http://www.yakima-herald.com/page/dis/287503959078358 -

Immigration gets an airing
By PAT MUIR
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC


SARA GETTYS/Yakima Herald-Republic

Farm worker advocate Tomás Villanueva, right, speaks to host Enrique Cerna during Tuesday night's town hall meeting on immigration.

Yes, there were loud cheers and rumblings in the crowd and, yes, there were even a few boos, but for the most part Tuesday's open forum on immigration was a civil affair.

Considering the emotional nature of the immigration debate, which has spawned both the border-watching Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and an
immigrant-rights movement that mobilized thousands last year in Yakima County, that civility was welcome, said Enrique Cerna, the KCTS television host of the forum.

"It is clear that this is a tough, tough issue," he said, concluding the program. "It's clear that it's emotional. ɠIt is nice to know that you can have such a dialogue here."

The forum, sponsored by KCTS and organized with help from the Yakima Herald-Republic, drew about 200 people to The Seasons Performance Hall and featured panelists who dealt with the issue from several angles. Among the guests in the audience were former Gov. Mike Lowry and recent state Senate candidate Tomás Villanueva, a noted labor advocate.

One thing they all agreed on is that the existing immigration system needs work.

"It's broken," said Soren Rottman, a Granger-based attorney for the Northwest Immigrant Rights Program. "It's very broken. It's been 20 years since the last time the immigration laws really considered the situation that we're in."

SARA GETTYS/Yakima Herald-Republic

Stan Blunt of Aberdeen, Wash., argues against illegal immigration.

Where they differed is when it came to how to fix the problem. All of the panelists except Shawna Forde, who represented the Washington state chapter of the Minutemen and the Federation for American Immigration Reform, favored expansion of legal immigration in some form, whether that included amnesty for those already in the country illegally or just an expanded guest worker program.

Forde, citing concerns about border security and the potential for immigrants to stress tax-funded social programs, argued for more restrictions on immigration.

"I don't think it's (the immigrants') fault," she said. "It's our fault as a nation because we allowed it to go on."

Her sentiment was cheered by some in the crowd, including Yakima resident Yvonne England of the anti-amnesty group Grassroots on Fire, who said fear of an unsecured border keeps her awake at night.

"I'm afraid for my children, my grandchildren and my future," she said.

Other audience members cheered a strikingly different viewpoint espoused by the rest of the panelists, including Antonio Ginatta, a policy adviser to Gov. Christine Gregoire. That view was based on economic benefits of immigration, particularly to the local agriculture industry.

"There are costs involved in immigration and there are benefits. ɠThe benefits that come out of having our crops picked in our agricultural industry, those are incredible benefits," he said.

Dan Fazio, director of employer services for the Washington Farm Bureau, agreed with that sentiment. Growers throughout the state were left with unpicked, spoiling fruit this year because border crackdowns have kept their immigrant work force from arriving, he said.

"There's no question we need a secure border, and our members very much support that," Fazio said. "But how secure is a nation that doesn't have its own food supply?"

Other panelists focused less on the economics of immigration and more on the human aspects. Rottman noted that nearly everyone in the United States descended from immigrants and discussed the difficulty he has telling undocumented workers there's nothing he can do to help them legally.

"We need to remember the phrase on the Statue of Liberty," he said.

A version of the forum, edited to one hour, will be shown Thursday at 7 p.m. on Yakima's KYVE public television station and rebroadcast at noon Sunday.


* Pat Muir can be reached at 837-6111 or at pmuir@yakimaherald.com.

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