Thread: Administration shifts tactics on volatile immigration issue

Administration shifts tactics on volatile immigration issue

News-Journal (Daytona Beach, Florida)
August 3, 2009

Immigration reform is important for Florida and the nation. The state's population of illegal immigrants is estimated at close to 1 million, the nation's at 10 million to 12 million. A Zogby International poll in April found that 84 percent of Florida voters believe that illegal immigrants have a negative impact on the state budget.

That the belief contradicts empirical findings that illegal immigrants contribute more in taxes than they use in state resources is irrelevant. What voters believe drives policy more forcefully than what think tanks conclude. But so do everyday realities. The state's tourism economy, as well as Volusia and Flagler counties' agricultural economy, depends in large part on immigrant labor. Illegal immigrants can be raided, hounded and arrested. They can't be removed wholesale. Nor should they be victimized by an undercurrent of prejudice. Reforming their status should be an urgent priority.

It was so for a time during the Bush administration. Reform failed then, not for lack of trying but for lack of compromise. The Obama administration is trying again on two fronts. On one hand, it's using its executive authority to change some of the previous administration's more Draconian anti-immigrant policies. On the other, it's motivating Congress to take up the issue once health- care and economic debates settle.

The administration's executive approach shows what Obama has in mind regarding long-term immigration reform. Workplace raids will end. It's about time. Raids, more sensational than effective, are arbitrary. They often sweep up legal and illegal immigrants alike. They dislocate families, shock communities and hurt businesses without appreciably deterring illegal immigration. The poor economy, not the raids or deportations, reduced the number of people crossing borders illegally. (Mexican government census data released in May show that Mexican immigration to other countries -- overwhelmingly to the United States -- declined 25 percent in a single year in 2008.)

The administration will continue a Bush administration program that uses local law enforcement agencies as immigration police. That's unfortunate. Local police are ill suited to be adjuncts to federal law. It leads to abuses, as Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen's tactic of raiding construction sites with police cars and watching who runs as a mean of profiling illegal immigrant shows. More encouragingly, the administration will narrow the authority of local police to arrest or hold illegal immigrants. Widows and widowers are no longer being deported for now, and asylum will be granted to abused women. The Bush administration's limits on appeals by immigrants who claim to have been poorly represented in court are also rescinded.

Congress is preparing reform legislation for late summer or early fall. It would provide for tougher enforcement of existing immigration laws (the border fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, unfortunately, will not go away). It would also include a path for illegal immigrants to earn legal residency status and, eventually, citizenship. It's not amnesty. It's not a favor. Legalizing immigrants who have lived here for years, paid taxes and raised American families (every child born on American soil is automatically an American citizen) is common sense. It's also in line with the country's centuries of immigration-friendly principles.

Legal or not, immigrants have been the engine of American prosperity. They still are.

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