The Debate on Immigration Has Begun in Earnest
Janet Murguia     [Photo]

If there is a consensus on anything in our nation’s fractious immigration debate, it is that our system is broken and badly in need of reform.

It seems as though that’s where the consensus ends. This difficult debate has perennially polarized between those who seek to make our harshest enforcement laws even more severe and those who believe that enforcement strategies alone will fail because they fail to acknowledge our deep reliance on the hard work of immigrants.

Despite this division, the debate on immigration reform has shown signs that consensus is possible on a policy that could do a great deal to bring control, order and fairness to our unruly immigration system. A broad coalition has emerged of sectors that don’t often work together. It includes the business community, key labor unions, religious organizations, ethnic groups, and conservative thinkers.

These diverse voices are doing something that rarely happens in Washington – they’re working together on comprehensive reforms and they’re largely in agreement on the details.

With the help of this coalition, bipartisan proposals have been introduced in Congress by such political opposites as senators John McCain and Ted Kennedy.

This week, the Bush Administration at long last joined the debate as Cabinet Secretaries Michael Chertoff and Elaine Chao appeared before the Senate committee to outline President’s proposal. The good news is that they sided with those who are calling for comprehensive reform rather than the saber-rattling enforcement-only approaches popular among some congressional Republicans.

The White House correctly argues that enforcement alone – which has been the essence of our immigration strategy for decades – can’t do the job. The trouble is that their alternative – enforcement combined with a guestworker program for the 11 million undocumented workers who have made their lives in the United States – won’t do the job either.

The White House proposes to offer temporary status to these workers, some of whom have been in the United States for many years, own homes or businesses, pay taxes and are raising families. They would be forced to return to their countries of origin. Perhaps some would participate in such a program but many will not come forward for a “report to deport” approach, and the result will be a failed policy.

Some believe that the White House was attempting to placate anti-immigration members of the Republican Party who would prefer to round up and deport all 11 million undocumented immigrant workers.

Indeed, this week the administration announced plans to increase vastly detentions and deportations as if this were somehow an attainable – or desirable – goal. But in the end, nobody really believes that it is either realistic, or that many areas of the country will abide, rounding up huge numbers of workers desperately needed by their employers and who have strong ties in their communities.

It makes far more sense to create an orderly path to citizenship for those who are working, paying taxes, learning English, and quietly becoming American. As proposed in the Kennedy-McCain bill, this, combined with sensible enforcement and reduction of long backlogs for families to reunite under our legal immigration system, is far more likely to be effective in resolving our immigration dilemma.

The most important development this week is that the debate on our country’s future immigration policy has begun in earnest with both the House and Senate talking about bringing reforms to the floor in this Congress.

Congressional leaders face a choice. We can beef up failed enforcement strategies for the umpteenth time, or we can do the hard work of passing comprehensive reforms that stand a chance of making a difference. Surely a nation of laws which is also a nation of immigrants can strike the right balance.

(Janet Murguia is president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza. She may be contacted at jmurguia@nclr.org)

© 2005, Hispanic Link News Service
10/30/05
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