Thread: Cose: What Next on Immigration Policy? Newsweek

MSNBC.com


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cose: What Next on Immigration Policy?
By Ellis Cose
Newsweek
Dec. 25, 2006 - Jan. 1, 2007 issue - For all the noise over immigration this year, the issue ultimately fizzled in Congress—not for lack of passion but for lack of anything approximating a shared vision. Republican House members envisioned a world in which America's southern border would be protected by a 700-mile-long fence. In that world, undocumented immigrants would be criminally prosecuted and people giving them aid would face criminal penalties as well. "If we didn't invite you, get out," was the clear message sent by the House bill authored by Judiciary Committee chairman James Sensenbrenner.

Senators were more compassionate, or perhaps simply more pragmatic. Their proposed legislation also aimed to tighten the border; but it welcomed foreign guest workers and offered many of the 10 million or so undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship. The House version "would only drive illegal immigrants further into the shadows," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

Congress's inertia on the issue notwithstanding, 2006 still will go down as the year when America's invisible workers declared that "the shadows" was no place to be. They called May 1 a "day without immigrants" and tens of thousands took to the streets in cities across the nation. The idea was not just to take a stand against the House bill, but to make the point that immigrants—even if here illegally—were part of the American family.

Inspirational though the demonstrations may have been for immigration advocates, they were simply annoying to many ordinary Americans who believe the country can do just fine, thank you, without millions of unwanted foreigners circulating among us. In one town after another, mayors and other local officials, frustrated by the lack of action at the federal level, took immigration policy into their own hands.

"We must draw the line, and we are doing it tonight," declared Hazleton, Pa., Mayor Lou Barletta, wearing a bulletproof vest, as he pushed through an ordinance in July making English the only permissible official language. The measure also levied stiff fines on landlords who housed undocumented immigrants and denied licenses to businesses that employed them. The reason for the harsh measures, said Barletta (who cited no facts to support his argument), was the decline in the quality of life in his town since Latino immigrants began to arrive in substantial numbers about five years ago.


The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, which (as part of a coalition of civil-rights groups) successfully went to court to enjoin enforcement of the ordinance, counts more than 50 other towns that flirted with—and in many cases passed—"anti-immigrant" ordinances. And those were just the tip of the iceberg. Other localities did not change their laws but just enforced them more vigorously when dealing with suspect populations. Mamaroneck, N.Y., was sued for harassing Latino day laborers and in a decision handed down in November, federal district Judge Colleen McMahon agreed that discrimination was astir. "Historically, Mamaroneck was highly tolerant of day laborers ... However, the day laborers of yore were Caucasian," she wrote.

State officials also hopped on the bandwagon, even as advocates argued that immigration was a federal—not a state or local—concern. Arizona passed ballot initiatives that denied undocumented immigrants public subsidies for education and rendered them ineligible to collect damages in court. Colorado mandated the attorney general to sue the Feds to compel enforcement of immigration laws and also voted to deny tax credits to those who knowingly hire undocumented workers.

America always has been of two minds on immigration. We have embraced it and then restricted it, as we worried about being overrun by it—and never more so than when the immigrants were perceived as somehow different from those already here.

The Senate bill would allow an additional 16 million people to become legal permanent residents by 2016, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office. By 2026 that number would grow to more than 24 million. Even for the strongest supporters of immigration, such numbers are not inconsequential. But neither is the fact that some way must be found to deal with the millions who are here in violation of the law.

President Bush has singled out immigration as an area where bipartisanship might work. Clearly, the issue is not going away. And it certainly would be in the country's interest for the politicians in Washington to wrestle control of it away from the small-town mayors, city-council members and state legislators who otherwise show every sign—whatever the Constitution may say—of trying to make it their own.

Correction: An earlier version of this report erroneously identified the mayor of Hazleton, Pa., as Lou Beretta. In fact, his name is Barletta.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16240578/site/newsweek/


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

© 2006 MSNBC.com

The House version "would only drive illegal immigrants further into the shadows," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

No, the House version would drive them home to their native countries and force them and their governments to deal with the lack of decent-paying jobs and economic investment, corruption, drug trafficking, and crime.

Enabling all of this by allowing this country to be overrun with third world poverty that we are unable to support is NOT the answer.

Anyone who thinks it is is simply brain dead.