Beware, the Republicans may take up immigration "reform". When the GOP talks reform of anything it usually reflects the party's tilt toward the wealthy and corporate America. For example, reform of the tax code means converting the "temporary" tax cuts of former President Bush to benefit the upper income brackets into permanent reductions.
Now the U.S. House Republican Technology Group is proposing to "examine current visa and immigration laws to make sure we attract and retain the best and brightest from around the world." The business community, particularly the high tech sector, couldn't have said it any better. To be fair, it couldn't really be expected that this particular House Group would venture into the more complex and politically hazardous world of general immigration reform. It's not their turf. But what the Group did make more evident is the silence of the GOP about getting into any broader areas of immigration reform. Thus the Republicans so far have cherry picked the immigration issue and come up with a business-desired piece of the action.
The question now is whether Speaker Boehner, his leadership team, and the GOP rank and file will take the next step from this working group position into a legislative proposal to be brought to the House floor. If it gets that far, the House Democrats may seek to broaden the proposal into something bigger. The GOP could block that effort by bringing a bill to the floor with no amendments allowed. If the Democrats are permitted to offer a broader amendment, it is almost certain to go down to defeat if it tries to resurrect a comprehensive reform proposal or even the less sweeping DREAM Act.
The comprehensive approach is aimed, among other things, at creating a path to citizenship for the estimated 12-15 million undocumented residents currently living in the U.S., primarily Hispanics. The DREAM bill is a more limited proposal to create a path for undocumented high school graduates who could gain residency status and citizenship through two years of military service or two years as a student in a four-year college.
The last time the comprehensive approach was tried was during the Bush administration. Bush supported the reforms but the bill failed to get the 60 votes needed to cut off a filibuster. At the time the reform was supported by key GOP Senators such as McCain, Kyl, and Graham who have since switched to opposition as the GOP has increasingly moved to the right to satisfy the most conservative wing of the party. The DREAM Act, sometimes included within a comprehensive plan, was last rejected in late 2010 when it passed the Democratic-controlled House but failed to get the 60 votes needed for Senate consideration.
Bringing up an immigration bill limited to visas for skilled persons has political risk for the GOP. Whether or not it permits Democratic amendments to broaden the bill, rejection of such a Democratic effort would send yet another signal to the growing Hispanic community that the GOP is sticking to its nativist views on immigration reform. "Nativist" in this context means seeking to preserve a white, protestant-based culture in this country. On the other hand, that may be just the signal the GOP wishes to send to its right wing base which includes the tea party movement.
A recent story in our local paper about new law in Georgia illustrates how a state effort to create its own set of immigration restrictions can create its own homegrown blowback. The Republican-controlled Georgia government recently passed legislation to get at both persons who knowingly transport or harbor undocumented persons and at the undocumented themselves who can't produce proper identification. The new restrictions, due to go into effect on July 1, have, according to state fruit and vegetable growers, made migrant farm workers wary of coming to the state for work. Now the growers are complaining to the state about the new law, saying they have had little luck in the past in hiring unemployed Georgia workers whom the farm owners say don't want to do that kind of work.
These are hardly new grower complaints; that has been the mantra for years of growers across the country who have been used to hiring migrant workers, often undocumented, at low pay and few or no benefits. And if farmers in Georgia are concerned about their state's new law, growers across the country who use migrant labor for harvesting must be even more concerned that congressional Republicans may consider legislation that would require growers to certify the legal status of all workers before they can be hired.
But whatever the GOP lawmakers decide to do, you can be sure it won't include either the comprehensive reform or DREAM approach.
I do not think that we should endorse the comprehensive reform. We are a nation of laws and people being here illegally simply breaks the laws. Other countries are allowed to strictly enforce their immigration laws and the US should have the same rights as other countries without having claims thrown at us that it is not humanitarian. I know a number of Legal immigrants who are not happy with the idea of comprehansive reform. They had to come here and go through the necessary requirements and take the tests and wait. They do not think it is fair that people here illegally should just get citizenship especially when they are breaking the laws to even being here.
ReplyDeleteIt does not seem like anyone is really taking the reform seriously and if either side would, issues such as what is happening to the Georgia workers could be resolved. Reforming hte visa system would be a start, to allow people to come and work but with some policies to protect them from being taken advantage of. Fair wages could be part of the new system. I am curious why unemployed Americans are not anxious to take a job to get money but maybe the unemployment benefits are better than working in agriculture fields, but that is another topic.
Jeff
ReplyDeleteOn this issue guess we part company a bit. There is no question that the number of undocumented relates to the non-enforcement of the law for many years, as well as the the number of undocumented who slip across the border and simply escape enforcement. If enforcement is to have teeth, an important place to start is with employers on and off the farm who knowingly hire the undocumented or at least turn their heads during the hiring process. Actually the Obama administration has been active in such crackdowns, with the expected outcries from employers who said they weren't aware of the number of undocumented on the payroll. Add to all of this the fact that Hispanics, who make up the dominant portion of the undocumented, tend to have larger families than other segments of the population and therefore the number of undocumented continues to grow and will do so even if not a single additional person slips across the border. Having said that, it is the what do we do about part on which we part company.
Whether we like to acknowledge it or not, the undocumented do make up an important part of the workforce, particularly in the seasonal farm work. I believe it has become pretty clear over the years that most American workers, unemployed or underemployed, do not want to do the hard stoop labor in the hot sun that is required. In other areas such as meat processing (another unpleasant job), a significant number of undocumented workers are found. Given this quick view of the undocumented within the labor market, it seems to me that the best resolution of the problem is to create a path for legal residency and ultimately citizenship with important conditions attached, such as the undocumented going to the end of the line for getting on to that path. Rigorous law enforcement at the border is also a part of the solution but we have tried a variety of approaches, including hiring thousands of additional border patrol, building a wall, and installing electronic detection devices. But stopping that flow seems to simply escape solution.
Working conditions for migrant farm workers have improved quite a bit since the mid-l960s in areas such as housing and general working conditions. Also, many growers have taken it upon themselves to improve the pay and working conditions of their workers. Such improvements have gone on concurrently with the enforcement of the 2H (or H2) visa requirement bringing migrant labor into the U.S. but it is a cumbersome process if you hire a significant number of farm workers. The temptation is to look for ways to circumvent the visa process.
The bottom line is that there is no quick fix unless, as some advocate, you simply find and ship out all of the undocumented.
I think I misspoke, I meant we should not endorse open amnesty. We do need comprehensive reform to fix the system so that people who want to come and work in this country can do so legally and the companies who need workers will have them legally. I really think we need to enforce the borders better though or we will continue to face the same problem over and over.
ReplyDeleteJeffrey
ReplyDeleteThe only people who use the word "amnesty" are the opponents of reform who accuse the pro-reformers of just wanting to give the undocumented a free pass to stay. The comprehensive reform bill does not provide amnesty, but a set path to gain residency and eventual citizenship. It's also important to add that the word "amnesty" comes out of the Reagan years when in l986 Reagan supported amnesty for the undocumented. The amnesty bill passed, along with border tightening and cracking down on employers who hire the undocumented. Border security and employer crackdown seem to be a traditional part of any immigration reform bill.