake, "nobody from Washington wants to respond to these words being hammered against us."

Congress's failure to stem illegal immigration "may well flare up in unpleasant ways," agrees Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, which favors immigration restrictions and enforcement. But he adds that pro-immigration groups have responded with questionable behavior of their own, including the "We were here first" signs some Hispanics toted at rallies this spring, and charges of racism leveled at those who call for tougher border enforcement.

The problem was created, he and others say, when the House and Senate passed starkly different immigration bills. The Republican-proposed House bill calls for a fence along the border and makes illegal immigration a felony; it currently is a misdemeanor. The Senate bill, which attracted more support from Democrats than Republicans, would let most illegal immigrants stay in the U.S. after paying fines and back taxes, and largely reflects President Bush's calls for a law that supplies the economy with the workers it needs.

Congressional negotiators never met to iron out their differences, and final passage now seems unlikely before the November elections. Republicans are split between the party's pro-immigrant business wing and its anti-immigrant cultural conservatives. Democrats see political benefit in letting the issue simmer while they tar Republicans as anti-Hispanic for passing the House bill.

The high-profile debate has rallied immigration supporters, with many native-born Americans joining hundreds of thousands of immigrants at rallies calling to overhaul immigrant laws. But those rallies and the debate over the House and Senate bills also have focused public attention on the fast-growing illegal population and fanned fears of terrorists easily crossing U.S. borders.

The deadlock in Congress corresponds with several huge demographic trends. The U.S. is adding one million immigrants a year, a historical high. Half are illegal entrants, who tend to be poor, uneducated and Hispanic.

In the past, most immigrants settled in a half-dozen "gateway" states. But the growth in low-skilled jobs in the South and Midwest is luring them to states that aren't used to large numbers of foreigners.

That has captured the attention of state and local governments, which complain that they are carrying the health-care, education and other social costs of illegal immigration. Local leaders are "frustrated by the lack of federal action, so they're looking for things they can do," says Ann Morse, who tracks immigration for the National Conference of State Legislatures.

State legislators introduced 550 bills aimed at illegal immigration this year, Ms. Morse says, with most restricting access to driver's licenses, unemployment pay, elder care and other benefits.

City and town councils also have gotten into the act by barring day-labor centers and passing ordinances that go after employers and landlords who hire or rent to illegal residents. The Riverside measure is modeled on one that passed the Hazleton, Pa., city council and has been widely copied.

The Hazleton ordinance, which hasn't been implemented, contends that "illegal immigration leads to higher crime rates," and then bars any business caught hiring an illegal worker from obtaining city permits or contracts for at least five years.

Polls show a hardening attitude toward immigrants -- even legal ones. In three Wall Street Journal/NBC and Pew Research Center polls this spring, nearly half those asked said immigration hurts the U.S. by taking jobs, burdening public services or threatening "customs and values."

The rising passion is creating a climate that allows politicians to "rather commonly" say things that only hate groups once uttered, says Mark Potok, who monitors those groups for the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala. "When politicians and other leaders speak in this way, rank-and-file people feel they've been freed to do the same and worse," he adds.

Republican Sen. George Allen of Virginia has denied he was tapping anti-immigrant sentiments last month with his "Welcome to America" remarks to a rival's campaign worker -- a second-generation Indian-American -- who was videotaping an Allen campaign event. Other lawmakers are less subtle.

Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa regularly accuses illegal immigrants of committing sex crimes against "eight little girls" a day as part of "a slow-motion terrorist attack."

A recent Democratic Party ad juxtaposed a video clip of Hispanics scaling a border fence with images of Osama bin Laden and North Korean President Kim Jong Il -- equating illegal immigrants with terrorists, according to Hispanic groups. A Republican Party ad warns that Steve Laffey, the Cranston, R.I., mayor challenging Sen. Lincoln Chafee in the Republican Senate primary, "accept[s] Mexican ID cards" and that the cards "can threaten our security" by allowing immigrants in planes and government buildings.

The debate has energized anti-immigrant or immigration-restrictionist groups. Congress's focus on immigration has "helped create the terrain" for groups like the 18-month-old Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, which patrols the U.S.-Mexico border for illegal crossers and has raised money for a border fence, says Devin Burghart of the Center for New Community, a Chicago policy group that monitors a dozen groups aiming to restrict immigration.

But it also has prompted the governors of New Mexico and Arizona to declare states of emergency because of illegal immigration -- a move that Mr. Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies calls "political theater" aimed at showing a response to a public frustration.

Write to June Kronholz at june.kronholz@wsj.com
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