Will We Ever Unlock the Door to Comprehensive Immigration Reform?
How many times over the past year have you heard elected leaders and media pundits repeat one of these three phrases: we need to pass common sense, comprehensive immigration reform; our immigration system is broken; immigration reform is good for our economy, good for our national security and good for our people?
The following is taken from a speech given by President Obama on 30 June 2014:
Immigration reform “would strengthen our borders, grow our economy, shrink our deficits.” The failure to pass immigration legislation “has meant fewer resources to strengthen our borders. It’s meant more businesses free to game the system by hiring undocumented workers, which punishes businesses that play by the rules, and drives down wages for hardworking Americans. It’s meant lost talent when the best and brightest from around the world come to study here but are forced to leave and then compete against our businesses and our workers. It’s meant no chance for 11 million immigrants to come out of the shadows and earn their citizenship if they pay a penalty and pass a background check, pay their fair share of taxes, learn English, and go to the back of the line. It’s meant the heartbreak of separated families.”
Typical of all complex issues, the immigration and border security public debate is often reduced to rudimentary and emotional expression that never really addresses the challenges at hand. As I kept hearing the buzzwords, that I’m sure were carefully formulated by high-paid bureaucrats and focus groups, I caught myself applying my own biases and context to the words and creating my own definition of how the problem was being handled. Reflecting on the issue, I realized I didn't understand the specifics behind the rhetoric being pushed in the Administration and on Capitol Hill.
The Obama Administration’s plan centers around four key components; strengthen border security, streamline legal immigration, a path to earned citizenship, and hold employers who hire undocumented aliens accountable. The administration’s border security initiatives focus on partnerships between governments as well as between the federal agencies and local communities, and improving infrastructure at ports of entry as well as constructing border fences and increased surveillance. To streamline immigration the administration proposed creating and expanding the visa and green card programs and programs to attract and allow highly skilled immigrants to stay in the U.S. The earned path to citizenship primarily addresses the 11 million undocumented aliens with a provisional legal status for those who qualify, increased focus on combating fraud, and an enhanced administrative review process. Finally, the crackdown on employers of illegal aliens is centered on improving our databases and immigrant status verifications along with expediting our process for trying immigration cases in our courts and streamlining the deportation process for convicted criminals and violent offenders.
These priorities all seem to address symptoms of a larger issue. So what exactly are the problems with our current system that is defined as “broken”? The crux or root of the issue seems to be strict and limited means for legally immigrating and a system that has not been able to keep up with current economic and labor demands.
There are four main ways of immigrating legally and permanently to the U.S.
• Family-based immigration. A legal, qualified family member in the United States can seek permission (by petition) to bring in certain eligible foreign-born family members. U.S. citizens can petition for “green cards” for their spouses, parents, children, and siblings. Legal Permanent Residents (green-card holders) can petition for their spouses and unmarried children. No other family relationships qualify.
• Employment-based immigration. People who wish to come to the United States on an employment-based visa, and who fit into one of the employment categories, must have a job offer in the United States and an employer willing to sponsor him or her – a process that can be very expensive and time consuming. Most for high-skilled professionals like scientists, professors, and multinational executives, and there are insufficient legal channels for low-skilled workers.
• Humanitarian-based immigration. Each year the U.S. government provides protection within U.S. borders to a limited number of persons who are fleeing persecution in their homelands. These individuals must prove that they have a “well-founded fear of persecution” based on their race, religion, membership in a social group, political opinion, or national origin.
• Other. There are other, limited ways that people may obtain a green card. such as the diversity lottery. However, these mechanisms are highly restrictive and limited to extremely small groups of qualified individuals.
Much has changed since the early immigration flows into Ellis Island which inspired the Emma Lazarus poem:
“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
One significant change relevant to this debate is the various added social welfare programs. If prospective immigrants can’t enter the U.S. legally yet once in are able to access free education, food stamps, health care and pay for labor, why wouldn't they enter illegally and stay “in the shadows.” The significant factor in these welfare programs are in the costs to society. “…estimates suggest that 50 percent of all illegal immigrants have less than a high school education with another 25 percent having only a high school education. These people may be contributing to society in many positive ways, but they are shifting enormous costs onto other taxpayers at the same time.” “Estimates show that illegal immigrants are currently collecting net government benefits with an annual value of $54.5 billion. Once legalized, that figure would rise to $106 billion per year. As they begin to retire and collect Social Security and Medicare, the financial drain rises again, to an estimated $160 billion annually.”
It seems our elected leaders need to also include our welfare programs as a significant topic of discussion to ensure we are taking a “comprehensive’ look at the problem. Given our the current debate on civil rights and civil liberties and the many special interest groups that would be added to an already complicated debate, I fear we will be forever limited to addressing only a small portion of the real problem. However, I’m confident that once the plan or program is rolled out, it will sound easy and guarantee a sound resolution.
