May 18, 2007
Immigration Reform
The compromise immigration reform worked out by Kennedy and the WH seems to be a start in the right direction. Most significant, I think, is its provisions for transforming an underground and underclass workforce into legally recognized participants in American society--that is, citizens. Here's the L A Times summary of the bill:
CURRENT ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS_They could come forward immediately and receive probationary legal status.
_Bill creates a four-year, renewable "Z" visa for those present within the U.S. unlawfully before Jan. 1, 2007.
_Undocumented immigrants may adjust status to lawful permanent residence once they pay $5,000 in fees and fines and their head of household returns to their home country.
_People under age 30 who were brought to the U.S. as minors could receive their green cards after three years, rather than eight.
_Undocumented farmworkers who can demonstrate they have worked 150 hours or three years in agriculture can apply for green cards.
_No green cards for "Z" visa holders can be processed until "triggers" for border security and workplace enforcement have been met, estimated to take 18 months. Processing of green cards for holders of "Z" visas would begin after clearing an existing backlog, which is expected to take eight years.
___
BORDER SECURITY
_Hire 18,000 new border patrol agents.
_Erect 200 miles of vehicle barriers and 370 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border.
_Erect 70 ground-based radar and camera towers along the southern border.
_Deploy four unmanned aerial vehicles and supporting systems.
_End the program in which illegal immigrants are released upon apprehension.
_Provide for detaining up to 27,500 aliens per day on an annual basis.
_Use secure and effective identification tools to prevent unauthorized work.
___
WORKPLACE ENFORCEMENT
_Require employers to electronically verify new employees to prove identity and work eligibility.
_Increase penalties for unlawful hiring, employment and record keeping violations.
___
GUEST WORKERS (requires border security measures to be in place first)
_Create a new temporary guest worker program with two-year "Y visas," initially capped at 400,000 per year with annual adjustments based on market fluctuations
_Workers could renew the Y visa up to three times, but would be required to return home for a year in between each time. Those bringing dependents could obtain only one, nonrenewable two-year visa.
_Families could accompany guest workers only if they could show proof of medical insurance and demonstrate that their wages were 150 percent above the poverty level.
___
FUTURE IMMIGRANTS
_Spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens and permanent residents would be eligible for green cards based purely on their family connections, but other relatives such as adult children and siblings would not.
_380,000 visas a year would be awarded based on a point system, with about 50 percent based on employment criteria, 25 percent based on education, 15 percent on English proficiency and 10 percent on family connections.
_Apply new limits to U.S. citizens seeking to bring foreign-born parents into the country.
_Visas for parents of U.S. citizens would be capped annually at 40,000 and those for spouses and children at 87,000.
Posted by stevemack at 05:41 AM | Comments (3013) | TrackBack
May 04, 2006
Immigration and the Identity Argument
It’s rather extraordinary to watch the anti-immigration folks squirm around looking for the best language to obfuscate their deepest anxieties about undocumented workers. On the day of the march, Lou Dobbs and Dana Rohrabacher were falling all over themselves remind Larry King and the rest of us that even illegal immigrants were truly wojnderful people, Salt-o-the-Earth. It’s just economics, stupid. Dana and Lou (who apparently once picked beans with folks too poor to buy blond hair dye) are just sticking up for poor real Americans who can’t find work in the fields.
On this score, Kevin Drum catches Brad Carson in a little inconsistency. Today, Carson argues that “the vast majority of those who oppose illegal immigration do so on sound public policy grounds. Illegal immigration is seen rightly as a threat to their economic livelihood.” In 2004, however, Carson acknowledged that, for the vast majority of Oklahomans “transcendent cultural concerns are more important than universal health care or raising the minimum wage.” Drum goes on to conclude:
That's exactly right. There's probably some genuine job-based animus toward illegal immigrants in the construction industry, but elsewhere you barely need to scratch the surface to figure out that anti-immigrant anxiety mostly seems to revolve around crime, gangs, culture, language, social services, and bizarrely trumped up fears of reconquista. Can we stop kidding ourselves about this?
If we don’t take at face value the economic/services argument advanced with increasing frequency by immigration opponents, then there are two alternative explanations for this shift. One, of course, is fear that they might be tarred as racist xenophobes—itself an indication that the cultural/identity argument is being morally discredited. Another possibility, however, is more intriguing. It may be that the sea of American flags visible during the May Day marches has neutralized some of those cultural fears—an indication, that is, that those arguments are being logically discredited.
Posted by stevemack at 12:53 PM | Comments (6340) | TrackBack
May 02, 2006
Immigration and the Flag
It seems odd that the day after over a million people took to the streets in cities across the nation the blogosphere has remained largely silent. Yesterday the hot topic was the “Colbert Controversy,” today . . .? There are exceptions, of course, Daily Kos provides a surprisingly neutral roundup of MSM reporting. But most seem to have missed the news completely.
I wonder if it’s fear of the dreaded backlash. That all this will backfire and undermine Democratic hopes for November appears to be the working assumption among many, but not all. One challenge to that assessment comes from Pete Ross at Donkey Rising:
“The nation-wide "Day Without Immigrants" demonstrations were a stunning success by at least one measure --- creating a stronger awareness of the enormous potential of Latino political empowerment. This is undoubtedly good news for Dems, who have received healthy majorities of votes cast by Latinos in recent elections, and stand to benefit even more in November.”
It might also be deep uncertainty about what the politics should be. Consider this from Skerry & Fernqandes at TNR Online:
“When it comes to immigration, the only surprise is surprise itself. There is little in the biography of any particular politician--not party, not ideology, not geography, not even family history--that can readily predict his or her stance on controlling America's borders. (Besides Rohrabacher, the other major opponent of immigration in Congress is a man named Tancredo.) On this issue, the talking points have not yet been written and the focus groups have not yet focused. Immigration policy is for people who love their politics raw and unscripted. It is as if debates over immigration constitute a vast thought-experiment, repeated test cases designed to tell Americans who they are and, more importantly, who they want to be.”
In the end, I believe, the politics of immigration come down to the politics of identity. It's no stretch to say that the single most important issue the marchers had to face was what flag they would fly. The implicit question was “do these folks want to join America, or reclaim it for an alien nation? By that standard, I believe, the demonstrations were a “political” success. The Stars & Stripes dominated the TV pictures—a point even made a few times on FOX. This means that in both a figurative and a psychological sense, would-be backlashers will need to direct their hate at the flag itself. Not an easy thing for many good folk in middle-red America to do.
Posted by stevemack at 06:16 AM | Comments (402)
