Chicago Tribune Editorial - Immigration and the A-word
Immigration and the A-word
Published March 26, 2006
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
When Congress decided in 1986 that it was time to regain control of the country's borders, it turned its attention first to the 3 million undocumented immigrants who already lived and worked here. Make them legal, lawmakers decided. Let them stay.
Twenty years later we have nearly 12 million illegal immigrants, and the prevailing sentiment, at least in the House of Representatives, is to declare them felons and throw them out. The 1986 program amounted to amnesty for crooks, the thinking goes, it made a mockery of our immigration policy and we won't be fooled again.
Amnesty has become the touchiest word in the immigration debate.
Broaching the subject of immigration reform in 2004, President Bush tried to tiptoe around the A-word by proposing a guest-worker program that would allow illegal immigrants to "step out of the shadows" but would require them eventually to go home. Nobody seriously believes the guest workers would leave voluntarily after six or eight years of legal residency, though.
The House has voted for 700 miles of wire fence along the Mexican border but no program to permit guest workers.
Senators struggling to come up with a bill to counter the House measure want to provide undocumented workers with some sort of path to legal status. But they, too, have been stymied by the A-word. Last week, 71 House members sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee that calls the proposals on the table "thinly disguised attempts to provide amnesty" and warns that no such bill will reach the president's desk.
An immigration policy that fosters an enormous underground workforce is not in the country's best interests, which is why immigration reform has moved to the front burner in this election year. But the reality is that we can't deport 12 million workers and would be very sorry if we did.
Most Americans understand that our economy depends on immigrant labor, but they still don't like the idea of rewarding those who got here by breaking the law. A recent Time magazine poll found that 73 percent favor some sort of guest-worker program, but 46 percent think those who are here illegally should have to go home first and apply for it.
Recognizing that millions of immigrants aren't likely to "go home," senators have labored to come up with a plan that doesn't appear to give lawbreakers a free pass. The plan, which is still evolving, would allow undocumented workers to stay here for six years and work toward legal residency--after they pay back taxes and up to $2,000 in fines. Under a compromise floated last week, their applications would go to the end of the line, behind 3 million foreigners outside the country who are awaiting green cards legally.
House members who say that still sounds like amnesty, and therefore a deal-breaker, learned the wrong lesson from the failure of the 1986 immigration bill. That measure was doomed not by the amnesty provision, but because the other side of the equation--strict sanctions against employers who hired undocumented workers--was never enforced, largely because the U.S. needed those workers. It still does.
We can call them guest workers, or we can call them criminals, but in another 10 years we will almost certainly need more of them, not fewer. An immigration measure that doesn't take that into account isn't going to work any better than the one we have now.
Published March 26, 2006
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
When Congress decided in 1986 that it was time to regain control of the country's borders, it turned its attention first to the 3 million undocumented immigrants who already lived and worked here. Make them legal, lawmakers decided. Let them stay.
Twenty years later we have nearly 12 million illegal immigrants, and the prevailing sentiment, at least in the House of Representatives, is to declare them felons and throw them out. The 1986 program amounted to amnesty for crooks, the thinking goes, it made a mockery of our immigration policy and we won't be fooled again.
Amnesty has become the touchiest word in the immigration debate.
Broaching the subject of immigration reform in 2004, President Bush tried to tiptoe around the A-word by proposing a guest-worker program that would allow illegal immigrants to "step out of the shadows" but would require them eventually to go home. Nobody seriously believes the guest workers would leave voluntarily after six or eight years of legal residency, though.
The House has voted for 700 miles of wire fence along the Mexican border but no program to permit guest workers.
Senators struggling to come up with a bill to counter the House measure want to provide undocumented workers with some sort of path to legal status. But they, too, have been stymied by the A-word. Last week, 71 House members sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee that calls the proposals on the table "thinly disguised attempts to provide amnesty" and warns that no such bill will reach the president's desk.
An immigration policy that fosters an enormous underground workforce is not in the country's best interests, which is why immigration reform has moved to the front burner in this election year. But the reality is that we can't deport 12 million workers and would be very sorry if we did.
Most Americans understand that our economy depends on immigrant labor, but they still don't like the idea of rewarding those who got here by breaking the law. A recent Time magazine poll found that 73 percent favor some sort of guest-worker program, but 46 percent think those who are here illegally should have to go home first and apply for it.
Recognizing that millions of immigrants aren't likely to "go home," senators have labored to come up with a plan that doesn't appear to give lawbreakers a free pass. The plan, which is still evolving, would allow undocumented workers to stay here for six years and work toward legal residency--after they pay back taxes and up to $2,000 in fines. Under a compromise floated last week, their applications would go to the end of the line, behind 3 million foreigners outside the country who are awaiting green cards legally.
House members who say that still sounds like amnesty, and therefore a deal-breaker, learned the wrong lesson from the failure of the 1986 immigration bill. That measure was doomed not by the amnesty provision, but because the other side of the equation--strict sanctions against employers who hired undocumented workers--was never enforced, largely because the U.S. needed those workers. It still does.
We can call them guest workers, or we can call them criminals, but in another 10 years we will almost certainly need more of them, not fewer. An immigration measure that doesn't take that into account isn't going to work any better than the one we have now.
posted by Carlos T Mock at 1:59 PM
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