Our view on immigration reform: Latest immigration 'crisis' defies simplistic solutions
COURTESY OF USA TODAY EDITORIAL BOARD
The USA, truly a nation of immigrants, is having another of its periodic bouts of anxiety about immigration.
Communities even in areas far from any foreign border are dealing with
the burdens and social change caused by growing numbers of immigrants,
both legal and illegal. Longtime residents and local officials complain
of the costs of immigrant children in the schools, strains on health
care systems for a population that often lacks insurance, and economic
impact of people willing to work for low wages. Recent polls found that
nine of every 10 Americans say immigration is a serious problem, and
three-fourths want more done to keep illegal immigrants out.
Looking
at these numbers, politicians are falling over each other with promises
to round up millions for deportation, erect massive walls along the
porous U.S.-Mexico border and crack down yet again on employers who
hire those here illegally.
The House of Representatives, sensing a potential vote-getting
issue, passed a draconian border control and immigration-enforcement
bill in December. That simplistic legislation has triggered large
demonstrations in support of immigrant rights, including one in Los
Angeles on Saturday that drew more than 500,000 people. The Senate took
up the issue Wednesday and will, we hope, bring a more balanced and
practical approach.
The backlash against immigration is happening in a country where
nearly everyone is either an immigrant or descended from immigrants,
many of whom arrived without anything resembling what would now be
considered proper papers.
Energetic strivers have always been attracted to America, starting
in the 1600s with the likes of John Smith in Jamestown and William
Bradford in Plymouth. And as far back as the 18th century, Benjamin
Franklin was fretting publicly about a surge of German arrivals in
Pennsylvania.
According to the Census Bureau, more than 35 million immigrants are
in the USA, a record number but a smaller proportion of the population
now (12.1%) than at the peak of European immigration early in the 20th
century (14.7%).
Roughly two-thirds are here legally, but an estimated 11.5 million
to 12 million are undocumented. The legislation passed by the House
would declare all of them felons subject to expulsion, as if it were
possible to round up a population the size of Ohio and dump them across
the nearest border.
Moreover, the illegals are roughly 5% of the labor force, heavily
concentrated in construction, low-wage service jobs and agriculture.
Their abrupt departure, even if it were possible, would seriously
disrupt those sectors of the economy. Their employers are violating the
law, but successive administrations have essentially abandoned
enforcement of employer sanctions.
Clearly the immigration-control system enacted in 1986 and revised
in 1996 is broken. Pressures to revisit the issue run in cycles,
usually paralleling anxiety about the economy, jobs and national
security. When concern slackens, businesses become reliant on cheap
labor, consumers welcome the lower prices for food and services, and
enforcement is gradually neglected.
Certainly, part of the answer to the immigration problem has to
include improved and serious border controls - on both sides, as
President Bush should make clear when he meets his Mexican counterpart,
Vicente Fox, in Cancun starting today. Such controls are necessary not
just to curb illegal immigration but also to protect the nation in an
age of terrorism.
But another round of chest-thumping about sealing borders and
deporting illegals is far from a solution. A balanced approach must
also include some kind of guest-worker program, like the one Bush has
proposed, that would bring immigrant laborers out of the shadows. And
common sense suggests providing a route to eventual legalization for
those who have been here for years, in many cases paying taxes and
contributing to their communities. A Senate Judiciary Committee
proposal hammered out Monday is a step in that direction. It would
offer not amnesty but a chance to get in line for eventual citizenship
to those who are willing to continue working for six years, pay their
fines and any back taxes, and learn English.
Despite the frustrations and fears of the moment, and the obvious
security reasons for better management of the borders, a nation of
immigrants cannot turn its back on the new arrivals in its midst.
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