Sometimes Secrets are Hidden in Plain Sight

Over the past few months much has been made of the possibility of the enactment of immigration reform by the current Congress. The President has promised on numerous occasions to make immigration reform a top priority, Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid (D-NV), has assured that he has the votes to move legislation forward, and the Chairman of the Senate Immigration Subcommittee, Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who will take the lead on crafting any new legislation, has laid out a seven-point blueprint for new legislation.

Against this backdrop, advocacy groups are ramping up campaigns to lobby legislators and mobilize activists to aid in the upcoming battle. And while the effort to coalesce a unified front by the pro-reform forces is unprecedented, having both a level of organization and outreach unseen in past legislative battles, the campaign thus far has been long on familiar sloganeering and promises to trust the DC establishment to do the right thing, and very short on the specifics of what any new legislation will look like.

As those of us who have engaged in past reform battles know, (albeit more as outsiders and observers than real participants at the table), the devil really is in the details of any legislation, and those details are, more often than not, kept secret until the very last moments.

During the 2007 battle, much of the "compromise" part of the Grand Compromise was kept under wraps until the legislation was about to be moved to the Senate floor for the amendment process. In fact, a strategy to revise the legislation after passage in both houses, while in Conference Committee, or through legal challenge, was only revealed by DC insiders after the bill had already crashed and burned.

Those advocacy groups who have been privy to the past efforts to craft legislation have often acted unilaterally, without the knowledge of friends, allies, and those they claim to represent, to decide what principles and policies they believe are negotiable and expendable in the quest of compromise and consensus.

With that past history in mind, the current ambiguity surrounding the coming legislative battle becomes all the more troubling.

To say we have received mixed messages from both the administration and Democratic leadership would be a gross understatement. While talking about substantive change and reform that will be practical and truly humane on the one hand, we hear much familiar rhetoric and jargon that reinforces the failed enforcement centric policies of the past.

In fact, in just the past week we saw the passage of enforcement-only amendments in the Democratic lead Senate, and a reaffirmation of the administration's commitment to the failed Bush- era programs like E-Verify and (287)G. And while some argue that the political posturing and grandstanding we witnessed last week are just that … only political theater …. it is clear that without presenting clear principles, and a vision of what real meaningful reform will look like, we are left with little more to judge these actions by than the usual DC tendency to talk out of both sides of their mouths simultaneously.

Even in cases where the political leadership has laid out a rough blueprint for reform, it has raised more concerns and questions than reassurances and answers. Senator Schumer's seven-point guideline is a case in point:

In all, Schumer announced seven principles that he said would form the basis for the legislation he intends to introduce by the fall:

1. Illegal immigration is wrong, and a primary goal of comprehensive immigration reform must be to dramatically curtail future illegal immigration.

2. Operational control of our borders--through significant additional increases in infrastructure, technology, and border personnel--must be achieved within a year of enactment of legislation.

3. A biometric-based employer verification system—with tough enforcement and auditing—is necessary to significantly diminish the job magnet that attracts illegal aliens to the United States and to provide certainty and simplicity for employers.

4. All illegal aliens present in the United States on the date of enactment of our bill must quickly register their presence with the United States Government—and submit to a rigorous process of converting to legal status and earning a path to citizenship—or face imminent deportation.

5. Family reunification is a cornerstone value of our immigration system. By dramatically reducing illegal immigration, we can create more room for both family immigration and employment-based immigration.

6. We must encourage the world’s best and brightest individuals to come to the United States and create the new technologies and businesses that will employ countless American workers, but must discourage businesses from using our immigration laws as a means to obtain temporary and less-expensive foreign labor to replace capable American workers; and finally

7. We must create a system that converts the current flow of unskilled illegal immigrants into the United States into a more manageable and controlled flow of legal immigrants who can be absorbed by our economy.


Sen. Chuck Schumer

Schumer's reliance on increased border control and "tough enforcement" offers little new insight or leadership and owes more ideologically to the failed efforts of the past than any constructive model to actually effect meaningful change. And while he has clearly offered a more substantive picture of future reform than the administration, Schumer still leaves more questions than answers about legislative specifics.

The fact that this "new" initiative was welcomed by the DC advocacy establishment with few questions asked leaves one to wonder exactly how much has been learned from past failures, and perhaps more importantly, how much real change are they willing to fight for.

Yet, it is just this ambiguity and lack of specifics about future legislation that has allowed DC advocates and their Democratic allies to build an impressive new coalition and organizational infrastructure.

Playing a game of "we'll just have to wait and see what the legislation looks like", has allowed them to be all things to all people. Making promises that will never be kept and playing on the hopes of those seeking real change.

But luckily for us, an actual comprehensive blueprint for what the "middle ground" on immigration reform will look like was published last week by The Council on Foreign Relations.

The almost 150 page study, written by a panel headed by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Clinton Chief of Staff Thomas F. "Mack" McLarty III gives us perhaps the clearest indicators of where the triangulation on immigration reform will end up. … A secret clearly kept in plain sight.

And while the report makes some very sound and promising observations and recommendations, it also makes some that are highly troubling and others that are downright dangerous.

It divides the immigrant population into two segments; those deemed highly desirable (skilled, educated, English-speaking) and those deemed less desirable (unskilled workers) and suggests setting up a two tiered system whereby "desirable" immigrants are not only welcomed, but actively recruited, while the unskilled are subject to quotas, or must enter as guest workers. It endorses biometric data collection on workers to assure eligibility to work legally in the country, calls for increased enforcement both at the border and workplace, and supports increased enforcement cooperation between state, local and the federal government.

Many of the mainstream advocacy groups welcomed this report last week citing its clear call for comprehensive reform as a sign of progress and forward movement … but none addressed some of the more troubling recommendations it contained. ….But don’t worry … I'll be covering them in depth later in the week

If this study represents a starting point … the middle ground … from where the debate will proceed, we'll be in deep trouble again going forward.

We have already heard the same rhetoric contained in the report parroted by Reid, Schumer, and the administration.... Leading one to believe that it represents a consensus view.

And if those advocacy groups in Washington who supposedly represent the interests of the migrant population believe that this too is an acceptable "middle ground" from which negotiations should proceed it might be time for them to reexamine their priorities.

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Towards a common sense immigration policy

After years of controversy and partisan infighting, we appear today no closer to any meaningful new national immigration policy than we were over six years ago when Bush first claimed he would make it a priority upon taking office. Much of the blame for this situation clearly rests on the shoulders of the President and his party, who during six years of essentially unopposed control of government, failed to reach any acceptable compromise. But, there have also been divisions within the Democratic Party that have helped stall the effort.

While stating a uniform policy of supporting "comprehensive reform", exactly what constitutes such reform can differ greatly within the Democratic Party.

The three core components of comprehensive reform presented thus far; Enforcement, Guest Workers, and A Path to Citizenship, have greatly varying degrees of support, and none appears to be universally accepted in their currently proposed incarnations legislatively. Even within the three major Democratic camps on this issue, which could generally be categorized as the "Immigrant-Rights/ Liberal" wing, the "DLC/Corporate" wing, and the "Lou Dobbs Democrat/Populist" wing, there are divisions. We are in fact nearly as divided as our Republican opponents.

But this need not be the case.

With the intelligent incorporation of some of the policies and ideas already advocated by organized labor, we could craft an immigration policy that would satisfy the needs of US workers, while still allowing for a reasonable flow of new immigrants wishing to seek a better life.

But there is division even among the leaders of the nations largest unions on this issue. So which policies and proposals would work best to unify the Democratic Party might not at first appear clear.

About two years ago, the country's labor unions split into two: a coalition of unions with millions of union members bolted from the ranks of the old AFL-CIO, and formed the Change to Win coalition.

The AFL-CIO that remained was about a third smaller than its former self.

This has had important consequences for immigration, particularly the Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) battle currently underway on Capitol Hill, here's why. Historically, the largest organized opposition to immigration in the US was big labor. This was true in the late 1800s, and remained true through almost all of the 1900s. The switch of the unions from the "anti" side to the "pro" side in the late 1990s was thus a momentous change and was spear-headed within the old AFL-CIO by the leaders of the unions that have since bolted to form the Change to Win coalition.
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The split has left a division in labor on the issue of immigration reform. The SEIU and UNITE HERE (members of the Change to Win coalition) are part of the Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, the coalition of immigrant-rights groups, labor, and human rights advocates pushing for immigration reform. Many Win to Change unions also support guest worker programs as a means to allow new immigration and hopefully fill their ranks with new members - the AFL-CIO on the other hand holds some different views. There is good reason why.

Generalizing a bit broadly, the Change to Win coalition unions largely organize occupations that cannot be globalized easily (e.g. waiters, hotel staff, laundry workers), while the new AFL- CIO unions largely organize occupations that are subject to strong global competition (e.g. steel workers, auto workers). Put another way, while we can import a car from Japan, dirty dishes cannot be sent to Mexico to be cleaned.
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This leaves the AFL-CIO playing a more traditional role in its attempts to protect American workers and jobs.

The fact that labor is divided between the "liberal" policies of the Win for Change camp and the more "conservative" policies of the AFL-CIO, is in fact a very good thing. Since no immigration policy can ever be crafted without the support the American people, and particularly American workers, the positions of the AFL-CIO might gain wider acceptance with American workers and help diffuse some of the more hysterical rhetoric that comes from the Republican right.

It is no small wonder that the self-described spokesmen for American's working men and women such as Lou Dobbs or, Bill O'Liely never interview representatives from labor on the issue of immigration reform.

For all their faux-populism and wanna-be workingman bravado, the loudest opponents of immigration reform hold views quite far from the mainstream of the American labor movement. As much as Lou Dobbs wrings his hands and sighs at the sorry state of our "broken borders" or the thought of comprehensive reform, his head would explode if he were to spend ten minutes listening to AFL-CIO President John Sweeney speak on the issue….Sweeney just makes too much sense for Dobbs. His ideas and policies are well thought out and practical … something that surely can't be said for Dobb's bloviating rants.

This week Sweeney spoke out in the LA Times on immigration reform in general and proposals to initiate a new guest worker program specifically.

In a joint editorial with Pablo Alvarado, executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, Sweeney voiced his opposition to guest worker programs such as those favored by President Bush and instead believes that any immigrant admitted to work in the US should be put on an immediate track towards permanent residency or citizenship.

He went on to say that foreign workers should enjoy the same rights and protections as US workers, including the right to unionize and to collective bargaining. "Labor laws must protect all workers, regardless of immigration status. If we leave undocumented workers without any real way to enforce labor laws, as our laws do now, we are feeding employers' hunger for more and more exploitable workers, relegating them to second-class status. That hurts all workers."

On a guest worker program::

(It) will assure a steady flow of cheap labor from essentially indentured workers too afraid of being deported to protest substandard wages, chiseled benefits and unsafe working conditions.

Such a system will create a disenfranchised underclass of workers. That is not only morally indefensible, it is economically nonsensical. We’ve had plenty of bad experiences with such shortsighted answers to a complicated problem..

."The solution to the immigration crisis will require a new approach," Sweeney said. " First, everyone who is admitted to work must immediately be on a track toward permanent residency or citizenship."
Sweeney went on to list other key reforms:

• Employers who can prove that they tried and failed to find U.S. workers should be able to hire foreign workers, but not under abusive conditions that have a negative effect on the wages and working conditions.


• Caps on the number of employment-based visas issued each year should be set by the U.S. Department of Labor based on economic indicators that establish the needs of particular industries, not by political compromise.


• Employers should not be allowed to recruit abroad, a practice that invites bribes, exorbitant fees and potential abuse. Instead, employers should be required to hire from applications filed by workers in their home countries through a computerized job bank.


• Foreign workers should enjoy the same rights and protections as U.S. workers, including freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life.

The guidelines Sweeney laid out this week pretty much match those first put forward last year in the unions Executive Council statement on immigration reform.

Responsible Reform of Immigration Laws Must Protect Working Conditions for all Workers in the U.S.

Uniform enforcement of workplace standards must be a priority.
(The) exploitation of workers will continue as long, as it makes economic sense to do so, to the detriment of U.S.-born and foreign-born workers alike. Unfortunately, the lax enforcement of labor and employment laws has given too many unscrupulous employers the economic incentive to recruit undocumented workers…

The only meaningful way to remove that perverse economic incentive and to equalize the competitive playing field is to ensure that all those who gain the benefit of a worker’s labor, … abide by all labor and employment laws. That means that the immigration reform law must provide real and enforceable remedies for labor and employment law violations that are available to all workers, regardless of their immigration status…

Reforms must provide a path to permanent residency for the currently undocumented workers who have paid taxes and made positive contributions to their communities.
Legalization is an important worker protection. History shows that legalizing this population benefits all workers. … Without a legalization program, the economic incentive to hire and exploit the undocumented will remain, to the detriment of U.S. workers who labor in the same industries as the undocumented, because all workers will see their working conditions plummet.

We must reverse the trend of allowing employers to turn permanent, full-time year-round jobs into temporary jobs through attempts to broaden the size and scope of guestworker programs.
…Guestworker programs are bad public policy and operate to the detriment of workers, in the both the public and private sector, and of working families in the U.S. The abuses suffered by workers in the first such program, the post World-War II Bracero program, are well documented. The negative effects of the modern versions of the “guestworker” construct—such as the H1-B and H2-B programs—are all too evident today. Workers around the country are witnessing the transformation of formerly well-paying, permanent jobs into temporary jobs with little or no benefits, which employers are staffing with vulnerable foreign workers who have no real enforceable rights through the guestworker programs. These modern programs have had a major and substantial detrimental effect on important sectors of our economy.


In our view, there is no good reason why any immigrant who comes to this country prepared to work, to pay taxes, and to abide by our laws and rules should be denied what has been offered to immigrants throughout our country’s history, a path to legal citizenship. To embrace instead the creation of a permanent two-tier workforce, with non-U.S. workers relegated to second-class “guestworker” status, would be repugnant to our traditions and our ideals and disastrous for the living standards of working families.

Long-Term Labor Shortages Should be Filled With Workers with Full Rights
We recognize that our economy may face real labor shortages in the coming years, as the baby boomer generation retires. Instead of relying on a construct that guarantees the deterioration of working conditions in the U.S., we should focus on a meaningful solution that guarantees full workplace rights for all workers, both foreign-born and native, and also permits employers to hire foreign workers to fill proven labor shortages. The solution is simple: Congress should revise the permanent employment-based visas system and devote more resources to removing processing delays.

Employment-based admissions for permanent visas (commonly known as “green cards”) are subject to labor certification provisions…(and Congress has arbitrarily set the number of these visas at 140,000 annually. That approach should be changed so that the number of visas available responds to actual, demonstrated labor shortages, which will satisfy employers’ needs for workers, and will prevent the creation of a secondary class of workers and residents, because the new foreign workers will have full employment rights and the promise of a permanent future in our democracy.

Reform of immigration laws must consider the root causes of migration, and must take into account the global economic policies, as well as U.S. foreign policy that are pushing workers to migrate
Without rising living standards abroad for workers and the poor, the pressure for illegal immigration will continue. U.S. foreign policy, as well as trade and globalization policies, must be grounded upon a coherent national economic strategy, as described in An Economic Agenda for Working Families, adopted at the AFL-CIO’s 2005 Convention.

So in essence the AFL-CIO is already advocating positions on which the vast majority of Democrats could agree. They protect workers, both immigrant and native born, and set guidelines for future immigration that will not be exploitive.

• No guest workers


• Uniform enforcement of all workplace labor regulations


• A path to legalization for those already here


• Revise the green card system and devote more resources to removing processing delays


• All new entries come in on green cards, with a path to citizenship


• New caps on green cards set by DOL, economic conditions, and industry needs, not congress or political compromise


• No recruiting of foreign workers or use of brokers, but rather a computerized job bank


• Address the global economic policies, as well as U.S. foreign policy that cause migration

Ironically, these proposals would end up being easier to enforce and less costly to enact than the ones already being debated in congress. They contain no convoluted and complicated procedures to deal with the current undocumented population or future entrants. No "touchbacks", temporary status, fines, or waiting periods. It’s a plain and simple plan. Figure out exactly how many jobs you really have and workers you need, then let them in legally with green cards as full members of society.

With some refinement and tweaking they could easily become the groundwork for a unified Democratic position on immigration reform and eventually meaningful comprehensive reform .

In fact some of the framework for the more difficult areas of the legislation already exists in the current legislation.

For example in TitleIV, sec 410 of the Gutierrez -Flake bill there is a call for a bipartisan "Standing Commission on Immigration and Labor Markets." A separate agency to be set up within the executive branch, made up experts in "economics, demography, labor, business, or immigration who cannot be employees of the Federal Government or of any State or local government" and are charged with making recommendations on the annual levels of immigration. Although obviously a throw-away section in the bill, that gives the commission little more than an advisory powers, with modification, and some teeth, this commission could become a powerful regulatory agency to work with the DOJ in setting immigration levels going forward. This would take the process out of the hands of politicians and their business allies. If the proper levels of future immigration could be determined through economic guidelines that protected American workers while still supplying opportunity to those abroad, it would go a long way towards eliminating many of our current immigration problems.

Acceptance of these compromise positions by the "Immigrant-Rights/ Liberal" wing, and the "Lou Dobbs Democrat/Populist" wing of the party would allow for legalization, future regulated immigration, workplace enforcement, and an end to exploitive guest worker programs and labor recruiting practices.

Although not a complete answer to all the issues to be dealt with concerning immigration reform…they're acceptance as policy would leave us a lot better off than we are right now as a Party…and in far better shape than our Republican opponents.


tags: immigration, AFL-CIO , guest worker, amnesty, labor unions

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Why a temporary worker program should be avoided

Recently, Cecilia Munoz, vice president for policy of the National Council of La Raza, wrote an essay outlining the the need to include a temporary worker program in any future immigration reform legislation. In "Temporary Workers Must Be Included", Ms. Munoz lays out a compelling case in support of her argument.

She warns that without a mechanism to allow for future immigration, any legislative effort would result in the same failed policies as the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA).

Acknowledging the dismal history of past guest worker programs like the notorious bracero program, Munoz still believes that a properly administered program is the only way to ensure that we don't repeat the mistakes of 1986. She warns that we should not craft a similar policy to IRCA that "produced a legalization program and a stricter enforcement regime without recognizing that workers would continue to come" and resulted in "a sizable undocumented community, unprecedented levels of workplace injuries and a (hostile) political climate."

Munoz advises those in the immigration rights movement to accept the guest worker proposal put forward in last years Senate bill and use every opportunity to work to improve it by "strengthen(ing) the protections for immigrant workers and their co-workers in the U.S."

While making a coherent case, Munoz fails to answer the underlying question of any debate about guest workers. Why must any work visa program be "temporary" in nature in the first place?

tags: immigration, guest worker , NCLR, Cecilia Munoz

Munoz sums up her argument by saying:

If we pass a bill that does what IRCA did, combine a legalization program with stricter enforcement while failing to create a new, safe and legal path for new workers who might come in the future, we will have failed.

We will have failed because immigrant workers will continue to come, and too many will die in the Arizona desert. We will have failed because the continued migrant stream will signal to voters that immigration reform didn’t work, and public support for stricter, more outrageous enforcement efforts, including the curtailment of civil and human rights, will grow.

Instead, we must face the challenge of creating a worker visa program that shows that we have learned from the ugly history of the bracero program. We made a good start in last year’s Senate bill, which contained a program that allows workers to enter legally and safely, change jobs, complain against unscrupulous employers and petition for themselves to become U.S. citizens if they choose to remain in the United States.

Just as importantly, the program contained crucial wage protections for U.S. workers in industries where immigrants will be arriving, ensuring that immigrants’ wages do not undercut those of the existing workforce. There’ s more that we can do to strengthen the protections for immigrant workers and their co-workers in the U.S., and we must use every opportunity in this debate to win these indispensable protections.

But we must not allow ourselves to believe that legalization for those who are here is enough. We have a responsibility to those who will continue to come, and to the American workers who worry about the security of their jobs.

We must replace the undocumented migrant stream with a safe, legal, worker-friendly visa program. It’s essential to winning the battle over our broken immigration system, and to winning the larger war that this ugly debate has become.

Munoz is of course correct when she says that the stream of migrants will continue, (unless conditions in sender nations were to improve, but that’s a different discussion.)

She is also right when she states that we need to craft a safe, worker-friendly program to accommodate it.

But what necessitates that the program be a "temporary" worker program?

Most studies, be they demographic or economic, point to an ever increasing need for more young immigrant workers to join the county's labor pool in order for the nation to remain economically competitive in the coming century.

There are numerous ways to address the problem.

The simplest solution would be to just increase the number of workers allowed to enter legally in any given year to better reflect the nations true labor needs. This could be done by reworking the quota system to allow for more immigrants to receive Legal Permanent Resident status (greencards). If, as the current legislation states, 200,000 unskilled workers are required in the US labor pool and would qualify for H-2c temporary-worker status, then simply increase the cap on employment based greencards by that number. This would eliminate the need for costly new monitoring systems, cut down on processing delays, and simplify the system rather than further complicating it. All the same employer requirements, worker protections, and rights and restrictions in the Senate bill would still apply, except that the new workers would be greencard holders rather than "temporary workers."

The current system already has numerous "temporary" programs for different situations and circumstances. To create another class, on the grand scale proposed in the Senate legislation, seems to serve no purpose but to appease special interests and an extremely vocal and powerful minority of nativists.

The plan's main selling point seems to be that it would assure big business that they can continue to have a never ending supply of rotating temporary workers, while reassuring those concerned about the effects of increased immigration on what they see as "traditional American society" that these workers would not stay long enough to have any lasting "negative cultural effects."

Pragmatically, one must be cognizant of the power of the program as a political bargaining chip. Support for any form of comprehensive reform would wane without some concessions to business interests. This has led many immigration activists to look at the temporary guest worker program as a concession they are willing to make since at least it provides an eventual path to LPR status and green cards to large numbers of immigrants. Yet, upon careful consideration one must ask why is the program needed at all? It only leaves open a door to abuse and misuse of the system.

A quick look at the provisions of the temporary worker program passed in the Senates bill (S.2611) reveals one possible loophole that would allow businesses to exploit the program.

According to the legislation, an H-2c guest worker visa would be valid for a period of three years with the ability to extend it for an additional three. After accumulated four years of temporary status a worker would be allowed to petition for permanent status. What would prevent unscrupulous employers from terminating employees after the three-year period, before they were eligible to self-petition? Given the fact that a worker would have only 60 days to find new employment before their H-2c status was revoked it is quite possible that these workers would be forced to leave the program, and the country. Additionally, new employers might be hesitant to hire workers whose visa extensions were pending and prefer workers who had not already completed half of their visa term.

This is only one possible scenario of many that demonstrate the problems of any worker program that is temporary in nature.

What about the US citizen children born of H-2 visa holders? What is their status? Must they be returned to their parent's country of origin at the end of the six-year visa period?

Ms. Munoz rightfully points out that specific details can be worked on and hopefully changed through lobbying efforts. Yet what cannot be changed is the whole concept behind the program.

Outside of some specific instances, such as seasonal agricultural work, why would the government need to place arbitrary restrictions on the time immigrant workers were allowed to stay in the country. If the job market dictates that certain positions need to be filled with immigrant labor, are we to believe that those positions will no longer be available at the end of three or six years? That would have to be the case in order for any temporary program implemented to be logical. If the positions were to still exist, there would be no reason to send workers home.

Obviously, certain special interest favor a guest worker program because it has the potential to prevent workers from accumulating enough time on the job to get substantial pay increases, qualify for certain benefits, or organize effectively in unions. But we should not be so quick to capitulate to them in the name of political expediency.

Before signing on to support any temporary program, we should be looking at how best to allow those who wish to come here permanently do so. How we are to determine the levels of immigration going forward and how many workers are needed are questions that need to be addressed, but they should be looked at with an eye towards permanency.

Those who wish to come for short periods should of course be allowed to. Studies show that recent enforcement efforts have in fact prevented large numbers of people who in the past would have returned home after a brief period of work, from doing so. Accommodations for such individuals must be made in any reform legislation. But for the vast majority, the key to any comprehensive plan should be to allow needed workers to enter the country legally and permanently.

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The key to immigration reform: addressing its root causes (Part I)

Over the past two years, over 900 migrants have perished making the hazardous journey through the desert to make new lives in "el Norte." Some were small coffee growers from Vera Cruz, chicken farmers from Jalisco, or vegetable growers from Guadalajara. Others were indigenous subsistence farmers from the Chiapas highlands no longer able to eek out a living. Still others were Guatemalan migrant workers who could not find work on either side of Mexico's border and jumped on El Tren de Muerte (The Death Train) in Tapachula for the first leg of their journey, boarding alongside Salvadorans escaping decades of political upheaval and Hondurans escaping crushing poverty.

Between 6 and 7 million people have taken the arduous journey north, many within the last ten years, most of them coming from poor agriultural areas that are no longer able to support their growing populations. Yet, with all the debate about reforming US immigration policy and securing the borders, we have not heard one solid proposal to address the root causes of this massive migration. The question of why so many must leave their homes and families to simply survive is rarely mentioned, but remains the missing piece in the comprehensive immigration reform puzzle.

tags: immigration, NAFTA , free trade, poverty

Most people recognize that the economic conditions in Central and South America drive much of the current migration. It's widely acknowledged that most sender nations suffer from economic inequities that leave the vast majority of their populations living in abject poverty while a small elite ruling class controls most of the wealth. In Mexico for instance, nearly half of its 106 million people live in poverty, yet it has more billionaires than Switzerland. But what has fostered these inequities and in fact exacerbated them over the last ten or fifteen is not widely discussed. It is this deeper understanding of the complexities of the issue that seem to be absent from much of the debate.

From the immigration hawks we hear that a mix of government corruption and an inability or unwillingness on the part of people from these countries to effect change has led to the problems in this region. Lou Dobbs tells us that a greedy Mexican government intentionally ships its poor here to avoid upheaval. Others admonish the undocumented migrants living in the US, suggesting they return home and work to fix their own countries rather than look for acceptance here.

Those supporting comprehensive reform skirt around the issue of causation, looking instead for methods to regulate and accommodate this increasing flow of migrants. Looking to change or shuffle quotas and grant temporary worker status to a large percentage of newly arriving migrants, their plan is also flawed and incomplete. It doesn't address the reasons this migration is taking place.

No plan, be it walls and armed guards every 50 yards, or quota changes and guest workers can ever work without first looking at why the migration is taking place and figuring out what can be done, at least in this hemisphere, to curtail the poverty, political upheaval and social injustice that foster mass migration. To try to reform immigration without addressing its root causes is like trying to fix a broken pipe without turning off the water.

Certainly, one of the greatest factors in the social and economic changes that have taken place in much of Latin America in recent decades can be directly traced to the proliferation of free trade agreements coupled with an embracing of a Reaganesque philosophy of laissez faire economics and deregulation by many Latin leaders.

No country has embraced the idea of free trade and deregulation more than Mexico. Beginning in 1987 with its membership of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), Mexico has signed more free trade agreements than any other country in the world. In 1994, it joined NAFTA and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Since then there have been very few trade agreements Mexico has not been part of. These agreements in general and NAFTA in particular, while helping certain segments of Mexico's economy, have had devastating effects on the rural poor, the group that makes up the bulk of the current economic migrants arriving each year in the US.

Another factor that has driven migration has been political and social instability. Fifteen years after the end of its civil war, El Salvador sends more people per capita to the US than any other country. One third of its population currently lives outside its borders, the majority of them in the U.S. and its economy is reliant on the remittances they send back. After decades of US intervention and meddling in its internal affairs, the peace accords that ended years of violence have failed to truly bring peace, leaving hundreds to flee each day to find security, both personal and economic.

The US cannot solve all the worlds problems and the leadership in these countries must shoulder much of the responsibilty for the current situation, but in many cases the problems in Latin America continue to be very much of our own making. Our policies, both economic and diplomatic, have helped to both foster and perpetuate many of the conditions that have lead to the massive migration going on today. From 600,000 Latin American coffee farmers losing their land and their livelihoods over the past five years as a result of a pricing crisis, to the loss of 2 million agricultural jobs in Mexico between 1993 and 2003, the trade policies favored by the US and embraced by our trading partners have had devastating effects on the poor and working classes on both sides of the border. There is very little difference between the US autoworker who has lost his job to outsourcing and the Mexican maquiladora worker who now finds his job sent to China.

If we are to truly reform our immigration policies we must start to look at these economic and political realities and start to craft policy that addresses these root causes of migration. We must start to see the interconnection between the effects of free trade policies on our own economy and the economy of sender nations and we must examine how our foreign policy has fostered economic inequality and political upheaval throughout the region. Until we address these problems no true immigration reform can be enacted.


Part II: NAFTA and its effects on Mexico's economy

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A comprehensive look at comprehensive immigration reform.

With the coming election, a new round of debate has opened up on the issue of immigration and immigration reform.

With both parties trying to define their positions on migrant and immigration issues, perhaps it is time to re-examine what needs to be done about this issue and perhaps re-define the goals and terms of the debate. With the emergence of a new growing populism within the progressive ranks, it is important that we not be drawn to solutions and proposals that run contrary to the basic progressive beliefs in human value and dignity.

With that in mind, what follows is a proposal for how to address this issue effectively while still remaining true to the ideals of liberal and progressive thought… a policy paper if you must… but I'd rather think of it as a starting point for meaningful dialogue.

tags: immigration, immigration policy , guest worker,immigration reform

GETTING TO THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM: COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM AND WORKING AMERICANS

Introduction

After years of controversy and partisan infighting, we appear today no closer to any meaningful new national immigration policy than we were nearly eight years ago when President Bush first claimed he would make it a priority upon taking office. Much of the blame for this situation clearly rests on the shoulders of the President and his party, who during six years of unopposed control of government, failed to reach any acceptable compromise.

But, there have also been divisions within the Democratic Party that have helped stall the effort. While stating a uniform policy of supporting some sort of "comprehensive reform", exactly what constitutes such reform can differ greatly within the Democratic Party.

Currently undocumented immigrants traverse the borders daily risking their lives, and sometimes losing them, in order to find work and security in the United States. Perhaps upwards to a 500,000 undocumented people each year find a way, whether it be by overstaying a visa, or crossing hundreds of miles deadly desert, to enter this country in hopes of making a better life.

Americans of diferent political stripes seem concerned about this situation, but there is great division on exactly how to solve the problem. Some have advocated a tightening of security and closing of the porous border as a solution. Others have promoted a method to regulate the flow of new immigrants and legitimization the undocumented.

But there is one thing missing in both of these strategies.

Neither contains any analysis of why this problem exists, and more importantly, why at this particular time in our history the current influx of new immigrants is causing such great concern for many Americans.

Neither group seems concerned with root causes.

The number of immigrants has not really changed

Throughout our history we have encountered many waves of immigration. In fact, most Americans can trace our roots back to foreign shores one way or another, albeit for some, not of their own accord. The number of new immigrants who come today, both entering through proper channels and the undocumented, is no greater as a percentage of population than at many other times during our history. From the late-nineteenth century, through the first thirty years of the last, immigrants represented about 14.6% of the total population (1) ; today that number is 12% (2).

Certainly our earlier immigrants were not rich, and most had limited education, but they, like our current crop of immigrants, had the drive and determination to seek out a better life. This influx of new vitality and ambition has been a cornerstone on which the nation was build.

So why today do we find ourselves in the middle of what some would term a crisis?


What is different today then during past immigration waves?

Historically there have always been a number of protectionists who've opposed immigration for xenophobic or racists reason, but generally, as a nation, we have accepted new immigrants, and they have eventually taken their place in the American mosaic. This not to say that the immigrant experience has not been rife with tensions, or that they have always been welcomed with open arms, history proves diferently, but over time each group has found a place. Yet, today many seem to be finding it harder and harder to accept our newest arrivals. Why do so many believe the new immigrants are putting undo pressures on our economy, creating stresses on a tight job market, and stretching already taxed social services and education systems?

Why today do we find it so hard to absorb these new immigrants? Why at a time in our history, when we are still the richest nation in the world despite our current economic difficulties, and are more educated as a population and have a higher standard of living than during past waves of immigration, do many believe that these new immigrants are putting such great stresses on our society? Perhaps we need to look at some of the changes that have taken place over the last twenty-five or so years to find the answer.

THE SYSTEMATIC ASSAULT ON WORKING AND MIDDLE-CLASS AMERICANS

Over the past twenty five years there's been a systematic assault upon the working and middle classes of this nation which now leaves many vulnerable and in a position where they must compete for an ever decreasing pool of resources. At one time, a family could live comfortably on the income of one earner, but today it takes two just to make ends meet. A guaranteed pension for retirement is no longer the norm. A union card no longer guarantees a lifetime of job security. Health insurance costs have become an overwhelming concern for both workers and employers and forty five million Americans in fact go without any. A job with one of the nation's largest companies no longer means yearly raises and increased benefits; in fact it doesn't even guarantee job security. An advanced degree no longer means a career in your chosen field. Today, working and middle class Americans can expect plant closings and layoffs, pay cuts and increased hours, loss of benefits and outsourcing. They can expect economists to talk about "jobless recoveries" and increased productivity. It is no wonder that many working-class Americans are feeling the added stresses of our new modern global economy and are looking for an avenue to vent their frustrations.

Our nation is sick, and the perceived "immigration crisis" is not the cause of this national illness, but just another symptom of it.

Who is responsible for this situation?

The answer is simple ... the economic and social policies of those who claim to be economic conservatives that favor an elite class of the economically privileged over the vast majority of Americans.

Of course, many working class Americans might scoff at this idea. Certainly a philosophy of smaller government, personal responsibility and free-market economics sounds appealing to many, and on face value alone is quite in line with the principles on which our nation was founded. But in practice, what these so called Conservatives have done with this philosophy has been the antithesis of what the founders had in mind. These Conservatives have used this philosophy to consolidate economic and political power in the hands of the few at the expense of the many. They have turned the ideals of fair play and Christian charity upside down and transformed them into grotesque parodies.

They have taken two hundred years of struggle to raise the standard of living for the average American and thrown it to the winds, all in the name of "fiscal responsibility" and "smaller government." All along being neither fiscally responsible nor providing smaller government.

How did they do this?

How did these self-proclaimed Conservatives wage this war on the working and middle class? In a nutshell, with two policies that came to define the Reagan era; deregulation and union busting. They've continued with more failed and flawed policies right up until our present day in alliance with business interests and the economic elite who benefit most from this agenda.

Union Busting

Starting with the firing of the air traffic controllers in 1981, Conservatives have set forth an agenda through legislation and judicial decisions to slowly disassemble the American labor movement. At the time, many Americans supported the idea, feeling that unions had become too powerful, corrupt and greedy, but the results of this policy have had devastating effects on American workers. Conservatives advocating "right to work" legislation under the guise that it allowed workers free choice whether or not to join a union, have in effect allowed employers to guarantee open shops and eventually drive the unions out of many sectors of the US economy. Ever since the eighties the number of union households has been steadily declining from a high of 20.1 % in 1983 to 12.5% in 2005 (3). Today Wal Mart, the nations largest employer, continually fights against the unionization of it's employees using laws and policies put in place by conservative legislators.

At the beckoning of corporate interests, Conservatives have managed to take what was once the bulwark of working class America, the very entity that allowed millions of American workers to move themselves or their children into the middle class, and rendered it powerless.

Deregulation

Under the guise of increased competition and lower prices through free-market forces, Conservatives began a campaign of deregulation. They would no longer allow the government to regulate business, but rather leave it up to the free market. Again, on paper this practice looked reasonable, but under their control we have ended up with the reverse.

Instead of government controlling business, we now have business controlling government.

We have allowed business combinations that rival any of those of the Robber Barons of the late nineteenth century. We have seen regulated monopolies in the energy, telecom, airline and other industries destroyed, only to recombine into unregulated monsters like Enron. We have seen the merger of mega oil companies that are larger than those of Rockefeller's Standard Oil, who make profits that would make King Midis blush, while the average American can't afford to fill up his gas tank.

Globalization and outsourcing

The next logical step after domestic deregulation for Conservatives was globalization and the taking of their idea of the free market economy, without any government regulation, to a global scale. Conservatives passed legislation and trade agreements that allowed huge multinational companies to operate with impunity throughout the world. Believing that free markets, free trade, and the unrestricted flow of capital would produce the greatest social, political and economic good, Conservative policies have left our nation with record trade imbalances (4) and a national debt of over 8 trillion dollars (5) , much of it underwritten by economically rival nations like China (6,7). Hundreds of free trade agreements have been signed that have in many cases had devastating effects not only for US workers, but decimated industries in foreign countries. In Mexico in particular, free trade agreements have destroyed large sections of the agricultural sector (8), leading to increased immigration to the US. They have allowed companies like Halliburton to set up shadow entities on foreign soil to avoid paying taxes.

They've allowed American businesses to sell American jobs to the lowest bidder on the global market all in the name of free market economics.

Rewriting the tax codes and starving the beast

Conservatives often say that the only thing wrong with government is government, and promise to lower taxes, reduce the size of government, and be fiscally responsible. Yet, after years of Conservative leadership we have the largest government in US history, a record federal deficit and a record national debt of more than 8 trillion dollars. The only part of their philosophy they seem to be able to stick too is tax cuts.

They have systematically worked over the last twenty-five years to shift the tax burden from both big business and the top 1% of the nation's wealthiest people and place it on the middle and working class.

They have consistently rewarded corporations and the rich with larger and larger tax breaks. Through cuts in funding to education, health and human services and many other state and local programs they have managed to shift the tax burden down to the local level so that average Americans now pay more in real estate, state and local, use and sales taxes than ever before. They have not given the American people "back their money" as they claim, but rather forced them to just pay more to other government agencies.

The other aspect of the Conservative tax cutting agenda has been to use cuts as a means to, as they term it; "starve the beast". It's been conservative policy to try to assure that social programs for education, childcare, healthcare and the poor are "starved to death" due to the lack of available federal funds.

Their philosophy has resulted in huge benefits for the rich while programs that poor, working and middle class Americans rely on are cut. The best example of this is public education, where Conservatives have consistently cut funding while placing ever more increasing demands upon the system.

Healthcare

Another big concern for average Americans is healthcare and its skyrocketing costs. Conservative deregulation and free market philosophies have influenced this also. While fighting vehemently against any form of a national healthcare program, they have through legislation and governmental agencies, allowed large pharmaceutical manufactures, insurance companies, and healthcare conglomerates to set the agenda.

National health policy has been written by insurance companies and other corporate interests rather than physicians and medical professionals. A policy that has left 45 million Americans without basic health insurance and millions more grossly under-insured and paying a large percentage of medical costs out of pocket

.

But What Does All This Have To Do With Immigration?

These Conservative policies that favor the economic elite have had devastating effects on the working and middle classes, yet in order to remain in power they have tried to shift the blame. Every problem that is claimed to be a result of the "immigration crisis" can be seen to have its roots in Conservative economic and social policies.

Conservatives and power elites have been trying to convince the American people that it is immigrants who have put all the stresses on education, social services and healthcare institutions and that they take jobs from American workers and drive down wages. But it must be understood that while immigrants highlight the problems of working class Americans, they haven't caused them. Those who have caused these problems have played upon race, bigotry and ignorance to further muddy the waters, and distract the American people away from the real reasons for their economic concerns and discontent. History is ripe with examples of scapegoating those not in society's mainstream, and this time it is no different.

All these problems can be seen as direct results of twenty-five years of Conservative policy. This is obvious when you look at the root causes. The Republican controlled Congress for the last ten years has exacerbated the situation by rubber-stamping every Conservative policy that has come down the pike. With each passing year they have taken more and more from working Americans and given it to their corrupt corporate masters. Now there is nothing left, and the American working man and woman knows it.

What can we do?

We, as a nation need to stop letting those who don't have our best interests at heart control the agenda. We must not allow them to divide us along lines of class, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or gender. We must not allow them to misdirect us or mislead us with appeals to our patriotism or national pride. We must not allow them to fan the flames of racial or ethnic bigotry to distracts us. We must not let them blame the symptoms rather than the disease.

The so called "immigration crisis" is just another symptom of a far greater disease ... the disease of an agenda that favors the rich and big business over average Americans. The influx of new immigrants certainly highlights the problems of the now decimated social programs, education and health care systems, but they did not cause the national illness.

How do we "fix" immigration?

Fixing our broken immigration system will not be easy, and it will be a long hard process. Again just as in the case of working Americans, one key must be to look for the ROOT CAUSES OF THE PROBLEM. We must look at the reasons why millions of people every year risk their lives to come here? What is it about their countries of origin that make them so desperate to leave? Take the the case of Mexico. It's a nation that has the 13th largest economy in the world, ahead of 167 other nations. They also are the second largest recipients of direct investment by US companies in the hemisphere. On top of that Mexico has vast amounts of untapped natural resources and oil reserves that rival those of any Middle Eastern power. So why do so many live in poverty? Why must they come here simply to survive? Could it be precisely because they are the second largest recipients of direct investment by US big business? Could it be because US trade and economic policies have been crafted to favor the business elite and the ruling classes of Mexico, just as they favor them here? Could it be because US policies help perpetuate a system that leaves 55% of the countries wealth in the hands of 20% of its people? These are all things that need to be addressed when looking at the "immigration crisis".

WHAT SHOULD MEANINGFUL IMMIGRATION REFORM LOOK LIKE ?

Despite what many claim, support for some sort of comprehensive immigration reform is not tantamount to calling for "open borders" , unrestricted immigration" or as Lou Dobbs like to claim, "importing half the population of Mexico into the US." While some from the left, and both the Libertarian and Free Trade right, favor open borders and the total unrestricted flow of people, goods and services between nations, most pro-immigration advocates don't. They see our current "immigration problem" as a failure of our system to live up to its historical duty to allow for the reasonable flow of people from all over the world to come to this nation to make a better life, add vitality and diversity to our national mosaic, and join in the great American democratic experiment. The key phrase being: "reasonable flow".

Two economic facts must be taken as givens in any discussion of immigration reform if we are to make any real progress towards meaningful reform:

• 1. We need immigration. Currently there are an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants living in the US of which 7.5 million are in the workforce, with approximately a million more joining them each year. Additionally, we allow for roughly a million "legal" immigrants to enter each year. 98% of all undocumented immigrants eligible to work (excluding children and stay-at-home mothers of young children), do so, and the US unemployment rate floats around 5% or roughly 7 million people. We need these workers, it's just a fact





• 2. Undocumented immigrants can keep wages artificially low in a few select industries that rely on them for the bulk of their workforce, particularly effecting legal-resident and natuarlaized workers. Employers in these sectors, able to pay undocumented workers less, take advantage of a severely broken immigration system to exploit the most vulnerable members of society. The solution to this problem is not to eliminate the immigrant workforce in order to force wages up due to a lack of needed workers. The solution is to put these workers on a path to legalization in order that employers can no longer exploit them. Numerous studies show that once an immigrant attains legal status his wages and benefits go up and his employer begins to adhere to federal and state workplace regulations. It's a self policing system.

With these two basic premises accepted, it becomes clear what the goal of any rational immigration reform should be: Allow for a reasonable flow of new immigrants and figure out a way to allow them to enter the country legally.

What is a reasonable flow of immigration?

How do we determine what the "reasonable" amount of immigrants to allow each year should be?

For those immigrants admitted for employment reasons, the number should be determined by a floating scale that takes into account the number of available jobs, the current unemployment rate, the number of green cards issued the previously year measured against the number applied for. In other words use simple supply and demand. As long as there is a demand for increased immigration, there must be a legal way meet that demand.

At the present time we have no legal means to supply needed workers, or allow for families to remain intact, hence they are forced to enter the country illegally and live in the shadows.

Obviously we must first raise the quotas to more accurately reflect the realities of what is actually going on.

We must also eliminate the per-country cap that favors smaller nations with fewer immigrant applicants over those countries that have long traditional ties to the US.

We must raise the 5000 maximum cap on unskilled worker green cards issued each year to reflect the true needs of the national labor pool.

We need to ease restrictions on family reunification and rework the diversity "lottery" and refugee policies to better serve the needs of those who face a clear and present danger in their countries of origin.

One possible solution

Perhaps there is a better way to formulate such important and complicated policy. Perhaps we should institute an independent "immigration policy board" that is free of elected officials, made up of experts in immigration, economists, labor and immigrant advocates, that could be charged with the responsibility of formulating certain aspects of immigration policy.

At present it's basically a decision made by politicians.

As we saw during the debates over Comprehensive Immigration Reform, legislators seem to pull numbers out of thin air, check with "business" leaders, take some foreign policy considerations, think about sound bites, spin, and firing up the base, then put it all in a big bowl and mix it up and serve it to the American people as policy.

This is politics as usual, but it doesn't have to be.

There needs to be something set up independent of elected government, something similar to the way the Federal Reserve is set up, and sets interest rates. An independent "immigration policy board", charged with setting the immigration levels and working out policy. They could be the ones to determine how many of each visa class to issue each year or how many green cards etc. rather than our elected officials.

This seems to be a logical alternative to the current system. We do not allow elected officials to set the Fed interest rates because they lack the necessary expertise to do so, and we know they'd set them at 0% in election years, and 30% in off years.

The same should be true with immigration policy. Between pressure from big business, the natural tendency for politicians to pander for votes, and other political calculations, perhaps elected officials are not the best choice for formulating the nuts and bolts of immigration policy.

This policy board's mission would be to gather information, listen to testimony, call in experts, listen to lobbyists, immigrants advocates, etc., then make their recommendations for the following years "quotas". Each year they would then adjust them according to economic conditions, world events, the previous year's successes and/or failures, unemployment rates, etc.

This way the whole affair is taken out of the hands of both the politicians and the business interests that control them.

The AFL-CIO advocates a similar process in theory. They instead have called for all caps on the number of employment-based visas issued each year to be set by the U.S. Department of Labor based on economic indicators that establish the needs of particular industries, not by political compromise.

Once we have determined what reasonable levels of immigration are, then and only then can we begin to look at border security. Once we remove millions of would-be undocumented immigrants from the mix by providing them a legal path to immigration, we can formulate an effective border security plan. To do the reverse, and try to secure the border before reforming the immigration system is like trying to fix a leaky pipe without turning off the water. We need to channel our immigration through legal points of entry, before we can plug the holes in the border.

ADDRESSING THE ROOT CAUSES OF MIGRATION

We need to take a complete and comprehensive approach to immigration reform, and this includes something none of the present legislation accounts for. We need to look at the reasons why millions of people each year are compelled to risk their lives to enter this country illegally. This includes an examination of the effects of US foreign policy and trade policies that have fostered poverty and political upheaval throughout much of the third world.

Why is it that Mexico, a country with the thirteenth largest economy in the world, has large portions of it's population living in abject poverty? How have we allowed US corn exports to decimate local Mexican economies? How come NAFTA and WTO trade restrictions have been allowed to cause of the collapse of the coffee industry throughout much of Central America?

The US has power to do both great good and great harm throughout the third world with its economic and foreign policy decisions and we must start to look at the long term ramifications of these policies. Rather than allowing US business interests to dictate trade and economic policy, we need to view these policies in light of their long term effects on both foreign economies and our own.

Let's look at what globalization has done to both the US and Mexican economies. At first, under NAFTA US companies outsourced American jobs to Mexico where they could find cheaper labor and less government restriction. Over time these jobs have now been outsourced from Mexico to Asia, where even cheaper labor and less government interference can be found. As long as US economic and trade policy is based solely upon the interests of big business, and the exploitation of the current cheapest labor force, this race to the bottom will continue. Until we begin to address the true causes for the mass migration of people who live in abject poverty in countries that have more than enough resources to provide a reasonable lifestyle for its entire population, we will never get a handle on the "immigration problem"

RAISING STANDARDS FOR ALL U.S. WORKERS

Many Democrats, and particularly Progressives, look at increasing the penalties for hiring undocumented workers as a panacea for solving the "immigration crisis". This of course stems from a natural distrust of corporate America by working people ....and rightfully so. Many corporations benefit greatly from our current ineffective immigration system. It allows for abuses and exploitation of workers both immigrant and native–born.

But once again we need to look at ROOT CAUSATION when addressing worker abuse.

The problem with the exploitation of workers is at its core not a problem of lack of enforcement of immigration laws in the workplace, but rather the lack of enforcement of LABOR laws in the workplace. Unfair labor practices, failures to adhere to wage and hour regulations, unsafe working conditions, lack of employee protections, harassment or obstruction of efforts to organize ...these are not immigration problems, but rather labor problems.

In order to raise the standards for all workers, both US-born and immigrant, the labor and employment laws of this country need to be more strictly enforced.

Currently "workplace enforcement" revolves around the government rooting out unauthorized workers and deporting them. The businesses rarely receive any punishments and when they do they quickly pass those costs on to consumers through higher prices as part of the cost of doing business. But the terrible working conditions that have relegated those jobs to ones that only undocumented immigrants will accept remain the same.

This paradigm needs to shift. The government needs to shift its focus from attacking the symptom of unfair labor practices, to attacking those practices themselves.

Instead of swat teams of ICE agents storming factories and meatpacking plants looking for undocumented immigrants, we need armies of inspectors from the Department of Labor, OSHA, and other agencies, looking for labor violations and evidence of unfair labor practices. This is how you raise the standards for all US workers.

Reforming immigration policy to benefit all workers

Allowing for reasonable rates of immigration and the legalization of all current undocumented immigrants would in fact start a process by which all US workers could begin to reverse the thirty-year decline in real wages and benefits. The inclusion of 7.5 million newly legal workers to the workforce would go a long way to stem this tide. This is why the immigrant's rights movements has the support of the largest unions in the country. The Services Workers, Laborers International and the AFL-CIO have all backed comprehensive immigration reform and the legalization of workers already living in the country. They realize that if they could unionize the current immigrants already in the country and add ½ million or so new members each year from new immigrants, they could possibly revitalize the workers movement, and regain much of the power they have been lacking for the past thirty years.

At the polls, these new Americans would have a voice in formulating policies more favorable to working families. Things like universal health care, education, a living wage and an equitable tax code would move to the forefront. This is one reason Bush and his big business buddies are so enthralled with his "guest worker" program. It supplies businesses with workers, while keeping them from unionizing and more importantly eventually voting. The last thing the economic elite want is a larger working class voting block to contend with. This is why they push so had for guest worker progrmas, they want them to enter as temporary workers, to be shipped back home before they can gain political clout. Contrary to what the right-wing would have Americans believe, immigrants are not the enemy of working men and women, but rather natural allies in the struggle for a better life.

CONCLUSION

While this is far from a complete analysis, or comprehensive plan to address all the aspect of this complex issue, it does represent a starting point for understanding what a plan for meaningful immigration reform entails.

• *Formulate a reasonable, humane, fair and practical method for determining the levels of immigration going forward. Perhaps by an independent policy board free from the pressures of political expediency and business interests.



• *Address the root causes of immigration, and change US policy so that it doesn't foster and produce conditions that force millions of people each year to leave their countries of origin in order to simply survive. Tie all future trade, military, and foreign aid agreements to not only worker protections both here and abroad, but also to their ability to foster economic progress for the working class and poor in sender nations.



• *Provide a path to legalization for all current undocumented immigrants living and working in the US.



• *Secure the border by first ensuring that the vast majority of new immigrants have the ability and opportunity to legally enter the country through a legal port of entry. This would curtail the flow of immigration through illegal channels, then work to physically secure the border could take place where necessary. Only after that, interior and workplace enforcement could begin to ensure compliance.




• *Opposition to a "guest worker" program on the grounds that it provides no benefit to the American people or the immigrants themselves. It only provides big business with a disposable work force that holds down real wages and prevents immigrants from becoming a viable force in the workplace or full fledge members of society.



• *Foster an immigration policy that strengthens the middle and working class through unionization and participation in the electoral process.



• *Strict enforcement of all labor and employment laws



• *Modernize and streamline the immigration process and eliminate the backlogs for those already in the queue



• *Recognize that immigration is a vital part of maintaining a healthy and vibrant America. It is what has set this nation apart from all others since its inspection. To close our borders to new immigrants is to cut off the lifeblood that has always made this nation grow and prosper.

This, I believe, is a reasonable starting point to proceed from.

FOOTNOTES


1 "From 1850 to 1930, the foreign-born population of the United States increased from 2.2 million to 14.2 million, reflecting large-scale immigration from Europe during most of this period.1 As a percentage of total population, the foreign-born population rose from 9.7 percent in 1850 and fluctuated in the 13 percent to 15 percent range from 1860 to 1920 before dropping to 11.6 percent in 1930. The highest percentages foreign born were 14.4 percent in 1870, 14.8 percent in 1890 and 14.7 percent in 1910."
US Census Bureau; "Historical Census Statistics on the Foreign-born Population of the United States: 1850-1990"; http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0029/twps0029.html

2 "The Census Bureau estimated that the number of foreign-born people living in the United States topped 33 million and accounted for nearly 12 percent of the population in 2003--its highest share since 1930…. The foreign-born population, as defined by the Census Bureau, refers to all residents of the United States who were not U.S. citizens at birth, regardless of their current legal or citizenship status."
Congressional Budget Office; "A Description of the Immigrant Population", November 2004; http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=6019&sequence=0

3 "In 2005, 12.5 percent of wage and salary workers were union members, un-
changed from 2004, the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics
reported today. The union membership rate has declined from a high of 20.1
percent in 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available."
US Dept of Labor News, January 20, 2006; http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm

4 "The U.S. Department of Commerce today reported that the international deficit in goods and services trade reached a record level of $726 billion in 2005, an 18% increase over 2004. The U.S. merchandise deficit alone, which excludes services, was $782 billion, also an 18% increase."
Economic Policy Institute, February 10, 2006, "Rapid growth in oil prices, Chinese imports pump up trade deficit to new record" http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_econindicators_tradepict20060210

5 National debt as of June 21,2006: $8,309,177,355,316.66
National Debt Clock; http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock


6 "The growth of the trade deficit with China, which reached $202 billion in 2005, was responsible for the entire increase in the United States’ non-oil trade deficit. The trade deficit in manufactured products (net of refined petroleum) increased $46 billion, to $655 billion (an 8% increase)."
Economic Policy Institute, February 10, 2006, "Rapid growth in oil prices, Chinese imports pump up trade deficit to new record"; http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_econindicators_tradepict20060210

7 Major foreign holders of US treasury securities as of April 2006; Japan – $639.2 B, China -$323.3 B, UK-$166.8 B
US Dept. of Treasury/ Federal Reserve; http://www.treas.gov/tic/mfh.txt

8 "Mexican farmers say hefty agricultural subsidies in the United States give American white corn and beans an unfair advantage over the Mexican market, which depends in large part on small-scale and mostly subsistence farmers… Mexico's agriculture minister pleaded with Canada and the United States this month to reconsider the removal of the corn and bean tariffs, but U.S. Undersecretary for Agriculture J.B. Penn flatly rejected the appeal."
ABC News, "Mexico Hopeful Takes Hard Line Vs. NAFTA", June 21, 2006; http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2089345

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Getting to the root of the problem

Today there is much discussion about what many are terming an "immigration crisis" in America. Undocumented immigrants flood over the borders daily risking their lives, and sometimes losing them, in order to find work and security in the United States. Perhaps upwards to a million undocumented people each year find a way, whether it be by overstaying a visa, or crossing hundreds of miles deadly desert, to enter this country in hopes of making a better life.

Americans of all political stripes are concerned about this situation and there is great division on exactly how to solve the problem. Some have advocated a tightening of security and closing of the porous border as a solution. Others have promoted a method to regulate and legitimize the flow of the undocumented. But there is one thing missing in both of these strategies. Neither contains any analysis of why this problem exists, and more importantly, why at this time in our history this influx of new immigrants is causing such great concern for the American people. Neither group seems concerned with root causes.

The number of immigrants has not really changed
Throughout our history we have encountered many waves of immigration. In fact all of us can trace our roots back to foreign shores. The number of new immigrants who come today, both entering through proper channels and the undocumented, is no greater as a percentage of population than at many other times during our history. From the mid-nineteenth century, through the first thirty years of the last, immigrants represented about13% of the total population; today that number is 11%. Certainly our earlier immigrants were not rich, and most had limited education, but they like our current crop of immigrants, had the drive and determination to seek out a better life. This influx of new vitality and ambition has been a cornerstone on which the nation was build. So why today do we find ourselves in the middle of what some would term a crisis?

What is different today then during past immigration waves?
Historically there have always been a small minorities of the closed minded who've oppose immigration for xenophobic or racists reason, but generally we as a people have accepted new immigrants with open arms and absorbed them into society. Yet, today we find this harder and harder to do. Many believe the new immigrants are putting undo pressures on our economy, creating stresses on a tight job market, and stretching already taxed social services and education systems. Why today do we find it so hard to absorb these new immigrants? Why at a time in our history, when we have never been richer as a nation and more educated as a population, do we find these new immigrants putting such great stresses on our society? Perhaps we need to look at some of the changes that have taken place over the last twenty-five or so years to find the answer.


tags: immigration, conservatives, attack on middle class , immigration plan, immigration reform, flawed government policies



The systematic assault on working and middle class Americans
Over the past twenty five years it appears that there's been a systematic assault upon the working and middle classes of this nation which now leaves many vulnerable and in a position where they must compete for an ever decreasing pool of resources. At one time, a family could live comfortably on the income of one earner, but today it takes two just to make ends meet. A guaranteed pension for retirement is no longer the norm. A union card no longer guarantees a lifetime of job security. Health insurance costs have become an overwhelming concern for both workers and employers and forty five million Americans in fact go without any. A job with one of the nation's largest companies no longer means yearly raises and increased benefits; in fact it doesn’t even guarantee job security. An advanced degree no longer means a career in your chosen field. Today working and middle class Americans can expect plant closings and layoffs, pay cuts and increased hours, loss of benefits and outsourcing. They can expect economists to talk about "jobless recoveries" and increased productivity. It is no wonder that many working class Americans are feeling the added stresses of our new modern global economy. It is also no wonder that they are ready to lash out against those they feel they must now compete against. Our nation is sick, and current "immigration crisis" is not the cause of this national illness, but just another symptom of it.

Who is responsible for this situation?
Who or what could have caused our national illness? The answer is simple … the economic and social policies of those who claim to be Conservatives. Of course, many working class Americans might scoff at this idea. Certainly a philosophy of smaller government, personal responsibility and free market economics sounds appealing to many, and on face value alone is quite in line with the principles on which our nation was founded. But in practice, what these so called Conservatives have done with this philosophy has been the antithesis of what the founders had in mind. These Conservatives have used this philosophy to consolidate economic and political power in the hands of the few at the expense of the many. They have turned the ideals of fair play and Christian charity upside down and transformed them into grotesque parodies. They have taken two hundred years of struggle to raise the standard of living for the average American and thrown it to the winds in the name of "fiscal responsibility" and "smaller government." All along being neither fiscally responsible nor providing smaller government.

How did they do this?
How did these self-proclaimed Conservatives wage this war on the working and middle class? It started in the eighties with two policies; deregulation and union busting. Then continued with more failed and flawed policies right up until our present day.

Union Busting
Starting with the firing of the air traffic controllers in 1981, Conservatives have set forth an agenda through legislation and judicial decisions to slowly disassemble the American labor movement. At the time many Americans supported the idea, feeling that unions had become too powerful, corrupt and greedy, but the results of this policy have had devastating effects on American workers. Ever since then the number of union households has been steadily declining. At the beckoning of corporate interests, Conservatives have managed to take what was once the bulwark of working class America, the very entity that allowed millions of American workers to move themselves or their children into the middle class and render it powerless.

Deregulation
Under the guise of increased competition and lower prices through free market forces, Conservatives began a campaign of deregulation. They would no longer allow the government to regulate business, but rather leave it up to the free market. Again, on paper this practice looked reasonable, but under their control we have ended up with the reverse. Instead of government controlling business, we now have business controlling government. We have allowed business combinations that rival any of those of the Robber Barons of the late nineteenth century. We have seen regulated monopolies in the energy, telecom, airline and other industries destroyed, only to recombine into unregulated monsters like Enron. We have seen the merger of mega oil companies that are larger than those of Rockefeller's Standard Oil, who make profits that would make King Midis blush, while the average American can't afford to fill up his gas tank.

Globalization and outsourcing
The next logical step after deregulation for Conservatives was globalization and the taking of their idea of the free market economy, without any government regulation, to a global scale. Conservatives passed legislation and trade agreements that allowed their huge multinational masters to operate with impunity throughout the world. They have allowed companies like Halliburton to set up shadow entities on foreign soil to avoid paying taxes. They’ve allowed American businesses to sell American jobs to the lowest bidder on the global market all on the name of free market economics.

Rewriting the tax codes and starving the beast
Conservatives often say that the only thing wrong with government is government, and promise to lower taxes, reduce the size of government, and be fiscally responsible. Yet, after years of Conservative leadership we have the largest government in US history, a record federal deficit and a record national debt reaching 9 trillion dollars. The only part of their philosophy they seem to be able to stick too is tax cuts. They have systematically worked over the last twenty-five years to shift the tax burden from both big business and the top 1% of the nation's wealthiest people and place it on the middle and working class. They have consistently rewarded corporations and the rich with larger and larger tax breaks. Through cuts in funding to education, health and human services and many other state and local programs they have managed to shift the tax burden down to the local level so that the now average Americans pay more in real estate, state and local, use and sales taxes than ever before. They have not given the American people "back their money" as they claim, but rather forced them to just pay more to other government agencies.

The other aspect of the Conservative tax cutting agenda has been to use cuts as a means to, as they term it; "starve the beast". It's been conservative policy to try to assure that social programs for education, childcare, healthcare and the poor are "starved to death" due to the lack of available federal funds. Their philosophy has resulted in huge benefits for the rich while programs that working and middle class Americans rely on are cut. The best example of this is public education, where Conservatives have consistently cut funding while placing ever more increasing demands upon the system.

Healthcare
Another big concern for average Americans is healthcare and its skyrocketing costs. Conservative deregulation and free market philosophies have influenced this also. While fighting vehemently against any form of a national healthcare program, they have through legislation and governmental agencies, allowed large pharmaceutical manufactures and healthcare conglomerates to set the agenda. National health policy has been allowed to be written by insurance companies and other corporate interests rather than physicians and medical professionals.

But what does all this have to do with immigration?
These Conservative policies have had devastating effects on the working and middle classes, yet in order to remain in power Conservatives have tried to shift the blame. Every problem that is claimed to be a result of the "immigration crisis" can be seen to have its roots in Conservative economic and social policies. Conservatives have been trying to convince the American people that it is the immigrants who put all the stresses on education, social services and healthcare institutions and that they take jobs from American workers and drive down wages. But it must be understood that while immigrants do highlight the problems of working class Americans, they haven’t caused them. All these problems can be seen as direct results of twenty-five years of Conservative policy. This is obvious when you look at the ROOT CAUSES. The Republican controlled Congress for the last ten years has exacerbated the situation by rubber-stamping every Conservative policy that has come down the pike. With each passing year they have taken more and more from working Americans and given it to their corrupt corporate masters. Now there is nothing left, and the American working man and woman knows it. They just need to stop buying into the Conservatives "blame game" and look at the ROOT CAUSES of their problems.

What can we do?
We, as a nation need to stop letting those who don't have our best interests at heart to control the agenda. We must not allow them to divide us along lines of class, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or gender. We must not allow then to misdirect us or mislead us with appeals to our patriotism or national pride. We must not let them blame the symptoms rather than the disease. The "immigration crisis" is just another symptom of a far greater disease … the disease of a Conservative agenda that favors the rich and big business over average Americans. Immigrants certainly put added stresses on society and highlight the problems of the now decimated social programs, education and health care systems, but they did not cause the national illness.

How do we "fix" immigration?
Fixing our broken immigration system will not be easy, and it will be a long hard process. Again just as in the case of working Americans, one key must be to look for the ROOT CAUSES OF THE PROBLEM. We must look at the reasons why millions of people every year risk their lives to come here? What is it about their countries of origin that make them so desperate to leave? Particularly in the case of Mexico, it’s a nation that has the 13th largest economy in the world, ahead of 167 other nations. They also are the second largest recipients of direct investment by US companies in the hemisphere. On top of this Mexico has vast amounts of untapped natural resources and oil reserves that rival those of any Middle Eastern power. So why do their people live in poverty? Why must they come here simply to survive? Could it be precisely because they are the second largest recipients of direct investment by US big business? Could it be because Conservative trade and economic policies have been crafted to favor the business elite and the rich of Mexico, just as they favor them here? Could it be because Conservative policies help perpetuate a system that leaves 55% of the countries wealth in the hands of 20% of its people? These are all things that need to be addressed when looking at the “immigration crisis”.

A new plan
In order to fix our nations problems we need to stop treating symptoms and start treating the disease. No “immigration plan”, be it a wall, arrests or amnesty is going to ever solve the “immigration crisis”. Only when the American people begin to demand a change in the paradigm will solutions be found. Only when government is returned to its rightful role as protector of the rights and interests of ALL Americans, not just the privileged few, can we begin to fix the problems that face us. It is only then that we can do something about the root causes both here and abroad that have brought on this “immigration crisis

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