Washington puts illegal immigrants on back burner

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WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers last week focused their energies on funding the war in Iraq, denouncing the president of Iran, proposing more cash for children's health insurance, trying to expand a flood relief program, banning hate crimes, and averting a government shut-down.

What they didn't do: Strengthen border enforcement, create a path to legal residency for roughly 12 million undocumented immigrants, provide cash that would help schools, hospitals and police cope with rising immigration rates.

Since the demise of a bipartisan Senate bill, lawmakers have shunned immigration issues. House lawmakers haven't held a hearing on immigration policy since June 19. The House Judiciary Committee has scheduled no action on immigration legislation, and the chastened Senate has dropped the matter.

If the effects of illegal immigration, positive and negative, remain a concern among employers, police chiefs, mayors, county officials, state lawmakers, state attorneys general and governors -- and also for presidential candidates in both parties -- it is not a top-tier concern in Washington. The demise of the Senate bill has stricken the issue from the congressional calendar.

"One person could determine that (an immigration bill) would happen: That's Nancy Pelosi," U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo said of the California Democrat who is now the House Speaker. "It doesn't appear right now that the Speaker has any inclination to do that. There apparently was a decision to allow the Senate to move first. They managed to bollix it up so much that, from my perspective, I don't hear anything being talked about."

The immigration issue will be too "radioactive" for Congress to tackle in a presidential election year, added LoBiondo, R-2nd Dist.

Since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and since violent crime rates started to rise again, immigration matters have become more controversial than in the past.

The need for more agricultural workers, the need to recruit and retain more high-tech talent from abroad, and the need to block illicit border crossings constitute pervasive matters of concern not just in border states or in select congressional districts, but throughout the country.

The American Community Survey released late last month by the U.S. Census Bureau found that 1.75 million people in New Jersey, or 20.1 percent of the population statewide, had been born in other nations. That meant New Jersey ranked third in the country, behind California and New York, in terms of the share of its population that was foreign born.

The tally for 2006 included 14,816 foreign-born people living in Cumberland County (9.6 percent), 13,295 in Gloucester County (12.5 percent) and 2,376 in Salem County (3.6 percent).

South Jersey's status as the agricultural heartland of the state keeps immigration policy on LoBiondo's plate even if the House is not debating any specific legislation on the topic.

"There continues to be a great deal of anxiety over the ability of our nurserymen, farmers, small business people to fill jobs by U.S. citizens (to perform) very difficult work," LoBiondo stated. "This may be one area that cannot wait for comprehensive immigration reform.' Every year, it's tougher and tougher for our folks to be able to have the necessary employees to be able to carry on their business. In the case of the farmers, it's a real disaster, because you can find crops rotting in the fields."

New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram on Aug. 22 instructed state and local law enforcement personnel to inquire about a suspect's immigration status if the person is arrested for an indictment-worthy offense, or charged with drunk driving.

Milgram's directive instructs state and local police officers to notify federal authorities about suspects' immigration status, but not to conduct wholesale immigration raids.

Gov. Elliot Spitzer, D-N.Y., has proposed making undocumented immigrants eligible to obtain New York driver's licenses.

The New York proposal wins an endorsement from Ryan Lilienthal, an immigration attorney in Princeton and a board member of the New Jersey Immigration Policy Network.

Lilienthal says immigrants who obtain legitimate state driver's licenses will be more likely to purchase and maintain car insurance, and he says they also will present verifiable identification to police and other public authorities when needed.

"Better to have people come out of the woodwork, and know they're here and know who they are," Lilienthal said.


LoBiondo, however, opposes the New York initiative. The congressman contends that any illegal immigrant who possesses a legitimate state driver's license will have an easier time forging false documents to claim U.S. residency or citizenship.

The Senate in November may take up one limited immigration bill, the so-called DREAM (Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors) Act, says Vanessa Cardenas of the Center for American Progress, a think tank founded by former Clinton administration officials.

The DREAM Act would create a path to legal residency to young men and women who graduated from U.S. high schools, and lived crime-free in the United States for at least five years, after being brought into the country illegally by their parents or legal guardians.

Cardenas says Congress still needs to take up a broader bill to address businesses' needs for laborers.

"Every week, we hear farmers across the country just crying for workers," Cardenas said.

Gil Walter, president and chief executive officer of Community Health Care, Inc., in Bridgeton, would like to see Congress create a path to legitimate residency for people who came to South Jersey illegally.

"Amnesty is the third rail," says Walter, using the catchword that brought the Senate debate to a halt. "I don't quite grasp that attitude myself ... Amnesty is not a dirty word. But there has to be a price that they have to pay to stay here and be legal here."

"There should be a goal (undocumented immigrants) can have for themselves to get to, no matter how hard it is, so they don't have uncertainty and despair in their lives," Walter claimed.

Congress earlier this fiscal year provided $1.8 billion in emergency border enforcement funding to the Department of Homeland Security. The Pentagon provided unmanned aerial drones to border enforcement and customs personnel in an attempt to identify people making illegal entries.

Ironically, more migrant and seasonal farmworkers may be putting down roots in southern New Jersey because federal authorities have stepped up border patrols, Walter says. He explains that they are choosing to stay in New Jersey rather than risk a trip home to Mexico to see relatives and then face an arrest while trying to make an illegal entry back into the United States.