In a City of Immigrants, Support for a Middle Path for the Undocumented
Cynthia Otero With Her Son Christian at New York Immigration Reform Rally. (Photo: Cristina DC Pastor)
NEW YORK – In his July 1 speech on immigration, President Obama gave a broad hint of an immigration reform law that would provide a path to legal status for nearly 12 million undocumented immigrants. He declared that immigrants who crossed the U.S. border without papers would not get blanket amnesty, even if “compassion drives this argument,” nor would they be deported en masse, because that would be “logistically impossible and wildly expensive.” Polls show the majority of Americans support changes in immigration policy, but there is no consensus on how do it.
Feet in Two Worlds spoke to a variety of New Yorkers about their views on immigration and their ideas for possible solutions. What emerged in this city of immigrants is a centrist position that echoed the values of fairness, accountability, common sense and the rule of law.
Lower East Side resident Cathy Barna said she would like to see undocumented immigrants come out of hiding, apply for legalization, pay taxes and learn English.
“My brother married a Mexican woman who runs a taco van and is making a nice living doing that. She works very hard. The couple in my neighborhood, the cleaning woman who stocks shelves in the store, they’re all nice people. They came here, work hard so they can have a good life,” said Barna, a manager at a chiropractor’s office. “But we have rules for a reason.”
Barna, whose husband is of Ukrainian descent, said his family and grandparents all learned to speak English. “That’s what needs to be done.”
She is not in favor of the government fining immigrants, saying it would be an added burden to them.
An NYPD officer from Brooklyn said the government should take stock of which immigrants the country needs most and make that the basis for documentation. For example, he would like to see day workers on the priority list.
“Let’s document them, get them apprenticeships as electricians or plumbers, and get them into the unions,” said the officer who declined to give his name. “A lot of them are so skilled, they just don’t have the resources to get training and licensing.” He disagreed with observations that communities with day workers clustered outside Home Depot become a hotbed of crime. “A lot of them are really good people,” he said. The officer said he is not opposed to the government offering amnesty to day laborers and teachers because these are skills the country badly needs.
He was also a strong proponent of border security, because of drug smuggling.
Everyone should be documented and everyone should pay taxes, suggested New School student Kia Lee.
Her idea of legalization involved a probation period during which applicants are screened for possible violation of the law.
“Those that passed on good behavior should be allowed to continue to keep the jobs, family and property that they have accumulated while being here illegally. They have to start the correct paperwork to become citizens the legal way,” said the Astoria, Queens resident.
There has to be accountability, stressed Swedish-born environmentalist and educator Erik Mortensen. He thinks that immigrants must pay fines and learn English as part of the pathway to legal status.
Immigration reform is a universal problem,” said Mortensen, a UN consultant. All parties should aspire to reach agreement first on issues that are easily “solvable and reachable.” He says one of these is for immigrants to learn the language and be culturally functional “as quickly as possible.”
The law, to be truly comprehensive, should apply to LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) families as well, said Tom Tierney of the grassroots advocacy group Out 4 Immigration. He said there are about 36,000 bi-national LGBT families marginalized by current immigration laws. In bi-national relationships, one partner is in the U.S. and the other is in the country of origin because of deportation or awaiting a visa.
“Right now, if you’re a gay or lesbian couple, and you have a marriage license in Connecticut, Vermont or Massachusetts, that license is not federally recognized,” Tierney explained. That means same-sex couples who are married are currently not allowed by law to sponsor their spouses for citizenship. The proposed Uniting American Families Act — sponsored by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D – NY) — seeks to change that. The bill was prompted by the case of lesbian couple Shirley Tan and Jay Mercado, a Filipino-American. Tan, from the Philippines, was threatened with deportation for overstaying a visa. They have two sons.
“I’m in favor of [immigrants] coming forward, learning English, getting back at the end of the line,” Tierney said. But he would like LGBT couples to have the same legalization opportunities as heterosexual couples. “We’re not asking for special treatment.”
Taxi driver Victor Salazar told FI2W he is in favor of granting blanket amnesty for all undocumented immigrants, but the Ecuadoran immigrant said his views do not reflect the prevailing sentiment in Hispanic communities. He argued his objections to Obama’s general plan: making English mandatory would promote “individualism,” border patrols create divisions rather than unite people, and imposing fines would penalize immigrants.
Drugs and immigration, stressed this leader of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, are two separate issues and should be dealt with separately.
“Drug smuggling cannot be solved by making walls,” he said.
New York City is a place where nearly 40 per cent of the population is foreign born, so sympathy for immigrants not surprising. Even Mayor Bloomberg is lobbying for immigration reform with a new coalition of political and business leaders, “Partnership for a New American Economy.” The mayor says that immigrants are crucial for the country’s economic growth, and are hard working people who turn the wheels of the city.
This week, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) came out with a report entitled, The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on U.S. Taxpayers, which discusses the costs of unauthorized immigration to the United States. As usual, FAIR has put out a highly misleading fiscal snapshot of the costs allegedly imposed on U.S. taxpayers by unauthorized immigrants and completely discounts the economic contributions of unauthorized workers and consumers. Moreover, FAIR inflates their costs in a variety of ways and conveniently ignores any contributions that would offset these costs.
While the publication is long and deals with a wide range of issues that warrant more dissection by credible economic experts, the trade publication Education Week has already begun the deconstruction with an item that sheds light on their misleading claims about providing English language services in schools.
According to the Immigration Policy Center (IPC), FAIR’s report suffers from three fatal flaws:
* The report notes that the single biggest “expense” it attributes to unauthorized immigrants is the education of their children, yet most of these children are native-born, U.S. citizens who will grow up to be tax-paying adults. It is disingenuous to count the cost of investing in the education of these children, so that they will earn higher incomes and pay more in taxes when they are adults, as if it were nothing more than a cost incurred by their parents.
* The report fails to account for the purchasing power of unauthorized consumers, which supports U.S. businesses and U.S. jobs.
* The report ignores the value added to the U.S. economy by unauthorized workers, particularly in the service sector.
In contrast to FAIR’s report, the Perryman Group estimated that if all unauthorized workers and consumers were somehow removed from the U.S. economy, the United States would lose $552 billion in total economic activity (“expenditures”), $245 billion in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and 2.8 million jobs.” This doesn’t count the billions it would cost to actually implement a mass deportation program.
Another argument FAIR makes, which makes it hard to glean what their solution would be is the high cost of deporting undocumented workers which FAIR blames on the immigrants themselves. It’s a somewhat circular argument to say that the cost of undocumented immigrants includes the cost of failing law enforcement efforts. So, in essence, FAIR is saying that the deport-them-all approach costs too much money and doesn’t work. Yet their “solution” is to spend even more money on enforcement.
FAIR’s data is meant only to reinforce their vision of “attrition through enforcement.” It is not rooted in an effort to move the immigration debate forward. Therefore, passing comprehensive immigration reform – which would yield a cumulative $1.5 trillion in added U.S. gross domestic product over 10 years – is the only sound economic decision the United States can make.
SOURCE Immigration Policy Center
Good grief!. When will people realize THERE IS NO LINE for illegal immigrants to join? It is not possible to simply apply to become a citizen, you have to have a sponsor – an employer or a close relative. And it’s EXPENSIVE.
I am an educated, English-speaking European and the only way I could come legally to live and work here was to buy a business. I have invested here and I employ 7 U.S. citizens, but I HAVE NO PATH TO PERMANENT RESIDENCE.
Why should illegal aliens have a path to citizenship and not E2 visa holders like me? We actually contribute to the economy and do everything according to the law. If the government has an amnesty for illegals, it shoud have one for those who came here legally, too.