Thread: Recession freezes immigration debate but points to answers

Recession freezes immigration debate but points to answers

USA TODAY
June 29, 2009 Monday

Not all that long ago, immigration was the nation's hottest political topic. Then the economy fell apart, a new president set a new agenda, and immigration quietly moved out of sight, where it will likely stay for a while, eclipsed by two other mammoth problems -- the economy and health care.

But while eyes have been averted, the recession has been teaching some useful lessons about how to ease the crisis.

Even before rising unemployment began to affect Americans, Mexicans were reacting to the changing jobs climate.

Data just out from the Mexican government show 226,000 fewer people emigrated from Mexico in the year ended August 2008 than during the prior year.

That's a 25% drop. The decline confirms what has been generally accepted for years: Jobs and the willingness of U.S. employers to hire illegal immigrants are the fuel that powers the system. Cut off the supply, and you can slow the illegal flow.

Which points to workplace enforcement as a key part of the equation. Yet scores of high-profile workplace raids netted fewer than 6,000 illegal workers last year.

At the same time, though, the recession is delivering another message: Enforcement alone won't resolve the problem. If fewer illegal immigrants are coming, there's no evidence yet that those already here are leaving.

In 2008, there were still about 12 million illegal residents in the USA, only slightly down from 2007, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a Washington think tank.

Despite the deportation of thousands of immigrants with criminal records and despite a swarm of Draconian local laws that target illegal aliens, there has been no mass exodus.

Presumably, they sense that tough times here mean tougher times where they came from, and Pew notes that many have families here, including children who are citizens. Which means the nation should provide a way for the most qualified to become legal, productive, taxpaying citizens.

What does this point to?

The same sort of balanced approach the Senate failed to pass in 2007, in a show of political stubbornness. One component is tough, sensible workplace enforcement rooted in a strong verification program. In April, the Obama administration changed its worksite program to target not just illegal workers but also employers who make a practice of hiring them. It's too soon to tell whether that will work, but it's the right approach.

Thousands of employers each month have been signing onto a voluntary program called E-Verify to check Social Security numbers and ensure that new hires are legal. Critics charge the program is so error-prone it will harm legal workers. That's reason to fix it, not suspend its use.

The other key need is for a rigorous path to citizenship for many of the millions already here. Critics, such as Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, deride that as "amnesty." But the plan rejected in 2007 was anything but. It included a tough, long, expensive route for people who came not to do mischief but to take jobs offered willingly by U.S. employers.

Obama made a fleeting attempt last week to keep attention on the issue with a White House conference. But the truth is that fixing the economy and health care comes first, with energy issues also higher on the president's agenda. We wouldn't dispute the priorities, but the economic downturn provides a chance to make some gains, particularly in the workplace. When the economy picks up, as it surely will, illegal immigration will again become a crisis.

GRAPHIC, B/W, Source: Pew Hispanic Center (Bar graph)

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MANY illegals are still hanging on for that amnesty Obama promised. If he just said there will be NO Amnesty, then the exodus will occur...

There is no mass exodus because most of them here working have dependents and anchor children who receive multiple benefits such as free healthcare, food stamps. etc. Once these children are established in U.S. schools, again, with free breakfast, lunch, and ESL classes, their parents don't intend to leave. There must emphasis on cutting off the magnets for the dependents as well as the job magnets for the workers.