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Democrats must push immigration reform
Gerardo Sandoval

Friday, November 17, 2006

So the Democrats have taken over Congress. The confetti has fallen, been swept up and recycled. Now the question is: Can Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean and the rest of the Democrats deliver? Will the 110th Congress really be able to break free from the past six years?

For the 44 million Latinos living in the United States, and for those Americans who appreciate them cleaning our offices, picking our fruit and caring for our children, the measure of success is very clear: immigration reform.
There must be an amnesty that offers a chance for those who entered illegally to apply for legal status. Guest-worker programs are fine and increased funding for the U.S. Border Patrol may be unavoidable. But the Democrats today must do what even President Ronald Reagan did in 1986: Pass an amnesty law. It's the only benchmark of success that counts, pure and simple. The problem is that the immigration debate will likely play out on a very narrow field. At one end, liberal Democrats will remain cautious, lest an amnesty law turn into a political lightning rod. The Democrats' pre-election plan, "A New Direction for America," was embarrassingly silent on immigration. At the other end, the Republican Party just selected a Latino, Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., as its new national chairman. Republicans will try to stoke Latino conservatism while ignoring amnesty, essentially a divide-and-conquer strategy.

In the middle, there are those freshly elected "red" Democrats, from places such as Indiana and Virginia, who are anti-abortion, anti-government and anti-immigrant. In this political spectrum, even Ronald Reagan would be an extremist.

When Democrats fail to challenge Republican extremism head on, the vacuum allows Republicans to move the entire country to the right. When Republicans call undocumented immigrants a national security risk, Democrats parse their words for fear of alienating moderates, independents or some other imagined constituency. And, like a child testing to see how much he or she can get away with, Republicans will just keep hammering away: immigrants usurp taxpayers' spending, spread crime, take American jobs, threaten the English language, ruin neighborhoods, etc.

Democrats need to go on the offensive, if they are to move us toward the middle on immigration and other issues. A good place to start is by drawing a line in the sand: We will not tolerate anyone who continues to equate immigrants with terrorism. That kind of rhetoric has poisoned more than the political climate. It has poisoned America.

Second, Democrats need to be clear that the $6 billion border fence now under construction is not just a wasteful boondoggle, but an affront to all Latinos. Finally, we need to educate middle America about the contributions of undocumented workers. Their hard work at low wages makes America more productive. Their commitment to family values is not a cliché, but a wake-up call for America to care for its elderly, its sick and to spend quality time with its children instead of forgetting them at the door of some fancy private school.

The 2008 presidential race is going to make all of this very difficult. Now that the country has put the Democratic Party into power, so the argument goes, Democrats can easily win the White House in two years if they "just don't blow it." This is a recipe for a do-nothing Congress. It reflects a basic tendency in the Democratic Party: Sacrificing the present for the promise of the future and the greater good. "When we control the White House, then we will end the war in Iraq, fight global warming, and re-balance the Supreme Court." In the meantime, the Republicans will be saying what they mean, pushing the country to the right, and moving their xenophobic agenda forward.

Gerardo Sandoval is a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.