Losing Our Minds Over Immigration

By Eric Haas, The Rockridge Institute. Posted December 5, 2007 at AlterNet

By repeating the phrase "illegal immigrants," the media and politicians have created a misleading framework to talk about immigration.

On the issue of immigration, politicians and much of the mainstream media are playing with our minds. By repeating the phrase "illegal immigrants," they're creating a misleading stereotype. It's inaccurate. And, it's distracting us from the real issue -- economic exploitation of all low-wage workers in the United States.

The Republicans did it in their YouTube debate on CNN. In the first 30 minutes, the Republicans repeatedly used the term "illegal immigrant" and spent the time sparring over which of them could treat them more harshly. Were the painters who worked on Romney's house and the low-wage workers in Giuliani's New York City really such a grave threat to America?

CNN's John King used the term, too. And so did CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Campbell Brown in the most recent Democratic debate in Las Vegas. And, some of the Democratic candidates also used it, though Kucinich specifically refused ("There are no illegal human beings"). But he's in the minority. The term is everywhere in the press. You can find it in the Washington Post and in the New York Times, as well as the doubly derogatory term "illegal alien" in the Washington Times. They've all got "illegal" on the brain.

The repeated use of the term "illegal immigrants" is leading to all sorts of policies created to stop them. Many of them were repeated in the debates. More border fences. Prohibiting driver's licenses. Some want to stop their kids from attending neighborhood elementary schools.

But the phrase "illegal immigrant" is misleading. There's a grain of truth, but the emphasis is only selectively applied -- it's misapplied -- we don't call speeders "illegal drivers" or people who jaywalk "illegals." And that selective application to immigrants is harmful. As Lawrence Downes wrote in a New York Times op-ed:

There is no way out of that trap. It's the crime you can't make amends for. Nothing short of deportation will free you from it, such is the mood of the country today. And that is a problem.

There sure is a problem. So much so that the National Association of Hispanic Journalists won't use it. They recommend using "undocumented" instead. That's a start.

Branding people with the Scarlet "I" creates a fearful stigma. The vast majority of immigrants, whatever their legal status, are law-abiding members of society. Yet, the "illegal" description is so pervasive that it has us thinking about punishment and revenge, instead of solutions to the real problem -- the economic exploitation of people, both immigrant and native-born.

How did that happen?

In part, it's all in our heads; it's how our minds work. To understand the world, we unconsciously create categories of things. We understand these categories by, again unconsciously, creating central examples that represent how we envision the basic properties of the group.

Think of a bird, for example. What first pops into your mind? Most likely something akin to a sparrow, maybe a robin. It's unlikely that your unconscious, initial image will be an ostrich or a penguin. Or even a duck or an eagle. These are all birds, but they are not what we instinctively envision as the typical bird. In fact, our unconscious category example need not be the most common bird or even an actual bird at all. Nevertheless, the typical example you have in your mind allows you to organize, understand and apply what you experience about birds.

Our categorizations serve a useful purpose. They allow us to process lots of information very quickly. Much faster than if we were to try and consciously think through a list of characteristics about everything we encounter all day long in the world. We'd be paralyzed, like the computer icon spinning on your screen while the web page loads. So, in many situations, we're very fortunate that our brains work in this manner. Otherwise, we'd never get through the characteristics of the mental category "animals with big teeth." We'd have been eaten.

But it's not so straightforward when our brains create central examples for groups of people. We call them stereotypes. Like the bird category, our minds do this unconsciously, and the people stereotypes don't have to be real or accurate. Nevertheless, they exist in our minds, and they shape how we react and interact with people from these groups, both individually and as a whole. This includes the policies we make.

Since we have been repeatedly bombarded with the term "illegal immigrants," most of us have at least some negative characteristics associated with our unconscious stereotype of low-wage foreign workers. As a result, the policies that many people support are punitive -- more deportations, more border security and fines for employers who knowingly hire them.

This makes a certain logical sense. What policy would go best with these stereotypes of immigrant workers? If they are "illegal immigrants," we think of crime and danger and that leads first to police actions, border walls and roundups. That was certainly the thrust of the Republican YouTube debate on CNN. But it was also the same argument that came from many Democratic candidates when they would not support drivers licenses for the people they also called "illegal immigrants." And if most immigrants were murderers or armed robbers -- if the stereotype currently repeated by candidates and the mainstream media were accurate -- this way of thinking might make some sense and these policies might be warranted. But they aren't.

In fact, it's just the opposite. According to the American Immigration Law Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing public understanding of immigration law and advancing fundamental fairness and due process for immigrants, the vast majority of immigrants, both documented and undocumented, are law-abiding people: "A century of research finds that crime rates for immigrants are lower than for the native-born." These conclusions are bolstered by their latest report, published in spring 2007.

And the American Immigration Law Foundation tells us the likely reason why:

The problem of crime in the United States is not 'caused' or even aggravated by immigrants, regardless of their legal status. This is hardly surprising since immigrants come to the United States to pursue economic and educational opportunities not available in their home countries and to build better lives for themselves and their families. As a result, they have little to gain and much to lose by breaking the law. Undocumented immigrants in particular have even more reason to not run afoul of the law given the risk of deportation that their lack of legal status entails.

Sounds more like a good neighbor than a criminal.

Some of these foreign workers are even heroes. The AP just reported on one. On Thanksgiving, Jesus Manuel Cordova Soberanes, a 26-year-old bricklayer from northern Mexico, rescued a nine-year-old boy who had been in a car wreck. Soberanes had snuck across the border to find work to feed his family. While he was walking through the Arizona desert, he came across the boy. The boy's mother had swerved off a cliff and crashed. The mother was severely injured, and the boy had gone in search of help. Soberanes returned with the boy to the car, but he could not save the mother. As night came and temperatures dropped, he gave the boy his sweater and built a fire. Soberanes stayed with the boy through the night, until he was rescued the next morning. The boy was flown to a hospital in Tucson, and Soberanes was turned over to Border Patrol agents, who deported him back to Mexico. According to the local sheriff, Soberanes is "'very, very special and compassionate' and may have saved the boy's life."

Soberanes explained his sacrifice this way:

"I am a father of four children. For that, I stayed," Manuel Jesus Cordova Soberanes said in Spanish from his home in the Mexican state of Sonora. "I never could have left him. Never."

Soberanes made America a better place during his brief stay.

So, the statistics and Soberanes beg the question, what kind of policies might we envision if our stereotype were more accurate? What if we understood Soberanes and others like him as "economic refugees"? Perhaps we might begin to understand their actions as moral and them as good people, maybe even noble ones.

Like Jean Valjean of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. He stole bread when he was desperate to feed himself and his sister's family. He didn't even work for it. Yet he has become an international symbol of conscience, one that's celebrated today in the long-running Broadway play. The bad guy was the relentlessly unjust, even cruel, economic and legal systems of 18th century France -- embodied in police inspector Javert.

What policies might we construct if the issue were economic exploitation? Would we not think first about protecting the human dignity of all who work in the United States? We might then begin to create policies that address the underlying problems that face all workers in America -- the need for jobs that are safe, secure and pay a living wage, combined with healthcare for everyone. We might begin to understand that Americans, too, can be "economic refugees" inside the United States -- our fellow citizens forced to abandon their hometowns due to factory closings, for example, in search of a job wherever they can find it.

At the Rockridge Institute, we have been examining these ideas in The Framing of Immigration and a recent response to a reader's inquiry. Many others are thinking and writing about this too, including bloggers at ImmigrationProf and Immigration, Education, and Globalization. But it's time to push this thinking mainstream so that we hear the truth over and over. If we are going to have effective policies that deal with reality, we can start with changing our language and updating what's in our heads. Let's start being mindful of how we think and talk.

See more stories tagged with: media, debate, immigration

Eric Haas is a senior fellow at the Rockridge Institute.

Alan Lupo: Immigration debate requires large dose of compassion, common sense

By Alan Lupo
Salem News, December 4, 2008

—
Just north of the Mexican border in the Arizona desert, a woman loses control of her van, which crashes into a canyon. The driver, recently widowed, dies while awaiting help. Her son saves himself and sits alone, stranded, scared. He is only nine years old.

A guy named Jesus, of all things, Jesus Manuel Cordova, walking illegally from Mexico through Arizona, finds the kid and consoles him until help comes. Those who help have no choice but to take Jesus into custody. He is, after all, what the immigration panic-mongers like to call, "an illegal alien," as if such a person were from another planet.

It may come as a shock to those worrying themselves sick about illegal immigrants that most of those crossing our borders are not terrorists or criminals. They are just people trying to make a better life for themselves, because life in Latin America has not been good to them.

Common sense dictates that illegal immigration is not the biggest problem facing America, but we need a workable policy to deal with it. But common sense also has a partner in life's travails: It's called compassion, and there's a sorry lack of it these days.

In Boston, a four-year-old boy dies while in the care of a foster mother. The person who truly cared for him is the boy's father, but he had been deported to Nevis, his home in the Caribbean.

A Guatemalan who had been deported twice and paid big bucks to a smuggler to get back to his American-born autistic little boy in New Bedford, collapses from an obstruction in his airway and dies. He was an elementary school dropout, but had managed to find work to support his family.

From Ohio, to California, to Georgia, to Minnesota, to New Mexico, to Iowa, to Massachusetts, Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids have resulted in the break-up and imprisonment of family members.

Hard-line opponents of illegal immigration are right when they say that the original sin is to come here without documentation, and it's compounded by those who hire illegals. But are raids and the resulting trauma the way America wishes to deal with such people?

Last April, one of those hardliners, Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, said, "Kids often pay for the bad decisions of their parents. If you do something wrong that sends you to jail, well, your kids suffer for that."



It's a matter-of-fact conclusion. But is this what we want America to become, as it has in the past - a place of raids, deportation and imprisonment?

We certainly want it for those immigrants, illegal or not, who join gangs, peddle drugs and commit mayhem. But they are a minority, just as criminals have been a minority in every ethnic group. Indeed, studies have shown that immigrant family members are less likely to commit violent crimes than so many of our home-grown legal citizens.

Instead of trying to put all this in perspective, we have talk-radio touts and their sheep-like followers ready to close every border and immediately deport 12 million or so illegals.

Of course, there's a lot less talk about building a Canadian border fence than a Mexican barrier. Is it just oh, so slightly possible that certain Americans fear swarthy folks who speak rapid-fire Spanish and hang on the corners to await day jobs more than, say, white folks who pledge allegiance to hockey pucks and maple leafs? Perish the thought.

But from Everett to New Bedford, from Hazelton, Pa., to Riverside, N.J., from Brewster, N.Y. to you-name-it, U.S.A., people are panicking, and in some cases, taking local action against illegal immigrants, blamed for every municipal problem or property tax increase.

The answer is not for Hazelton or Brewster to go after illegals and those who hire them. The answer is for the federal government to devise, yes, a common-sense and compassionate program to deal with this issue; something both political parties failed to do last spring.

It must be a bipartisan effort by those who realize the issue is complex, that its antidotes include such difficult strategies as improving the economies of Latin American nations and convincing folks there to have fewer kids.

What it does not warrant is to break up families, deport at will and treat fellow humans as if they were of an inferior breed.

Alan Lupo, a veteran Boston columnist who appears regularly on these pages, can be reached at alupo@comcast.net

Copyright © 1999-2006 cnhi, inc.

Illegal immigrants not US health care burden -study

Mon Nov 26, 2007 4:00pm EST

CHICAGO, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Illegal Latino immigrants do not cause a drag on the U.S. health care system as some critics have contended and in fact get less care than Latinos in the country legally, researchers said on Monday.

Such immigrants tend not to have a regular doctor or other health-care provider yet do not visit emergency rooms -- often a last resort in such cases -- with any more frequency than Latinos born in the United States, according to the report from the University of California's School of Public Health.

The finding from Alexander Ortega and colleagues at the school was based on a 2003 telephone survey of thousands of California residents, including 1,317 undocumented Mexicans, 2,851 citizens with Mexican immigrant parents, 271 undocumented Latinos from countries other than Mexico and 852 non-Mexican Latinos born in the United States.

About 8.4 million of the 10.3 million illegal aliens in the United States are Latino, of which 5.9 million are from Mexico, the report said.

"One recurrent theme in the debate over immigration has been the use of public services, including health care," Ortega's team wrote in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

"Proponents of restrictive policies have argued that immigrants overuse services, placing an unreasonable burden on the public. Despite a scarcity of well-designed research ... use of resources continues to be a part of the public debate," they said.

The researchers said illegal Mexican immigrants had 1.6 fewer visits to doctors over the course of a year than people born in the country to Mexican immigrants. Other undocumented Latinos had 2.1 fewer physician visits than their U.S.-born counterparts, they said.

"Low rates of use of health-care services by Mexican immigrants and similar trends among other Latinos do not support public concern about immigrants' overuse of the health care system," the researchers wrote.

"Undocumented individuals demonstrate less use of health care than U.S.-born citizens and have more negative experiences with the health care that they have received," they said.

Illegal immigrants not US health care burden -study

Mon Nov 26, 2007 4:00pm EST

CHICAGO, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Illegal Latino immigrants do not cause a drag on the U.S. health care system as some critics have contended and in fact get less care than Latinos in the country legally, researchers said on Monday.

Such immigrants tend not to have a regular doctor or other health-care provider yet do not visit emergency rooms -- often a last resort in such cases -- with any more frequency than Latinos born in the United States, according to the report from the University of California's School of Public Health.

The finding from Alexander Ortega and colleagues at the school was based on a 2003 telephone survey of thousands of California residents, including 1,317 undocumented Mexicans, 2,851 citizens with Mexican immigrant parents, 271 undocumented Latinos from countries other than Mexico and 852 non-Mexican Latinos born in the United States.

About 8.4 million of the 10.3 million illegal aliens in the United States are Latino, of which 5.9 million are from Mexico, the report said.

"One recurrent theme in the debate over immigration has been the use of public services, including health care," Ortega's team wrote in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

"Proponents of restrictive policies have argued that immigrants overuse services, placing an unreasonable burden on the public. Despite a scarcity of well-designed research ... use of resources continues to be a part of the public debate," they said.

The researchers said illegal Mexican immigrants had 1.6 fewer visits to doctors over the course of a year than people born in the country to Mexican immigrants. Other undocumented Latinos had 2.1 fewer physician visits than their U.S.-born counterparts, they said.

"Low rates of use of health-care services by Mexican immigrants and similar trends among other Latinos do not support public concern about immigrants' overuse of the health care system," the researchers wrote.

"Undocumented individuals demonstrate less use of health care than U.S.-born citizens and have more negative experiences with the health care that they have received," they said.

Immigrants Pull Weight in Economy, Study Finds

The New York Times, November 26, 2007
By PATRICK McGEEHAN

Immigrants contribute nearly one-fourth of the economic output of New York State, and outside of New York City, they are overrepresented in some of the most critical occupations, including higher education and health care, according to a study to be released today.

In the suburbs north and east of the city, about 4 of every 10 doctors and more than one-fourth of college professors were foreign-born, the study by the private Fiscal Policy Institute found. In upstate New York, where just 5 percent of residents are foreign-born, immigrants accounted for about one-fifth of the professors and more than one-third of the doctors, according to the study.

The study, conducted over the past year, concluded that the contributions of people born outside the country have spread far beyond the low-wage, low-skill work often associated with immigrants. Most immigrants meld into New York communities, learn to speak English and buy homes, it found. The institute is an independent research organization that focuses on public policy in New York State.

“We just felt like there was such a deep misunderstanding about who immigrants were that the political discourse often got far afield from any factual basis of what’s really going on here,” said David D. Kallick, a senior fellow at the institute and the principal author of the study, “Working for a Better Life.”

The study included foreign-born New York residents who have lived in the country for decades, as well as new arrivals, and included legal and illegal immigrants to capture the full immigrant experience, Mr. Kallick said.

According to the study, there were 4.1 million immigrants in New York State, three million of whom lived in New York City. It estimated that about one of every six immigrants in the state — about 16 percent — were here illegally. About 535,000 of those lived in the city, the study found.

Advocates of stricter immigration policies have argued that illegal immigrants are a drain on the United States economy because they receive more in health care, education and other social services than they contribute to the economy. A recent report from the Federation for American Immigration Reform cited studies that estimated the cost of immigration — legal and illegal — at $15 billion to $20 billion a year and the benefit at no more than $10 billion a year.

Mr. Kallick said that Texas and other states had disputed the federation’s reports and determined that immigration had a positive economic effect.

Statewide, immigrants made up 21 percent of all residents and contributed 22.4 percent of the gross domestic product of the state, or a total economic output of $229 billion, in 2005, the study said. They also were overrepresented in the work force, accounting for 26 percent of the state’s residents who were working or looking for work, the study found. In New York City, the contribution of immigrants was even greater, according to the study. Immigrants, who make up 37 percent of the city’s population, earned 37 percent of all wages and salaries in the city, the study found. Although immigrants form a large majority of the city’s taxi drivers, housekeepers and home-health aides, the study found that they also made up one-fourth of the city’s chief executives.

American Xenophobes Need Mexican Immigration Facts, Not Fences

By Bill Murray

Nov. 26 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S., the world's premier immigrant nation, has slipped into one of its periodic bouts of xenophobia, complete with single-issue presidential candidates and congressional funding for a high-tech fence along its 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) border with Mexico.

This debate is as pointless as it is emotive, Los Angeles Times columnist Gregory Rodriguez argues in ``Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans and Vagabonds,'' a book that traces more than 300 years of Hispanic influence on North American culture and politics.

Drawing on reams of facts, figures and forgotten history, Rodriguez, a Mexican American who grew up in Los Angeles, plants an idea that becomes difficult to dislodge: Because ``Hispanicity continues to absorb rather than exclude the cultures it encounters,'' he writes, Hispanic immigration is forcing the U.S. to reinterpret the purpose of the ``melting pot'' to include racial as well as ethnic mixing.

Integration and assimilation are fast becoming the rule, not the exception, in Hispanic immigration, Rodriguez shows. By the 1990s, 32 percent of second-generation and 57 percent of third- generation Latinos had married outside their ethnic group. In 1990, 64 percent of third-generation Mexican-American children spoke only English at home; by 2000, the figure was 71 percent.

In 1997, Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo signed a law allowing migrants who became naturalized U.S. citizens to retain their Mexican nationality. Five years later, only 1.6 percent of those eligible had taken the opportunity.

Nation Survives

It's true that at least 6 million Mexicans, or about 5 percent of the country's population, today reside in the U.S. illegally. This sounds like a lot, until you realize that double that proportion -- 10 percent of all Mexicans -- lived illegally on U.S. soil between 1900 and 1930. Somehow, America survived.

Rodriguez does slip up in places. He underplays how female sexual emancipation in the 1960s contributed to intermarriage. He also fails to acknowledge -- by either massive oversight or design -- the huge difference between African-American integration (or lack thereof) and that of other non-European immigrant groups.

But he's spot on when he mocks the muddled thinking of militant-left Chicano activists who argued in the 1960s that racism lay at the heart of the American dream.

``Multiculturalism, which essentially rejects assimilation, is a critique of American society sustained by two contradictory beliefs,'' he writes. ``First, the U.S. is a racist society that won't permit Chicanos to assimilate; second, assimilation into the mainstream is an inexorable and insidious process that must be resisted at all costs.''

`Americanized' Mexico

Assimilation has not only become a fact; it is actually moving south of the border. Much of Mexico is fast becoming ``Americanized,'' Rodriguez says, thanks to the increased trade and media links between the two nations that followed the North American Free Trade Agreement.

In the past 15 years, household incomes and female literacy in Mexico have risen so fast that the country's birthrate has dropped to 2.1 children per female -- the same level as in the U.S. -- from 3.3 children per female, the World Bank reports.

Given this math, there's a chance too few Mexicans will sneak over the border 20 years from now to support the U.S. economy. Will anyone be left to frame a two-story house? Who will get the vegetables to America's supermarket shelves?

Current xenophobe-for-president Thomas Tancredo, a U.S. congressman from Colorado, would probably call a shortage of farm workers a sinister government conspiracy. Rodriguez may say it's the obvious consequence of a burgeoning Hispanic middle class -- and just a new chapter in a very old American story.

``Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans and Vagabonds: Mexican Immigration and the Future of Race in America'' is published by Pantheon (336 pages, $26.95).

(Bill Murray writes for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

Decency on Immigration

Apart from John McCain, it's hard to find that quality in the Republican presidential contest.

Washington Post Editorial

Saturday, November 24, 2007; Page A16

THE SPEAKER was discussing the human face of illegal immigration. "People are continuing dying in the Sonoran desert, and it's just a very sad thing to see," he said. "One 3-year-old baby died, a 16-year-old girl with a rosary in her hand. There's a side of this that grieves me terribly. These are God's children. They're not from another planet, and the whole thing . . . frankly, this whole issue saddens me a great deal."

These statements were moving, but they would not have been especially remarkable except for the fact that the person speaking is a presidential candidate -- a Republican presidential candidate, in fact -- at a time when the campaign has taken a particularly toxic tone when it comes to the issue of immigration. In a meeting with Post editors and reporters the other day, Arizona Sen. John McCain described the toll that he believes his championing of comprehensive immigration reform took on his campaign. "It was the issue of immigration that hurt my campaign," he said. "I have not encountered a domestic issue that has provoked the emotional response that this issue does with a lot of Americans."

Rudolph W. Giuliani, who as mayor protected illegal immigrants from being reported to immigration authorities when they sought police protection or hospital care, competed to see who could sound toughest.

"As governor, I opposed driver's licenses for illegals, vetoed tuition breaks for illegals and combated sanctuary city policies by authorizing the state police to enforce federal immigration law," Mr. Romney said in a statement. "As president, I will secure the border and reject sanctuary policies by cities, states or the federal government."

The Giuliani campaign shot back, in a statement by communications director Katie Levinson: "On Governor Romney's watch, the number of illegal immigrants in Massachusetts skyrocketed, aid to Massachusetts sanctuary cities went through the roof and Governor Romney even went so far as to hire illegals to work on his lawn."

Mr. Romney and former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson have also taken shots at former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee for allowing the children of illegal immigrants in Arkansas to qualify for in-state tuition and academic scholarships if they graduated from high school there. As Mr. Huckabee told Fox News, "the basic concept, and I know this is still an anathema to some people, I don't believe you punish the children for the crime and sins of the parents."

Illegal immigration provokes strong emotions, understandably so. But it would behoove all the candidates to engage in a little less chest-thumping and speak with more of the decency and compassion that Mr. McCain exhibited.

The Immigration Wilderness

November 23, 2007

Editorial, The New York Times

The nation certainly sounds as if it’s in an angry place on immigration.

A major Senate reform bill collapsed in rancor in June, and every effort to revive innocuous bits of it, like a bill to legalize exemplary high school graduates, has been crushed. Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York hatched a plan to let illegal immigrants earn driver’s licenses — and steamrollered into the Valley of Death. Asked if she supported Mr. Spitzer, Senator Hillary Clinton tied herself in knots looking for the safest answer.

The Republican presidential candidates, meanwhile, are doggedly out-toughing one another — even Rudolph Giuliani, who once defended but now disowns the immigrants who pulled his hard-up city out of a ditch. A freshman Democratic representative, Heath Shuler of North Carolina, has submitted an enforcement bill bristling with border fencing and punishments. Representative Tom Tancredo, Republican of Colorado, for whom restricting immigration is the first, last and only issue, says he will not run again when his term expires next year. I have done all I can, he says, like some weary gunslinger covered in blood and dust.

The natural allies of immigrants have been cowed into mumbling or silent avoidance. The Democrats’ chief strategist, Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, went so far as to declare immigration the latest “third rail of American politics.” This profile in squeamishness was on full display at the Democratic presidential debate last week in Las Vegas, when Wolf Blitzer pressed the candidates for yes-or-no answers on driver’s licenses and Mrs. Clinton, to her great discredit, said no.

This year’s federal failure will not be undone until 2009 at the earliest, while states and local governments will continue doing their own thing, creating a mishmash of immigration policies, most of them harsh and shortsighted. But the wilderness of anger into which Mr. Tancredo helped lead America is not where the country has to be on this vitally important issue, nor where it truly is.

•

Mrs. Clinton was closer to being right the first time, when she haltingly defended Mr. Spitzer’s reasoning. Fixing immigration is not a yes-or-no question. It’s yes and no. Or if you prefer, no and yes — no to more illegal immigration, to uncontrolled borders and to a flourishing underground economy where employer greed feeds off worker desperation. Yes to extending the blanket of law over the anonymous, undocumented population — through fines and other penalties for breaking the nation’s laws and an orderly path to legal status and citizenship to those who qualify.

These are the ingredients of a realistic approach to a complicated problem. It’s called comprehensive reform, and it rests on the idea that having an undocumented underclass does the country more harm than good. This is not “open-borders amnesty,” a false label stuck on by those who want enforcement and nothing else. It’s tough on the border and on those who sneaked across it. It’s tough but fair to employers who need immigrant workers. It recognizes that American citizens should not have to compete for jobs with a desperate population frightened into accepting rock-bottom wages and working conditions. It makes a serious effort to fix legal immigration by creating an orderly future flow of legal workers.

Americans accept this approach. The National Immigration Forum has compiled nearly two dozen polls from 2007 alone that show Americans consistently favoring a combination of tough enforcement and earned legalization over just enforcement. Elections confirm this. Straight-talking moderates like Gov. Janet Napolitano of Arizona and Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico thrive in the immigration crucible along the southern border. Those who obsess about immigration as single-issue hard-liners, like the Arizonans J. D. Hayworth and Randy Graf, have disappeared, booted by voters. Voters in Virginia this month rejected similar candidates and handed control of the State Senate to Democrats.

It may not be “amnesty” that gets Americans worked up as much as inaction. They seem to sense the weakness and futility in the enforcement-only strategy, the idea of tightening the screws on an informal apartheid system until it is so frightening and hopeless that millions of poor people pack up and leave.

That is the attrition argument, the only answer the anti-amnesty crowd has to comprehensive reform. It is, of course, a passive amnesty that rewards only the most furtive and wily illegal immigrants and the bottom-feeding employers who hire them. It will drive some people out of the country, but will push millions of others — families with members of mixed immigration status, lots of citizen children and practically a nation’s worth of decent, hard workers — further into hiding.

We are already seeing what a full-bore enforcement-only strategy will bring. Bias crimes against Hispanic people are up, hate groups are on the march. Legal immigration remains a mess. Applications for citizenship are up, and the federal citizenship agency, which steeply raised its fees to increase efficiency, is drowning in paperwork and delays. American citizens are being caught up in house-to-house raids by immigration agents.

•

America is waiting for a leader to risk saying that the best answer is not the simplest one. As John Edwards said at the last debate, “When is our party going to show a little backbone and strength and courage and speak up for those people who have been left behind?”

He was talking about the poor and people without health insurance, but he could — and should — have included a host of others: Business owners who want to hire legal workers. Americans who don’t want their opportunities undermined by the off-the-books economy. Children whose dreams of education and advancement are thwarted by their parents’ hopeless immigration status. And the immigrants, here and abroad, who want to find their place in a society that once welcomed their honest labor, but can’t find a way to do it anymore.

Richardson appeals for civil debate on immigration

Ruben Navarrette Jr., The San Diego Union-Tribune

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

What can I say? Bill Richardson rocks.

While John Edwards and Barack Obama were taking shots at Hillary Clinton during the recent CNN Democratic debate in Las Vegas, the New Mexico governor was focusing on his own candidacy and delivering one of the best performances of the night.

Even those who believe that Richardson is really auditioning for a vice presidential nomination would have to concede that the audition is going well.

Just think about the novel way in which Richardson, in answering a question from the audience about the tone of the immigration debate, did something that is practically unheard of in the dizzying pander-monium of the 2008 campaign: He scolded the audience and told them that not only do we have a dysfunctional border that is being breached by illegal immigrants, a dysfunctional system that makes it too hard for people to enter legally, and a dysfunctional Congress that won't tackle the issue in an honest and productive way, but even the way we discuss these issues is dysfunctional.

For one thing, too many Americans keep falling into old habits and repeating a historically familiar depiction of immigrants - legal or illegal - as inferior to natives, defective in their culture, slow to assimilate, prone to criminal activity and devoid of any positive values. Or, as Republican presidential hopeful Tom Tancredo contends in an outrageous television commercial, terrorists in the making.

Tancredo's point was not lost on the person who asked the question during the Democratic debate. George Ambriz, a graduate student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, noted that one thing shaping the immigration debate is the claim by some that controlling illegal immigration is linked to the war on terrorism. He then asked the Democratic candidates if they agreed that these two things should be linked.

Richardson seized on the question to make a pitch for more civility in our discourse.

"We should stop demonizing immigrants," he said. "We should stop doing that."

Amen. You don't hear that sort of thing often enough from politicians, even from liberal Democrats who like to portray themselves as more progressive on immigration policy than those retrograde Republicans. It should be clear by now that immigration is one issue that cuts across party lines and makes some Democrats sound downright Republican.

Nor would you expect to hear it from Hispanic politicians, many of whom might fear being tagged as overly sympathetic to illegal immigrants. That's the risk that Richardson faces whenever he talks about immigration.

The last time I heard something similar to what Richardson said, it came from someone who is an immigrant - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who, like Richardson, has the advantage of living far from Washington and having the real-world perspective of a border governor.

Schwarzenegger has been saying for more than a year that Americans should channel their anger over illegal immigration toward the federal government and not toward immigrants.

I know what you're thinking - that these governors are wrong and that the angst that many Americans feel isn't over "immigrants," just "illegal immigrants."

Sure, sure. It's a lovely sound bite but one not based in fact. Anyone who believes that nonsense hasn't been paying very close attention to the immigration debate. It may have started off being about words such as "legal" and "illegal," but that lasted about 18 seconds. From there, the debate meandered into the cultural swamp. It became about the outrage that we have to "press 1 for English" and how it's bad manners to wave the Mexican flag and how cities should be able to outlaw taco trucks or dictate the number of people who can squeeze into a single-family house. It became about whether we should admit educated and skilled immigrants rather than those whose only qualifications are a strong work ethic and hope for the future. And it became about whether it is time to impose a moratorium on legal immigration to aid the assimilation process for those already here.

Once we went down that road, of course, things were going to get ugly. And, of course, the debate was going to be acrimonious. And, of course, the subtext of the discussion was going to go from anti-illegal immigration to anti-Mexican, just as it has. No surprise there.

That's why it is crucial that people speak out against this sort of thing, especially if they happen to be running for president. We ought to be grateful that at least one has - Bill Richardson.

Ruben Navarrette's e-mail address is ruben.navarrette@uniontrib.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/21/EDBRTG1HI.DTL

This article appeared on page B - 9 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Spitzer drops NY licence plan

This is a truly depressing day for any of us battling on behalf of the undocumented immigrants in this country.

Governor Spitzer has backed off his courageous plan in the teeth of unprecedented hostility led by the likes of Lou Dobbs.

Just for once, a politician came up with a SOLUTION not a sound bite, and he has paid a heavy price for it.

None of the anti-immigrant forces howling for his blood have a solution to this immigration crisis. They seem to live in some fantasy world where if they scream and shout loud enough then things will be alright. Nothing is alright.

There are about 12 million undocumented immigrants living in this country and no-one knows who they are. Gov Spitzer's plan was a common sense solution.

Maybe that's the real problem here - the anti-immigrant people have lost all common sense.

Immigration a dangerous issue for GOP

Even though past election results overwhelmingly indicate that enforcement-only campaigns don’t succeed, Republicans seem bent on making illegal immigration a centerpiece of their 2008 campaigns.

By MORTON KONDRACKE

Monday, November 12, 2007

For the umpteenth time, American voters this year have rejected a nativist approach to illegal immigration. It ought to be a warning to Republicans: Don’t make this your 2008 wedge issue.

Election results on Tuesday, especially in Virginia and New York, also should encourage nervous Democrats that they can support comprehensive immigration reform — stronger enforcement plus earned legalization — and prevail.

To temper legitimate concern in the country about the local burdens resulting from failure of the U.S. government to control its borders, both parties in Congress should extend federal “impact aid” to communities whose schools and health facilities are especially affected.

Polling on immigration consistently shows that large majorities of Americans — two-thirds, in a September ABC survey — believe the United States is not doing enough to curb illegal immigration. B almost as many, 58 percent, support allowing illegal immigrants to earn their way to legal status.

However, a fervent minority — figured at a third of Republicans in one private poll — opposes “amnesty” and has had its views amplified by right-wing radio talk-show hosts. Republicans in Congress have bowed to the pressure.

Even though past election results overwhelmingly indicate that enforcement-only campaigns don’t succeed — indeed, by offending Hispanics, pose a long-term threat to the GOP — Republicans seem bent on making illegal immigration a centerpiece of their 2008 campaigns.

GOP presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson are accusing former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani of having run a “sanctuary city” for illegal immigrants, and Giuliani is trying to turn the fire onto Democrats. At this rate, things could get ugly next year, with Republicans waving the “A” word — “Amnesty” — like a bloody shirt.

Recent election results demonstrate that it doesn’t work.

In New York, for example, various Democratic county officials survived GOP efforts to link them to Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s unpopular proposal to give driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. Most of the Democrats opposed Spitzer’s plan.

Frank Sharry, director of the National Immigration Forum, says, “If you have an either-or debate on border enforcement, enforcement is going to win. If you have an enforcement-plus-legalization debate, Democrats can win, but they actually have to get out in front of it and take the initiative.”

That’s proved true in Arizona — “ground zero” in the immigration wars — where Gov. Janet Napolitano (D) got re-elected in 2006 by a 2-to-1 margin against an anti-immigrant GOP opponent. She is a strong advocate of federal impact aid to help communities cope with immigration burdens.

In 2006, other appeals to nativism failed in Indiana, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Florida and Delaware, and — after House Republicans voted to make merely being an illegal immigrant a felony — the GOP percentage of Hispanic votes dropped from 40 percent in 2004 to 30 percent in 2006.

Despite all that evidence, House GOP leaders have staged vote after vote on amendments designed to restrict benefits to illegal immigrants — even where the law already restricts them — and Senate Republicans led the way in filibustering the DREAM Act, which would have allowed young people brought to the U.S. by illegal immigrants to earn citizenship.

If Republicans want to destroy their future prospects in increasingly Hispanic, once-Republican states like Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, Nevada and Arizona, it’s their option. But the process could be very nasty.

(Kondracke is executive editor of Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill.)

Turn down the anti-immigrants rhetoric

BY BISHOP WILLIAM F. MURPHY

William F. Murphy is bishop of the Diocese of Rockville Centre. This is excerpted from remarks made at the Nassau County and Latino Immigration Forum at Adelphi University on Oct. 22.

If we cast an eye back through our nation's history of immigration, it is clear that at different times different ethnic groups faced opposition and even hostility. The Irish in their time, the Italians in theirs. Sadly, in our day the Latino community bears a similar burden.

There are many millions of immigrants living and working here in the United States. We depend on their labor, and they make significant contributions to our local and national economies. They work in our hospitals, our schools, our farms, restaurants and even our own homes; they take care of our children and elderly parents.

More than 12 million of these are undocumented, and a significant number of these are Latino. But we must remember that of the approximately 330,000 Latinos living on Long Island, 50,000 are undocumented. Slightly less than one in six! In other words, 280,000 are here legally.

Mirroring the national reality, however, the presence of these people is a point of division and controversy throughout Long Island. Our communities are polarized, and people, especially the immigrants, are demonized.

What we need above all is a civil, reasoned discourse that will help us arrive at a meaningful and realistic solution. We need to listen to the other, try to understand their fears, their needs, their perspective, and get to know them as human beings. We need to muster the courage to acknowledge:

That abject poverty forces people to set out on a perilous journey to our country in search of a better life.

That 40 men living in a one-family house is neither safe nor desirable and harms the neighborhood.

That day laborers - documented and undocumented workers - fill a void in our labor market, and to date there is no reasonable alternative.

That longtime residents struggle to pay taxes and continue to live in their communities, where they have a right to see the standards of decent living observed and respected by all.

That families are torn apart as a result of the economic need to immigrate. The church approaches this important social issue from the moral perspectives of our biblical tradition and our rich body of Catholic social teaching. The quality of our relationship with God can be judged by our society's treatment of the poor and vulnerable. We must engage in important social issues with the dual moral principles of respecting the dignity and rights of the individual, while always pursuing the common good.

In 1983 the Holy See deposited at the United Nations a Charter of the Rights of the Family. This is based on the inherent dignity of every human being, a dignity that must be respected no matter who the person is or what circumstances he or she may be subjected to.

One of the values of Latino society is its high regard for the family. In fact, care of one's family in one's homeland is a major motivator for those immigrants who come here seeking work.

As we seek to respond to today's challenges, we need to keep in mind fundamental rights, such as rights to work, decent wages, safe working conditions and the ability to live simply but with dignity.

We must also recognize the right to marry, found a family, and the right of the family to live together in unity and freely to bring children into the world; the right to have access to the means to earn a living that can care for the family and for that family to contribute to the good of society. The last right in this charter states, "The families of migrants have the right to the same protection as that accorded other families."

We as a church are eager to offer our pastoral assistance in this important challenge to us all, and we recognize there are some principles that must be observed by us all in this matter:

Respect for law and the commitment that all must live according to just laws.

The right of sovereign nations to secure their borders.

The right of people to remain in their homeland or to emigrate to support themselves and their families.

Respect for the inherent human dignity and rights of every person regardless of political, economic or civil status.

The central role and rights of the family as the primary and fundamental unit that is the basis of every other society.

As bishop of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, I have serious concerns about the recent immigration raids that took place on Long Island. I do not, in any way, object to the right and duty of law enforcement authorities to do their job, nor do I oppose the appropriate arrest and prosecution of those engaged in criminal activities.

However, any enforcement effort that does not respect the dignity and rights of every human, and denies due process under the law, ought to be vigorously rejected. One of the results of recent raids has been that families were torn apart. And even to date, pastors and family members have been unable to determine the location of their loved ones who were detained.

The federal government has a primary responsibility for comprehensive immigration-law reform. We must have enforceable federal laws that regulate immigration effectively. We should not expect local communities to fill in the void.

We should not punish people who have come here legally seeking honest work, nor should we deprive people who are here of their dignity as human beings.

All of us must rise to the occasion of this enormous social challenge by putting aside the rhetoric and stereotypes and directing our passions and strong convictions instead to finding real and lasting solutions that will build a nation and a Long Island of which we can all be proud.

Copyright © 2007, Newsday Inc.

What Part of ‘Illegal’ Don’t You Understand?

The New York Times
By LAWRENCE DOWNES

I am a human pileup of illegality. I am an illegal driver and an illegal parker and even an illegal walker, having at various times stretched or broken various laws and regulations that govern those parts of life. The offenses were trivial, and I feel sure I could endure the punishments — penalties and fines — and get on with my life. Nobody would deny me the chance to rehabilitate myself. Look at Martha Stewart, illegal stock trader, and George Steinbrenner, illegal campaign donor, to name two illegals whose crimes exceeded mine.
Good thing I am not an illegal immigrant. There is no way out of that trap. It’s the crime you can’t make amends for. Nothing short of deportation will free you from it, such is the mood of the country today. And that is a problem.
America has a big problem with illegal immigration, but a big part of it stems from the word “illegal.” It pollutes the debate. It blocks solutions. Used dispassionately and technically, there is nothing wrong with it. Used as an irreducible modifier for a large and largely decent group of people, it is badly damaging. And as a code word for racial and ethnic hatred, it is detestable.
“Illegal” is accurate insofar as it describes a person’s immigration status. About 60 percent of the people it applies to entered the country unlawfully. The rest are those who entered legally but did not leave when they were supposed to. The statutory penalties associated with their misdeeds are not insignificant, but neither are they criminal. You get caught, you get sent home.
Since the word modifies not the crime but the whole person, it goes too far. It spreads, like a stain that cannot wash out. It leaves its target diminished as a human, a lifetime member of a presumptive criminal class. People are often surprised to learn that illegal immigrants have rights. Really? Constitutional rights? But aren’t they illegal? Of course they have rights: they have the presumption of innocence and the civil liberties that the Constitution wisely bestows on all people, not just citizens.
Many people object to the alternate word “undocumented” as a politically correct euphemism, and they have a point. Someone who sneaked over the border and faked a Social Security number has little right to say: “Oops, I’m undocumented. I’m sure I have my papers here somewhere.”
But at least “undocumented” — and an even better word, “unauthorized” — contain the possibility of reparation and atonement, and allow for a sensible reaction proportional to the offense. The paralysis in Congress and the country over fixing our immigration laws stems from our inability to get our heads around the wrenching change involved in making an illegal person legal. Think of doing that with a crime, like cocaine dealing or arson. Unthinkable!
So people who want to enact sensible immigration policies to help everybody — to make the roads safer, as Gov. Eliot Spitzer would with his driver’s license plan, or to allow immigrants’ children to go to college or serve in the military — face the inevitable incredulity and outrage. How dare you! They’re illegal.
Meanwhile, out on the edges of the debate — edges that are coming closer to the mainstream every day — bigots pour all their loathing of Spanish-speaking people into the word. Rant about “illegals” — call them congenital criminals, lepers, thieves, unclean — and people will nod and applaud. They will send money to your Web site and heed your calls to deluge lawmakers with phone calls and faxes. Your TV ratings will go way up.
This is not only ugly, it is counterproductive, paralyzing any effort toward immigration reform. Comprehensive legislation in Congress and sensible policies at the state and local level have all been stymied and will be forever, as long as anything positive can be branded as “amnesty for illegals.”
We are stuck with a bogus, deceptive strategy — a 700-mile fence on a 2,000-mile border to stop a fraction of border crossers who are only 60 percent of the problem anyway, and scattershot raids to capture a few thousand members of a group of 12 million.
None of those enforcement policies have a trace of honesty or realism. At least they don’t reward illegals, and that, for now, is all this country wants.

Ex- U.S. Terror Official Backs Spitzer’s License Plan

Governor Spitzer defending his license plan at the Center on Law and Security at New York University.

By SEWELL CHAN and MATHEW R. WARREN (The New York Times)

Gov. Eliot Spitzer, whose plan to grant illegal immigrants driver’s licenses has encountered widespread opposition among New York State voters and politicians, announced yesterday that Richard A. Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism czar, had endorsed the proposal.

In a news conference at New York University, Governor Spitzer highlighted Mr. Clarke’s support as he sought to allay concerns that the proposal would make it easier for criminals or even prospective terrorists to obtain government identification. Mr. Clarke did not appear at the news conference, but he issued a statement, which Governor Spitzer’s staff released:

“From a law enforcement and security perspective, it is far preferable for the state to know who is living in it and driving on its roads, and to have their photograph and their address on file, than to have large numbers of people living in our cities whose identity is totally unknown to the government,” Mr. Clarke’s statement said in part.

At the news conference yesterday morning, Governor Spitzer said he was unconcerned about a recent poll that showed that more than 70 percent of voters disapproved of his plan.

“I don’t base security decisions about the state of New York based on polling numbers,” the governor said.

He continued: “When I decide something is important for our security, I’ll do it if it’s right, if it’s constitutional, and it’s legal and it’s necessary. I also feel that those poll questions were structured in a way that was almost designed to get to that answer. I think if people listened to an articulation based on facts and based upon what we intend to do, they will recognize that this is smart security policy and probably support it.”

Governor Spitzer said he would begin implementing the plan by December, with the full range of changes to be completed by the middle of next year. “There is no delay, and we are doing this methodically and carefully to ensure that every step is done properly,” he said.

Some county clerks, who issue licenses in many counties, have voiced opposition to the plan, as has former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Republican who is running for president.

The governor has been steadfast so far, but some fellow Democrats have said they are worried that his stance could have high political costs.

Even before Mr. Clarke’s statement, some security experts had spoken favorably of the plan, saying it was a way to bring a hidden population into the open and ultimately make the identification system more secure, as well as a way to ensure more drivers are licensed and insured.

Finally, Support for Spitzer Begins to Grow

The New York Times is reporting today that Governor Spitzer's new policy on driving licenses is finally finding support among "terrorism and security experts, who, like Mr. Spitzer, regard it as a way of bringing a hidden population into the open and ultimately making the system more secure, not to mention getting more drivers on the road licensed and insured".

About time too.

We've been wondering when the sensible voices would prevail over the right-wing noise machine.

“If you talk to people in the intelligence and law enforcement communities, when they’re investigating terrorists or crimes or unlawful activity, they want people to be in the system, because that’s how you find them,” said Margaret D. Stock, an associate professor at West Point who also works for the Army as an immigration lawyer.

“I’m a Republican,” she added. “I find it disturbing that people who claim to be law and order types want to let hundreds of thousands of people run around the country without any oversight when there’s a war going on.”

Licenses for Immigrants Finds Support

The New York Times, October 9
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and DANNY HAKIM

ALBANY, Oct. 8 — Opponents have decried Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s move to grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants as a “passport to terror” and a “frightening” policy shift that is “dangerous and inconceivable.”

They suggest that the policy will shield illegal immigrants from scrutiny by law enforcement and airport security personnel and make them appear to be in the United States legally.

But the governor’s policy is drawing support from some terrorism and security experts, who, like Mr. Spitzer, regard it as a way of bringing a hidden population into the open and ultimately making the system more secure, not to mention getting more drivers on the road licensed and insured.

The success of the policy, they say, will rest on the reliability of new technology that Mr. Spitzer wants installed in Department of Motor Vehicles offices to verify the authenticity of passports and other documents that the illegal immigrants will be required to submit when applying for licenses.

Some of the new security problems predicted by critics appear unlikely, several security experts said. Having a driver’s license should not make it easier to board a domestic airplane flight, because foreign passports are already accepted as identification at airports. Moreover, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration said, neither a foreign passport nor an American driver’s license is among the criteria used to determine whether the bearer will be subject to extra security screening.

Further, while critics have made much of the fact that several of the Sept. 11 terrorists used driver’s licenses to rent vehicles and board airplanes, they were able to obtain licenses as apparently legal immigrants, if in some cases by presenting fraudulent documentation. As a result, the federal commission that investigated the attacks specifically declined to make recommendations on whether licenses should be granted to illegal immigrants, saying it was not germane to their inquiry.

“If you talk to people in the intelligence and law enforcement communities, when they’re investigating terrorists or crimes or unlawful activity, they want people to be in the system, because that’s how you find them,” said Margaret D. Stock, an associate professor at West Point who also works for the Army as an immigration lawyer.

“I’m a Republican,” she added. “I find it disturbing that people who claim to be law and order types want to let hundreds of thousands of people run around the country without any oversight when there’s a war going on.”

But critics of the policy see it as a retreat.

“There will no longer be any security,” said Frank J. Merola, a Republican and the county clerk in Rensselaer County. A license, he said, “will no longer be different than a fraudulent document on the street.”

“When a police officer walks up to a routine traffic stop,” he said, “he doesn’t know if someone is here legally or illegally.”

Mr. Merola added that his concerns would have been allayed if the governor had proposed creating a second class of driver’s license for the illegal immigrants. Chuck Canterbury, the national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said his group has generally opposed giving licenses to people who cannot prove they are here legally. However, he said he would not necessarily object to a system like the one Mr. Spitzer is proposing, as long as the verification technology was adequate to prevent fraud.

“We just need to know who we’re stopping, and have some degree of confidence that the information is accurate,” Mr. Canterbury said. “As long as they have proof of who they are, I don’t think that we would object to something like that.”

Under the new policy, someone applying for a license without a Social Security number would need a valid, current foreign passport, in addition to other documents that would aid in establishing the applicant’s identity.

The passport’s authenticity would be verified through new scanners installed at all Department of Motor Vehicles offices or at a central location by a new unit of specially trained personnel. In addition, under the policy, photo-comparison software will be tested in hopes of keeping people from getting multiple licenses under different names.

“If the photo-comparison technology works and if the D.M.V. uses effective methods for authenticating and verifying foreign-source identity documents, the future New York license will be more robust than today’s driver’s licenses, and of much greater use in screening and investigations involving terrorism,” said Susan Ginsburg, a former staff member of the 9/11 Commission who is now a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute and an adviser to the federal Department of Homeland Security.

The most important thing for investigators and intelligence officials, she added, was to be able to track suspects, legal or not.

“Consistency of identity is critical to law enforcement and counterterrorism, and it’s the consistency of identity that the New York system is designed to increase,” she said.

But James M. Staudenraus, an adviser to the groups 9/11 Families for a Secure America and the Coalition for a Secure Driver’s License, argued that forgoing a requirement for Social Security numbers meant forgoing the only reliable method for verifying someone’s true identity. Foreign passports varied so widely in quality and antifraud protection, he said, that it was dangerous to rely on them.

“We can’t rely on technology for verifying people’s true identity,” Mr. Staudenraus said.

He worries that once would-be terrorists had access to valid state driver’s licenses, they would raise less suspicion. “Everyone who sees it assumes that the individual carrying it has gone under some sort of a background check,” he said.

The Spitzer policy means that New York driver’s licenses are unlikely to meet the federal guidelines being phased in by 2013 for a federally recognized license known as a “Real ID,” which will require, among other things, proof of legal residency. Under the federal law, at that time, the Real ID or a passport would be needed to board an airplane in the United States. In that case, New York and other states may opt to offer both Real IDs for those who want them, as well as standard driver’s licenses.

The dispute over the Spitzer policy appears headed for the courts.

In most upstate counties, county clerks operate centers for the Department of Motor Vehicles, and a dozen Republican clerks have threatened to defy the policy, even though they act as agents of the governor’s administration. Republican lawmakers have threatened to sue to block the policy, saying the governor did not have the statutory authority to act on his own; the Spitzer administration argues that previous litigation on the matter supports their position.

Mr. Spitzer, a Democrat, has called the response hysterical.

“We are not talking about letting more people into this country,” he said, “we are talking about being practical about those who are already here.”

Irish held in CA raids; Hate voices attack NY Gov

News in today suggests that Irish people have been caught up in raids in Southern California. We'll post more when we know more.

Meanwhile, in New York, Governor Spitzer's office is under siege from hate voices attacking the Governor for his brave stance on driving licenses. Please take a minute to call Spitzer's office to say thank you. Whether you are a New York resident or not, please join us. We need you to drown out the voices of hate and defend this important policy as a national example. Please call Governor Spitzer (518-474-8390) to tell him, "I am calling to thank you for your leadership in improving the drivers’ license system to protect public safety for all New Yorkers and setting a national example." Read the ILIR statement

Anti-immigrant group shows ugliest of colors

The people on the anti-immigrant side are really feeling free to show their truly ugly colors now.

Take this report from CNN this morning. Petty Officer Eduardo Gonzalez is about to be deployed to Iraq for a third time but is worried about his wife Mildred who faces deportation. Imagine this; a US sailor is off to Iraq for the THIRD time and he may lose his wife and baby son while he risks his life serving this country. Everyone quoted in the story, including army officials, is sympathetic and seeking a resolution.

Everyone, that is, except for the blinkered ugly folks from an anti-immigrant group.

That's just fine, (if Mildred gets deported) according to Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which lobbies for tougher laws on illegal immigration.

"What you're talking about is amnesty for illegal immigrants who have a relative in the armed forces, and that's just outrageous," he said. "What we're talking about here is letting lawbreakers get away with their actions just because they have a relative in the military. ... There's no justification for that kind of policy."

There you have it. According to Mark Krikorian, those brave young men and women serving in Iraq deserve to have their wives and husbands deported. This kind of sentiment is beyond despicable.

Hispanic vote strength growing

Story on CNN today shows that Hispanic vote is fastest growing ethnic minority in the country. Wonder how the Republicans can keep attracting their vote while also supporting crackdowns that are hitting immigrant communities? Something's going to have to give. They can't campaign for the Hispanic vote (which helped propel George W into office) AND be anti-immigrant at the same time. Hopefully we'll see start to see more sense being spoken on immigration.

Driving while illegal; Editorial from New York Daily News

Gov. Spitzer made the right call in letting the Department of Motor Vehicles issue driver's licenses without demanding that applicants produce valid Social Security cards. It's a bummer, but he was forced into it by Washington's failure to reform the immigration system.

New York is home to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants. A growing number of them have been driving without licenses - and thus without insurance - since former Gov. George Pataki ordered that everyone who signed up for a license had to produce proof of Social Security or valid immigration status.

No one knows how many uninsured drivers there are in New York, but 152,000 people have lost, or are about to lose, their licenses because of Pataki's 2002 edict. They didn't go away. They didn't stop driving. They'll just tool around without insurance. That's unacceptable and downright dangerous. It also forces up everyone else's insurance premiums.

New York's licensing regulations are, appropriately, among the toughest in the nation. Applicants must present a variety of forms of documentation, such as a passport or a birth certificate, to prove they are who they say they are. In this day and age, strict security is an absolute necessity.

To maintain that, Spitzer has ordered applicants who don't have Social Security numbers to produce foreign identification, including, at a minimum, the passport of another country. He has also ordered the DMV to bring in the latest technology to verify the authenticity of such documents. Finally, he's equipping the DMV with devices that can cross-check photos to make sure no one gets more than once license.

Strictly and effectively applied, those measures should be enough to determine the true identities of applicants. They will also put names, addresses and faces into state records increasing the state's ability to keep track of who's here. To charge, as some have, that Spitzer is enabling terrorists is outrageous bunk.

In a better world, we wouldn't have to go through contortions to uphold security standards while preventing New Yorkers from being victimized by uninsured drivers and inflated insurance costs. But that's what we'll have to do until Congress makes it possible for illegal immigrants to come out of the shadows.

Finally some sense on the radio!

Ann from Queens - and also a volunteer with the ILIR - got on the phone-in to the Brian Lehrer show and described how her life as a mother of two small children would improve under Governor Spitzer's new rules.

Ann provided some of the discussion's more illuminating points when she said;

I've been here 10 years, I pay my taxes, I have a tax ID

This is it; in a nutshell; our ghost citizens can pay their taxes, contribute to the economy (see the story from the NYT today) yet people such as John J. Flanagan (R-2nd , Suffolk County) won't be happy until they've chased all the immigrants out of the US.

Flanagan was debating the issue on the Lehrer show with Jose M. Serrano (D-28th, The Bronx and East Harlem) with Serrano defending the governor and Flanagan attacking the policy for "rewarding" illegal immigration.

Ain't it funny how some people with Irish names seem to have conveniently forgotten that their ancestors must have crossed the Atlantic at some point? Flanagan and his ilk live in a dream world where immigrants wait patiently for some mythical visa. Memo to Flanagan. THEY"RE AIN'T NO VISA PROGRAMS OUT THERE.

Please, someone help us get out of this mess!

And fair play to ya Ann, for telling it like it is!!

Call In To WNYC In New York 212-433-WNYC

Licensed to Drive

The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC (93.9 fm and 820AM) will feature a segment on the drivers licenses in New York.

Please call in to the show (bet 10am and 11am) at 212-433-WNYC (212-433-9692).

Let the New York public know how popular Governor Eliot Spitzer's move is with the Irish in New York.

We love the Gov!

Send your comments directly to the show.

Irish delight at New York U-turn

From The Sunday Independent, Sept 22, 2007

UNDOCUMENTED Irish immigrants across the state of New York were thrilled last week as State Governor Eliot Spitzer announced a U-turn on driving licences

Under current state laws, undocumented Irish immigrants were ineligible for driving licences if they could not provide valid social security numbers.

Governor Spitzer said that the law was only making the roads more dangerous for residents in New York, and he ordered a sweeping overhaul.

Under the new initiative, undocumented Irish immigrants with old or expired driving licences will be able to apply for replacement licences in December. These licences will be valid for eight years.

New drivers will be able to apply for five-year licences beginning in April 2008. All applicants will need valid passports instead of work permit documents or social security documents to prove their identity.

Deirdre Magowan from Dublin said she was delighted. "I have been unable to drive my son to school for the past two years because I had lost my licence and I wasn't able to renew it."

"I've always been afraid of having an accident so I couldn't bring him or his friends in the car."

Deirdre, like thousands of other Irish across the US, are in dire difficulties because of the crackdown on undocumented immigrants.

Her son, Oisin, has no idea that his parents are "illegal". He visited Ireland last year for his first trip ever, accompanied by his grandfather Michael. The seven-year-old said the trip was great but that he missed his parents.

Kelly Fincham, executive director of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform, urged volunteers to contact Governor Spitzer to congratulate him on his brave stance.

"Governer Spitzer's initiative is a huge step forward for our community as it signals that common sense can prevail in the immigration issue," she said.

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DMV posts new policy online

The New York DMV has posted details of the new policy online. You can read it by clicking here Hopefully, other states will see the sense in knowing who's on the roads and making sure they're insured. Please keep those faxes/emails and letters going into Governor Spitzer's office. And if you're living in other states, maybe you should put a quick call into YOUR Governor's office asking them to do the sensible thing.

In other news; some people have sent in offensive comments to the blog. It is this blog author's policy NOT to publish offensive comments from people who are too cowardly to leave their name or email. Hope that answers your question.

THANK GOVERNOR SPITZER!!!

NY STATE LAUNCHES DRIVING LICENCES FOR UNDOCUMENTED. PLEASE THANK THE GOVERNOR!!!
(The phones at Gov Eliot Spitzer's office have been taken offline)
FAX 518 474 1513
EMAIL through the website
WRITE the Governor at Eliot Spitzer, State Capitol, Albany, NY, 12224
Gov Spitzer's initiative is a huge step forward for our community as it signals that common sense CAN prevail in the immigration issue.
Please make sure that you contact the Governor's office.
THANK GOV SPITZER FROM IRISH AMERICAN COMMUNITY.
Read full press release here

Breaking News; Spitzer Announces Driving Licences

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer today announced a sweeping new initiative which will see undocumented immigrants eligible to apply for driving licences.

The initiative - which was announced at a press conference at his New York offices earlier today - will take place in two phases.

Phase one - which will take place in December 2007 - will allow those with old, or expired, driving licences to renew them for eight years.

Phase two - which will start in April 2008 - will allow completely new applications from people who have never driven before. These licenses will be valid for five years.

All applicants will be required to present a passport at the DMV to prove their identity.

More to follow

Spitzer Policy Will Let Illegal Immigrants Get Driver's Licenses

(From The Sun, New York)

Jacob Gershman, Sept 21, 2007

Illegal immigrants in New York will be allowed to obtain New York State driver's licenses under a new policy that the Spitzer administration is expected to announce shortly, a source said.

Starting in 2008, the Department of Motor Vehicles will accept foreign passports and birth certificates from immigrants as proofs of identification for new license applications. Immigrants will no longer need to provide legal status paperwork or a Social Security card, the source said.

The changes could not be immediately confirmed by the Spitzer administration.

County clerks around the state came to Albany yesterday to meet with officials from the Department of Motor Vehicles to discuss the new policy, according to the source, who said the commissioner, David Swarts, briefed the Bloomberg administration.

During last year's gubernatorial campaign, Mr. Spitzer said he would permit illegal immigrants to obtain driver's licenses, arguing that banning them from driving worsened the lives of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers without adding to security.

"The facts show that restricting immigrants's access to driver's licenses does nothing to improve security," a spokeswoman for Mr. Spitzer, Christine Anderson, told the Associated Press in October. "All it does is drive immigrants into the shadows, creating a class of people with no public records."

Opponents of the proposed changes said restrictions on giving licenses to illegal immigrants help to prevent identity theft and thwart terrorist attacks. They note that the September 11, 2001 plane hijackers had at least 35 licenses, which helped them to rent cars and open bank accounts.

Since the September 11 attacks, state governments have expanded driver's license identification requirements and many have begun preparing for the implementation of the Real ID Act of 2005, which requires states to adopt national standards for driver's licenses by the end of 2009.

New York is one of more than 30 states to verify the Social Security numbers of driver's license applicants.

In 2002, Mr. Pataki issued an executive order that required driver's license applicants to submit Social Security numbers to prove they were legal residents or to provide proof that they were not eligible for a Social Security number.

In 2004, to comply with an executive order issued by Mr. Pataki, the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles began sending out warning letters to New Yorkers with licenses whose Social Security numbers did not match federal data.

About 58% of the 600,000 individuals who received the letter verified their Social Security numbers. Those individuals who did not verify their numbers will be able to get a legal license by December, the source said.

Paul and Jenny's Story

Anyone who has attended an ILIR function in Boston or Washington over the past two years will probably remember meeting Paul and Jenny Ladd.
The young Irish couple lived in Boston for the past 12 years and built up a successful life and busines there.
Their life in the US came to an abrupt end last summer when they were pulled over on a routine trafic stop in New Hampshire.
They have tried every means possible to stay in the US, but, as all of us know, years of tax-paying, law-abiding, community-spirited behaviour counts for nothing if you don't have a visa.
Their story was published in the Irish Times on Tuesday. Please click here to read it.

Sheila Gleeson, the Executive Director of the Coalition of Irish Immigration Centers said:

The couple were tireless advocates for immigration reform for as long as I have know them (more then 5 years). When I saw this story last night I was not surprised to see that, in spite of the fact that they will not benefit themselves, they are continuing to fight for immigration reform to the end.

US no longer offers a haven as reluctant Irish prepare to quit Boston

The Irish Times,
Wed, Sep 19, 2007

Letter from Boston:They had the wake in Porterbellys, a pub in the Brighton section of Boston where Gaelic games are shown on one screen and Red Sox baseball games on another.

In the 19th century wakes like these used to be held in cottages and pubs in the west of Ireland, going away parties for those who were sailing to America and who, despite heartfelt protests to the contrary, were never coming back.

Now they hold them in America, in cities like Boston, in places like Porterbellys, for people like Paul and Jenny Ladd, who are going back to Ireland not because they want to but because they have to.

"How's Fr John?" Paul Ladd said in his singsong Cork accent.

Fr John McCarthy, a Limerick priest who works with Irish immigrants in Boston, smiled and gave Paul Ladd, a bear of a man, a hug.

"It's not right," Fr McCarthy said later, as the Ladds greeted the friends they had made during the 12 years they lived in Boston. "I look at people like Paul and Jenny and think, it's America's loss. So it is."

Paul bought Jenny three different Aer Lingus tickets before she agreed to join him in America, and that was only after she lost her delivery job in their native Mallow.

"I refused to go on the dole," Jenny said.

They landed in Boston with $250 in cash between them, and hit the pubs in Brighton, asking other immigrants where they could find work.

Within a few hours, Paul had a job, roofing. Within a few days, Jenny was cleaning houses. Within a few years, Paul had started his own roofing business.

They scrimped and saved and bought a house in Norwood, a Boston suburb where many residents are of Irish ancestry.

The Ladds tried to legalise their residency status. They couldn't. The system was broken, so like the tens of thousands of Irish who came here after the last of the Morrison visas were handed out in the early 1990s, the Ladds kept their heads down and stayed on.

Call them naive, but they thought that if you worked hard, paid taxes and kept your nose clean, eventually you would be embraced as an American.

There were two centuries of experience to suggest this approach worked, especially for the Irish, especially in Boston.

The same US government that wouldn't give the Ladds a way to get legal gladly handed them tax identification numbers and took their taxes. But, due to restrictions put in place after the 9/11 attacks, Paul Ladd couldn't renew his driver's licence last year and when his truck was stopped by police on a routine check, he and Jenny entered a system that no longer winks at people with freckles and brogues.

Shortly after arriving in Boston, Jenny got a second job as nanny for a family in Brookline, and the job came with a flat. She called her mum back in Cork to say she was living just a few blocks from where John F Kennedy was born.

A couple of months ago, Paul and Jenny Ladd stood in a courtroom in a building named for John F Kennedy and were ordered to leave the country. The Ladds never played the Irish card, even in a city where that long held currency. "We're no better than anyone else," Paul said.

They volunteered with the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform, seeking a comprehensive law for all immigrants. When Senator Ted Kennedy and others unveiled a bipartisan bill in June, and President George Bush vowed to sign it, the Ladds thought they would be spared deportation. But the immigration bill crashed and burned in the Senate just weeks later.

A weak president and a cynical Congress were no match for the anti-immigrant sentiment that hovers like a fog over parts of America. Last week Michael Carr, an immigrant who has a painting business and makes a few bob on the side singing in Boston's myriad Irish pubs, dedicated the first song of his first set at Porterbellys to Paul Ladd. It was the old Christy Moore song, Ordinary Man. Ladd mouthed the words as Carr sang: "I'm an ordinary man, nothing special, nothing grand. I've had to work for everything I own."

Jenny Ladd chatted with Matt Arnold, the American boy for whom she was a nanny. Matt's all grown up now, and at 22 just graduated from university.

Jenny was wearing a loud green T-shirt, and the words on the front - Legalize the Irish - seemed especially plaintive and poignant.

Matt's mother, Victoria, stood next to them and shook her head. "I think it's wrong that Paul and Jenny are getting deported," she said. "They are the kind of people who make this country better. They're the immigrant story."

In Boston, they are the immigrant story in reverse. Boston's Irish-born community, which has been replenishing itself for a century and a half, is drying up. Since 9/11, many have gone home, and fewer are coming over.

Some held on the last couple of years, hoping for immigration reform. Now, as that seems a long way off, even if the Democrats win the White House back, the December flights to Ireland are filling up quickly. A lot of the Irish want to be home for Christmas.

Paul Ladd doesn't know what he'll do back in Cork.

"I'll find whatever work I can," he said.

Jenny has lined up a job to clean houses.

"That's what I did when I first came to America," she said. "I'm starting over where I began."

Jenny looked up at one of the ceiling beams. Hanging there was one of those authentic black and white road signs from back home. It said Bantry was three miles away. "It feels like a million miles," Jenny said.

Kevin Cullen

ILIR's New Course

Editorial from ILIR Chairman Niall O'Dowd

September has arrived and Congress will soon be back in session after the summer break.

For the Irish undocumented the prospects of a major immigration bill being passed in the House or Senate in the new session are negligible.

That does not mean there will be no action on immigration issues however.

Issues such as the Dream Act which would give legal status to children who came here with their illegal parents and know no other society are being pushed strongly by advocates such as Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois.

Senator Diane Feinstein of California has also signaled that she will be trying to pass agricultural workers legislation that would allow legalization of those who pick and harvest the California crops. Other bills may also be in the offing.

They may include a slew of border-security first provisions, put forward by opportunistic Republicans,intent on making it as hard as possible for the issue to lose some of its undoubted heat and hostility which has characterized the debate.

Thankfully there are enough legislators of principle who will oppose any such draconian measures without a measure of relief for the undocumented as well. Perhaps the-border first legislators believe that they have sufficient numbers, especially with a difficult election year coming up, to pass some bill or other but it hardly seems likely.

The Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform has obviously taken a step back since the defeat of the comprehensive bill in early summer. The lobby however, has not been idle. There has been continuous discussion with senior figures in Congress, in the Irish government and elsewhere about what will be the best way forward.

The lobby has also just hired former Congressman Bruce Morrison, author of the Morrison visas bill and a long term expert on all aspects of immigration law, as their lobbyist in Washington.

While the days of the mass rallies and 3,000 people flooding Washington are over, the goodwill and contacts created by those lobby days are still there to be harvested.

Of course if you are illegal in a apartment in the Bronx, Dorchester, Sunset or Philadelphia,the news has been discouraging since the defeat of the comprehensive bill. However, it is important to note that ILIR has continued to work with other immigraition groups and has also taken stock of what is the best way for their community to proceed.

Obviously, the Irish government now becomes a major player. Given their high visibility and major access in Washington it could not be otherwise. The government of Bertie Ahern has taken a consistently strong stand on the issue of legalizing the Irish and the time has now come for all who are interested in achieving that goal to come together and work on an agreed formula.

There are certainly enough examples of countries who received fair treatement when they sought it from the American authorities. Chile, Australia and Nicaragua to name but three have worked well to further their own interests in the recent past. Ireland must look to such examples.

There is also the issue of access to Ireland for American workers, a reality that became apparent when over 6,000 Americans attended the Irish Voice/FAS jobs fair in Manhattan last year. The reality is that Americans want - and should have - access to work in Ireland in the same way that Irish want to have access to come and work here.

All in all the situation has been bleak for some months now, but there is a new possibility abroad that efforts can be made to solve the issue of the Irish undocumented. It will not be for want of trying from ILIR or we're sure the Irish government. Let's keep hope alive.

Immigrants’ Labors Lost

---

September 3, 2007

Op-Ed Contributor

By MARK LANGE

San Francisco

IMAGINE we wanted to create a huge Latino underclass in this country. We would induce more than 500,000 illegal immigrants to enter annually. We would see Latinos account for half of America’s population growth. We would turn a hardened eye toward all 44 million Latinos, because 12 million jumped our borders to meet our labor demand.

We would financially motivate but morally deplore illegal immigrants’ determination to break our laws and risk their lives to work for us. We would let nativist, xenophobic amnesiacs pillory the roughly 25 percent of Latinos who were here illegally, at the expense of the 75 percent who were legal. CNN and Fox News would reduce Latinos to fodder for fear-mongering, and the documentariat would make them objects of pity, when they wanted and warranted neither.

We would know that if we paid them, they would come, but we would offer no legitimate employment. We would adopt a let’s-pretend labor policy in our fields, yards, factories and restaurants, and for child care, construction and cleaning, with a wage fakery worthy of the Soviet Union. There, the joke was “we pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us.” Here they would work, hard — and we would pay them, sort of, but pretend not to, denying ourselves the future tax revenue needed to pay for services we faulted them for needing.

We would ensure that the education system failed them, lamenting a dropout rate more than twice that of blacks and four times that of whites. Keeping incomes impossibly low, we would sanction Mexican-American welfare receipts twice those of natives. We would let the states launch loads of legislative half-fixes. We would have the Immigration and Naturalization Service and Homeland Security Department start an “even tougher” and more futile paper chase. We would see desperate workers fake new Social Security numbers or go underground for the next boss seeking this shabby labor discount.

We do all of this — and let it cost us more as a country — because it is a little cheaper for us as individuals and employers. And whether we knew it or not, we are deliberately fencing in our own economy.

It is in our self-interest to support labor mobility, development and advancement. Growth in productivity, fundamentally, is how we raise everyone’s standard of living. It starts with the first rung.

This month, Congress can avert a replay of the 1986 amnesty debacle by reserving permanent residency and citizenship for those who get in line and play by existing rules. Let nobody’s status be “adjusted” or “granted.” Instead, have employers sponsor anyone on their shadow payrolls to apply for a tamper-proof holographic guest worker card. Deport, adequately south of the border, anyone not sponsored. That won’t mean all 12 million. In 1954, when illegal Latino immigration was twice what it is now, a manageable number of deportations motivated the majority to repatriate.

To enforce sanctions against employers, grant the states (who bear the social costs) federal transfer payments for every undocumented worker they find, which will keep Congress and future administrations honest about paying for enforcement. If agriculture needs a lower minimum wage, negotiate and legislate it. To address the supply side, in the next trade agreement insist that Mexico adequately ensure its workers’ right to organize — to support wages and worker retention there, and a fairer fight for American exports.

The strength of an abstraction like “the economy” comes from the hands and minds of motivated and prepared people. Whether or not the left is committed to social equity — or the right, to equality of opportunity — we have at least 12 million pragmatic reasons to turn a potentially permanent underclass into a productive asset. Rather than fencing aspiring contributors out, comprehensive reform means Congress getting serious about entry-level job training and midcareer education programs for all workers. They deliver better economic returns than border patrols do.

The guy with the leaf-blower not only can learn English, he — like the unemployed steelworker — should have a chance to learn auto repair or programming. He’ll start with the jobs “ordinary Americans” won’t do. But we impair our economic future if we leave him there, imagining that’s all he or his children will ever do.

Mark Lange was a presidential speechwriter from 1989 to 1991.