Ted Perlmutter's List: Immigration

• If Mr. Obama’s team is confirmed, the country will have a homeland security  secretary, Janet Napolitano of Arizona, and a commerce secretary, Bill  Richardson of New Mexico, who understand the border region and share a  well-informed disdain for foolish, inadequate enforcement schemes like the Bush  administration’s border fence. And it will have a labor secretary, Hilda Solis  of California, who, as a state senator and congresswoman, has built a reputation  as a staunch defender of immigrants and workers.

  • Obama immigration team
• If you uphold workers’ rights, even for those here illegally, you uphold them  for all working Americans. If you ignore and undercut the rights of illegal  immigrants, you encourage the exploitation that erodes working conditions and  job security everywhere.

  • Rights principles
• was a moral failure. Among other things, it terrorized and broke apart families  and led to some gruesome deaths in shoddy prisons. It mocked the American  tradition of welcoming and assimilating immigrant workers.

  • Moral Crime
• better to give them safe places to gather rather than allow an uncontrolled job  bazaar to drive wages and working conditions down.

  • Policy moment

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• Farmers Branch enacted an ordiance to keep undocumented people out of their city, making it illegal for landlords to rent to undocumentd people. Well, it looks like the City of Irving Texas does not need a controversial ordinance on their books because they just have their Police stop people by "appearance." And if undocument - the people get deported! Easier this way, problem solved.

  • different Texas tactics

• he Irving authorities have to reconsider what they are doing," Mr. Fox said at The News. "I think they are violating human rights."

  • ex President invokes human rights
• The Mexican consul, Enrique Hubbard Urrea, has informed the U.S. State Department of threatening e-mails he received this month because of his advocacy in Irving.

• These rules require employers who have significant numbers of H-1B employees (measured in proportion to the total workforce) to: (1) attest that they have made good-faith attempts to hire U.S. workers at prevailing wages (or industry-standard wages); (2) attest that their hiring of H-1B employees does not displace U.S. workers who have sought those same jobs; and (3) maintain paper records showing that they have complied with wage and other work condition standards.

• Immigration and border security. America is a nation of immigrants – and it is the   Department of Homeland Security's role to manage America’s borders in a way that furthers this heritage,   promoting legal immigration and cross-border commerce, while upholding the rule of law. The department must   also enforce the law, targeting border criminals who use violence and fraud to smuggle people and drugs   into the United States. But, the department must facilitate international travel and the naturalization of   immigrants into our society. Smart, resolute enforcement by the department can keep Americans safe, foster   legal immigration to America, protect legitimate commerce, and lay the groundwork for a more comprehensive   reform

• • Critique of Center for American Progress

•  

  As a strategy to build center-right support for comprehensive immigration reform, including legalization, the Washington, DC-based liberal immigration lobby has advocated that the Democratic Party and all immigrant-rights advocates adopt a "rule of law" framework that includes more border security and employment verification while placing the onus on immigrants themselves to "get right with the law."

   

  The concept behind this strategic maneuvering is that Americans will support a legalization provision for illegal immigrants if the proposal is couched in tough "rule of law" language. In other words, by moving to the right immigration advocates would be better positioned to advance a liberal immigration reform.
• Napolitano has repeatedly, both as Arizona governor and DHS secretary, declared her support for a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. But at the same time she has also articulated her strong commitment to enforce immigration law—as dysfunctional as it might be.
• With respect to border security, she has adopted militaristic terminology and a posture that dials up the enforcement-first rhetoric of her predecessor. "You've got to have boots on the ground," says Napolitano. "You've got to have technology. You've got to have interior enforcement of our workplace laws. Some fencing in some places may make sense, but only if it's part of an overall system." That system has little to do with protecting the nation from terrorists, the central mission of her department, and is all about cracking down on illegal immigrants.

  • Militarized rhetoric

• The two groups central to this strategy were the Center for American Progress (CAP) and America's Voice. In typical DC fashion, they commissioned a poll to demonstrate the political viability and wisdom of a new "rule of law" messaging for comprehensive immigration reform.

   

  In its report, "Winning the Immigration Issue: Requiring Legal Status for Illegal Immigrants," the Democratic Party polling firm came back with the conclusion that CAP and America's Voice sought. Headed by Stan Greenberg of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, the pollsters r ecommended that Democrats and CIR supporters mobilize around the law-and-order message.

   

  " We must be tough and smart to get our immigration system under control. It is unacceptable to have 12 million people in our country living outside the legal system. We must secure the border but we must also require illegal immigrants to register and become legal, pay their taxes, learn English, and pass criminal background checks. Those who have a criminal record or refuse to register should be sent home."
• The "rule of law" and "get right with the law" now reverberates among the circle of Washington organizations that are leading the charge for a new CIR bill in the Obama administration. As if to declare their law-and-order credentials, the National Immigration Forum, America's Voice, Center for Community Change, NDN, and others routinely insert rule of law language in all their communications.

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• It encourages immigrants to   take the attitude "What's in it for me?" in thinking about whether or   not to become citizens, whereas we ought to encourage them to become   citizens not primarily for narrow, instrumental reasons but out of a   sense of identity and attachment and out of a desire to participate in a   shared public life.

• The immigration issue is reportedly at play in Obama's choice for a key civil rights post at the Justice Department. Latino leaders believe that the administration offered the position to Thomas Saenz, and then withdrew the offer when conservatives stirred up opposition based on his record on immigration. This may well come up in today's CHC meeting, too.

• “Network recruitment [of immigrants] not only excludes American workers from certain jobs; it also builds a dependency relationship between U.S. employers and Mexican sources that requires a constant infusion of new workers,” says economist Philip Martin

• They are devising a proposal in which millions of undocumented workers would be legalized now, while the number of foreign workers allowed to enter the country would be examined by a new independent commission, and probably reduced.
• The new proposal, as laid out by several participants in the behind-the-scenes negotiations, would also create an independent commission that would assess labor and industry data to decide how many foreign workers should be allowed into the country. The system, designed by Ray Marshall, a Labor secretary under President Carter, would replace a maze of special temporary worker visas that are granted each year to high-tech specialists, agriculture workers and other foreigners brought into the U.S. by foreign and domestic firms

• During the 2007 Amnesty fight open-borders groups, business groups, and some labor unions teamed up to push a “comprehensive immigration reform” bill that included an expanded foreign-worker program. This caused the AFL-CIO to oppose the bill because they favor lower foreign-worker visa numbers. The new Amnesty alliance hopes to bring the AFL-CIO on board for this round.

• Last year, President Sweeney asked former Secretary of Labor Ray Marshall to head a Special Task Force on Immigration Reform in order to explore a new legislative approach to comprehensive immigration reform, based on a framework proposed by the Secretary.  The Task Force's goal was to develop an immigration reform proposal based on the protection of labor standards and other worker rights, which is supported by all unions. Secretary Marshall, together with the Economic Policy Institute, and in consultation with the AFL-CIO's Immigration Task Force has prepared a report that outlines a new legislative framework.

• Mounting anti-family and anti-worker provisions made the Senate’s immigration bill unworkable and ultimately regressive in terms of immigrant and workers’ rights. If approved, it would have only perpetuated the problems it intended to solve.

•      

  Immigration: Recasting the Debate

     

  From Wake Forest University

• Downsizing Illegal Immigration
  A Strategy of  Attrition Through Enforcement
• shrinking of the illegal population to a manageable nuisance,   rather than today's looming crisis
• invention of new rights   for illegal aliens over the past 30 years, and the growth of a cadre of   activist attorneys whose mission is to obstruct enforcement of the immigration   law by any and all means, makes it much more difficult to remove illegals than   in the past
• businesses that have   become addicted to illegal labor
• to make it as difficult and unpleasant as   possible to live here illegally
• "virtual choke points" -- events that are   necessary for life in a modern society but are infrequent enough not to bog   down everyone's daily business.
• d thus illegals barred, such as getting a driver's license,   registering an automobile, opening a bank account, applying for a car loan or   a mortgage, getting a business or occupational license, and obtaining   government services of any kind.
• Mexico's   "matricula consular" card, which functions as an illegal-alien ID
• streamline the   legal immigration system to make it less likely to promote illegal   immigration, by eliminating the visa lottery and the preference category for   adult siblings of U.S. citizens. And second, under no circumstances undertake   any new guestworker programs, the inevitable result of which would be to   stimulate even more illegal immigration.

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• We have, in other words, outgrown mass immigration. It was an important phase of  our national development, and played an important part in shaping who we are as  a nation. But, like other phases we've passed through as a people -- pioneers  settling the frontier, for instance -- it's something we need to put behind us.
• With regard to illegal immigration, we need to pursue a policy of "attrition  through enforcement," steadily and comprehensively applying the law to promote  increased self-deportation by illegals so the total illegal population starts  shrinking each year instead of continually growing.

• Maine:Bill would allow non-citizens to vote in local elections  

• Proponents argue that letting non-citizen immigrants vote on local issues would include them in the community, and provide incentive for them to pursue citizenship.  

  Critics say voting is a right that should be reserved for U.S. citizens, and some suggest that newcomers to the country don't necessarily have the language skills or the knowledge of issues needed to make an informed vote.

  • core of debate
• Allowing that part of the community to vote would be inclusive, said Alfond, and would give more people a voice. It also would give them an incentive to become citizens, so they could vote in state and national elections as well, he said.

  • incentives for integration
• Chicago, for instance, allows them to vote in school elections, and six towns in Maryland allow them to vote in all local elections. They can vote in the Massachusetts towns of Cambridge, Amherst and Newton, said Hayduk, and proposals have been made to do the same in Chelsea and Somerville, and likely will resurface in Boston after a 2007 defeat.
• They have made a decision not to become U.S. citizens. That means they have not entered the U.S. social compact."

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• Speaking with  reporters in Costa Rica in March, Vice President Joe Biden stated, "It's hard  to tell voters, when unemployment is increasing, when they are losing their  jobs and homes, that we should legalize foreigners and stop deportations."
• In November 2008, Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) kicked off a "Family Unity"  tour, holding prayer vigils and town-hall style meetings in 20 cities on the  need for immigration reform. The United Farm Workers of America recently announced  a series of nationwide marches to press for a new comprehensive immigration  reform bill.
   
    In addition, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials  (NALEO), Spanish-language broadcaster Univision, and the League of United Latin  American Citizens have begun a new push for the legalization of unauthorized  immigrants, emphasizing that reform is essential for accurately counting Latinos  in the 2010 census.  
  
  Religious organizations have also begun to build support  among their constituents. Several national Jewish organizations, led by the  Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, announced their "Progress by Pesach" campaign  to push Congress and the new administration to adopt "humanitarian immigration  reform" and scale back worksite enforcement operations.
   
    Cardinal Francis George, head of the US Council of Catholic Bishops, recently  reaffirmed the church's support of a new comprehensive immigration reform measure,  as did several senior Catholic leaders participating in a conference in Mexico  City in January. In February, the Interfaith Immigration Coalition, an  alliance of more than 50 faith-based organizations, announced a new "Interfaith  Platform on Humane Immigration Reform," which calls on Congress to create a  legalization process for unauthorized immigrants.
• Although the DREAM Act would not apply to  unauthorized immigrants who came to the United States as adults, many immigrant  advocates see its passage as a "down payment" on a broader reform bill. Others  see such piecemeal measures as the only type of immigration reform bill Congress  is likely to pass in the near future.

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