The Buie Knife

Legalizing Undocumented Immigrants Would Save U.S. Billions

The conservative libertarian Cato Institute study that legalizing undocumented immigrants would save the nation $180 billion?Click

'Hurry Up and Wait' for International Work Permit

My wife, son and I had planned to leave North Carolina this month to live and work in Turkey for a year, but there has been a bureaucratic delay in our work permit(s) -- a delay of three to eight weeks. We are told that such delays are routine. Supposedly, once a work contract has been signed, sealed and delivered, there's a six-week waiting period. But we have heard of people getting them in one week. A friend asks if maybe we need to offer some baksheesh. Since the work permits are being handled for us, I'm afraid it's out of our hands and we don't even know who to contact. Knowing the truth of Murphy's Law, as soon as I put money down on an office for another month and get re-involved in work in the states, making new appointments and getting new projects, the work permits will come through. Sigh. 

Interfaith Group Dramatizes Plight of NC's Undocumented Workers

Through an invitation from a neighbor, my wife and I had the delight to host four activists who are marching across North Carolina during Holy Week for immigrants' and workers' rights, and for a fair trade policy, as part of the Carolina Interfaith Task Force on Central America, made up of 33 organizations and churches. Gail Phares, Southeast Regional Coordinator of Witness for Peace, organized the events.

"In the past few months, North Carolina has seen a rise in immigration raids and anti-immigrant ordinances, and we hope to put an end to the fear and uncertainty that many people feel toward migrants who are coming to the U.S. to escape extreme poverty," she said in a press release. "It is urgent that we develop a just immigration policy at the state and national levels that will allow people to migrate in a legal and safe manner."

In an interview with the Durham Herald-Sun while in Chatham County, she said trade laws should be changed so that Hispanics could make a living and feed their families at home. She also favors changing immigration laws to make it easier for Hispanics to live and work in the United States. "Don't persecute immigrants," she said. "They're coming because their families are starving."

The group held a press conference in Alamance County about Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows law enforcement officers to arrest undocumented workers. Alamance County has a national reputation for its "get tough" policy. Since local law enforcement authorities aren't authorized to arrest individuals for lacking papers  -- that's the responsibility of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE.gov) -- Alamance Sheriff Terry Johnson has taken an aggressive approach, arresting and jailing immigrants (many who have no criminal records and are employed) for minor traffic offenses and even setting up license checkpoints in Hispanic neighborhoods, according to a NC ACLU complaint.

Designed to target only criminals, the 287(g) program encourages racial profiling and stereotyping, dramatically increases fear of law enforcement in immigrant communities, and often targets hard-working, family-minded immigrants rather than actual criminals, according to a UNC study.

Alamance County deputies pulled Hispanics for traffic stops 1,344 times over four years instead of the 494 times the sheriff reported, according to a study by an Elon University political science professor.

In Graham, near the Alamance County Jail, one member of the group was dressed as the Statue of Liberty. Section 287(g) makes a complete mockery of the Statue's call to "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," demonstrators said, so, dressed as immigration agents and sheriff's deputies, they staged a mock arrest of Lady Liberty. With supporters of 287-G looking on disapprovingly and shouting angry messages, the mock "law enforcement officers" sought to carry Lady Liberty into the Alamance County jail. But police prevented them from entering the jail building, repeatedly warned them to leave the premises, and they were arrested.

Such non-violent civil disobedience sends a dramatic message, Phares told Greensboro's WFMY, Channel 2. "It's just a way to help people think about what's happening," she said.

In Chatham County, the group thanked the county commissioners for opposing 287(g). George Lucier, the chairman of the Board of Commissioners, told the Herald-Sun that 287(g) doesn't work. It's not economical -- the county would have to build a new jail in order to participate. "I'd rather build new schools than new jails," he said. 

Drill Deeper:

• Carolina Interfaith Task Force on Central America
• Witness for Peace
• Press release on the march
  
• Section 287(g)
• Alamance County's national reputation: report on PBS NOW
• ICE.gov
• NC ACLU complaint
• UNC study
• "Marchers Back Chatham Over Immigration Law," Durham Herald-Sun (free registration required)
• News reports of Alamance County arrests and civil disobedience
• video coverage by Greensboro's WFMY, Channel 2
• Chatham County officials reject 287g. Wilson and Pitt County Sheriffs also oppose 287g.
• If immigration and the job market were reversed (humor).
• Republican Party Suicide Pact on Immigration?
• Do Undocumented Immigrants Take Jobs from American Citizens? No!
• Immigrants Commit Crimes At Lower Rates Than Native-born Americans

NC's Dole-Hagan Race for Senate Is Surprisingly Competitive

Incumbent Republican Elizabeth Dole, who first won election to the Senate in 2002 with 54 percent of the vote, has a surprisingly competitive race for re-election as Senator from NC. She and her Democratic opponent are virtually tied, according to polls. The conservative Washington Times characterizes Dole's poll ratings as an "embarrassing showing for an incumbent...."

A number of conservative Republicans in North Carolina are grumbling about Dole.  "When Senator Helms left office, his excellent mostly North Carolinian staff was mostly willing to go to work for Dole, but she did not want them, assembling a new staff instead, with almost all of her Washington staff being out-of-staters," writes Jeffersonian Republican. "The first problem from this move was that Helms' constitutent service operation, one of the best in Washington, was replaced by a slip-shod lackluster version from Dole.  It has also been a problem in policy issues, as Dole's out-of-state staffers don't understand North Carolina politics and often don't even seem to try to do so."

Conservatives like "Jeffersonian Republican" don't like Dole's support of the Warner-Lieberman ''cap and trade'' bill in the Senate. "This wise bill inspired by such great leaders of our sky is falling /manmade global warming movement as Al Gore will give the government a lot more power and cost consumers a lot more for energy...The (conservative) Club for Growth is running ads questioning her wisdom."   

Realizing she needs to shore up her conservative base, Dole has already launched an ad campaign,  appealing to anti-immigrant sentiment and trumpeting her controversial plan giving sheriffs authority to target, arrest and deport undocumented immigrants who commit crimes. In the ad, several sheriffs speak out in favor of the plan. But some sheriffs say the program has drawbacks, according to the N&O:

Wilson County Sheriff Wayne Gay said the program seemed to unfairly target Hispanics for arrest. "When you start targeting a segment of society, and not looking at anyone else, that's when I have a problem," Gay said.

Pitt County Sheriff Mac Manning said most illegal immigrants in his county obey the law and value family and hard work. Manning advocated a path to legal residency for some, such as a woman in Pitt County who has two children and works in a "menial" housekeeping job that he said most Americans wouldn't want.

Dole's opponent, State Senator Kay Hagan (D-Guilford) calls the program a "Band-Aid" solution that uses local money to solve a federal problem and creates a patchwork of inconsistent enforcement. "We need an overall immigration policy that works," Hagan told the N&O. "We need a policy that is uniform throughout the country." She says she favors securing the borders and deporting criminals but acknowledges the need for foreign workers.

Dole retorts that Hagan favors "amnesty for illegals." But Dole seems to have no realistic long-term solution to the problem. There is no chance that 12 million undocumented immigrants are all going to be deported. Dole's rigid position seems far more inflexible than what presumed Republican nominee John McCain and President Bush have supported. Dole is counting on resentment of North Carolina citizens toward undocumented immigrants.

If Hagan could persuade Republican-leaning business voters that Dole's position or lack of position on immigration will hurt the state's economy, and that she doesn't really offer a viable long-term solution, it might be a wedge issue in November for the Democrat. Hagan criticizes Dole for "a lack of leadership" on immigration.

Immigration hardliners think their position is more popular, but they lost ground in 2006. The conservative Wall Street Journal and several Republican leaders have warned members of the GOP that if they don’t take a more generous stand on the issue of immigration, they will spend a decade or more in the political wilderness. Depending on how the issue is framed, most Americans seem to want a path to citizenship for undocumented workers.

Since Dole is running an ad trumpeting her support for a program that doesn't go anywhere near solving the immigration mess, perhaps Hagan could run an ad blaming Dole for being part of the problem, part of the long stalemate, for Washington's failure of leadership on immigration.

For now, Hagan probably needs to focus attention on raising money. After the May primary (which was competitive for her), she had less than $400,000 in the bank, compared to Dole's stash of more than $3 million. 

To win, she would probably need to portray Dole as out of touch, not spending enough time in North Carolina. Dole's primary residence for 40 years has been Washington, DC. Dole has spent several years gallivanting around the country raising money for Republican senatorial candidates. Hagan's campaign can ask skeptically what has Dole accomplished as North Carolina's Senior Senator in Washington, or if it's "time for a change." 

Presumably, Dole raised the issue of immigration first because she considers it to her advantage to do so. Hagan will probably gain more mileage by emphasizing populist rhetoric on the economy, health care, and the need for change in Washington.

Still, given that Dole won her first race in 2002 against Erskine Bowles with a solid 54 percent of the vote, you'd think this is her race to lose. But that was an off-year election, and she only received 1.2 million votes. The combined Obama-Clinton Democratic primary vote this year was more than 1.5 million votes. If a unified Democratic Party with high general election turnout is campaigning against a factionalized, dispirited Republican Party with low turnout, North Carolina's Senate race could be in play, and Dole's seat could be in jeopardy.

Related:

• Results of Presidential, Senatorial, and Gubernatorial Races in NC Will Be Closely Tied Together

If Immigration & The Job Market Were Reversed...

Republican Party Suicide Pact?

In "How to Make Republicans a Minority Party Once Again," the conservative Wall Street Journal warns members of the GOP that if they don’t take a more generous stand on the issue of immigration, they will spend a decade or more in the political wilderness. Regardless of legislative efforts to control immigration, the LEGAL Hispanic population in the U.S. is growing, and Hispanics increasingly perceive the GOP as EXCLUSIVE, unwelcoming, hostile to their culture, nativist, despite the potential for agreement on "traditional family values." In "Profiles in Cowardice on the Immigration Bill," published in the International Herald Tribune, Albert Hunt of Bloomberg News points out how Republican presidential candidates are pandering to a minority of nativists on the issue of immigration, and suggests that the national Republican Party has learned nothing from what happened to the California Republican Party after GOP Gov. Pete Wilson called for an anti-immigrant crackdown in the 1990s – the GOP in CA was hopelessly split up.

"Not since the impeachment of President Bill Clinton," The New York Times reports, have phone lines at the Capitol "been so jammed by a single issue. "Republicans who support the immigration bill are facing unusually intense opposition from conservative groups fighting it. This is among the first times, several of them said, that they have felt the full brunt of an advocacy machine built around conservative talk radio and cable television programs that have long buttressed Republican efforts to defeat Democrats and their policies." Some of the communication has taken a menacing tone, threatening and intimidating senators. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) pointed out that "there's racism in this debate. Nobody likes to talk about it, but a very small percentage of people involved in this debate really have racial and bigoted remarks."

Speaking before La Raza, Graham said, "we're going to tell the bigots to shut up." This inflamed some conservatives and led to a negative attack-ad by conservative pundit Michelle Malkin, who also created video attacks against Republican Senator Sam Brownback and the Wall Street Journal editorial board.

I guess Republicans nationally will have to spend some years in the wilderness, without Congress or the White House, before they stop their "us against them" approach, stop demonizing “illegals” as criminals, and recognize that we’re all in this together.

Drill Deeper:

• "How to Make Republicans a Minority Party Once Again," Wall Street Journal.
• "Profiles in Cowardice on the Immigration Bill," International Herald Tribune.
• Wall Street Journal: Not A Good Idea to Harass Employers Who Hire Undocumented Workers, and Why Conservatives Should Be Pro-Immigration
• "Immigration Bill Prompts Some Menacing Responses," New York Times.

U.S. Can Humanely Reduce Immigration from Mexico By Investing There

Leon Krauze, a Mexican blogger, at WashingtonPost.com Global: "Migrants don’t migrate for the fun of it. There is no pleasure in migration. Migrants -- or at least Mexican migrants -- leave their countries of origin because they have no real choice...If the United States followed the European Union’s example and, through strict guidelines, helped establish a sort of meta-national structure of support with Mexico, immigration would surely begin to decline. The Mexican government -- the apparent bete noire of many of the people who answered my previous post -- would be held accountable by the U.S., the international community and, most important of all, the Mexican people themselves, who have matured enormously since the times of the PRI." 

Drill Deeper:

• Leon Krauze blogging archive
• U.S. - Mexican "Partnership for Prosperity"

Wall Street Journal: Not A Good Idea to Harass Employers Who Hire Undocumented Workers, and Why Conservatives Should Be Pro-Immigration

Wall Street Journal editorial, June 13, 2007: "“Our own view is that the current (immigration) policy, warts and all, is preferable to some vast new enforcement regime that harasses employers for hiring willing workers. This makes no more sense today than when it was first proposed 20 years ago. We don’t see the logic or fairness in punishing business owners for failing to detect and oust illegal aliens in their midst, especially when Citizenship and Immigration Services has proven so inept at performing the same task. Employers encounter enough red tape without also being required to double as deputy immigration cops or risk facing federal raids and steep fines.”

Previously, the WSJ wrote an enlightened editorial called "Conservatives and Immigration: the Debate on the Right About Freedom, Culture and the Welfare State." 

And Daniel Henninger, deputy editor of the WSJ editorial page, contended in a May 31 column that "conservatives will pay a price for demoting economic forces in immigration." Massive migrant flows "into the private industries of construction, restaurants, agriculture, food-packaging, hotels, health and landscaping--is irrefutably the result of powerful, lava-like free-market economic forces," he argues. By attempting to shut down the free market, conservatives are abandoning "core belief in the broad benefits of free-market economic forces in return for a law that hammers these illegal Mexicans."

On June 7, he reported, cleverly tongue-in-cheek, that "the proprietor of this column was released from the burn ward just days ago

Kennedy: Pass Immigration Bill, Then Work to Fix Problems Over the Long Haul

Maybe immigration "reform" isn't dead yet. To lure conservatives, President Bush and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have agreed to add $4 billion more for border security. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seeks to divide the measure up into several proposals, splitting the unpopular parts off from the more popular parts, Time reports. And Senator Edward Kennedy remains a vigorous advocate of the legislation. To lure liberals unenthusiastic about the bill, he acknowledges that a number of provisions need changing over the long haul. "The day it passes, we're going to put in legislation to try to fix it," he said, in telephone interview with the Cape Cod Times, The Senate bill would permit most people now on waiting lists to pay fines and start a path to citizenship, a process that would take at least 8 to 10 years. The bill would reduce opportunities for extended family members to enter the country in the future. But over time, a political consensus could be created to return to a mostly family-based immigration system. And the number of guest workers allowed in each year can be changed later -- President Bush wants 600,000 per year; labor groups that see guest worker programs as legalizing abuse of workers want to eliminate such programs. Current Senate bill would create 200,000 guest worker slots, but sunset the program in five years.

Compelling reasons for legislation remain, mostly the severely broken current immigration system. Without legislation, the problems will only get worse.

Related:

Immigrant Families Divided By An Irrational, Inefficient Bureaucracy, Guest Worker Program 'Collapsing'; Family Members Wrongly Deported

No Way In: U.S. Immigration Policy Leaves Few Legal Options for Mexican Workers

Without Legal Assistance, Thousands are Detained or Expelled Unfairly

Clear Evidence the Immigration System is Broken

Immigration "Reform": Dead?

It looks like immigration "reform" is dead in this session of Congress, according to the Associated Press. Only 45 votes out of a needed 60 in the Senate could be rounded up to end debate and schedule a final vote on the supposed "grand compromise" between President Bush and Senate leaders.

It has unraveled like a cheap piece of clothing. "You start pulling (a loose thread) and the sleeve comes off," Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-S.D.) observed to The Washington Post.

To some immigrant advocates, this is a relief. The bill was not even the proverbial half a loaf of bread for immigrants -- more like, "two slabs of bread and a whack on the head," if that.

A consensus on what to do has not developed in either political party -- among liberals or conservatives, business, labor, or in the immigrant community. They all remain deeply divided. In the base of the Republican Party, many oppose "amnesty" -- letting the 12 million undocumented immigrants here now pay fines, back taxes, and win a path to citizenship, albeit a lengthy one. But as Senator John McCain points out, the status quo is "silent amnesty." To deport 12 million people is unfeasible and impractical.

In the base of the Democratic Party, many oppose guest worker programs that, they believe, drive down wages for American citizens and leave temporary or guest workers with few rights, but as the San Francisco Chronicle has pointed out, "Guest workers have a long history in U.S.: Temporary workers become source of permanent labor force." It is politically unfeasible and impractical to eliminate all guest worker programs in favor of a path to citizenship for all of these workers. A Washington Post piece, "Joined at the Claw: Fates of Maryland Crabbers, Guest Workers Intertwined" described how seasonal workers keep a Maryland crab farmer in business, and how difficult the life is for the seasonal workers. "Be Our Guest," an editorial in the generally liberal New Yorker advocates in favor of guest worker programs.

And yet the Los Angeles Times makes legitimate points in its editorial, "A Raw Deal for Guest Workers: Political Pressures Have Produced a Proposed Guest Worker Program that is Neither Practical Nor Fair." And the Associated Press, focusing on farm workers in Florida, points out that "Temporary Farm Workers Feel Cheated By Contractors Under Guest Worker Program."