Debates on U.S. Immigration

Judith Gans, Elaine M. Replogle, Daniel J. Tichenor, Judith Gans, Elaine M. Replogle, Daniel J. Tichenor

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781412996013
• eBook ISBN: 9781483306056
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: American Government
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This issues-based reference work (available in both print and electronic formats) shines a spotlight on immigration policy in the United States. The U.S. is a nation of immigrants. Yet while the lofty words enshrined with the Statue of Liberty stand as a source of national pride, the rhetoric and politics surrounding immigration policy all-too-often have proven far less lofty. In reality, the apparently open invitation of Lady Liberty seldom has been without restriction. Throughout our history, impassioned debates about the appropriate scope and nature of such restriction have emerged and mushroomed, among politicians, among scholars of public policy, among the general public. In light of the need to keep students, researchers, and other interested readers informed and up-to-date on status of U.S. immigration policy, this volume uses introductory essays followed by point/counterpoint articles to explore prominent and perennially important debates, providing readers with views on multiple sides of this complex issue. While there are some brief works looking at debates on immigration, as well as some general A-to-Z encyclopedias, we offer more in-depth coverage of a much wider range of themes and issues, thus providing the only fully comprehensive point/counterpoint handbook tackling the issues that political science, history, and sociology majors are asked to explore and to write about as students and that they will grapple with later as policy makers and citizens.

Features & Benefits:

• The volume is divided into three sections, each with its own Section Editor: Labor & Economic Debates (Judith Gans), Social & Cultural Debates (Judith Gans), and Political & Legal Debates (Daniel Tichenor).
• Sections open with a Preface by the Section Editor to introduce the broad theme at hand and provide historical underpinnings.
• Each section holds 12 chapters addressing varied aspects of the broad theme of the section.
• Chapters open with an objective, lead-in piece (or "headnote") followed by a point article and a counterpoint article.
• All pieces (headnote, point article, counterpoint article) are signed.
• For each chapter, students are referred to further readings, data sources, and other resources as a jumping-off spot for further research and more in-depth exploration.
• Finally, volume concludes with a comprehensive index, and the electronic version includes search-and-browse features, as well as the ability to link to further readings cited within chapters should they be available to the library in electronic format.

Political Debates

Introduction

The Politics section of this volume covers 13 of the key debates on immigration: amnesty, Arizona’s S.B. 1070, birthright citizenship, immigration and crime, the provision of driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants, federal policy, voting, the selection system, nativism, the naturalization process, border control, gender and refugee status, and detention and deportation. These issues underscore the reality that the United States is a nation built upon immigration, and yet immigration has long been one of the most contentious issues in American law and politics. Indeed, Americans have been arguing over immigrant admissions and rights since the earliest days of the republic. Over time, each generation has disagreed about the impact of newcomers on jobs and economic growth, law and order, social relations, the welfare state, and the distribution of political power. Traditionally, leaders and ordinary citizens have celebrated the nation’s immigrant history while expressing anxieties about recent arrivals. Here, in this introduction, we review some of the key legislative decisions of the past 25 years regarding immigration reform. They are the backdrop to the controversies covered in the following chapters.

In 2012, Americans were as at odds as they were at the country’s founding over who is “fit for our society,” how many immigrants to accept, and what rights should be extended to noncitizens already residing in U.S. territory. But the contemporary national debate over immigration is particularly focused on the challenges posed by unauthorized immigration and by millions living in the country unlawfully. These issues come up in all chapters in this volume, but are particularly noted in Andrew Linenberg’s chapter on amnesty, Calvin Lewis and Roberto Suro’s debate on Arizona’s S.B. 1070, David Haines and Madeline Sumption’s piece on the legal immigration system, Karey Leung’s contribution on the naturalization process, Michele Waslin and Julie Myers Wood’s chapter on driver’s licenses, and the chapter on border control by Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes, Cynthia Bansak, and Melysa Sperber. The politics of illegal immigration—and the Washington deadlock over comprehensive immigration reform—drive these conflicts. The reverberations of this impasse are profound for nearly every other facet of U.S. immigration policy, from legal immigration and refugee admissions to naturalization. Understanding the dynamics and implications of elusive immigration reform is crucial for explaining the current state of American immigration law and politics.

For at least two decades, successive U.S. presidents and Congresses have characterized the immigration system as “broken.” In particular, elected officials have viewed porous national borders and the presence of 10 to 12 million undocumented immigrants in the country as a pressing problem. A majority of Americans have shared the perspective that significant reform is urgently needed, and new grassroots movements have emerged favoring immigrant rights, on the one side, and tougher enforcement and border control, on the other. Against this backdrop, the White House and Congress have worked together several times to advance a comprehensive immigration reform package comprising four core elements: (1) new measures to strengthen enforcement of immigration laws and border control, (2) improved employer sanctions to penalize those who knowingly hire undocumented immigrants, (3) an earned legalization program that would allow most undocumented immigrants living in the country to gain legal status, and (4) revision of the legal immigration preference system to allow U.S. businesses to have easier access to immigrant workers or foreign guest workers. In this volume, the chapters on federal policy (Ali Noorani, and Anna Law), naturalization (Karey Leung), and the legal immigration system (David Haines and Madeline Sumption) all discuss these elements.

While national policymakers largely agree on the essential building blocks of comprehensive immigration reform, each legislative effort has been derailed by disputes over which of these elements should take precedence over the others. On record promising to secure sweeping immigration reform that would enhance border control while ensuring a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, President Barack Obama has languished nearly as much as his predecessor, George W. Bush, in efforts to find an opening for major policy change. How can this be? What are the chief obstacles confronting comprehensive immigration reform? More generally, why has major immigration reform proven so elusive in recent decades?

To understand why U.S. policymakers have struggled to address the nation’s most significant immigration problems, it is useful to identify four daunting barriers to reform. First, the rival ideas and interests inspired by this issue make problem definition and legislative majorities elusive. A second formidable challenge is that policymakers are well aware that major reform in this area entails difficult negotiations that produce painful compromise packages. Third, past implementation failures and policy inertia generally have expanded illegal immigration, compounding over time the problems associated with porous borders. Equally important, the federal government’s failure to control the borders in either the distant or recent past has bred widespread cynicism and mistrust about the capacity and will of the national state to enforce its immigration laws. Finally, the most prominent policy prescriptions on the table today appear inadequate to meet the problem and draw fire from all sides. Each of these dynamics will be considered in turn.

Political Cacophony: Elusive Problem Definition and Congressional Majorities

Immigration is a potent cross-cutting issue in American national politics, one that defies the standard liberal-conservative divide and often polarizes major party coalitions. One can point to four rather durable ideological traditions that have found expression in national debates and political struggles over immigration (Tichenor, 2002). Consider two dimensions. The first focuses on immigration numbers and divides those who support expansive immigration opportunities and robust numbers from those who favor substantial restrictions on alien admissions. The second concentrates on the rights of noncitizens residing in the United States and distinguishes those who endorse the provision of a broad set of civil, political, and social rights (as defined by T. H. Marshall in Citizenship and Social Class and Other Essays [1950]) to newcomers from those who advocate strict limitations on the rights accorded to noncitizens. These two dimensions of immigration policy reveal tensions between cosmopolitans versus economic protectionists on the Left, and between pro-business expansionists versus cultural protectionists and border hawks on the Right. Tellingly, these conflicts are especially pronounced when the agenda focuses on unauthorized immigration and those residing in the country illegally (in this volume, see Lewis and Suro’s chapter on S.B. 1070, Waslin and Myers Wood’s on driver’s licenses, Chaney and Ewing’s on crime, and Hayduk and de la Garza’s on voting).

The rival commitments of ideology and interest unleashed by illegal immigration make basic problem definition a tall order for policy-makers. Indeed, recent immigration reform efforts captured profoundly different assumptions and conceptions of what the problem is, or, for some, whether a problem even exists. Carolyn Craig’s chapter on nativism, in this volume, reviews the history of that sentiment in this country and the accompanying incompatible assumptions of those for and against restrictionist policies, both in the past and in the present. It is clear that powerful organized interests and competing constituencies—from agribusinesses, service industries, and Microsoft to labor unions, ethnic and civil rights advocates, and church groups, to anti-immigrant activists of the Minuteman Project and Tea Party movement—regularly mobilize and clash over immigration reform. The resulting battles not only pit interest groups and constituencies allied with the Republican Party against those allied with the Democratic Party, they also divide organized interests within these partisan coalitions, and sometimes even among those associated with the same interest or constituency—such as internal fights on this issue within the labor movement or among environmental and population control groups.

For cosmopolitans, or pro-immigration liberals, the problem is not the presence of millions of undocumented aliens in the United States but rather their status as vulnerable, second-class persons. This reality comes out particularly strongly in Andrew Linenberg’s chapter on amnesty, Alexandra Filindra and Edward Erler’s debate on birthright citizenship, Michele Waslin and Julie Myers Wood’s debate on driver’s licenses, and Priscilla Yamin’s chapter on the arguable need for the United States to expand refugee relief to those fleeing both gender-based violence and persecution on the basis of sexual orientation. The chief imperative for pro-immigration activists is to make the estimated 12 million unauthorized migrants living in the country eligible for legal membership. Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) explained in a 2006 interview, “What we want … is a pathway to their legalization so that they can come out of the shadows of darkness, of discrimination, of bigotry, of exploitation, and join us fully.” Latino immigrants such as the journalist and scholar Edward Schumacher-Matos add that Hispanics have proven their loyalty to the nation in countless ways, including joining the military at higher rates than most groups. In a 2009 editorial, Schumacher-Matos argued, “we have earned our say over the direction of the country … and what we do on immigration.” Since powerful democracies such as the United States profit from the economic exploitation of unauthorized immigrants, in an online debate in 2007, Marc Rosenblum of the Migration Policy Institute argued that “all American employers, consumers, and lawmakers—all of us—share the ‘blame’ for undocumented migration.” Legalization or “earned citizenship” initiatives, discussed in the Linenberg chapter on amnesty, draw strong support from immigrant advocate and civil rights groups; Latino, Asian, and other organizations; religious associations; and the leading federations of organized labor.

Predictably, Obama’s announcement in June 2012 that his administration would no longer deport eligible, young, illegal immigrants was met with applause from liberals, who argue that the policy is a question of fairness to young people who would otherwise be punished for choices that others made for them, and scorn from conservatives, who tend to be hostile toward any kinds of accommodation to those in our country illegally. Though Obama’s new policy did not essentially change existing immigrant prioritization schemes—as explained in Kathryn Miller’s chapter on deportation—it does allow those who meet certain criteria to apply for temporary 2-year work visas and thus theoretically encourages the “best” (most productive) immigrants to stay. The new rules do not allow them to become citizens or to apply for permanent resident status.

Economic protectionists have been particularly hostile toward illegal immigration, which they view as enhancing the wealth of corporate and professional America with little concern about the consequences for blue-collar workers or the unemployed. As much as Cesar Chavez complained in the late 1960s that undocumented Mexicans were being recruited to undermine his efforts to organize legal farm workers, in the introduction to Debating Immigration (2007), Carol Swain pointed to the deleterious “impact that high levels of illegal immigration [are] having in the communities when it comes to jobs, when it comes to education, when it comes to health care.” Former CNN newsman Lou Dobbs regularly sounds similar themes—claiming in 2007, for example, that illegal immigration has “a calamitous effect on working citizens and their families” and “that the industries in which illegal aliens are employed in the greatest percentages also are suffering the largest wage declines.” Economic protectionists endorse employer sanctions against unscrupulous employers who knowingly hire undocumented aliens, and they vehemently oppose guest worker programs that they associate with a captive workforce subject to exploitation, abuse, and permanent marginalization. These views resonate among many rank-and-file members of labor unions and the constituencies of moderate Democrats in Congress.

For pro-business conservatives, the chief problem is that existing federal policies fail to address, in the words of former president George W. Bush, “the reality that there are many people on the other side of our border who will do anything to come to America to work.” In short, the argument is that the U.S. economy has grown dependent on this supply of cheap, unskilled labor. The solution for this camp lies in regularizing employers’ access to this vital foreign labor; if the back door is to be closed, then this labor supply must be secured through temporary worker programs and an expansion of employment-based legal immigration. Powerful business groups in this camp also oppose employer sanctions as an unwelcome and unfair regulatory burden placed on American businesses large and small.

Border hawks today see the illegal immigration problem as nothing short of an unprecedented breakdown of American sovereignty, one that compromises national security, the rule of law, job opportunities for citizens, public education, and social services. (See, for example, In Mortal Danger, published by the former legislator Tom Tancredo in 2006.) Mobilized by conservative talk radio, columnists, and television commentators, many grassroots Republicans are outraged that the nation’s fundamental interest in border control and law enforcement has been trumped by the power of immigrant labor, rights, and votes. Amnesty or legalization proposals inspire hostile resistance from this camp as unethical rewards to those who break the rules and as stimulants to new waves of undocumented immigrants anticipating similar treatment. Likewise, temporary worker programs are scorned by these activists because many guest workers historically have remained in the country illegally, and because they contest the notion that only foreign workers will do certain menial jobs. Border hawks believe enforcement must come first. They favor a strengthened Border Patrol and tougher security measures along the nation’s borders, as well as crackdowns on unauthorized immigrants and their employers within U.S. territory. They endorse a strategy of attrition in which targeted deportation efforts, workplace enforcement, and denial of social services and other public benefits would persuade many unauthorized migrants to return home.

It is hard to imagine more widely divergent definitions of a public policy problem or, concomitantly, more disparate blueprints for reform. Building majority support for legislation involving tough choices is always challenging, but it is especially so amid ideological disorientation and intraparty warfare. Clashing interests and ideals have meant that when policy initiatives are designed to meet the demands of one important constituency, they invariably incur the wrath of others. The diverse responses of states and localities to immigration enforcement and immigrant policy, as subnational governments enter the void when Washington fails to act, further cloud the picture.

The Long Way Home: Prolonged Negotiation and Unpalatable Compromise

National policymakers are well aware of the tortured path that earlier reformers traversed to secure comprehensive legislation on illegal immigration. False starts, grueling negotiations, and unappealing compromises have been par for the course over the past quarter-century. For much of the 1970s, liberal House Democrat Peter Rodino of New Jersey waged a quixotic campaign for employer sanctions legislation to discourage unauthorized entries. This effort to punish employers who knowingly hired undocumented aliens was strongly advocated by the AFL-CIO and labor unions. But ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors
• Preface
• POLITICAL DEBATES
• Appendix: Documents Highlighting Key Moments in U.S. Immigration History, 1924 to 2011
• Index