Immigration hard-liners struggle to gain traction
By Susan Ferriss -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Wednesday, April 5, 2006
Story appeared on Page A1 of The Bee
They called for a "Save the American Worker" week while pro-immigrant forces were organizing massive demonstrations in late March.
They instructed sympathizers to employ talking points claiming the American working and middle classes are being undermined by illegal immigration.

They asked supporters to blitz the Senate with faxes and light up switchboards on conservative radio talk shows nationwide.

Yet still, activists for immigration restrictions bitterly admit, "Save the American Worker" week failed to make a splash and didn't achieve its immediate goal.

Instead of endorsing an enforcement-only approach to illegal immigration, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted March 27 to legalize some of the 11 million to 12 million undocumented workers in the United States and dramatically increase foreign work visas for businesses if they could prove domestic labor shortages.

The full Senate could vote this week on this sweeping proposal, which includes more border security and high-tech enforcement against hiring illegal immigrants. Senators could decide to deny citizenship to legalized former undocumented workers, or prolong the minimum wait to apply for citizenship. Or they could jettison the inclusion of earned points toward permanent residency for guest workers.

But for hardcore activists, nothing short of a policy that would strongly encourage illegal immigrants to "self-deport" is a betrayal of the American people and a failure to take a tough stand.

They say they aren't giving up, and they're mobilizing again. Web sites bristle with messages that attack the Senate and Mexico, and blame Mexican illegal immigrants for a range of social ills and for making too many demands.

A posting on the Web site of the Minuteman Project, a civilian border patrol group, criticizes "armies of illegal aliens" who "have unified to lay claim on not only the Southwest United States but also to enslave the American taxpayer."

Bravado aside, veteran activists are bracing for the Senate to pass a version of legalization that would then go to a conference with the House of Representatives. Congress could postpone a final vote until after the November election so candidates can avoid the issue, which deeply divides Republicans.

"We certainly promoted (Save the American Worker) week as best we could," said Ira Mehlman, Los Angeles-based spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, which urges a reduction in legal immigration and no legalization - or amnesty - for any illegal immigrants. The group also opposes additional work visas for foreigners, charging that businesses want to exploit foreigners and that claims of labor shortages are exaggerated.

If Americans will work in coal mining, Mehlman often says, they'll work anywhere.

He admitted, though, that not enough Senate Republicans seem swayed by FAIR's position that legalization and more visas are "a death sentence for the American middle class."

Mehlman said Republicans still want to follow the lead of President Bush, who has long supported some form of legalization for illegal immigrants and the matching of foreigners and U.S. businesses if Americans reject certain jobs.

"I can't imagine how anybody in the Republican Party would want to be associated with this guy with his ratings in polls," Mehlman said.

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a University of Southern California policy analyst, said the anti-illegal-immigrant movement may overestimate people's rancor toward the undocumented.

She said the toughest activists, championed by media figures like Lou Dobbs - the CNN anchor turned anti-immigration activist - could be "a not so silent minority."

Former Clinton chief of staff and congressman Leon Panetta of Monterey negotiated bipartisan support for a 1986 reform that included legalization and new bans on hiring illegal immigrants that were subsequently halfheartedly enforced.

He said "trench warfare" in today's Congress has blocked compromise on both sides, and pundits like Dobbs "aren't telling people how difficult this issue is."

The House passed a bill in December roundly denounced by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and civil rights groups because it omitted legalization and didn't include more visas to bring in workers businesses say are needed because of current or projected domestic labor shortages.

Among those who say they'll push for the Senate to follow the House approach is Alex Landi, who started attending rallies against illegal immigration 15 years ago in Los Angeles, where he worked as an actor and substitute teacher. He continues his activism today as a semiretired resident of the town of Dunsmuir near Mount Shasta.

"Nobody is made to go home (with a legalization). I know what message that sends around the world. Millions more will come," Landi said.

"This is not just another wave. It's a poor, corrupt, highly populated country on our border," Landi added. "Today is not 100 years ago. People look at the Statue of Liberty and get all teary eyed."

He argued that Americans have "overdosed" on illegal immigration and that it has produced racial strife, a lack of patriotism, a failure to speedily assimilate and a financial strain on public schools and hospitals because the jobs that undocumented immigrants hold often don't include health insurance.

Landi rejects the contention by some senators that it's practical to begin a new era of immigration and border control by legalizing some of the millions of working people here who have no criminal records, have paid taxes and whose families include citizens or legal residents.

"Incorporating people," Landi said, "doesn't mean you surrender to 12 million people who say, 'I've been here so long, I had my baby here.' Well, you decided to divide your family when you entered my country illegally."

He said Bush should "look the world in the eye" and declare that illegal immigration will no longer be tolerated and set a deadline, perhaps 60 days, for undocumented people to leave or forfeit any right to apply to return as a guest worker.

"Go home and do what you can, even if it means a revolution," Landi said.

Unlike FAIR, Landi said, he would support bringing in foreign workers as long as they remain here for brief shifts and only if a program were limited to men and excluded wives who might give birth here to babies who could be U.S. citizens.

"After 35 years as a Republican, I quit the party last week," Landi said, because of Bush's position on immigration. "I will vote for anybody who promises to get this under control. If not, then I won't vote."


About the writer:
The Bee's Susan Ferriss can be reached at (916) 321-1267 or sferriss@sacbee.com.


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