Issue Position: Immigration

Issue Position

-Immigrant- is part of who we are as Americans, a melting pot from the beginning. People have come here to escape persecution - religious, racial, political; to live in a place that is open and inclusive; to have a shot at the American dream. My own Italian grandparents came here through Ellis Island. But clearly, today we face a new problem: a growing wave of illegal immigration. It's a serious problem, for one thing because it is a national security concern. It's also a complicated economic problem.

The biggest problem, though, is that the Bush administration and Congress have only just now recognized it, and suddenly immigration is on everyone's agenda. After years of looking the other way as illegal immigration exploded, this Administration is manufacturing yet another crisis to divert attention from its multitude of failures, particularly in Iraq. And their -solutions- won't even begin to solve a problem that has been building for years and which has become institutionalized at multiple levels in our society, especially the economy.

This is a problem government can solve, but not through hastily crafted and draconian legislation. We need leaders of integrity and principle, leaders more interested in developing solutions than in arguing about the problem for political gain. Here's a summary of what I see as the important points about this -crisis.-

* The Bush Double Flip. Back in 2005, President Bush promised to add 10,000 extra border patrol agents (2,000 per year). Naturally, these agents would be the extension of our current border patrol efforts. And then he never followed through. Instead, when no one was looking, he and the rubber-stamp Congress cut the funding for these agents from the budget, to save money. Now they're calling for the National Guard to solve the problem. Before loading up the over-extended National Guard with another impossible task, Congress and the Administration should follow through on their original promises.

* Secure the Borders. Our first priority must be to secure our borders. In a post-9/11 world, we simply must have control over who comes and goes. But we can do it smart. Security must go hand-in-hand with a sane approach to the complex political and economic ramifications of the demand for immigrant labor, and the understandable desire of immigrants for the opportunity for a better life.

* It's all about Economics. The real drivers of this -crisis- are fundamental, structural issues of economics, and any solution that doesn't address the economics won't work. We must engage our trading partners to the south in honest discussions about their practices of exporting their unemployment into our country. We must also admit that workers enter this country illegally because there is a demand for their services: cheap labor, no benefits. And it's not just businesses and corporations that like it this way. I don't hear many calls from the anti-immigrant crowd for boycotts of goods that we get more cheaply because they're produced with illegal labor - including fruits and vegetables, or cheaper houses and buildings.

* The X Factor. Experts have estimated the number of illegal immigrant currently residing in the U.S. is between 15-20 million. And in the debate about what to do with them, amnesty has become the dirty buzzword. This is not a choice between amnesty and deportation. We must develop a multi-faceted and humane approach to dealing with the illegal immigrants living here and working here. For some that will mean work visas, for others, earned citizenship, and for a few, deportation, but no one should be rewarded for breaking the law.

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