Immigration reform a bitter pill

By Max J. Castro

MIAMI – Has the time finally come for the U.S. Congress to deal seriously with the reality of eleven million undocumented immigrants in this country who live in constant fear of detection and deportation by immigration authorities while working long hours for meager pay performing some of the toughest and most necessary jobs in the economy?

Following the latest news, you would think so. The “gang of eight,” a group of four Democratic and four Republican Senators, which has been working for months to produce a comprehensive immigration reform bill, announced last weekend that it has reached agreement in principle on all of the major issues.

The group’s immigration reform package, which has the support of the country’s largest labor organization as well as business, will be presented to the Senate as early as this week.
The agreement is being touted as a rare success for bipartisanship. Optimism is running rampant across a big swath of the ideological spectrum, from Florida Republican Representative Mario Diaz-Balart on the right to Illinois Democrat Luis Gutierrez on the left.

Of course, on this issue we have seen tentative deals and high levels of optimism before only to see everything fall apart and hopes dashed. Many pundits as well as politicians, however, are saying this time is different, if for no other reason than the fact that Republican strategists are desperately trying to avoid a similar or worse thrashing at the hands of Latino voters in the next presidential election.

At the same time, many Republicans in Congress are more worried about losing their seats to Tea Party-backed primary challengers than alienating the Latino vote nationally. Illegal immigration is to the Tea Party what Satan is to Christian fundamentalists. They fiercely oppose any reform that includes a path to citizenship, which they call “amnesty.”

Republican recalcitrance on immigration reform may please the Tea Party but it has begun to draw the wrath of a key and increasingly vocal GOP constituency. A case in point: After Utah Senators Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee urged the Senate to slow-walk immigration reform, the leaders of the state’s Chambers of Commerce went ballistic. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that:


“The head of the Salt Lake Chamber blasted Utah’s senators Tuesday for stalling immigration reform that he said businesses badly need.

‘”Maybe it’s time for us to recall [them] and get some people who understand what we need in business,’” said Lane Beattie.

Beattie’s comments came as leaders from eight chambers of commerce across the state came together in what they called a “’show of force,’” urging Utah’s congressional delegation to act quickly on an immigration-reform package that would include an expansion of visas for highly skilled workers and a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million immigrants who are in the country illegally.

“Republican Sens. Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee signed a letter recently urging Senate leaders to move more deliberately on immigration reform and calling for a series of committee hearings on the proposals – a course of action that could take months and perhaps more than a year.

“But Beattie argued immigration is an issue that has been studied enough and the business community is pleading with Congress to act quickly.

‘”I am personally extremely disappointed in our two senators,’” he said. ‘”For them to come out and [say] that they think we need more time is absolutely ridiculous to me. I don’t know an issue that has had more time, more discussion, more promises, more disappointment than immigration.”’

Still, Republicans in the gang of eight have managed to maneuver their Democratic colleagues into endorsing a formula that may enable the GOP to make at least a partial escape from what seems like an impossible trap.

Call it the three “p’s” stratagem. It goes like this. Polling shows that Republican voters generally oppose a path to citizenship, except under certain strict conditions. In order to neutralize Republican opposition, immigration reform must be prolonged, painful, and punitive. And that is just the kind of proposal the gang of eight has come up with.
Under the plan, undocumented immigrants will have to wait a decade just to qualify for permanent residency.

Even then, they won’t get the coveted “green card’ (which is no longer green) unless a special panel certifies that “the border is secure.” That’s a standard that, depending on how border security is defined, may be impossible to meet. Security is relative. There is no absolute security. Thus this provision could become a formula to keep immigrants in limbo indefinitely.

In the event they manage to get residency, immigrants will still have to wait an additional three years before they can apply for citizenship. Since every step in the process involves significant delays between application and approval, with luck an undocumented immigrant might become a citizen after 15-20 years!

In the meantime, they won’t be eligible for any government services whatsoever, including health care. (The only exception would be public schooling; a Supreme Court decision in the 1970s found withholding public schooling from any child residing in the United States to be unconstitutional.) But they will have to pay fines of unspecified amounts as well as substantial fees to apply for residency and citizenship.

The proposed immigration reform, which is relatively business-friendly, may help to placate some of the fury vented by business people in Utah and around the country. But if Republicans think this harsh, mean-spirited, unwelcoming, humiliating process will make Latinos feel warm and fuzzy toward their party, they are in for a rude and deserved surprise.