5-25-06, 11;15 am
Background of Undocumented Immigration
Undocumented and documented immigration to the United States is at a record high in absolute numbers. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that there are as many as 12 million undocumented.
Worldwide, workers and farmers from poorer countries migrate to wealthier industrialized countries in search of better-paying jobs. They often do so illegally because there is no legal way. In the United States, work-related visas are only given to people with education or vocational skills in high demand. Undocumented immigrants from Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean work in agriculture, services, hotels and restaurants, construction, meat cutting, gardening and landscaping. Every year, the United States government gives out only 5,000 occupationally-based permanent resident visas (“green cards”) to people in these job categories. With the huge number of jobs being offered, and the huge numbers wanting jobs, thousands inevitably continue to come illegally.
Since 1982, successive Mexican governments have found themselves increasingly pressured into adopting the “neoliberal” program free trade, privatization, and austerity. These policies are supposed to produce increased foreign investment and access to the rich countries’ markets, which in turn is supposed to create new jobs. But in the case of Mexico and many other countries, the reality has been a disaster for the masses and a bonanza for the transnationals. Since the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) came into force in January 1994, at least six million Mexicans have left farming, because Mexican grain producers cannot compete with cheap, government-subsidized wheat and maize from the United States and Canada. Real wages of Mexican workers have plummeted, while the social safety net has been left in tatters. This is what “pushes” immigration.
No other explanation for mass migration from Mexico or other poor countries is needed. Yet bourgeois politicians, journalists and theorists conceal this, because it places the responsibility squarely on our own ruling class and government. The high level of immigration has galvanized both pro- and anti-immigrant campaigns.
Immigrants’ rights groups, churches and various organizations have more and more followed the initiative of organized labor since the beginning of this decade, when the AFL-CIO came out openly for a new pro-immigrant program including amnesty or legalization of the undocumented, an end to employer sanctions (which hurt workers more than bosses), and a rollback of anti-immigrant legislation that, since California’s Proposition 187 in 1994, has made life increasingly difficult even for legal permanent residents.
By 2003, SEIU, in coalition with churches and community groups launched the “Reward Work” campaign to build up popular support for legalization. The following year, the AFL-CIO and member unions created an unprecedentedly broad coalition with religious, immigrants’ rights, community and ethnic organizations, to carry out the highly successful Immigrant Workers’ Freedom Ride. The ultra-right media and advocacy groups began to smear Mexican and Latino immigrants as the source of all social ills. In 2004, the Save Our State organization got a referendum passed in Arizona which would force all health care and social service workers to check the immigration status of their patients or clients and turn them in if they turned out to be “illegals.” The Minutemen began their anti-immigrant activities on the borders. The 2005 Legislative Program
In May, a bipartisan group in both houses of Congress introduced the Secure America bill, S 1033 and HR 2230, known as McCain-Kennedy for its chief Senate sponsors. This bill presented a process whereby undocumented immigrants could gain a conditional legal status that would last six years, then transition to permanent residency and eventual access to citizenship. They would have to pay $2,000 in fines, pay back taxes, learn English and civics, and pass a security screening. In addition, McCain-Kennedy increased legal resident visas for new immigrants. But it had in it major concessions to business and the Republicans. It proposed a guest worker program of about 400,000 people per year. Workers would come for a three-year stint, would be allowed another three years, and then might have to go back. But after two years, their employer could petition for the guest worker to be given a green card, and after four years the worker could do that him or herself. This immediately became very controversial, as did a toughening of employer sanctions and border enforcement.
Supporting McCain-Kennedy were important unions with large immigrant memberships, including SEIU, Unite-Here, the United Farm Workers, as well as the Conference of Catholic Bishops and many other religious, community and immigrants’ rights groups. Laborers’ International President Tim O’Sullivan stated that his union could not sign onto the guest worker aspect, but supported progressive aspects of the bill.
Also supporting McCain-Kennedy were major business interests, grouped in the Essential Workers Coalition. While the labor and community supporters of McCain-Kennedy accepted the guest worker program as a concession to get Republican votes in Congress for legalization, business clearly saw cheap, easily controllable labor in the form of guest workers as the major attraction. Another pro-immigrant bill, HR 2092, the Save America Comprehensive Immigration Act, was introduced in the House by Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX). It provided for a more generous legalization program, no guest worker program, and vocational training programs for African American and other poor and minority workers possibly displaced by immigration. It also included language protecting immigrant workers’ rights on the job from government interference. The Jackson-Lee bill garnered the support of many members of the Congressional Black Caucus, but could not find a sponsor in the Senate.
On the right, corporate-linked Senators Cornyn (R-TX) and Kyl (R-AZ) introduced S 1438, the Comprehensive Enforcement and Immigration Reform Act, which included big crackdowns in border and internal enforcement, a large guest worker program with no access to full permanent residency, and expulsion of the 12 million undocumented.
Not to be outdone, Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO), organizer of a 70 person extreme anti-immigrant caucus in the House, introduced HR 3333, the Real Guest Act, which entailed internal and border crackdowns, expulsion of all undocumented immigrants, a large no-rights guest worker program, increased employer sanctions, and denial of citizenship to US-born children of the undocumented. (Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NB) also introduced a package of four bills that took a position approximately between the McCain-Kennedy and the Cornyn-Kyl approaches).
Early in his administration, President Bush had talked about working with Mexico to resolve the immigration issue, and hinted that this would entail some sort of guest worker approach. After Mexico refused to support the US invasion of Iraq, everything was put on hold. But indications are that the White House’s goal is a guest worker program, which would serve the interest of Bush’s major corporate backers.
For much of the year, though there were many demonstrations in favor of immigrants’ rights, including one that brought out at least 20,000 people to the streets of Chicago on July 1, things were not going well in Congress. Dennis Hastert did not let any pro-immigrant legislation advance. Propaganda on the public airwaves was viciously anti-immigrant. Organized labor split, with a number of unions with large immigrant memberships leaving the AFL-CIO. The AFL-CIO leadership, while continuing to support legalization and immigrants’ rights, came out openly against the McCain-Kennedy bill, because of its guest worker program.
The Sensenbrenner Bill, Hr 4437
With little advance warning, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), tossed all the anti-immigrant elements in a new bill (HR 4437) which he rammed through the House floor by a majority of 239-182 on December 16. HR 4437 lacks either a guest worker program or legalization for the undocumented, and includes draconian repressive elements. Mere unauthorized presence in the United States would become a felony, forever precluding legal permanent residency or US citizenship.
Employers would have to use an error-prone government online system to check the eligibility for employment of all employees. Union hiring halls, worker centers, and community job agencies would be covered. Employer sanctions would be significantly increased.
Due process rights of people in the clutches of the immigration cops would be severely curtailed. Local and state police would be deputized to do immigration enforcement, leading to a vast racial profiling. A 2,000 mile fence would be built along the US-Mexican border. The extreme nature of HR 4437, its quick passage, and the fact that President Bush stated he supported it, upped the ante for both pro-and anti-immigrant camps.
The Action Moves to the Senate
On February 23, Senator Arlen Specter, chair of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, issued a revised “chairman’s mark” document. A “chairman’s mark” is a draft bill used in Senate committees as a working document to be discussed and amended. The mark was a big step in a right-wing, anti-immigrant direction. Both the undocumented and people who helped them would be criminalized. Much repressive language was imported from HR 4437, and there was no permanent legalization program for the undocumented, only a sort of “permanent temporary worker” status. There was a large guest worker program without any firm labor safeguards. The only positive item was that the mark created more “green cards.”
Senate majority leader, Bill Frist (R-TN) declared that if the committee did not produce a bill by March 27, he would introduce and push his own repressive “enforcement only” bill. On March 27, after several weeks of little progress (at the end of which Frist introduced his bill, S 2454, as threatened), the Committee on the Judiciary, in a frenzy of activity, made important progressive changes to Specter’s mark:
The McCain-Kennedy language allowing most undocumented immigrants to become permanent legal residents was inserted. But they would have to wait to be fully processed until prior applicants for green cards had their turn.
Senator Durbin (D-IL) succeeded in amending the mark to remove language criminalizing mere unauthorized presence in the country, and charitable aid to undocumented immigrants. Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) succeeded in incorporating the AgJobs bill, which would allow for the eventual legalization of some 1.5 million undocumented immigrants in agriculture. The McCain-Kennedy language on guest workers was substituted for the Specter language, allowing guest workers to eventually become permanent residents and citizens. The Dream Act to help undocumented immigrant youth raised in the United States to get affordable college education was added.
This package, now called Specter-Leahy, passed 12-6, with 4 Republicans (including Chairman Specter) joining all the Democrats on the committee to send it to the Senate floor.
What caused this sudden change of direction? Millions of immigrants and their supporters had staged disciplined, dignified demonstrations against HR 4437. Three hundred thousand marched in Chicago on March 10, and over a million in Los Angeles on March 25. This direct intervention of the working class, which caused the shutdown of hundreds of workplaces, made a huge difference. Forces which had disagreed over specific legislation, now found themselves united in actively supporting the mass mobilizations for immigrants’ rights.
Downside of the Specter-Leahy Bill
Many immigrants’ rights groups, especially those who had supported McCain-Kennedy from the start, hailed the Judiciary Committee’s action as a great step forward. And compared with Cornyn-Kyl, HR 4437, Specter’s Mark, or the Frist bill, it certainly was. But there were still major problems with this bill. Here are a few of many:
• The language removing criminalization of people who help immigrants was too narrow to include everybody who might be impacted. • Though the guest worker program is better than in other proposals, but it would still be abused. • The bill would still require all employers to check the legal status of all employees through a flawed government database, leading to unjust firings. • Employers receiving Social Security “No Match” letters would have to report to the government what they have done to resolve the discrepancy, also leading to firings. • Undocumented immigrants applying for legalization would be forced to waive their right to challenge government decisions in court. • All immigration cases would be shifted to a federal court in Washington DC, complicating the issue of legal representation. • There would be a great expansion of the category of “aggravated felonies” leading to deportation. • There would be a huge increase in the number of immigrants held in detention. Immigrants under deportation whose countries of origin refuse to take them back could be detained forever without trial. • There would be draconian penalties for document infractions like failing to file a change of address form within 10 days of moving. • It was hoped that some of this could be resolved by floor amendments. However, this proved impossible. Senator Frist immediately tried to move his bill, S 2454, forward, but supporters of the Judiciary Committee bill, now called Specter-Leahy, managed to get it put forward as a substitute.
Then the Republicans right began to offer amendments that, in the words of Senate minority leader, Harry Reid (D-NV), would “destroy the integrity” of the bill. One, for example, would have blocked any legalization of the undocumented until it could be “certified” that the border was “secure.” So Reid blocked these amendments. On April 6, a bipartisan group of senators, including the major supporters of the Specter-Leahy bill, announced that they had reached an agreement with Frist on a new compromise. This bill, called Hagel-Martinez (for Republican Senators Hagel of Nebraska and Martinez of Florida) would incorporate most of Specter-Leahy, with the following changes. The size of the guest worker program would be reduced from Specter-Leahy’s 400,000 to 325,000, and the undocumented immigrants would be split into three groups. Those who have been here more than five years would get a legalization deal as under McCain-Kennedy and Specter-Leahy. Those who had been here from two to five years would have to go back to their countries of origin but would be able to come back in, entering the legalization pipeline. Those who had been here two years or less would have to leave, and the only way they could come back would be through the new guest worker program. This was hailed by some who had originally supported McCain-Kennedy and then Specter-Leahy, because they got most of what they expected to get, except that the newest immigrants would be tossed to the sharks. However, the grassroots forces whose mass rallies had moved everything forward so far, were not pleased with the deal, which would split the immigrant base. The next day, the whole deal fell apart. Press reports suggest that Reid wanted some procedural assurances about the conference committee, and these were not forthcoming. The Democrats moved for cloture on the Hagel-Martinez compromise, but were defeated, 38-60. Frist then moved for cloture to vote on his original bill, but the motion also failed 36-62.
So no Senate bill was finished by the April 10-24 recess. The Hagel-Martinez compromise will be taken up again after the recess, however.
Where Are We Now?
Some see this as a reverse, but there is another way of looking at it. In the first place, the Hagel-Martinez compromise is a very mixed bag, containing all the repressive mechanisms that the pro-immigrant Democrats were unable to remove from the Specter-Leahy (Judiciary Committee) bill. And when it got to a House-Senate conference committee, whose members would be named by Republican reactionaries Frist and Hastert, there would be strong efforts to purge it of its progressive elements and pull it even more in the direction of HR 4437. So we have a lot of work to do. If we continue to organize, mobilize, agitate and lobby, this can be a valuable purchase of time.
Of course, the other side will agitate also, but on what basis? Hate speech and lies? Over time, hate speech antagonizes the public and lies get exposed.
Originally claiming that undocumented immigration represents a terrorism threat, the anti-immigrant ideologues now assert that Mexican immigrants are an army sent to recapture for Mexico the Southwestern states seized by the United States from 1836 to 1853.
Nobody who has any contact with Mexican immigrants can take seriously a claim that they are a secret conquering army. So the openly racist, over-the-top anti-immigrant and anti-Mexican rhetoric will backfire. And indeed, public opinion polls are turning the other way.
What about the claims that immigrants take jobs, depress wages, use up public services, increase petty crime, contribute to the health care insurance coverage crisis, damage the environment or endanger public health? These arguments can be shown not to hold water, and now we have two extra weeks to prove it. Certainly, many employers hire undocumented workers because they think they can get away with paying them less. It is precisely the vulnerability of the undocumented workers that makes this possible. Take away this vulnerability by legalizing the undocumented (to permanent legal residency, not to a shaky “guest worker” status), and you take away the advantage that these employers have in hiring them. That is why all workers should support legalization with full rights for undocumented workers.
The dignified spectacle of millions of working-class immigrants marching through our cities’ streets shows what the potential is for the immigrant “giant” that is now awakening. Those who march for immigrants’ rights today, will march tomorrow for labor rights for all, for a raise in the minimum wage, for a national health care system, for quality schools and all the other things that all workers want.
And when they can vote, they can do us all a favor by removing the likes of Sensenbrenner, Frist, Tancredo and Bush from office. In the meanwhile, we ourselves must end Republican control of Congress in November, so that we can get off the defensive and promote positive legislation on immigration and every other issue.
--Emile Schepers is a contributing writer for Political Affairs. Send your letters to the editor to
