On May 23, 2024, the U.S. Senate voted 50 to 43 to block a bill proposing comprehensive reform of the immigration system for the first time since 2007 from even being considered, even though the terms had been negotiated by a bipartisanteam and blessed by the majority and minority leaders of both chambers. Why the block?
It’s imperative that political moderates, centrists, and even liberals, understand the psychological forces blocking pragmatic immigration reform.
Democrats had given up key elements of their agenda in negotiations to be able to reach a compromise, not insisting on the creation of a path to citizenship for children who had been brought to the U.S. by their parents long ago, known as DREAMers (at age 21 they lose protection, known as DACA, from being deported). Enough Republicans had been supportive to raise hopes that this procedural vote would reach the necessary 60 to advance the bill for debate until former President Donald Trump demanded it be killed. He reportedly wanted to wait until his reelection so he could get credit for reducing illegal (aka undocumented or unauthorized) immigrants. He is also threatening mass deportations of illegal immigrants; but had also strongly opposed some legal immigration,when he was president.
Mr. Trump’s appeal to a large section of the electorate, often dismissed as part of just a reactionary agenda, is compelling to the hard right and even some in the center-right. The fear stoked by activists and social media is that there is a systematic effort to replace white culture by allowing large numbers of immigrants from diverse countries. Some Republicans also fear of the loss of political power. This is propelled by the U.S. Census Bureau's report in 2018 that for the first time non-Hispanic whites fell below 50% and today they are at about 40% due to immigration.
President Biden’s Executive Order on June 4, 2024 partly remedies the impasse created by the blocked Senate bill. However, it only applies to asylum-seekers. The root problems have toaddressed in the manner discussed in this article.
A centrist solution would require a longer process to allow for the adoption of American values and reduce the cultural shock from viewing immigrants from a racial perspective. As discussed later in this article, extending the period to getting a work permit, to a green card and then getting citizenship; would be a key part of such a solution. A minimum of 10 years is suggested.
We may build support for the middle ground on immigration reform in several ways:
It is encouraging that the Senate bill had been backed by the Border Patrol because it would have led to the hiring of thousands of new agents (a proper celebration of the 100th anniversary of its creation). Some 17,000 are stationed across the 1,954 mile border with Mexico, but many retirements are expected because agents say they feel overwhelmed and understaffed. The bill had other measures to help them, from investing in technology to detect drugs coming over the border (which kill more Americans than firearms and vehicle accidents combined) to adding judges to try asylum cases (650 now have to manage 2.5 million cases and it takes on average four years for a decision).
"Our laws are entirely out of date," said Doris Meissner, director of the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute's U.S. Immigration Policy Program. "Congress has been entirely missing in action for decades."
I count myself as one of the immigrants blessed by previously enlightened U.S. policies. I was born in India, grew up in Malaysia, and immigration laws allowed me in 1995 to become a naturalized citizen based on my Ph.D. in artificial intelligence and an MBA.
Republicans have traditionally been pro-immigration in general, since chambers of commerce and companies of all sizes need to encourage hard-working and ambitious employees, especially in industries in which it is hard to find help. More than 40% of the Fortune 500 companies were started by immigrants or their children. A quarter of the 80 largest Silicon Valley public companies have CEOs who immigrated and Forbes estimates that 80% of privately-held "unicorn" or billion-dollar companies have an immigrant founder or someone in top leadership.
It's no wonder that President Ronald Reagan signed off on a comprehensive immigration policy reform in 1986. Yet Trump has also strongly opposed even legal immigration:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/03/us/politics/trump-immigration-deportations.html
The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank supported by many Republicans and business leaders, whose director of immigration studies, Alex Nowrasteh, provides the groundwork for debating reforms by countering 15 common myths about immigrants of all kinds:
https://www.carnegie.org/our-work/article/15-myths-about-immigration-debunked/
°They don't take American jobs, lower wages, or push the poor out of the labor market.
°It is not easy for immigrants to come to U.S. legally, since the laws "are second only to the income tax code in complexity."
°Immigrants use significantly less welfare than native-born Americans and they have "about net zero effect on government budgets, they pay about as much in taxes as they consume in benefits."
°Immigrants, including illegal ones, are less likely than American citizens to commit crimes.
Trump's proposed mass deportations are impossible, since there are 11 million who have entered the U.S. without authorization, overstayed their visas, or have a partner who is a citizen and are waiting for the "green card" that allows permanent residency. As the George W. Bush Presidential Center has pointed out,fully enforcing current immigration law would take 20 years and cost $400-$600 billion to accomplish, decrease the Gross Domestic Product by $1 trillion, and contract the economy by 6%https://www.bushcenter.org/publications/solutions-for-undocumented-immigrants
Many unauthorized immigrants work in critical jobs that would go unfulfilled without them, such as farming, healthcare, and construction (in April 2023, there were 10.1 million openings, twice as many as in 2015). They are often exploited because there are only 750 Dept. of Labor investigators to check 11 million workplaces.
According to the Bush Center, 50-75% of the undocumented pay federal income taxes and over $12 billion a year in local and state taxes, as well as contributing $100 billion to Social Security and $35 billion to Medicare, receiving no benefits, but contributing to their solvency. This will become even more critical as the U.S. population ages, with 20% of Americans expected to be over 65 in 2040 due to a decreasing birthrate in recent decades.
The New American Economyhttps://www.newamericaneconomy.org/issues/ calls itself a "bipartisan research and advocacy organization fighting for smart federal, state, and local immigration policies," working with everyone from faith leaders to GOP donors. It provides research on the impact of immigrants in every congressional district and the 100 largest metro areas. In 2017 it partnered with the American Action Forum to publish a pro-immigration letter signed by 1,470 economists, including six Nobel laureates. The same year it helped defeat an effort to take away DACA's protection of DREAMers from being deported.
Addressing the Root Causes of Unauthorized Immigration
In recent years, a large percentage of undocumented immigrants trying to cross the Mexico-U.S. border were fleeing violence in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, and other countries. Many others had been told by Mexican gangs that jobs were easy to get in the U.S. even for those without legal authorization, spurring more desperate people to pay to be smuggled.
In February 2021, President Biden issued an Executive Order to create a comprehensive approach to aiding migrants from Central America. He tasked Vice President Kamala Harris with overseeing a variety of programs to counter this messaging that helps drive migrants to the U.S. border and to provide the United Nations with help for them.
In April 2021, she announced $310 million for food and humanitarian assistance. In June 2022, she reported that $1.2 billion from 10 had been secured from private firms to provide jobs in Mexico and Central and South America. The U.S. State Dept. provided services to Guatemala and Mexico for refugees, USAID funded El Salvador's efforts to stop human trafficking, while training seasonal workers from there and informing Guatemalans and Hondurans on their rights under the H-2 visa program.
Contrary to widespread public impression, once the White House woke up to the crisis, instead of the harsh measures of the Trump's administration or doing little for fear of the backlash from the left, it has continued to take innovative steps to address the roots of unauthorized immigration.
As the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute documented in January 2024 https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/biden-three-immigration-record, the Biden-Harris White House has been at its three-year mark "the most active immigration presidency," taking 535 actions, compared to President Trump's 472 in four years. These included measures resulting in legal immigration at new highs, refugee resettlement on track to be the highest in decades, and expansion of Title 42 asylum cases to Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, enabling them to apply before they left their countries.
The U.S. State Dept. negotiated with Latin American and Caribbean governments to take a "new hemispheric approach" to migration, not just to the Mexico-U.S. border. New policies have allowed American judges to take non-priority cases off the docket and the administration to quickly deport individuals it deemed dangerous.
What should a centrist solution look like that would be supported by an overall majority of Americans and representatives of all parties and independents? The process of becoming legal immigrants and potentially citizens needs to take time (lessons can be taken from the disastrous experiments of Germany with the deluge of refugees from Syria and Afghanistan and the consequences of removing Britain quickly from the European Union).
Instead of seeing so many immigrants from a racial perspective, the demographic change needs to be reframed as a long-term process of adopting American values, despite the argument from the left that this is unfair:
°It should take 10 years from getting a work permit to a green card and then application for citizenship (with a priority for green cards given to those who wait in their country). Access to temporary work visas should be expanded and there must be a major increase in enforcement of laws governing businesses which hire immigrants.
°During this time, immigrants should become fluent in English and agree to the separation of religionand stateas the Constitution specifies.
°They must pass a background check to show they have had no felonies or serious misdemeanors.
°They should have been employed, providing critical care for children or disabled or older members, earned at least a high school diploma or are enrolled in a college degree program, or had an honorable discharge from the U.S. military.
°There should be a path to citizenship for minors and DREAMers who are 21 or older.
°There must be an increase in the number of border agents, technology and physical barriers to enable their effectiveness.
°Judges and their support personnel for asylum cases need to be dramatically increased, with tightened requirements. Individuals who qualify cannot be simply released with the hope they will show up when their cases are determined. Tent communities (on both sides of the border) with adequate number of social workers may be sourced from organizations like FEMA. Catch and Release (with anklets for GPS tracking) would lower the burden of housing, while retaining compliance with the law. A basic humanitarian safety net should exist while processing.
If you believe that reforming our broken immigration system should be a top priority for our political leaders at all levels, share this with everyone you can by social media, email, mail, or in person and set a plan of action so that when reforms do take place, you will know that you made a difference.
There is still realistic hope for reform, despite the Senate's inaction, sharp disagreements between the left and the right, a House of Representatives paralyzed from taking action, and the Biden administration's slow initial response to the crises. A tiny number of voters often determine who is elected and a few activists can influence officeholders' positions.
Dr. Sean Subas, founder/owner of BLISSinHealth
(Scott S. Smith contributed to this article)