Immigrant Friends and Foes Debate the Definition of “Comprehensive Immigration Reform”

By Walter Ewing, Immigration Impact

Nearly everyone agrees that an immigration reform bill of some sort will be introduced in Congress in the near future given the pivotal role that Latinos and immigrants played in getting President Obama reelected. But no one knows yet just how “comprehensive” that bill will be, meaning which groups of immigrants will be included and which will be excluded.

For immigrant-rights advocates, a truly comprehensive bill would create a pathway to legal status for the 11 million unauthorized immigrants now living in the country. For anti-immigrant activists, the definition of “comprehensive” is, not surprisingly, a bit less comprehensive. In fact, their redefinition of the concept is often so tortured as to be meaningless.

This is apparent in the “Room for Debate” section of the December 10 New York Times. In brief op-eds, six public figures of varying magnitude and political persuasion opined about the meaning of “comprehensive immigration reform.” The comparisons are enlightening:

Gary Segura, professor of political science at Stanford University and co-founder of the polling firm Latino Decisions, cast the widest possible net of inclusion and equality in defining comprehensive reform. He said that immigration reform must include a pathway not only to legal status for unauthorized immigrants, but to full U.S. citizenship as well. Anything less “will create a permanent underclass of residents, vulnerable to exploitation, alienated from our institutions, and with little permanent stake in our society.”

Similarly, Bruce Morrison, former U.S. Representative from Connecticut, chairman of the House immigration subcommittee, and author of the Immigration Act of 1990, warned against piecemeal reforms or yet another enforcement-only effort to drive unauthorized immigrants out of the country.  He called for a legalization program coupled with an electronic employment-verification system, plus more generous legal limits on future immigration, in order to stem future unauthorized flows.

Likewise, Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, mocked the irrationality of the piecemeal approach to immigration reform. He compared that effort to having a car that won’t run because it’s suffering from no gas, a dead battery, a flat tire, and a lost key—and you try to make it run again by fixing only two of the problems.

Ai-jen Poo, the director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and co-director of the Caring Across Generations Campaign, emphasized the plight of immigrant families that are ripped apart by deportation, with U.S.-citizen children in the United States separated from unauthorized parents removed to other countries. She also pointed to the large number of domestic workers who are unauthorized, and the ironic fact that the households of many anti-immigrant zealots are dependent upon the labor of unauthorized nannies and housekeepers.

In marked contrast, James Carafano, vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at the Heritage Foundation, opted for a rather unique brand of piecemeal (and heartless) immigration reform. This was apparent from the title of his essay: “Deal Later With Those Here Illegally.” In other words, keep kicking the can further down the road.

Finally, Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, offered a meandering defense of immigration enforcement in general and a system of electronic employment verification in particular. He mentioned high unemployment and job competition and immigrant families on “welfare,” but never actually said what he thought the solution was to having 11 million unauthorized immigrants living in the United States. Presumably, all of the enforcement measures he favors would persuade unauthorized immigrants to engage in a Romney-style “self-deportation.”

Groups that favor truly comprehensive immigration reform are in the ascendancy right now, and the anti-immigrant activists know it. So they are left trying to walk a very fine line, offering tiny scraps of charity to the DREAMers or high-tech workers, while preserving enforcement-only policies that target the larger unauthorized population. In other words, they are talking out of both sides of their mouths, and the result is often gibberish.

Published in HS News Network