WE CONTINUE TO OPPOSE SB1070

The Arizona Interfaith Network and Arizonans for Immigration Reform continue to oppose SB1070 because of the many problems cited by Fr. Glenn Jenks in his testimony on March 31 before the House Military Affairs and Public Safety Committee, which went well beyond the one concern reported by the Arizona Republic in the following article.

They included:

1. Employers will face increased scrutiny of their employment practices which could discourage them from hiring Latinos in order to avoid lawsuits.
2. Arizona’s economy will be hurt by driving away Latinos, who do pay taxes, and by discouraging new businesses from moving to Arizona.
3. Members of the Latino community will feel less willing to cooperate with law enforcement for fear of being challenged regarding their citizenship status.
4. Law enforcement officers will be authorized to arrest, without a warrant, any person the officer believes to be in Arizona without legal documentation.
5. Volunteers driving elderly to appointments could be found guilty of unlawful transporting if they had reason to believe the passenger was undocumented. Personal vehicles could be impounded if the driver were charged with unlawful transport.

April 1, 2010 Arizona Republic: House Weighs Migrant Bill

For a print version, click here.

THE RIGHT WAY TO MEND IMMIGRATION

To view the original article, click here.  

By Charles E. Schumer and Lindsey O. Graham

Friday, March 19, 2010  

Our immigration system is badly broken. Although our borders have become far more secure in recent years, too many people seeking illegal entry get through. We have no way to track whether the millions who enter the United States on valid visas each year leave when they are supposed to. And employers are burdened by a complicated system for verifying workers' immigration status.

Last week we met with President Obama to discuss our draft framework for action on immigration. We expressed our belief that America's security and economic well-being depend on enacting sensible immigration policies.  

The answer is simple: Americans overwhelmingly oppose illegal immigration and support legal immigration. Throughout our history, immigrants have contributed to making this country more vibrant and economically dynamic. Once it is clear that in 20 years our nation will not again confront the specter of another 11 million people coming here illegally, Americans will embrace more welcoming immigration policies.

 Our plan has four pillars: requiring biometric Social Security cards to ensure that illegal workers cannot get jobs; fulfilling and strengthening our commitments on border security and interior enforcement; creating a process for admitting temporary workers; and implementing a tough but fair path to legalization for those already here.

  Besides border security, ending illegal immigration will also require an effective employment verification system that holds employers accountable for hiring illegal workers. A tamper-proof ID system would dramatically decrease illegal immigration, experts have said, and would reduce the government revenue lost when employers and workers here illegally fail to pay taxes.

 We would require all U.S. citizens and legal immigrants who want jobs to obtain a high-tech, fraud-proof Social Security card. Each card's unique biometric identifier would be stored only on the card; no government database would house everyone's information. The cards would not contain any private information, medical information, nor tracking devices. The card will be a high-tech version of the Social Security card that citizens already have.

 Prospective employers would be responsible for swiping the cards through a machine to confirm a person's identity and immigration status. Employers who refused to swipe the card or who otherwise knowingly hired unauthorized workers would face stiff fines and, for repeat offenses, prison sentences.

We propose a zero-tolerance policy for gang members, smugglers, terrorists and those who commit other felonies after coming here illegally. We would bolster recent efforts to secure our borders by increasing the Border Patrol's staffing and funding for infrastructure and technology. More personnel would be deployed to the border immediately to fill gaps in apprehension capabilities.

Other steps include expanding domestic enforcement to better apprehend and deport those who commit crimes and completing an entry-exit system that tracks people who enter the United States on legal visas and reports those who overstay their visas to law enforcement databases.

Ending illegal immigration, however, cannot be the sole objective of reform. Developing a rational legal immigration system is essential to ensuring America's future economic prosperity.

Ensuring economic prosperity requires attracting the world's best and brightest. Our legislation would award green cards to immigrants who receive a PhD or master's degree in science, technology, engineering or math from a U.S. university. It makes no sense to educate the world's future inventors and entrepreneurs and then force them to leave when they are able to contribute to our economy.

Our blueprint also creates a rational system for admitting lower-skilled workers. Our current system prohibits lower-skilled immigrants from coming here to earn money and then returning home. Our framework would facilitate this desired circular migration by allowing employers to hire immigrants if they can show they were unsuccessful in recruiting an American to fill an open position; allowing more lower-skilled immigrants to come here when our economy is creating jobs and fewer in a recession; and permitting workers who have succeeded in the workplace, and contributed to their communities over many years, the chance to earn a green card.

For the 11 million immigrants already in this country illegally, we would provide a tough but fair path forward. They would be required to admit they broke the law and to pay their debt to society by performing community service and paying fines and back taxes. These people would be required to pass background checks and be proficient in English before going to the back of the line of prospective immigrants to earn the opportunity to work toward lawful permanent residence.

The American people deserve more than empty rhetoric and impractical calls for mass deportation. We urge the public and our colleagues to join our bipartisan efforts in enacting these reforms.

Charles E. Schumer is a Democratic senator from New York. Lindsey O. Graham is a Republican senator from South Carolina.

UPDATE as of MARCH 12, 2010

The National Conversation on Comprehensive Immigration Reform is slowly beginning. The President met yesterday with Senators Charles Schumer (NY) and Lindsey Graham (SC) to discuss their ideas for a comprehensive immigration reform bill. All gave their verbal support to fix the nation’s broken immigration system, but substantial obstacles still remain: completion of health care reform, the narrowing window for debate given the mid-term elections, and finding a second Senate Republican co-sponsor. Still, we await an actual bill to be introduced in the Senate to concretely begin the conversation. This will require both parties to set aside mid-term election concerns.


The White House and Democratic leadership must decide to expend actual political capital, and some Republicans must chose to work in a bi-partisan manner and get behind Comprehensive Immigration Reform legislation. Our strategic work continues to be to build a non-partisan constituency to support passage of national legislation. Civic Academies continue throughout the state and Arizonans for Immigration Reform leaders have been in constant contact with members of the Arizona Congressional Delegation. We are also heavily focused on opposing dangerous state legislation that further targets the undocumented.

Comprehensive Immigration Reform: TOO BIG TO FAIL

Conventional wisdom has it that the odds are stacked against comprehensive immigration reform passing Congress before the “silly season” of electioneering sets in. The reason, of course, is that Wall Street is prospering once again while Main Street continues to suffer devastating unemployment, frozen small business credit and a new wave of home foreclosures.
 
Can immigration reform possibly succeed in this environment? We believe the answer is yes, it can. Here’s why.  

First, President Obama and the Democratic party cannot afford to fail on this one. They are in too deep. Immigration, perhaps more than any other issue, tests the moral fiber of the President and the political party of which he is a part. Failing to meet this challenge will expose President Obama and his party as the hollowest of politicians incapable of summoning the courage to do what’s right. Last time around in 2007, it was Republicans who failed to do the right thing in the face of political expediency. Now it is entirely in Democrat hands as they dominate both the House and Senate.

Second, as People of Faith, we along with other reform advocates have grown in capacity, political sophistication and unity on this issue. We are willing to fight for comprehensive reform by holding President Obama and the Democrat Party’s feet to the moral fire. We are capable of spelling out the irreparable damage to President Obama and the Democrats that will flow from failure to fix the broken immigration system this year. Our growing capacity in this regard, as it becomes part of the larger political calculus, will help drive immigration reform home to a successful conclusion.

Where Immigrants Contribute Most to Economic Growth

Another good study on immigration and the economy was recently published by the Fiscal Policy Institute.  One of the more interesting points in the study shows that the cities with the least increase in immigrant workforce from 1990 to 2005 were also the areas with the least amount of economic growth during that period.


Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland all had fewer than 4.5% increases in immigrant workers for that 15 year period. Out of the 25 most populous cities in the U.S., those three were at the bottom in terms of economic growth. While the U.S. average percentage of growth was 48%, those three cities fell well below the average all under 23%.

In contrast, Phoenix had a 12.4% increase in immigrant participation during that time frame and Phoenix was number one on the list as far as percentage points for economic growth, at 126%. Only Dallas had a larger jump in immigrants joining the workforce with a 12.6% increase and their economy grew 73% during the time period.

This study is another method to rebuke claims that immigrants do not play an integral role in our economy. Rather than spreading the fear of economic woe due to immigrant participation, we should be confident that immigrants not only contribute in a meaningful manner, but would continue to do so moving forward.

NAPOLITANO'S STRONG STATEMENT

On Friday November 13th, Secretary Janet Napolitano delivered an important address on Immigration Reform http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/speeches/sp_1258123461050.shtm. It's worth reading the entire text. In it, she reiterated the Administration’s commitment to Comprehensive Immigration Reform. “So even as we press to end this recession and get America back to work, we are determined to deal with long lingering problems that cloud our future. And another problem that has been punted from year to year, from Congress to Congress, from Administration to Administration, is the clear need for immigration reform.”

The Secretary went on to explain, “Over the past ten months, we’ve worked to improve immigration enforcement and border security within the current legal framework. But the more work we do, the more it becomes clear that the laws themselves need to be reformed.” Napolitano's approach to ‘immigration reform’ includes a “three-legged stool”:

• a serious commitment to effective enforcement,
• improved legal flows for families and workers,
• and a "firm but fair" way to deal with those who are already here.

Napolitano's speech notwithstanding, any attempt to put her ideas into law is certain to face a political firestorm. Walter Shapiro, of the New York Times, describes the political climate in Washington D.C. in his November 17th article, Immigration, Yet Another Issue: How Many Hard Votes Can Congress Take?
As Shapiro observes, “The President may be ‘fully committed,’ but so is Congress, which is already up to its neck with health care and climate change legislation, financial regulation and a stomach-wrenching recession.” Simon Rosenberg, the president of NDN, a D.C. think tank, stated that “Unlike health-care, this will be more of a political debate than a legislative debate, since we know the contours legislatively.”

The fact remains that Comprehensive Immigration Reform will be won or lost outside the confines of Washington D.C. It will be won or lost in congregations, neighborhoods, businesses and labor unions. That is why it is our responsibility to become as informed as possible on this issue and engage others. Our call is to continue to move the debate forward.

WORKERS' RIGHTS & IMMIGRATION REFORM

An important new study powerfully demonstrates the need for comprehensive immigration reform from the perspective of the rights of workers and their families as well as service to the common good.


The report entitled “Iced Out: How Immigration Enforcement has Interfered with Workers’ Rights” was written by the AFL-CIO. It establishes the fact that despite United States Supreme Court protection of undocumented immigrants under the National Labor Relations Act, (See Sure-Tran, Inc v. NLRB, 467 U.S. 883, at 892 (1984)), immigration enforcement without due consideration of workplace law violations allows employers to violate the rights of workers without fear of prosecution. In fact, attempts by workers to secure their rights often have been and continue to be met with deportation or the threat thereof. Examinations of substandard wages and other workplace abuses under existing labor laws are buried by the deportation of the workers involved.

One consequence of this practice is that business owners trying to do the right thing often end up resorting to slashing the wages of their own workers in order to remain competitive with the bad actors.

This perverse, not to mention immoral, race to the bottom will cease only when comprehensive reform becomes a reality and laws pertaining to employers and employees alike are fairly enforced. Arizonans for Immigration Reform encourages conversations about these morally and economically challenging realities.