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Bad times for immigrants
By Robert Kuttner | March 18, 2006

CONGRESS IS belatedly grappling with immigration reform. There is no more difficult dilemma, both in terms of the politics and the need to balance contradictory policy objectives. The heightened concern with terrorism only complicates the job.

America today is failing to control its borders. Most estimates place the number of immigrants here illegally at around 12 million. Despite heightened security since 9/11, the Pew Hispanic Center estimates that well over 500,000 entered illegally in 2004, more than in 2001.

As antiterrorism measures have increased, all these people are outside the law in both senses. They are here without papers, and they are also beyond normal legal rights and protections.

On immigration, two prime Republican constituencies are diametrically at odds. An anti-immigrant backlash has been brewing in the heartland. It was reflected in a harsh bill passed last year by the House, rejecting even President Bush's call for a guest-worker program.

The House bill would deny undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship, build a two-layer, 700-mile wall between the United States and Mexico, and redefine undocumented presence in the United States as a felony. Good Samaritans who helped illegal immigrants could be punished. The bill's sponsors have the fantastical hope of literally rounding up all 12 million and sending them back.

By contrast, Republican business groups like lots of vulnerable immigrant workers, whose presence drives down wage levels. The last major reform, passed in 1986, failed because it was not serious about punishing businesses that hired workers illegally. If an employer tells an applicant with a wink and a nod to ''come back when you have papers," and the papers are forgeries, the employer is not held responsible. Nor is a large corporation liable if the worker was hired through a contractor.

The Bush administration has weakened enforcement further. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the number of employers notified of possible fines for illegal hires in 2004 was exactly three, down from an already low 417 in 1999.

The Senate is debating a variation on the bill that Bush wants, with tougher tracking and border-control measures, a provision for temporary ''guest workers" without normal rights, and stronger penalties (at least on paper) for employers who hire illegally. Senator Arlen Specter's version of the bill, like Bush's, denies both guest workers and people currently here illegally a path to citizenship.

A sensible a bipartisan effort by Senators John McCain and Edward Kennedy offers a grand bargain: much tougher border enforcement, employer penalty, and ID requirements, in exchange for a path to citizenship. Of course, this logical compromise is off the table.

By coincidence, I made a long-deferred visit last weekend to the Ellis Island national museum of immigration. Ellis Island, which served as principal screening point for immigrants between 1892 and 1954, evokes an era of awful Atlantic crossings in steerage, culminating in terrifying inspections that divided immigrants into tolerably fit people who could stay and those who were sent back.

But, compared with what many immigrants face today, Ellis Island was a pretty benign system. The majority of people were admitted. Until 1924, there were no quotas. The huddled masses were welcomed to the island with decent meals, cups of milk for the children, physical exams, showers, blankets, and some rudimentary explanations of how things worked in the new land.

In best Progressive Era fashion, inspectors sought to exclude people who they thought had been recruited by unscrupulous labor contractors. It was a time of massive citizenship education. Immigrants were seen as future citizens, not just cheap workers.

As a consequence, most foreign-born people quickly became part of American democracy, and its most enthusiastic champions. They participated. They voted. Soon, they made amazing economic and cultural contributions.

Today 12 million immigrants, mostly poor, are outside our democratic system. The obsession with terrorism, ineptly administered, has played havoc with cultural and scientific exchanges and admissions of foreign students. Even legal entrants can face political hazings, as well as denial of social benefits.

Workers without documents are at the mercy of a harsh labor system, and the risk of random roundups. Street-corner day-labor contractors have returned to America's large cities. People who have lived here peacefully for decades, running businesses, can be deported for minor misdemeanors, separating parents from children. Ellis Island looks pretty good by comparison.

Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect. His column appears regularly in the Globe.