Thread: Myrick's old foes on immigration now friends

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Posted on Wed, Jun. 21, 2006



Myrick's old foes on immigration now friends
Reform advocates say she sided with business groups in 1990s
MARK JOHNSON AND TIM FUNK
mjohnson@charlotteobserver.comtfunk@charlotteobserver.com

U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick has made getting tough on illegal immigration her signature issue in recent years. But in the 1990s, the Charlotte Republican cast several votes that were lambasted by the same immigration reform groups that now count her as an ally.

These conservative groups, such as Americans for Better Immigration and the Federation for American Immigration Reform, praise Myrick's stands today, even giving her an A+ in one recent report card. At the same time, they say some of her votes 10 years ago helped create the problem of an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

That's not how Myrick sees it: She says she was actually ahead of many lawmakers in Washington in recognizing the looming importance of the immigration issue. In 1999, for example, she created a community-wide task force and launched her ongoing pursuit of a federal immigration court for Charlotte so N.C. cases wouldn't have to be heard in faraway Atlanta.

The problem then, Myrick said, is that she couldn't get many others to share her concern.

"There weren't enough members of Congress who had (illegal immigration) problems in their districts. There was not yet critical mass," she said. "Back then, North Carolina wasn't impacted -- though Charlotte was."

But Congress did hold key votes in 1996, 1997 and 1998 that pitted get-tough immigration reform groups against businesses that employed immigrants.

On those votes, Myrick, who was first elected in 1994, tended to side with business groups that opposed moves to get employers to use government databases to verify their workers' legal status.

In 2006, Myrick supports such efforts. In fact, the congresswoman has invited Charlotte area businesses to a seminar on Monday that will show them how to use government databases to make sure they're not hiring illegal immigrants.

But in 1996, Myrick voted against setting up the pilot program that led to the current national verification system. The program passed anyway -- covering five states, not including North Carolina -- but then Myrick helped kill a move to make it mandatory for employers. Now, because it's voluntary, only thousands of businesses use it instead of millions.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform calls those 1996 votes "critical." A vote then to make verification mandatory could have dried up jobs for illegal immigrants, said Jennifer Denson, the group's associate director. Without the prospect of a job, she said, many illegal immigrants would not have crossed the border.

What does Myrick say?

That the technology in 1996 was not as advanced as it is today. To vote for the pilot program or to make relying on faulty government databases a must, she said, could have kept U.S. citizens from getting hired.

"They had a messed-up system," said Myrick. "I couldn't see where it would work."

Back then, she said, businesses had to call a toll-free number and depend on Social Security Administration workers to tap into databases that contained inaccuracies and outdated information.

Myrick said the technology today is more reliable, with businesses able to access databases through a faster, Internet-based system. It also relieves employers of cost burdens imposed by the 1996 version, she said.

"Employers are saying to me now: I want to follow the law and I don't want to make a mistake," said Myrick, who would still prefer to not make use of the database mandatory.

Even in 2006, though, some business groups -- such as the National Restaurant Association -- are still saying they can't rely on government databases.

And immigration reform groups don't agree with Myrick's picture of the past.

Americans for Better Immigration described Myrick as part of a "coalition of pro-business Republicans and liberal civil libertarians" who tried to kill the 1996 program. ABI's Web site dossier on Myrick synopsizes the vote, adorned with a red-and-black moving icon that says "HELP ILLEGALS" and shows a silhouetted man successfully scaling a fence.

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, sponsor of the bill affected by the vote, said the effort to kill the pilot program was "a vote for continued illegal immigration."

"The technology was there; the knowledge was there; the political will was not there," added Denson of the Federation of American Immigration Reform, long a voice for tough immigration laws. "I say to congressmen who voted against (mandatory verification): They didn't have the political will. They were more interested in what big business wanted, and look where we are now."

Myrick disputes the notion that she was doing the bidding of business interests.

"It really didn't have anything to do with business or protecting businesses," she said. "That wasn't on my radar screen ... The (government) databases and information weren't good."

Americans for Better Immigration now gives Myrick nearly all "A+" grades for recent votes.

And the Federation for American Immigration Reform recently congratulated Myrick and 34 other members of Congress for helping pass an immigration enforcement bill.

Rikki Horton, government relations associate for the group, described Myrick as becoming more active on immigration issues in the last year.

"We're very encouraged by the direction Congresswoman Myrick has taken," Horton said.

She and others theorize that Myrick's perceived shift could have been driven by 9-11 or by the July 2005 death of Mount Holly schoolteacher Scott Gardner, a Myrick constituent. He died in an auto accident with an illegal immigrant accused of drunken driving.

"Sadly, sometimes it takes a tragedy to wake us up to the enormity of the problem," Horton said. "When Scott Gardner was killed, she didn't waste a minute" in coming forward with legislative remedies.

Myrick got the House to OK a measure that would deport illegal immigrants convicted of drunken driving.

The attacks of September 11, 2001, imposed a powerful national security perspective on immigration, said Marshall Fitz, director of advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Lawmakers who previously might have voted against the wishes of their conservative constituents on immigration no longer will do so at the risk of being tagged as soft on terror, he said.

"This is fairly familiar to us," Fitz said. "We had people who were willing to take what were maybe seen as more progressive votes and potentially more courageous votes given their constituent base, are much much less likely to do so post 9-11."

Myrick said what really affected her views on immigration was the influx of illegal immigrants into Charlotte -- a trend that predated 9-11 and the Scott Gardner tragedy.

That's why, in 1999, she started the task force as well as her campaign for an N.C. immigration court -- a push she is pursuing this year with the Justice Department, which decides where to locate the courts .

Back then, Myrick said, too many other members of Congress still saw illegal immigration as only a border-state issue.

Getting things done in Congress "is a numbers game," she said. "(In the 1990s), there were just not enough states that were impacted. When your state is not involved, the tendency is to not support something."

Now, Myrick said, illegal immigration is a crisis in North Carolina and nationally.

IMMIGRATION VOTES THEN ...

• In 1996, Myrick voted against limiting legal immigrants' ability to bring in adult relatives, which Americans for Better Immigration described as the primary cause of snowballing immigration figures.

Myrick said the measure she opposed would have rejected visa applicants who had followed the rules and waited as long as 15 years.

• In 1997, Myrick voted no on a nonbinding resolution to end a program that allowed some illegal immigrants working toward legal status to get a permanent resident visa by paying a $1,000 fine instead of returning to their home country. Some called that amnesty.

Myrick said the program was scheduled to end anyway, and a nonbinding vote has no effect.

AND NOW ...

• Myrick co-sponsored the "Citizenship Reform Act of 2005" that would end automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants who are born in the United States.

• She also co-sponsored comprehensive legislation in 2005-06 that added Border Patrol and immigration agents, increased tracking of aliens, and expedited removal proceedings.


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Mark Johnson: 704-358-5941





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In her defense, the bureaucrats that were operating these "state-of-the-art" government databases were in many cases untrained, and not competent to run them, which is why they weren't operational-and consequently, why identifying and processing illegal aliens is so difficult in this country-and remain a problem. Even if they had been in effect, I'm not sure that brininging them online would have made much difference.

Michelle Malkin explored the gross incompetence of the INS in this regard in her phenomenal book, Invasion.