[Mb-civic] IMPORTANT: Bad times for immigrants - Robert Kuttner - Boston Globe

[William Swiggard]

  Bad times for immigrants

By Robert Kuttner  |  March 18, 2006  |  The Boston Globe

CONGRESS IS belatedly grappling with immigration reform. There is no 
more difficult dilemma, both in terms of the politics and the need to 
balance contradictory policy objectives. The heightened concern with 
terrorism only complicates the job.

America today is failing to control its borders. Most estimates place 
the number of immigrants here illegally at around 12 million. Despite 
heightened security since 9/11, the Pew Hispanic Center estimates that 
well over 500,000 entered illegally in 2004, more than in 2001.

As antiterrorism measures have increased, all these people are outside 
the law in both senses. They are here without papers, and they are also 
beyond normal legal rights and protections.

On immigration, two prime Republican constituencies are diametrically at 
odds. An anti-immigrant backlash has been brewing in the heartland. It 
was reflected in a harsh bill passed last year by the House, rejecting 
even President Bush's call for a guest-worker program.

The House bill would deny undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship, 
build a two-layer, 700-mile wall between the United States and Mexico, 
and redefine undocumented presence in the United States as a felony. 
Good Samaritans who helped illegal immigrants could be punished. The 
bill's sponsors have the fantastical hope of literally rounding up all 
12 million and sending them back.

By contrast, Republican business groups like lots of vulnerable 
immigrant workers, whose presence drives down wage levels. The last 
major reform, passed in 1986, failed because it was not serious about 
punishing businesses that hired workers illegally. If an employer tells 
an applicant with a wink and a nod to ''come back when you have papers," 
and the papers are forgeries, the employer is not held responsible. Nor 
is a large corporation liable if the worker was hired through a contractor.

The Bush administration has weakened enforcement further. The Wall 
Street Journal recently reported that the number of employers notified 
of possible fines for illegal hires in 2004 was exactly three, down from 
an already low 417 in 1999.

The Senate is debating a variation on the bill that Bush wants, with 
tougher tracking and border-control measures, a provision for temporary 
''guest workers" without normal rights, and stronger penalties (at least 
on paper) for employers who hire illegally. Senator Arlen Specter's 
version of the bill, like Bush's, denies both guest workers and people 
currently here illegally a path to citizenship.

A sensible a bipartisan effort by Senators John McCain and Edward 
Kennedy offers a grand bargain: much tougher border enforcement, 
employer penalty, and ID requirements, in exchange for a path to 
citizenship. Of course, this logical compromise is off the table.

By coincidence, I made a long-deferred visit last weekend to the Ellis 
Island national museum of immigration. Ellis Island, which served as 
principal screening point for immigrants between 1892 and 1954, evokes 
an era of awful Atlantic crossings in steerage, culminating in 
terrifying inspections that divided immigrants into tolerably fit people 
who could stay and those who were sent back.

But, compared with what many immigrants face today, Ellis Island was a 
pretty benign system. The majority of people were admitted. Until 1924, 
there were no quotas. The huddled masses were welcomed to the island 
with decent meals, cups of milk for the children, physical exams, 
showers, blankets, and some rudimentary explanations of how things 
worked in the new land.

In best Progressive Era fashion, inspectors sought to exclude people who 
they thought had been recruited by unscrupulous labor contractors. It 
was a time of massive citizenship education. Immigrants were seen as 
future citizens, not just cheap workers.

As a consequence, most foreign-born people quickly became part of 
American democracy, and its most enthusiastic champions. They 
participated. They voted. Soon, they made amazing economic and cultural 
contributions.

Today 12 million immigrants, mostly poor, are outside our democratic 
system. The obsession with terrorism, ineptly administered, has played 
havoc with cultural and scientific exchanges and admissions of foreign 
students. Even legal entrants can face political hazings, as well as 
denial of social benefits.

Workers without documents are at the mercy of a harsh labor system, and 
the risk of random roundups. Street-corner day-labor contractors have 
returned to America's large cities. People who have lived here 
peacefully for decades, running businesses, can be deported for minor 
misdemeanors, separating parents from children. Ellis Island looks 
pretty good by comparison.

Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect. His column appears 
regularly in the Globe.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/03/18/bad_times_for_immigrants/
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