No Amnesty in Proposed Comprehensive Immigration Reform Legislation

In 1986 President Ronald Reagan* got Congress to pass an amnesty for undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. at that time.  Because of that, many people believe that Comprehensive Immigration Reform is another plan to grant amnesty to undocumented immigrants now living in the U.S. Indeed the media even sometimes portrays Comprehensive Immigration Reform as amnesty.  But it is not amnesty.

According to Merriam-Webster, amnesty is “an act of an authority (as a government) by which pardon is granted to a large group of individuals.”  Pardon is “the excusing of an offense without exacting a penalty.”  

However, Comprehensive Immigration Reform would exact a penalty -- undocumented immigrants would be required to pay a fine for breaking the law.  In addition, they would be required to:

• Pay any back taxes (in fact, 50-75% of undocumented immigrants already pay taxes)
• Pass a criminal background check (during the immigration peak, U.S. crime dropped over 30%)
• Learn English
• Have a job
  

The real question then is who pays the penalty.  Under Comprehensive Immigration Reform, the undocumented immigrant must pay the fine.  Without Comprehensive Immigration Reform, we, the taxpayer, pay the cost of deporting undocumented immigrants.   That costs the U.S. taxpayer well over $1 billion per year -- the cost during the peak deportation year when 300,000 undocumented immigrants were deported.  And, at that rate, the last of the 12 million undocumented immigrants here now will be deported in 40 years.

Of course, without the border protections and employer penalties for hiring undocumented immigrants that are also part of Comprehensive Immigration Reform, there will be many more undocumented immigrants who will have come into the U.S. over that period.

While justice and compassion are good reasons to support Comprehensive Immigration Reform, simple economics adds a more pragmatic reason.

* As an individual, Ronald Reagan was very convinced of the benefits of immigration, even undocumented.  "This view was apparent in Reagan's public statements well before he became President. In one of his radio addresses, in November 1977, he wondered about what he called 'the illegal alien fuss. Are great numbers of our unemployed really victims of the illegal alien invasion, or are those illegal tourists actually doing work our own people won't do? One thing is certain in this hungry world: No regulation or law should be allowed if it results in crops rotting in the fields for lack of harvesters.' As a Californian, Reagan understood the role of immigrant labor in agriculture." (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114773982558453625.html)

Hope...and a Challenge (LINK)

In its lead editorial today (January 6, 2010), The New York Times notes that "The quest for overhauling immigration received two very welcome lifts on New Year's Day."  (For the full text, click on the subject line.)

First, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg pledged at his inauguration to help the Obama administration pass immigration reform.  He said, "No city on earth has been more rewarded by immigrant labor, more renewed by immigrant ideas, more revitalized by immigrant culture."  As The Times suggests, we could easily substitute our "country" in Mayor Bloomberg's statement and it would be every bit as true.

Second, The Times highlighted four immigrant college students who are walking from Miami, Florida to Washington, DC to bring attention to the problems of immigrant children who are denied or have problems securing a college education even if they are very highly qualified.  These young people are denied simply because their parents are undocumented (even though the student may be a U.S. citizen) or they were brought here at an early age and are themselves undocumented but want to become U.S. citizens.

As the editorial notes, comprehensive immigration reform would resolve these injustices not by some broad "amnesty" as its opponents like to say, but by creating a pathway to legalization that requires the undocumented immigrant already living in the U.S. to "show they have been employed, pay a $500 fine, learn English and undergo a criminal background check" in addition to paying any back taxes.  It also notes that this "is not a question of adding new people to the work force; they are already here, many helping keep the economy afloat while tolerating low pay and abuse from lawbreaking employers who prefer them to American workers." 

In sum, "America needs to shut the path to illegal entry and employment while opening smoother and more rational routes to legal immigration."

However, The Christian Science Monitor yesterday reported on "Opponents on immigration reform gear up for forthcoming battle" (http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2010/0105/Opponents-on-immigration-reform-gear-up-for-forthcoming-battle).  Noting that "Immigration reform is far down on Washington's 'to do' list, after healthcare reform, the Afghanistan war, and job creation." it also reports that "outside the Beltway, in America's community centers and protest venues, you'd think someone had already pushed the hot button to bring this always-simmering issue to a boil."  For example, on November 14, 2009, 50 "Tea Party Against Amnesty and Illegal Immigration" rallies were held around the U.S.

Countering that, however, pro-Reform groups held 900 "house parties" (including one here at St. Anthony of Padua) nationwide.  As pollster Peter Brodnitz has found in his recent polling, "Americans have a more knowledgeable and nuanced opinion than they did a few years ago."  His most recent poll "...found that 86 percent of American voters given details of comprehensive reform want Congress to pass a plan."  The challenge for those supporting immigration reform is to reach out and educate our communities about the details of comprehensive reform.

Ireland Supports U.S. Effort for Immigration Reform (LINK)

Late last year, speaking at the Mission of Our Lady of the Rosary in New York City, Ireland's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Michael Martin, asked those of Irish ancestry in the U.S. to "rally around immigration reform."  With an estimated 50,000 undocumented immigrants from Ireland in the U.S., Mr. Martin noted that "The Irish government has articulated our concerns to Obama himself.  And there's a need for the [Irish] community here to be supportive."  He noted that a large number of the undocumented Irish immigrants are university graduates.  The Irish government is hopeful that reform might take place in the first three months of 2010, and the question of undocumented Irish will be part of a comprehensive review of the immigration system.  For more information about undocumented Irish immigrants, click here:  http://legalizetheirish.org

Virginia Association of Counties Supports Comprehensive Immigration Reform

At the November 2009 meeting of the Virginia Association of Counties (VACo), which represents 95 counties in Virginia, approved a position statement supporting Federal Comprehensive Immigration Reform.  The statement was approved unanimously and will be part of VACo's Legislative Program for 2010.  VACo's mission is to "support county officials and to effectively represent, promote and protect the
interests of counties to better serve all the people of Virginia."  Among other things, VACo is also "an effective force representing local governments at the state and national levels in legislative and regulatory processes."

House Bill for Immigration Reform Introduced by Rep. Gutierrez (LINK)

Yesterday, Representative Luis Gutierrez of Illinois introduced the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America's Security and Prosperity Act of 2009 (H.R. 4321), co-sponsored with over 90 other members of the House of Representatives.  (Similar legislation is expected to be introduced in the Senate by Senator Charles Schumer of New York in January.)  In his statement, Rep. Gutierrez noted some key points:

• "This bill is not complicated...It keeps families together, but understands we must secure our borders.  It keeps people working, but understands the needs of our economy.  It gives a pathway to citizenship, but understands that immigrants must learn English, pay taxes and contribute to their communities."
• "The immigrant blame game wants us to forget that immigrants are just people...just people trying to do their best.  But immigrants are different in one important way.  They desperately want something that far too many of us take for granted.  They want to be Americans."
• "In the immigration debate, some things are constant...One is that opponents of immigration reform will use it as a wedge issue and will blame everything from unemployment to rising health care costs on immigrants."

Their Future Is Ours (LINK)

An editorial entitled "Their Future Is Ours" in today's New York Times raises the issue of education for the children of immigrants:

"There are 16 million children in immigrant families in the United States, one of the fastest-growing segments of the population. It’s an old American story made new in the age of globalization, when waves of human displacement in recent decades have led to immigration on a scale not seen since Ellis Island. But a country that has been so good for so long at integrating new Americans is stumbling under the challenge."

Why worry about educating immigrant children?  Today's reality is there are more students in honors programs in China and India than we in the U.S. have students in school.  In a global economy, we simply need every smart, hardworking young person we can educate for the U.S. to compete in the global economy.  Putting up roadblocks to education is putting up roadblocks to America's future success.

For every young entrepreneurial immigrant we block from getting an education and who might have have founded the next Google or Intel (both started by immigrants), we miss opportunity to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the U.S. and to sustain our technological leadership in the world.

As the editorial notes, in conclusion:

"This is the great challenge that is forgotten in the heat of the immigration debate. The children of immigrants are Americans. “They” are “us,” a cohort of newcomers who will be filling the demographic void left as the baby boomers start fading away. Their future is our country’s future."

Immigration -- A Perspective from "Down Under" (LINK)

When I first traveled to Australia in the early 1980's, I found immigration here was tightly controlled -- driven by remnants of a "white Australia" policy.  I remember a Greek cab driver in Melbourne I met on my first business trip who said his life was ok here, but he always felt excluded -- an exclusion he expected he wouldn't find in the U.S. (knowing he was talking to an American).

Confirming that, I remember listening to a TV news report on Good Morning Australia about some salami found to have salmonella that had killed a number of people, but the report concluded that there were "no worries" because only Greeks and Italian immigrants ate that type of salami.  Having an Italian surname, I personally found I was treated well if recognized as an American, but much less well if thought to be an Italian.

Today in Australia you definitely see a society somewhat more open to immigrants.  A walk in downtown Sydney includes pedestrian passing of folks who are clearly immigrants -- mostly Asian, which is a source of much of Australia's trade these days -- pretty much all well-dressed business people.  But immigration at lower economic levels and for other ethnic and racial groups is still very limited and very controlled.

On arriving here I learned that a refugee boat headed here with asylum seekers is being blocked by the Australian government in an effort to divert them elsewhere.  The unstated inference being, "we don't want THOSE PEOPLE here."  At my first Sunday here at Mass, the pastor of Villa Maria Church (Fr. Kevin Bates S.M.) spoke eloquently about this fear of immigrants.

"There is a great deal of shouting for joy in the first reading today as God brings  the remnant of Israel, back to their own homeland.  The blind, the lame, women with child and in labour, God will comfort them all as he leads them back home.

   

As we read this, our world is awash with refugees fleeing from various wars in their homelands and from persecution at the hands of governments or other ethnic groups in their homelands.   A small trickle of these people is headed in our direction and we hear the sounds of fear and suspicion on all sides because these people may impact on  the way we are accustomed to living.

   

In the gospel we have the wonderful story of the blind beggar, Bartimaeus who has the courage to call out to Jesus in his need.  Because he is an embarrassment and rejected as an unworthy member of his community, the crowds  try to silence him, but he calls out all the louder. Finally he gets Jesus’ attention and pleads that his eyes may be opened.

  

Immediately his sight returns and he follows Jesus along the road.  In other words, he starts to live in the light of what he now sees.

   

Often when we are confronted with uncomfortable truths, we prefer not to see and we call out like the people in the gospel, trying to silence the desire for clearer sight, in case we happen to see differently and then have to change and respond.  Often when we are confronted with uncomfortable truths, we deny the truth its place and prefer to stay with our blindness, for then we don’t have to respond.

   

Often when we are confronted with the “inconvenient truth” to borrow Al Gore’s film title, we use anger, aggression, name-calling to save ourselves from having to respond.

  

The recent small increase in asylum-seekers looking to come to Australia, is one instance of such an inconvenient truth."

In the up-coming immigration debate, I hope America will meet the expectation of that Greek cab driver of being a country that welcomes the immigrant.