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October 2006 & Older

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Z Smith Reynolds, NC Bankers Association and NCCBI host immigration luncheons on the Economic Impact of NC’s Hispanic Population –

Gerard Chapman to speak on immigration issues at each luncheon

 

Please note that three of North Carolina’s premier business and community organizations are hosting a series of luncheons around the state to provide a thought provoking forum to discuss this topic.  Keynote speakers will be Dr. John Kasarda and Dr. Jim Johnson, the authors of a 2006 study on the subject, published by the Kenan-Flagler Institute of Private Enterprise, at UNC-Chapel Hill.

 

Each luncheon will include a panel of experts on the economic, social and legal aspects of this debate, and will provide the audience with ample time to discuss the issue and ask the panel members for their opinions.  There is no charge for attending the program, and we hope that North Carolina’s members of Congress, or their immigration staff members, will attend as well.

 

Mr. Chapman will serve as the immigration expert on each of these panel presentations.

 

To access the registration form, please visit our “Seminars” link.  Space is limited, so please reserve your space early.

 

 

Friday, June 30, 2006

Hispanics have much to offer, study says

It's in N.C.'s interests to help in assimilation, professor says

 

By Richard Craver

JOURNAL REPORTER

 

The Hispanic community is establishing roots in the Triad whether it's welcomed or not, according to speakers at a N.C. Bankers Association seminar yesterday at the downtown Marriott.

The sooner that businesses and consumers recognize that reality, the quicker state resources can be dedicated to assimilating Hispanics culturally and economically, said James Johnson Jr., a co-author of a recent study on the economic impact of Hispanics.

"There's no county in North Carolina that's untouched by Hispanic immigration," Johnson said. He is a professor of management in the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"It's a migration that is maturing and about as permanent as any migration system could be," he said. "So don't expect anybody to be going home anytime soon."

"The Economic Impact of the Hispanic Population on the State of North Carolina," released Jan. 3, determined that there were nearly 601,000 Hispanic residents in 2004.

Yesterday's seminar in Winston-Salem was the first of six statewide discussions on the study.

The researchers found that Hispanics added $9.2 billion to North Carolina's economy in 2004. But there wasa net cost to the state of $61million, or $102 for each Hispanic resident, for schools, health care and prisons to accommodate the rapidly growing immigrant population.

Johnson said that the study found that Hispanics have much younger heads of households, larger family sizes and more people (55 percent) in the "prime working ages" of 18 to 44 than non-Hispanic households (37 percent). It also found that 55 percent of Hispanics are here legally.

"The reason those numbers matter is that it has implications for who's going to take care of our butts as we grow older," Johnson said.

"It is in our enlightened self-interest" to work for the educational and job-training initiatives that help Hispanics blend into North Carolina's culture and economy, Johnson said.

Gerald Chapman, a Greensboro lawyer who specializes in immigration issues, said that the current congressional debate on illegal immigration could have major ramifications on Triad businesses.

Chapman said that proposed U.S. House Bill 4437 would make it a felony to be in the country unlawfully.

It also means, he said, that anyone, including an employer or a service-provider, who assists a person in committing a felony - such as being in the country illegally - can also be charged with a felony. That means that employers who have illegal workers could be subject to jail time and forfeited business assets.

"And I guarantee you there is some prosecutor somewhere looking for a poster boy," Chapman said.

Andrea Bazan-Manson, an immigrant from Argentina and the president of Triangle Community Foundation in Durham, said she is pleased that the immigration issue is drawing local and state debate.

Her group, which advocates on Hispanics economic issues, is pressing for in-state college tuition for the children of illegal immigrants who have been educated in North Carolina schools.

"These students can serve as the bridge to better business communication, more economic growth, because they are bilingual," Bazan-Manson said. "But the out-of-state cost of attending college can be the biggest barrier to some of the brightest Hispanic high-school students.

"As competitive as the global economy is," she said, "we can't afford to lose any brain power in North Carolina."

• Richard Craver can be reached at 727-7376 or at rcraver@wsjournal.com

 

 

July 9, 2006

Op-Ed Contributor

Immigration — and the Curse of the Black Legend

By TONY HORWITZ

Vineyard Haven, Mass.

COURSING through the immigration debate is the unexamined faith that American history rests on English bedrock, or Plymouth Rock to be specific. Jamestown also gets a nod, particularly in the run-up to its 400th birthday, but John Smith was English, too (he even coined the name New England).

So amid the din over border control, the Senate affirms the self-evident truth that English is our national language; "It is part of our blood," Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, says. Border vigilantes call themselves Minutemen, summoning colonial Massachusetts as they apprehend Hispanics in the desert Southwest. Even undocumented immigrants invoke our Anglo founders, waving placards that read, "The Pilgrims didn't have papers."

These newcomers are well indoctrinated; four of the sample questions on our naturalization test ask about Pilgrims. Nothing in the sample exam suggests that prospective citizens need know anything that occurred on this continent before the Mayflower landed in 1620. Few Americans do, after all.

This national amnesia isn't new, but it's glaring and supremely paradoxical at a moment when politicians warn of the threat posed to our culture and identity by an invasion of immigrants from across the Mexican border. If Americans hit the books, they'd find what Al Gore would call an inconvenient truth. The early history of what is now the United States was Spanish, not English, and our denial of this heritage is rooted in age-old stereotypes that still entangle today's immigration debate.

Forget for a moment the millions of Indians who occupied this continent for 13,000 or more years before anyone else arrived, and start the clock with Europeans' presence on present-day United States soil. The first confirmed landing wasn't by Vikings, who reached Canada in about 1000, or by Columbus, who reached the Bahamas in 1492. It was by a Spaniard, Juan Ponce de León, who landed in 1513 at a lush shore he christened La Florida.

Most Americans associate the early Spanish in this hemisphere with Cortés in Mexico and Pizarro in Peru. But Spaniards pioneered the present-day United States, too. Within three decades of Ponce de León's landing, the Spanish became the first Europeans to reach the Appalachians, the Mississippi, the Grand Canyon and the Great Plains. Spanish ships sailed along the East Coast, penetrating to present-day Bangor, Me., and up the Pacific Coast as far as Oregon.

From 1528 to 1536, four castaways from a Spanish expedition, including a "black" Moor, journeyed all the way from Florida to the Gulf of California — 267 years before Lewis and Clark embarked on their much more renowned and far less arduous trek. In 1540, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado led 2,000 Spaniards and Mexican Indians across today's Arizona-Mexico border — right by the Minutemen's inaugural post — and traveled as far as central Kansas, close to the exact geographic center of what is now the continental United States. In all, Spaniards probed half of today's lower 48 states before the first English tried to colonize, at Roanoke Island, N.C.

The Spanish didn't just explore, they settled, creating the first permanent European settlement in the continental United States at St. Augustine, Fla., in 1565. Santa Fe, N.M., also predates Plymouth: later came Spanish settlements in San Antonio, Tucson, San Diego and San Francisco. The Spanish even established a Jesuit mission in Virginia's Chesapeake Bay 37 years before the founding of Jamestown in 1607.

Two iconic American stories have Spanish antecedents, too. Almost 80 years before John Smith's alleged rescue by Pocahontas, a man by the name of Juan Ortiz told of his remarkably similar rescue from execution by an Indian girl. Spaniards also held a thanksgiving, 56 years before the Pilgrims, when they feasted near St. Augustine with Florida Indians, probably on stewed pork and garbanzo beans.

The early history of Spanish North America is well documented, as is the extensive exploration by the 16th-century French and Portuguese. So why do Americans cling to a creation myth centered on one band of late-arriving English — Pilgrims who weren't even the first English to settle New England or the first Europeans to reach Plymouth Harbor? (There was a short-lived colony in Maine and the French reached Plymouth earlier.)

The easy answer is that winners write the history and the Spanish, like the French, were ultimately losers in the contest for this continent. Also, many leading American writers and historians of the early 19th century were New Englanders who elevated the Pilgrims to mythic status (the North's victory in the Civil War provided an added excuse to diminish the Virginia story). Well into the 20th century, standard histories and school texts barely mentioned the early Spanish in North America.

While it's true that our language and laws reflect English heritage, it's also true that the Spanish role was crucial. Spanish discoveries spurred the English to try settling America and paved the way for the latecomers' eventual success. Many key aspects of American history, like African slavery and the cultivation of tobacco, are rooted in the forgotten Spanish century that preceded English arrival.

There's another, less-known legacy of this early period that explains why we've written the Spanish out of our national narrative. As late as 1783, at the end of the Revolutionary War, Spain held claim to roughly half of today's continental United States (in 1775, Spanish ships even reached Alaska). As American settlers pushed out from the 13 colonies, the new nation craved Spanish land. And to justify seizing it, Americans found a handy weapon in a set of centuries-old beliefs known as the "black legend."

The legend first arose amid the religious strife and imperial rivalries of 16th-century Europe. Northern Europeans, who loathed Catholic Spain and envied its American empire, published books and gory engravings that depicted Spanish colonization as uniquely barbarous: an orgy of greed, slaughter and papist depravity, the Inquisition writ large.

Though simplistic and embellished, the legend contained elements of truth. Juan de Oñate, the conquistador who colonized New Mexico, punished Pueblo Indians by cutting off their hands and feet and then enslaving them. Hernando de Soto bound Indians in chains and neck collars and forced them to haul his army's gear across the South. Natives were thrown to attack dogs and burned alive.

But there were Spaniards of conscience in the New World, too: most notably the Dominican priest Bartolomé de Las Casas, whose defense of Indians impelled the Spanish crown to pass laws protecting natives. Also, Spanish brutality wasn't unique; English colonists committed similar atrocities. The Puritans were arguably more intolerant of natives than the Spanish and the Virginia colonists as greedy for gold as any conquistador. But none of this erased the black legend's enduring stain, not only in Europe but also in the newly formed United States.

"Anglo Americans," writes David J. Weber, the pre-eminent historian of Spanish North America, "inherited the view that Spaniards were unusually cruel, avaricious, treacherous, fanatical, superstitious, cowardly, corrupt, decadent, indolent and authoritarian."

When 19th-century jingoists revived this caricature to justify invading Spanish (and later, Mexican) territory, they added a new slur: the mixing of Spanish, African and Indian blood had created a degenerate race. To Stephen Austin, Texas's fight with Mexico was "a war of barbarism and of despotic principles, waged by the mongrel Spanish-Indian and Negro race, against civilization and the Anglo-American race." It was the manifest destiny of white Americans to seize and civilize these benighted lands, just as it was to take the territory of Indian savages.

From 1819 to 1848, the United States and its army increased the nation's area by roughly a third at Spanish and Mexican expense, including three of today's four most populous states: California, Texas and Florida. Hispanics became the first American citizens in the newly acquired Southwest territory and remained a majority in several states until the 20th century.

By then, the black legend had begun to fade. But it seems to have found new life among immigration's staunchest foes, whose rhetoric carries traces of both ancient Hispanophobia and the chauvinism of 19th-century expansionists.

Representative J. D. Hayworth of Arizona, who calls for deporting illegal immigrants and changing the Constitution so that children born to them in the United States can't claim citizenship, denounces "defeatist wimps unwilling to stand up for our culture" against alien "invasion." Those who oppose making English the official language, he adds, "reject the very notion that there is a uniquely American identity, or that, if there is one, that it is superior to any other."

Representative Tom Tancredo of Colorado, chairman of the House Immigration Reform Caucus, depicts illegal immigration as "a scourge" abetted by "a cult of multiculturalism" that has "a death grip" on this nation. "We are committing cultural suicide," Mr. Tancredo claims. "The barbarians at the gate will only need to give us a slight push, and the emaciated body of Western civilization will collapse in a heap."

ON talk radio and the Internet, foes of immigration echo the black legend more explicitly, typecasting Hispanics as indolent, a burden on the American taxpayer, greedy for benefits and jobs, prone to criminality and alien to our values — much like those degenerate Spaniards of the old Southwest and those gold-mad conquistadors who sought easy riches rather than honest toil. At the fringes, the vilification is baldly racist. In fact, cruelty to Indians seems to be the only transgression absent from the familiar package of Latin sins.

Also missing, of course, is a full awareness of the history of the 500-year Spanish presence in the Americas and its seesawing fortunes in the face of Anglo encroachment. "The Hispanic world did not come to the United States," Carlos Fuentes observes. "The United States came to the Hispanic world. It is perhaps an act of poetic justice that now the Hispanic world should return."

America has always been a diverse and fast-changing land, home to overlapping cultures and languages. It's an homage to our history, not a betrayal of it, to welcome the latest arrivals, just as the Indians did those tardy and uninvited Pilgrims who arrived in Plymouth not so long ago.

Tony Horwitz, the author of "Confederates in the Attic" and "Blue Latitudes," is writing a book on the early exploration of North America.

 

 

 

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:                                                   

Friday, May 19, 2006                                                                                                                                              

                                                                                                            http://feinstein.senate.gov/

 

SENATOR FEINSTEIN TO INTRODUCE NEW ORANGE CARD IMMIGRATION PLAN

 

-Aims to Establish a More Realistic, Enforceable Program-

           

Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) today proposed creating a new “orange card” program to establish a more realistic process by which undocumented immigrants would be able to seek an adjustment of status as long as they meet stiff eligibility requirements, pass criminal and national security background checks, pay a fine, continue to work and learn English.

 

“Today, 10 to 12 million people are in this country illegally and live and work below the radar screen.  Their lives are clandestine and therefore subject to exploitation,”  Senator Feinstein said. “At the same time, employers who hire them are infrequently sanctioned, and when they are, there is a backlash against the penalties.”

 

“The challenge is to find a way to stop the flow of these people into the United States through a much more effective border security program, and at the same time enable these people, many of whom are long-time residents, hard workers and with American-born children, to be able to enter a path toward legal status.  But I have serious concerns about the workability, practicality, and real-world impact of the three-tiered system in the Hagel-Martinez compromise.”

 

The Hagel-Martinez plan, which was never voted on by the Senate, creates a tiered system where those here less than two years are subject to deportation; and, those here from 2 to 5 years must return to their country and get themselves into a guest-worker program.  It is estimated that approximately 2 million people have been here for two years or less; and, approximately 2.8 million from 2 to 5 years.

 

“This means approximately 4.8 million people would be required to leave voluntarily or be deported,”  Senator Feinstein said.  “I don’t believe many of these people would go home.  Even President Bush acknowledged that such a large scale deportation program is unworkable when he said, ‘It is neither wise, nor realistic to round up millions of people . . . and send them across the border.’”

 

“Additionally, for those people who have been here for 2 to 5 years, and are seeking to return to the country and work, they will have to qualify under one of the visa programs to be able to re-enter the United States.”

 

“I believe we must create a more realistic and enforceable process.  That is why I am introducing an amendment to eliminate the three-tier process created by the Hagel-Martinez compromise and replace it with an ‘orange card’ program,” Senator Feinstein said.

 

Senator Feinstein’s amendment would require undocumented immigrants to immediately register with the Department of Homeland Security and submit finger prints for criminal and national security background checks.  Once these individuals passed the background checks, they could apply for an orange card.  This would require demonstration of their presence in the U.S. and work history, an understanding of English and U.S. history and government, and payment of back taxes and a $2,000 fine. Applicants would need to work for at least six more years before being eligible to adjust their status.  And the applicants would have to wait for adjustment until after those currently in line to get green cards.

 

“How we deal with the current undocumented population is especially important to me because of the enormous impact it will have and is having on my home state of California,”  Senator Feinstein said.  “If we don’t get it right, we will end up repeating mistakes of the past… we will simply create new incentives for illegal immigration… and we will enhance the problems our country now faces in tracking who is coming and going across our borders.”

 

Here is how the Orange Card program would work:

 

First step of the program:

·        All undocumented aliens who are in the United States as of January 1, 2006, would be required to immediately register a preliminary application with the Department of Homeland Security.  

·        At the time of their registration they would also submit finger prints at the U.S. Customs and Immigration Services facility, so that criminal and national security back ground checks could commence immediately.

 

This would protect against a rush to cross the border since the date has already passed, but also eliminate the difficult documentation requirements of trying to prove exactly how long an individual has been in the United States.  And it would also create an easier “registration” system that would allow the immediate inflow of information to DHS to be processed electronically, which is what we have been told, is essential to ensuring DHS can handle the new workload.  This would just be the first step and it would give the Department time to vet the application in through an orderly process.

 

Second step of the program:

·        These individuals would submit a full application for an orange card in person by providing the necessary documents to demonstrate their work history and the presence in the United States.

·        Their application would also require that they:

o       pass a criminal and national security background check that would be carried out based on the information and fingerprints from the pre-application;

o       demonstrate an understanding of English and U.S. history and government as required when someone applies for their citizenship;

o       have paid their back taxes; and

o       pay a $2000 fine. (The money from this fine would go be used to cover the costs of administering the program.)

 

These requirements also comply with previous amendments passed on the floor of the Senate during this debate, such as the Kyl and Vitter amendments.

 

If their application is approved, each individual would be issued an orange card that would be an encrypted with a machine-readable electronic identification strip that is unique to that individual.

 

The orange card itself would contain biometric identifiers, anti-counterfeiting security features, and an assigned number that would place them at the end of the current line to apply for a green card.  In addition, the assigned number would correspond to the length of time that they have been in the United States, so that those who have been here the longest would be the first to follow those currently waiting to adjust their status.

 

The orange card would allow individuals to remain in the U.S. legally, work, and travel in and out of the country.  It would be a fraud-proof identifier complete with a photo and fingerprints.

 

Third step of the program:

·        On an annual basis, each individual who applies for an “orange card” must submit to DHS documentation either electronically or by mail that shows:

o       they have been working in that year,

o       they have paid their taxes,

o       they have not been convicted of any felony or misdemeanor, and

o       they would have to pay a $50 processing fee.

 

By requiring this annual reporting to DHS this amendment will ensure that individuals who apply to this program, remain productive and hard-working members of their communities. These individuals must  work for at least six more years before they may adjust their status, but from what we know about the numbers and the backlog, it is much more likely that they will have to work for an additional 8 to 12 years before the process is completed.

 

By including these prospective requirements, the orange card amendment ensures that only individuals who deserve to adjust their status may become legal permanent residents. In addition, by focusing on prospective requirements this amendment streamlines the process and helps avoid the bureaucratic morass that has been created other times that Congress has acted.

 

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
July 5, 2006

Statement by the President on Immigration
Dunkin' Donuts/Baskin Robbins
Alexandria, Virginia

THE PRESIDENT: I just had a really interesting conversation. First of all, this business is owned by two Iranian American brothers. They are small business owners, they are entrepreneurs, they are employing people. And then I met with the district manager, who works with the two Iranian American brothers, happens to be a Guatemalan American citizen. She is learning business. She is taking on additional responsibility. Then I talked to the store manager, who was a Salvadoran American.

These people remind me that one of the great features of our country is that people are able to come here and realize dreams. One of the problems we have because our economy is strong is that small business owners have trouble finding workers. People come here to work.

And one of the things we've got to do is to make sure that they have a verification plan that will enable them to determine, as they hire new workers, whether or not the workers are here illegally. See, it's against the law to hire somebody who is here illegally. And we intend to enforce that law. Part of a comprehensive immigration plan is to give employers the tools necessary to determine whether or not the workers they're looking for are here legally in America. And we've got such a plan -- Basic Pilot, it's called. It's working.

One of the reasons I came is I asked the owner of the business, was the plan working. He said, yes, it is -- it makes it easier for us to verify whether the documents a person gives us are true. I also want -- so therefore I want this plan to be expanded. When I first became President, it was only in six states. Now it's across the nation, but it's a voluntary plan. It ought to be a mandatory plan.

I'm strongly for a comprehensive immigration policy, one that enforces the border. And we're doing that by expanding agents and putting new technologies on our border. But part of a comprehensive immigration plan is to make sure we have interior enforcement, that we uphold our laws, and say to employers, it's against the law for you to hire somebody here illegally; we intend to fine you when we catch you doing it. But we've got to get the employers the tools to make sure that the people who are here are here legally.

Thirdly, I think there needs to be -- I know there needs to be a worker program that says you can come here on a temporary basis and work here legally for jobs Americans aren't doing. If you talk to employers such as these folks, they'll tell you they need workers. And people are willing to do the work that others aren't willing to do, but we want to make sure there's a legal way to do it.

So I look forward to working with Congress for a temporary worker plan that will have background checks to make sure that people that are coming aren't criminals, that say you can come here for a temporary basis, that you can do work others aren't doing, and that's one way to make sure that employers know they're hiring people who are here legally.

We need to make sure we help people assimilate. I met four people here who assimilated into our country. They speak English; they understand the history of our country; they love the American flag as much as I love the American flag. That's one of the great things about America, we help newcomers assimilate. Here's four folks that are living the American Dream, and I think it helps renew our soul and our spirit to help people assimilate.

And finally, we cannot kick people out who have been here for a while. And so I look forward to working with Congress on a rational plan as to how to make sure people who have been here, the 11 million or so people who have been here for a while are treated with respect and dignity. I'm absolutely opposed to amnesty. Amnesty says you're automatically a citizen. That would be a mistake to grant amnesty. Amnesty would say to somebody, all I've got to do is wait it out; all I've got to do is get here illegally myself and I'll become a citizen. That would be bad policy.

But I'm also realistic to tell you that we're not going to be able to deport people who have been here, working hard and raising their families. So I want to work with Congress to come up with a rational way forward.

Again, I want to thank you all for having me. I love being -- I cannot tell you how I love being with entrepreneurs and dreamers and doers and people who are running things, and managers, and to be with my fellow citizens as we talk about a very important public policy, and that's rational, comprehensive immigration reform.

Thank you all very much. See you back at the White House.

[ ... ]

END 11:08 A.M. EDT

The Independent Institute

Open Letter

Open Letter on Immigration
June 19, 2006

Contents

• Open Letter on Immigration
• American Signatories
• Foreign Signatories
• References

Dear President George W. Bush and All Members of Congress:

People from around the world are drawn to America for its promise of freedom and opportunity. That promise has been fulfilled for the tens of millions of immigrants who came here in the twentieth century.

Throughout our history as an immigrant nation, those who were already here have worried about the impact of newcomers. Yet, over time, immigrants have become part of a richer America, richer both economically and culturally. The current debate over immigration is a healthy part of a democratic society, but as economists and other social scientists we are concerned that some of the fundamental economics of immigration are too often obscured by misguided commentary.

Overall, immigration has been a net gain for American citizens, though a modest one in proportion to the size of our 13 trillion-dollar economy.

Immigrants do not take American jobs. The American economy can create as many jobs as there are workers willing to work so long as labor markets remain free, flexible and open to all workers on an equal basis.

In recent decades, immigration of low-skilled workers may have lowered the wages of domestic low-skilled workers, but the effect is likely to have been small, with estimates of wage reductions for high-school dropouts ranging from eight percent to as little as zero percent.

While a small percentage of native-born Americans may be harmed by immigration, vastly more Americans benefit from the contributions that immigrants make to our economy, including lower consumer prices. As with trade in goods and services, the gains from immigration outweigh the losses. The effect of all immigration on low-skilled workers is very likely positive as many immigrants bring skills, capital and entrepreneurship to the American economy.

Legitimate concerns about the impact of immigration on the poorest Americans should not be addressed by penalizing even poorer immigrants. Instead, we should promote policies, such as improving our education system, that enable Americans to be more productive with high-wage skills.

We must not forget that the gains to immigrants coming to the United States are immense. Immigration is the greatest anti-poverty program ever devised. The American dream is a reality for many immigrants who not only increase their own living standards but who also send billions of dollars of their money back to their families in their home countries—a form of truly effective foreign aid.

America is a generous and open country and these qualities make America a beacon to the world. We should not let exaggerated fears dim that beacon.

American Signatories top^

Jeffery Abarbanell, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Jason Abrevaya, Purdue University Richard Adelstein, Wesleyan University William P. Albrecht, University of Iowa Michael V. Alexeev, Indiana University Bruce T. Allen, Michigan State University Richard A. Almeida, Southeast Missouri State University Lee J. Alston, University of Colorado, Boulder Santosh Anagol, Yale University Gary M. Anderson, California State University, Northridge Michael Anderson, Washington and Lee University Robert M. Anderson, University of California, Berkeley James E. Anderson, Boston College Robert Warren Anderson, George Mason University William L. Anderson, Frostburg State University Dominick T. Armentano, University of Hartford Richard Arnott, Boston College Pierre Azoulay, Columbia University Howard Baetjer, Jr., Towson University Dean Baim, Pepperdine University David Balan, Economist A. Paul Ballantyne, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs Owen Barder, Center for Global Development Frank M. Bass, University of Texas, Dallas Jonathan J. Bean, Southern Illinois University Peter M. Beattie, Michigan State University Scott Beaulier, Mercer University John H. Beck, Gonzaga University Stacie Beck, University of Delaware Steven R. Beckman, University of Colorado, Denver David T. Beito, University of Alabama Jere R. Behrman, University of Pennsylvania Donald M. Bellante, University of South Florida Daniel K. Benjamin, Clemson University Bruce L. Benson, Florida State University George S Berger, University of Pittsburgh, Johnstown Ernst R. Berndt, Massachusetts Institute of Technology David Berri, California State University, Bakersfield Alberto Bisin, New York University Linda J. Bilmes, Harvard University Greg Blankenship, Illinois Policy Institute Alan S. Blinder, Princeton University Barry Boardman, Chief Economist, Kentucky Legislature Alan E. Boese, Virginia State University Peter J. Boettke, George Mason University Elizabeth C. Bogan, Princeton University Cecil E. Bohanon, Ball State University Ben W. Bolch, Rhodes College James E. Bond, Seattle University Robert A. Book, Independent Economist Thomas E. Borcherding, Claremont Graduate University Michael D. Bordo, Rutgers University Donald Boudreaux, George Mason University Scott Bradford, Brigham Young University Ryan R. Brady, United States Naval Academy Serguey Braguinsky, State University of New York, Buffalo Jorge Bravo, Duke University Stephen Eric Bronner, Rutgers University Taggert J. Brooks, University of Wisconsin, La Crosse Wayne T. Brough, Freedom Works Robert K. Buchele, Smith College Mark Buckley, University of California, Santa Cruz James B. Burnham, Duquesne University James L. Butkiewicz, University of Delaware Bruce Caldwell, University of North Carolina, Greensboro John E. Calfee, American Enterprise Institute Joe Calhoun, Florida State University Anil Caliskan, George Mason University Charles W. Calomiris, Columbia University Noel Campbell, North Georgia College and State University Bryan Caplan, George Mason University Robert S. Carlsen, University of Colorado, Denver Bo A. Carlsson, Case Western Reserve University Robert B. Catlett, Emporia State University Emily Chamlee-Wright, Beloit College Henry W. Chappell, Jr., University of South Carolina Kristine L. Chase, St. Mary's College of California Carl F. Christ, Johns Hopkins University Harold Christensen, Centenary College of Louisiana Lawrence R. Cima, John Carroll University James E. Clark, Wichita State University R. Morris Coats, Nicholls State University Loren Cobb, The Quaker Economist Mark A. Cohen, Vanderbilt University Ben Collier, Northwest Missouri State University William B. Conerly, Conerly Consulting LLC Patrick Conway, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill John E. Coons, University of California, Berkeley Lee A. Coppock, University of Virginia Roy E. Cordato, John Locke Foundation Paul N. Courant, University of Michigan Tyler Cowen, George Mason University Dennis J. Coyle, Catholic University of America Christopher J. Coyne, Hampden-Sydney College Donald Cox, Boston College Erik D. Craft, University of Richmond Peter Cramton, University of Maryland Maureen S. Crandall, National Defense University Robert Thomas Crow, Business Economics David Cuberes, Clemson University Kirby R. Cundiff, Northeastern State University Scott Cunningham, University of Georgia Christopher Curran, Emory University Hugh M. Curtler, Southwest Minnesota State University Kirk Dameron, Colorado State University Jerry W. Dauterive, Loyola University New Orleans Paul A. David, Stanford University Antony Davies, Dequesne University Steven J. Davis, University of Chicago Alan V. Deardorff, University of Michigan Alan de Brauw, Williams College Gregory Delemeester, Marietta College Bradford DeLong, University of California, Berkeley Michael Dennis, College of the Redwoods Arthur T. Denzau, Claremont Graduate University Arthur M. Diamond, Jr., University of Nebraska, Omaha John L. Dobra, University of Nevada, Reno Asif Dowla, St. Mary's College of Maryland Daniel W. Drezner, University of Chicago Lloyd Dumas, University of Texas at Dallas Manoranjan Dutta, Rutgers University William R. Easterly, New York University Richard M. Ebeling, Foundation for Economic Education John C. Edmunds, Babson College John B. Egger, Towson University Barry J. Eichengreen, University of California, Berkeley Eric Eliason, Brigham Young University Jerome R. Ellig, George Mason University Randall P. Ellis, Boston University Sara Fisher Ellison, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Jeffrey C. Ely, Northwestern University Ross B. Emmett, Michigan State University Richard E. 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Hunt, University of Wisconsin, Madison Christine Hurt, Marquette University Roxana Idu, SUNY Buffalo Frederick S. Inaba, Washington State University Christopher R. Inama, Golden Gate University Robert P. Inman, University of Pennsylvania Michael Intriligator, University of California, Los Angeles Thomas D. Jeitschko, Michigan State University Bruce K. Johnson, Centre College Douglas H. Joines, University of Southern California Seth K. Jolly, Duke University Garett Jones, Southern Illinois University Kristin Roti Jones, Hartwick College Michael Jones-Correa, Cornell University William H. Kaempfer, University of Colorado, Boulder Alfred E. Kahn, Cornell University Joseph P. Kalt, Harvard University Mark S. Kamlet, Carnegie Mellon University Theodore C. Kariotis, Towson University Stephen H. Karlson, Northern Illinois University Jonathan M. Karpoff, University of Washington David L. Kaserman, Auburn University Raymond J. Keating, Small Business and Entrepreneurial Council Peter B. Kenen, Princeton University Miles S. Kimball, University of Michigan Meelis, Kitsing, University of Massachusetts Robin Klay, Hope College Benjamin Klein, University of California, Los Angeles Daniel Klein, George Mason University Audrey D. Kline, University of Louisville Paul R. Koch, Olivet Nazarene University Roger Koppl, Fairleigh Dickinson University Laurence J. Kotlikoff, Boston University Melvyn B. Krauss, Hoover Institution Brent E. Kreider, Iowa State University Mordechai E. Kreinin, Michigan State University David W. Kreutzer, James Madison University Lawrence A. Kudlow, Kudlow & Company Mukund S. Kulkarni, Penn State University, Harrisburg

Sumner J. La Croix, University of Hawaii Arthur B. Laffer, A. B. Laffer Associates Courtney LaFountain, University of Texas, Arlington Deepak Lal, University of California, Los Angeles Steven E. Landsburg, University of Rochester Richard N. Langlois, University of Connecticut Nicholas A. Lash, Loyola University Wolfram Latsch, University of Washington Robert A. Lawson, Capital University Phillip LeBel, Montclair State University Don R. Leet, California State University, Fresno Kenneth M. Lehn, University of Pittsburgh David K. Levine, University of California, Los Angeles David M. Levy, George Mason University Dale B. Light, Independent Scholar P. Mather Lindsay, Mather Economics LLC Tian Hao Liu, University of Chicago George Lodge, Harvard University Robert R. Logan, Northern Economic Research Associates Edward J. Lopez, San José State University Franklin A. Lopez, Tulane University Anthony Loviscek, Seton Hall University Robert E. Lucas, Jr., Nobel Laureate, University of Chicago John E. Lunn, Hope College W. Bentley MacLeod, Columbia University Robert Main, Butler University Burton G. Malkiel, Princeton University Laurence Malone, Hartwick College Yuri N. Maltsev, Carthage College N. Gregory Mankiw, Harvard University Geoffrey A. Manne, Lewis & Clark College William F. Marina, Florida Atlantic University Matthew Marlin, Duquesne University Michael L. Marlow, California Polytechnic State University Andres Marroquin Gramajo, George Mason University Giovanni Mastrobuoni, Princeton University David N. Mayer, Capital University Carrie Mayne, Utah Department of Workforce Services Michael J. Mazzeo, Northwestern University Will McBride, George Mason University Deirdre McCloskey, University of Illinois at Chicago Paul W. McCracken, University of Michigan Rachel McCulloch, Brandeis University Michael J. McCully, High Point University Daniel L. McFadden, Nobel Laureate, University of California, Berkeley Joseph A. McKinney, Baylor University Walter W. McMahon, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana Robert McNown, University of Colorado, Boulder Matthew Q. McPherson, Gonzaga University Tom Means, San Jose State University Roger Meiners, University of Texas, Arlington John D. Merrifield, University of Texas, San Antonio Harry Messenheimer, Rio Grande Foundation Carrie Meyer, George Mason University Jacob B. Michaelsen, University of California, Santa Cruz William Milberg, New School for Social Research Paul R. Milgrom, Stanford University Demaris Miller, Psychologist James C. Miller, III, George Mason University Stephen C. Miller, Western Carolina University Maria Minniti Koppl, Babson College Jeffrey A. Miron, Harvard University Wilson Mixon, Berry College Robert Moffitt, Johns Hopkins University Michael R. Montgomery, University of Maine Cassandra Chrones Moore, Cato Institute Thomas Gale Moore, Hoover Institution John C. Moorhouse, Wake Forest University Michael A. Morrisey, University of Alabama at Birmingham Andrew P. Morriss, Case Western Reserve University Milton L. Mueller, Syracuse University Robert F. Mulligan, Western Carolina University Michael C. Munger, Duke University Ben Muse, Economist David B. Mustard, University of Georgia Richard F. Muth, Emory University Thomas J. Nechyba, Duke University Robert H. Nelson, University of Maryland Russell Nelson, Economist Hugh B. Nicholas Jr., Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center M. Scott Niederjohn, Lakeland College Eli M. Noam, Columbia University Roger G. Noll, Stanford University Masao Ogaki, Ohio State University Lee Ohanian, University of California, Los Angeles David J. O'Hara, Metropolitan State University Randal O’Toole, Thoreau Institute Lydia D. Ortega, San Jose State University Evan Osborne, Wright State University Randall E. Parker, East Carolina University Allen M. Parkman, University of New Mexico Jeffrey S. Parlow, Macomb Community College Mark V. Pauly, University of Pennsylvania Matthew C. Pearson, University of California, Davis Sandra J. Peart, Baldwin-Wallace College William S. Peirce, Case Western Reserve University Robert L. Pennington, University of Central Florida Jeffrey M. Perloff, University of California, Berkeley Timothy Perri, Appalachian State University Mark J. Perry, University of Michigan, Flint William H. Peterson, Ludwig von Mises Institute William S. Peirce, Case Western Reserve University Owen R. Phillips, University of Wyoming Robert S. Pindyck, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Joseph S. Pomykala, Towson University Steven Postrel, Southern Methodist University Benjamin Powell, The Independent Institute John M. Quigley, University of California, Berkeley Carlos Ramirez, George Mason University Elizabeth L. Rankin, Centenary College of Louisiana James B. Ramsey, New York University Ronald A. 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Warner, Clemson University Alan Rufus Waters, California State University, Fresno Michael J. Webb, Regulatory Economics Group William Weber, Southeast Missouri State University Ivo I. Welch, Brown University David L. Weimer, University of Wisconsin, Madison John T. Wenders, University of Idaho J. Fred Weston, University of California, Los Angeles Robert M. Whaples, Wake Forest University Lawrence H. White, University of Missouri, St. Louis Ronald F. White, College of Mount St. Joseph John Whitehead, Appalachian State University Marina v. N. Whitman, University of Michigan Roland Wiederaenders, Austin Capital Management Christopher Wignall, University of California at San Diego (grad econ student) Richard W. Wilcke, University of Louisville James A. Wilcox, University of California, Berkeley Thomas D. Willett, Claremont Graduate University Arlington W. Williams, Indiana University, Bloomington Douglas Wills, University of Washington, Tacoma Bonnie Wilson, St. Louis University Larry T. Wimmer, Brigham Young University Michael K. Wohlgenant, North Carolina State University Barbara Wolfe, University of Wisconsin, Madison Justin Wolfers, University of Pennsylvania Gary Wolfram, Hillsdale College Arthur Woolf, University of Vermont Eric C. Woychik, Strategy Integration LLC Brian Wright, University of California, Berkeley Joshua D. Wright, George Mason University Bruce Yandle, Clemson University David B. Yoffie, Harvard University DeVon L. Yoho, Ball State University Derek K. Yonai, Campbell University Jeffrey T. Young, St. Lawrence University Asghar Zardkoohi, Texas A & M University Lei Zhang, Clemson University Kate Xiao Zhou, University of Hawaii Zenon X. Zygmont, Western Oregon University

Foreign Signatories top^

Lord Meghnad Desai, London School of Economics, England Kevin Dowd, University of Nottingham, England Jose Antonio Fontana, Uruguay Francisco Javier Aparicio, CIDE, Mexico Jurgen G. Backhaus, Erfurt University, Germany Alvaro Bardon, Universidad Finis Terrae, Chile Alberto Benegas-Lynch, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina Niclas Berggren, Ratio Institute, Sweden Andreas Bergh, Lund University, Sweden Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, University of Hull, England Gregor Bush, BMO Economics, Canada John B. Chilton, American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates Julio H. Cole, Universidad Francisco Marroquin, Guatemala Janet Coleman, London School of Economics and Political Science, England Enrico Colombatto, University of Torino, Italy Daniel Cordova, Peruvian University of Applied Sciences, Peru Eric Crampton, University of Canterbury, New Zealand Fredrik Erixon, Timbro, Sweden Ana Marie Fossati, Agencia Interamericana de Prensa Económica, Uruguay Angel Solano Garcia, Universitad de Granada, Spain Ronald Hamowy, University of Alberta, Canada Steffen Hentrich, German Advisory Council on the Environment, Berlin, Germany

Andrew Leigh, Australian National University Pierre Lemieux, University of Québec in Outaouais, Canada Christopher R. Lingle, Francisco Marroquin University, Guatemala Lance J. Lochner, University of Western Ontario, Canada Francis T. Lui, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, China Robert Nef, Liberales Institut Zurich, Switzerland Jan Narveson, University of Waterloo, Canada Maximilian Oberbauer, University of Vienna, Austria John F. Opie, Feri Rating & Research GmbH, Germany Mohamed Oudebji, Economics and Social Sciences of Marrakech, Morocco Tomi Ovaska, University of Regina, Canada Eduardo Pegurier, Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Victoria Curzon Price, University of Geneva, Switzerland Herbert Reginbogin, University of Potsdam, Germany Friedrich Schneider, Johannes Kepler University of Linz, Austria Parth J. Shah, Centre for Civil Society, India Claudio Djissey Shikida, Brazil Saul Trejo, Grupo Acex, Mexico Alec van Gelder, International Policy Network, England Sam Vermeersch, NPO Fakbar Letteren, Belgium Anthony M. C. Waterman, University of Manitoba, Canada

Useful References top^

Borjas, George J., and Lawrence F. Katz. 2006. Evolution of the Mexican-Born Workforce in the United States. NBER Working Paper No. 11281. Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research.

Card, David. 2005. Is the New Immigration Really So Bad? NBER Working Paper No. 11547. Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research.

Card, David, and Ethan G. Lewis. 2005. The Diffusion of Mexican Immigrants During the 1990s: Explanations and Impacts. NBER Working Paper No. 11552. Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research.

Couch, Jim F., Brett A. King, William H. Wells, and Peter M. Williams. June 2001. Nation of Origin Bias and the Enforcement of Immigration Laws by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Independent Institute Working Paper. Oakland, Calif.: The Independent Institute.

Cowen, Tyler, and Daniel Rothschild. May 15, 2006. Hey, Don't Bad-mouth Unskilled Immigrants: You Don't Have to Be a Computer Genius to Be Good for the U.S. Los Angeles Times.

__________. June 12, 2006. Blending In, Moving Up. Washington Post.

Friedberg, Rachel M. 2001. The Impact of Mass Migration on the Israeli Labor Market. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 116 (4): 1373-1408.

Friedberg, Rachel M., and Jennifer Hunt. 1995. The Impact of Immigrants on Host Country Wages, Employment and Growth, Journal of Economic Perspectives 9 (4): 23-44.

Gallaway, Lowell E., Stephen Moore, and Richard K. Vedder. 2000. The Immigration Problem: Then and Now. The Independent Review 4 (3): 347-364.

Gandal, Neil, Gordon H. Hanson, and Matthew J. Slaughter. 2000. Technology, Trade, and Adjustment to Immigration in Israel. NBER Working Paper No. 7962. Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research.

Krueger, Alan B. April 6, 2006. Two Labor Economic Issues for the Immigration Debate. Washington, D.C.: Center for American Progress.

Ottaviano, Gianmarco I.P., and Giovanni Peri. 2006. Rethinking the Gains from Immigration: Theory and Evidence from the U.S. NBER Working Paper No. 11672. Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research.

Powell, Benjamin. April 30, 2005. Immigration, Economic Growth, and the Welfare State. Oakland, Calif.: The Independent institute.

__________. May 18, 2005. Immigration Reform that Both Sides Can Support. San Francisco Business Times.

___________. April 4, 2006. How To Reform Immigration Laws. Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

___________. December 22, 2005. The Pseudo Economic Problems of Immigration. San Diego Union-Tribune.

Powell, Benjamin, and Peter Laufer. September 21, 2005. Immigration Wars: Open or Closed Borders for America? Transcript of Independent Policy Forum. Oakland, Calif.: The Independent Institute.

Simon, Julian. 1999. The Economic Consequences of Immigration, 2nd ed. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press.

_______. 1990. Population Matters: People, Resources, Environment, and Immigration. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers.

Smith, James P., and Barry Edmonston. 1998. The Immigration Debate: Studies on the Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press.

Tabarrok, Alexander. 2000. Economic and Moral Factors in Favor of Open Immigration. Oakland, Calif.: The Independent Institute.

Vedder, Richard K., and Lowell E. Gallaway. 1993. Out of Work: Unemployment and Government in Twentieth-Century America, rev. ed. New York: New York University Press for The Independent Institute.

IMMIGRATION DEADLOCK REVISITED

Fear of Voter Backlash Prompts GOP Senators to Consider House's Tougher Bill

By Shailagh Murray and Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, June 30, 2006; A03

Republican Senate leaders are considering how to revive immigration legislation and cut a deal with the more hard-line House, a sign of increasing GOP concern that inaction on the emotionally charged issue could hurt the party with voters in November.

For months, House and Senate Republicans have steadfastly defended their respective positions. The House has insisted on tougher border and deportation provisions only. The Senate, allied with President Bush, has demanded that a crackdown be coupled with an overhaul of immigration laws, including a broader guest worker program and a pathway to legal status for the estimated 12 million people who live in the United States illegally.

House leaders appeared to be winning the standoff. They announced this month that they would hold field hearings on immigration throughout the summer, all but guaranteeing that a bill could not be completed until after the election.

But in recent days, senators and the White House have dropped hints that they are willing to move closer to the House's position -- perhaps by agreeing to a two-phase plan that would begin with construction of triple-layer walls, deployment of surveillance aircraft and other means of tightening the border with Mexico.

When those measures are fully funded and operational -- a process that could take as much as two years -- debate on some version of the Senate's broader proposals would begin.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), a leader of the Senate's immigration efforts, told CNN this week: "I think everybody agrees that securing the border is number one. . . We're prepared to commit to secure borders. We have got to have a timetable on the rest of it, as well."

The House yesterday announced that its first two field hearings on immigration will be held on Wednesday in San Diego and on Friday in Laredo, Tex. Specter, meanwhile, scheduled his own field hearing, in Philadelphia, on Wednesday. He invited Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.), one of the chief Democratic sponsors of the Senate approach, to join him.

House GOP leaders interpreted the Senate overtures as vindication of their tougher stance.

"I've really been rather encouraged about what's happened over the last several days with regard to the issue of immigration," said House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).

Also this week, Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) met with Bush and Vice President Cheney to discuss his proposal for a guest worker program that would roll out only after the government certifies that the border is secure. "The president listened intently," Pence told reporters. "He told me that he was intrigued with my proposal."

Democrats are increasingly confident that immigration will be a winning issue for them at the polls, as an illustration of their argument that Bush and the GOP congressional leadership are incompetent.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) and Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), the chairmen of the Senate and House Democratic campaign committees, respectively, said Democratic challengers will launch a coordinated effort to blame the Republican leadership for creating the immigration problems that the GOP now confronts. "They're in the majority," Emanuel said. "When you fail, that failure is wrapped around your neck."

For instance, according to statistics cited by the Democrats, the number of border apprehensions has declined by 31 percent since Bush took office, to an average of 1.05 million cases per year between 2001 and 2004, from an average 1.52 million cases per year during the late 1990s. The number of illegal immigrants caught each year inside the United States also declined by about a third, to about 25,901 on average between 2001 and 2004, from an annual average of 40,193 in the late 1990s.

"That is a joke," Schumer said. "It's also a political billboard."

 (En Español Debajo)

 

For Immediate Release

Date: Tuesday, June 20, 2006

 

CONTACT: Federico A. de Jesús (202) 224-2939

                     Jim Manley / Rebecca Kirszner (202) 224-2939

 

REID URGES PRESIDENT TO BREAK LOGJAM ON IMMIGRATION REFORM BILL

Hastert Move to Hold Hearings is Further Evidence of Republican Stonewalling of Immigration Bill

Washington, DC- Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid today issued the following statement on House Speaker Dennis Hastert's announcement that the House will hold hearings on the Senate's comprehensive immigration reform bill, rather than working to conference the House and Senate bills and enact reforms.   Attached is also a fact sheet on the immigration "blue slip" issue.

"It is obvious that Bush Republicans in Congress don't want an immigration bill. House Republicans are simply engaging in further delaying tactics on immigration reform. If there were ever a time for the president to get engaged in this, it would be now.  President Bush says he is for comprehensive immigration reform. What in the world does that mean, when he won't help us go to conference on this bill?

"Democrats are ready to go to conference on a comprehensive immigration reform bill that addresses border security, employer sanctions and enforcement, a temporary guest worker program, and, of course, a pathway to citizenship for the current undocumented population.  

"Why can't we go to conference on a bill like that? Because the Republicans don't want to and now they've got this theory that they're going to go around and hold some hearings during the August recess. The hearings have been held. They've passed their bill. It's a bill that criminalizes anyone who deals with people who are here with bad papers, including members of the clergy, health care workers, and social workers.

"Every day that the Republicans delay going to conference, which they've now done for four weeks, makes it more difficult to get a bill. And they have stopped us from going to conference -- stopped us. Republicans can say all they want. The president can go around and give all the speeches he wants. But let him step in now. He has complete domination over this Republican Congress. Let him tell us how much he really wants a bill. Or is this part of the Orwellian message we continually get out of this administration? He wants an immigration bill, but really he means just the opposite - he doesn't want one."

###

 

Fact Sheet on Immigration Blue Slip Issue

 

DEMOCRATS FIGHTING TO MOVE FORWARD ON COMPREHENSIVE IMMGIRATION REFORM

 

After leading the Senate to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill, Democrats are now taking the lead to move the bill to conference with the House of Representatives.  Democrats have been ready to appoint conferees to the immigration bill since we passed the bill, but the appointment of conferees has been held up over House threats to "blue slip" the Senate bill because in the view of the House, it contains revenue-related provisions.  This is just another attempt by conservative Congressional Republicans to block comprehensive immigration reform.

 

Senate Democrats Led the Senate to Pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform.  Senate Democrats led the way in the Senate to pass comprehensive immigration reform.  Senate Republicans voted twice to filibuster comprehensive reform and then were unable to build a majority of their own caucus to support the bill.  [RC 88, 4/6/06; RC 89, 4/7/06; RC 157, 5/25/06]

 

Republicans are Raising Roadblocks to Comprehensive Immigration Reform.  "The bill as written, however, will never make it to conference, Republicans say. Under House rules, any member can introduce a 'blue-slip resolution' to return the legislation to the Senate. And although there are plenty of House conservatives eager to kill the Senate bill any way they can, Hill staffers say it would likely be done based on 'policy-blind constitutional issues.'"  [Washington Times, 6/2/06]

 

• Conservatives block immigration conference. Senate conservatives have emerged as the chief obstacle to an immigration conference committee. "I'm not anxious to move it to conference," Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), chairman of the conservative Republican Steering Committee, said yesterday. "The more we study the final product, the more convinced I am that it is seriously flawed."

 

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said that he would think about being helpful to the leadership but that he'd "consider trying to block it, too." [The Hill, 6/8/06]

 

• Republicans are Threatening to "Blue-Slip" the Senate Immigration Bill.  The Constitution states: "All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other Bills."  United States v. Munoz-Flores, 495 US 385 (1990), is the leading court case on the Origination Clause.  In this case, the Supreme Court affirmed the general rule that "revenue bills are those that levy taxes in the strict sense of the word, and are not bills for other purposes which may incidentally create revenue."  The Court said it has interpreted this rule to mean that a statute that creates a particular governmental program and raises revenue to support that program, as opposed to one that raises revenue to support government generally, is not subject to the Origination Clause.  [U.S. Constitution; United States v. Munoz-Flores]

 

The House has at times ignored the blue slip issue. There are a number of examples where the House has chosen not to blue slip Senate bills that imposed broad based fees and raised significant amounts of money.  S 652 = Telecommunications Act of 1996 (PL 101-104) (104th Congress), S1447 = Aviation and Transportation Security Act (PL 107-71) (107th Congress), S 1630 = Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (PL 101-549) (101st Congress). The House has also agreed to go to conference on House numbered appropriations bills after the Senate added what the House believed were revenue provisions.  FY 1995 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration Appropriations bill, H.R 4554, (103rd Congress) and Commerce, Justice, State Appropriations bill (H.R. 4603 103rd Congress).

 

Republicans Rejected a Simple Solution to the "Blue Slip" Issue.  On June 5, Senator Reid suggested that the Senate go to conference on the House immigration bill in order to avoid the "Blue Slip" issue, and Republicans objected.  "Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 4437, the House immigration bill; that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that all after the enacting clause be stricken and that the text of S. 2611, as passed by the Senate, be substituted in lieu thereof, the bill be read the third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and the Senate insist on its amendment, request a conference with the House, and the chair be authorized to appoint conferees. Mr. MCCONNELL. Mr. President, I object."  [Congressional Record, 6/5/06]

 

Republicans Want to Go to Conference on a Tax Bill in Order to Pursue the Full Repeal of the Estate Tax.  Republicans have suggested going to conference on the immigration bill by using a tax bill that has already passed both the House and the Senate to avoid the "Blue Slip" issue.  Republicans are hopeful to put the full repeal of the estate tax, a measure that will not pass the Senate alone, onto this package.  "Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., said he expected the estate tax to find its way into an unrelated bill headed for the president's desk sometime this year."  [Associated Press, 6/8/06]

 

• Democrats Would Hold Immigration Conference on Tax Bill With Guarantees.  Senator Reid has offered to go to an immigration conference on a tax bill provided GOP House and Senate leaders provide guarantees they will not allow extraneous tax measures like the estate tax.  Senator Reid said, "If they want to use another bill, a tax bill, instead of the House-passed immigration bill, then let them come to me with how they're not going to not have this as a Christmas tree of tax measures. It's up to them. They want to use a tax bill, let's see what they can come up with to protect the Senate's position on immigration."  [CQ, 6/6/06]

 

 

Para Difusión Inmediata

Fecha: Martes, 20 de junio de 2006

 

CONTACTO: Federico A. de Jesús (202) 224-2939

Jim Manley / Rebecca Kirzsner (202) 224-2939

 

REID URGE AL PRESIDENTE A QUE ROMPA EL TRANQUE SOBRE EL PROYECTO DE REFORMA MIGRATORIA

Movida de Hastert Para Hacer Vistas Públicas es Evidencia Adicional que los Republicanos Están Bloqueando el Proyecto de Inmigración

 

Washington, D.C.- El líder demócrata en el Senado Harry Reid emitió hoy las siguientes declaraciones sobre el anuncio del Presidente de la Cámara de Representantes, Dennis Hastert, de que llevará acabo vistas públicas sobre el proyecto de ley de reforma integral de inmigración que aprobó el Senado, en vez de trabajar para ir a un comité de conferencia entre los proyectos de ley de la Cámara y el Senado para aprobar la reforma. Adjunto también un documento sobre los hechos de inmigración y la "carta azul."

 

"Es obvio que los Republicanos en el Congreso no quieren un proyecto de ley de inmigración. Los republicanos de la Cámara sencillamente siguen usando tácticas para retrasar la reforma migratoria. Y, si alguna vez ha habido un momento para que el presidente se involucre en esto, sería ahora. ¿Por qué el, con el poder que tiene sobre este Congreso - dominado por los republicanos, no les dice que, 'Bueno, yo quiero ir a conferencia sobre esto'? El Presidente Bush dice que favorece una reforma integral de inmigración. ¿Qué rayos quiere decir eso, si el no nos ayuda a ir a una conferencia sobre este proyecto de ley?

 

"Los demócratas estamos listos para ir a conferencia sobre un proyecto de ley de reforma migratoria integral que atienda la seguridad fronteriza, que refuerce las sanciones a los patronos, que provea un programa de trabajadores temporeros y que por supuesto provea un camino a la ciudadanía para los indocumentados.

 

"¿Por qué no podemos ir a conferencia sobre un proyecto de ley como este? Porque los republicanos no quieren y ahora tienen esta teoría de que pueden ir y hacer algún tipo de vistas durante el receso de agosto. Las vistas se llevaron acabo ya. Ellos aprobaron un proyecto de ley. Es un proyecto de ley que criminaliza a cualquiera que atienda a personas que no tengan papeles, incluyendo a religiosos, trabajadores sociales y de salud.

 

"Todos los días que los republicanos siguen atrasando el ir a conferencia, lo que ya llevan haciendo por cuatro semanas, hace que sea más difícil conseguir una ley. Y ellos nos han parado de poder ir a conferencia -- nos han parado. Los republicanos pueden decir todo lo que quieran. El presidente puede dar todos los discursos que quiera. Pero que haga algo ahora. El tiene control completo sobre este Congreso republicano. Que nos diga si en realidad quiere un proyecto de ley. O, ¿será esto parte del mensaje maquiavélico que sigue saliendo de este gobierno? De que quiere un proyecto de ley de inmigración, pero en realidad lo que quiere es lo opuesto - que no lo quiere."

 

###

 

Los Hechos Sobre Inmigración y el Tema de la "Carta Azul"

 

LOS DEMÓCRATAS ESTÁN LUCHANDO PARA ADELANTAR LA REFORMA INTEGRAL DE INMIGRACIÓN

 

Después de dirigir la batalla en el Senado para aprobar un proyecto de ley de reforma integral de inmigración, los demócratas han tomado la delantera para llevar hacia delante el proyecto de ley a la conferencia con la Cámara de Representantes.  Los demócratas han estado listos para escoger los integrantes de la conferencia del proyecto de ley de inmigración desde que el proyecto fue aprobado, pero la designación de los integrantes a la conferencia se ha estancado debido a las amenazas de la Cámara usar una "carta azul," o "blue slip" en inglés,  con el proyecto aprobado por el Senado porque en la opinión de la Cámara, este proyecto contiene medidas de ingresos o "revenue measures," en inglés.  Este es otro intento de los republicanos conservadores en el Congreso de obstruir la reforma integral de inmigración.

 

Los demócratas del Senado dirigieron la lucha para que el Senado aprobara una reforma integral de inmigración. Los demócratas del Senado dirigieron la lucha para que el Senado aprobara una reforma integral de inmigración. Los republicanos en el Senado votaron dos veces para obstruir la reforma integral y después no pudieron obtener la mayoría de los senadores de su propio partido para apoyar el proyecto de ley. [RC 88, 4/6/06; RC 89, 4/7/06; RC 157, 5/25/06]

 

Los republicanos están levantando obstáculos para frenar la reforma integral de inmigración.  "El proyecto de ley como está escrito nunca irá a conferencia, dicen los republicanos.  Bajo las reglas de la Cámara cualquier miembro puede presentar una "resolución de carta-azul" para devolver la legislación al Senado y aun hay muchos conservadores en la Cámara que están ansiosos por matar el proyecto de ley del Senado de cualquier forma que sea. Fuentes del Congreso dicen que lo más probable que suceda es que basen su obstrucción en "en temas constitucionales de políticas públicas ciegas". [Washington Times, 6/2/06]

 

• Los Conservadores bloquean la conferencia de inmigración. Los conservadores del Senado han surgido como el obstáculo principal para un comité de conferencia de inmigración. "Yo no estoy ansioso de moverlo a la conferencia," dijo ayer el Senador Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Presidente del Comité de Política Publica Interna de los Republicanos. "Mientras más estudio el producto final, más convencido estoy de que tiene defectos serios."

 

El Senador Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) dijo que él pensaba ayudar al liderazgo pero que "considerará tratar de bloquearlo también." [The Hill, 6/8/06]

 

• Los republicanos  están amenazando con usar la "carta azul" con el proyecto de ley de inmigración del Senado.  La Constitución indica: "Todos los proyectos de ley que generen ingresos deben surgir de la Cámara de Representantes; pero el Senado puede proponer o puede estar de acuerdo con enmiendas como en otros proyectos de ley." Estados Unidos v. Muñoz-Flores, 495 US 385 (1990), es el caso judicial principal sobre la Cláusula de Origen. En este caso, la Corte Suprema afirmó la regla general de que "los proyectos de ley sobre ingresos son aquellos que imponen impuestos en el sentido estricto de la palabra y no son aquellos proyectos para otros propósitos que incidentalmente puedan generar ingresos." La Corte dice que ha interpretado esta regla para que signifique que un estatuto que crea un programa gubernamental en particular y recaude ingresos para sostener ese programa, en comparación con uno que recauda ingresos para sostener el gobierno generalmente, no es sujeto a la Cláusula de Origen. [La Constitución de los EE.UU.; Estados Unidos contra  Muñoz-Flores]

 

La Cámara en ocasiones ha ignorado el tema de la carta azul. Hay una cantidad de ejemplos de ocasiones en las que la Cámara ha escogido no usar la carta azul con proyectos de ley del Senado que impusieron varios pagos de honorarios amplios y generaron una cantidad significativa de dinero. S. 652 = Ley de Telecomunicaciones de 1996 (PL 101-104) (104to Congreso), S. 1447 = Ley de Seguridad de Aviación y Transporte (PL 107-71) (107mo Congreso), S. 1630 = Enmiendas a la Ley de Aire Limpio de 1990 (PL 101-549) (101º Congreso). La Cámara también ha aceptado ir a conferencia con varios proyectos de ley de asignaciones de la Cámara luego que el Senado le añadiera lo que la Cámara pensaba que eran medidas de ingresos. FY 1995 Agricultura, Desarrollo Rural, el Proyecto de Ley de Asignaciones de la Administración de Comida y Drogas (FDA, por sus siglas en inglés), H.R. 4554, (103er Congreso) y el Proyecto de ley de Asignaciones de Comercio, Justicia y Estado (H.R. 4603, 103er Congreso).

 

Los Republicanos Rechazaron una Solución Simple al Tema de la "Carta Azul." El 5 de junio, el Senador Reid sugirió que el Senado fuera a conferencia con el proyecto de ley de inmigración de la Cámara para poder evitar el tema de la "carta azul" y los republicanos se opusieron. "Sr. REID. Sr. Presidente, pido consentimiento unánime para considerar el H.R. 4437, el proyecto de ley de inmigración de la Cámara; que el Senado proceda a considerarlo inmediatamente; que todo excepto la cláusula de aprobación se elimine y que el texto del S. 2611, según aprobado en el Senado, lo substituya, que el proyecto de ley sea leído la tercera vez y aprobado, que la moción para consideración se engavete y que el Senado insista en su enmienda, solicite una conferencia con la Cámara y que el presidente sea autorizado para nombrar conferenciantes. Sr. MCCONNELL. Sr. Presidente, yo me opongo." [Congressional Record, 6/5/06]

 

Los Republicanos Quieren Ir a Conferencia con un Proyecto de Ley de Impuestos Para Poder Eliminar por Completo el Impuesto de Herencia o "Estate Tax," en inglés. Los republicanos han sugerido usar un proyecto de ley que ya ha sido aprobado por la Cámara y el Senado para evitar el tema de la "Carta Azul." Los republicanos tienen esperanzas de poder eliminar por completo el impuesto a la herencia, una medida que el Senado no aprobará. "El Senador Trent Lott, R-Miss., dijo que el espera que el impuesto a la herencia pueda llegar a cualquier proyecto de ley no relacionado para que el presidente lo pueda firmar en algún momento este año." [Associated Press, 6/8/06]

 

• Los Demócratas Irían a Conferencia con un Proyecto de Ley de Impuestos Si Hay Garantías. El Senador Reid ha propuesto ir a una conferencia de inmigración con un proyecto de ley de impuestos, siempre y cuando los líderes republicanos de la Cámara y el Senado provean garantías de que no se va a permitir que se le añadan medidas de impuestos indebidas y no relacionadas como el impuesto a la herencia. El Senador Reid dijo, "Si ellos quieren usar otro proyecto de ley, un proyecto de ley de impuestos, en vez del proyecto de ley de inmigración que aprobó la Cámara, entonces que vengan a donde mi y me digan cómo es que no van a tener un "árbol de Navidad" lleno de medidas de impuestos. La decisión está en sus manos. Si ellos quieren usar un proyecto de ley de impuestos, vamos a ver qué se les ocurre para poder proteger la posición del Senado en cuanto a inmigración." [CQ, 6/6/06]

PRESS RELEASE June 22, 2006

Contact: Tamar Jacoby, Manhattan Institute (973) 744-6117

Poll: GOP Voters Want Immigration Solutions This Year;
Broad Approach to Reform Preferred

Leaders Selling Public Short with Hard-Line Approach

Washington, DC - An overwhelming majority of registered, likely Republican voters support a broad approach to immigration reform that includes providing legal status to immigrants in the country illegally, even while many of them also consider this approach "amnesty." Republican voters also are more likely to support candidates who support immigration reform that combines border and workplace enforcement with a multi-step path to legalization for undocumented immigrants who learn English, pay fines, and taxes. Significantly, an overwhelming majority feel that it is very important for the Congress to solve the problem of illegal immigration this year.

These are among the findings of a new poll, commissioned by the free market think-tank, the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, and conducted among 800 Republican likely voters by the Republican polling firm, The Tarrance Group, June 12-15, 2006.

Results from the poll and a discussion of their implications will be the topic of a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, which can be accessed by telephone for those unable to join in person (an Internet link to the data presentation is also available, see below).

WHAT: Press Conference to Release Polling Results

WHEN: Thursday, June 22, 2006; 1:30 p.m. Eastern Time

WHO: Brian Nienaber, Vice President, The Tarrance Group
Tamar Jacoby, Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute

WHERE: Zenger Room, National Press Club
529 Fourteenth Street (14th &F), NW, 13th Floor

TELEPHONIC ACCESS/COMPUTER ACCESS

Reporters unable to be present at the National Press Club may listen in to the press conference and ask questions via conference call.

Dial: 1 (888) 793-1753

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Meeting Details:
Subject: Immigration Polling Press Conference
Date and Time: June 22nd, 1:30 pm ET
Meeting ID: 6QGJ5C
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# # #

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

June 22, 2006

To: Interested Parties

From: Ed Goeas and Brian Nienaber

Subject: Key findings from a nationwide survey of registered likely Republican voters[1]
__________________________________________________________________________________

Overview

The four (4) major findings from this data are:

1. Likely Republican voters want a solution to the problem of illegal immigration.
2. While likely Republican voters strongly support border enforcement, there is more support for a comprehensive immigration reform plan that provides current illegal immigrants with an opportunity for earned citizenship.
3. The charge of amnesty is not as powerful a weapon against immigration reform proposals as conventional wisdom suggests.
4. Support is much stronger among likely Republican voters for a comprehensive approach to immigration reform than an enforcement with guest workers only plan.

Desire for a Solution

• While likely Republican voters are remarkably positive about the direction of the country (52% right track), the issue of immigration is clearly one of their top concerns. On an issue matrix about determining their vote for Congress, "illegal immigration" (15%) is the second most selected issue behind only "terrorism and national security" (20%) and is tied with "moral values" (15%).
• In addition, 71% of likely Republican voters describe illegal immigration as an extremely (37%) or very (34%) serious problem. A plurality (42%) of likely Republican voters select "concerned" as the emotion that best describes how they feel about the current immigration situation.
• These attitudes lead 72% of likely Republican voters to select that it is extremely (40%) or very (32%) important that Congress solve the problem of illegal immigration this year.

Strong Support for Enforcement and Strong Support for Earned Legalization

• Likely Republican voters are presented with a variety of proposals for dealing with the 12 million illegal immigrants currently living in the United States.
• While 82% of likely GOP voters support tightening the borders and tougher penalties on illegal immigrants and on employers who hire illegal immigrants, 80% of likely Republican voters support an earned legalization program in which illegal immigrants can earn legal status and eventual citizenship by working, paying taxes, learning English, and waiting behind those already waiting to emigrate to the United States.
• Regarding a proposal to deal with the 12 million illegal immigrants by deporting them by any means necessary, a strong majority (68%) of likely GOP voters oppose this proposal.
• In addition, 85% of likely Republican voters believe it is not realistic to deport 12 million illegal immigrants.
• Regarding a proposal to deal with the 12 million illegal immigrants through a policy of attrition, a majority (50%) of likely GOP voters oppose this proposal.
• In addition, 76% of likely GOP voters believe that illegal immigrants would not return home if an attrition policy was implemented.
• In fact, a comprehensive approach to immigration that includes earned legalization is supported by 75% of likely GOP voters while an approach that includes only tougher enforcement and a guest workers plan is supported by just 47% of likely GOP voters.

The "Amnesty" Charge Not As Negative As Conventional Wisdom Suggests

• On the issue of amnesty, 48% of likely GOP voters do not believe the comprehensive reform like the one passed by the Senate is amnesty while 39% do believe it is amnesty.
• Among those likely GOP voters who believe this legislation is amnesty, 62% support its passage. In addition, 50% of likely Republican voters who believe this legislation is amnesty are more likely to support a candidate who supports this legislation.
• For an enforcement with guest workers plan, 70% of likely GOP voters do not believe this plan is amnesty while 18% do believe it is amnesty.
• Among those likely GOP voters who believe this type of plan is amnesty, 49% support its passage. In addition, 48% of those likely GOP voters who believe this plan is amnesty are more likely to support a candidate who supports this legislation.
• Given the choice between doing nothing about illegal immigration and doing something that they believe contains amnesty, a majority (53%) of likely Republican voters would rather do something.

Stronger Support for Comprehensive Approach to Immigration Reform

• Fully 75% of likely Republican voters support passage of a comprehensive immigration reform plan that contains the following elements:
• Provide resources to greatly increase border security,
• Impose much tougher penalties on employers who hire illegal workers,
• Allow additional foreign workers to come to the United States to work for a temporary period,
• Create a system in which illegal immigrants could come forward and register, pay a fine, and receive a temporary worker permit,
• Provide these temporary workers with a multi-year path to earned citizenship, if they get to the end of the line and meet certain requirements like living crime free, learning English, paying taxes.
• Support for this plan is strong even among base Republican voter demographics like strong Republicans (77%), very conservative Republicans (72%), white conservative Christians (76%), and those who listen to news talk radio on a daily basis (72%).
• A strong majority (60%) of likely Republican voters say they would be more likely to support a candidate who supports this type of plan.
• Only 17% of likely Republican voters oppose this plan and 8% are unsure.
• In contrast, support among likely Republican voters for an enforcement with guest workers plan stands at only 47%. This plan is described as follows:
• Tighten the borders,
• Put tougher penalties on employers and workers who violate immigration laws,
• Create and expanded guest worker program that allows people to work her only temporarily, and
• Most current illegal immigration would never be eligible for citizenship.
• There is not a notable increase in support for this plan among base Republican voter demographics like strong Republicans (47%), very conservative Republicans (51%), white conservative Christians (50%), and those who listen to news talk radio on a daily basis (51%).
• Only 46% of likely Republican voters say they would be more likely to support a candidate who supports this type of plan.
• Forty-six percent (46%) of likely Republican oppose this plan and 7% are unsure.

###

 

Talking Points

 

NEW YORK TIMES: The Terrible, Horrible, Urgent National Disaster That Immigration Isn't

 

By LAWRENCE DOWNES
June 20, 2006

 

Part 1: What's Wrong with "Getting Tough on Immigration"

 

I. Immigration, Oversimplified

 

The arguments made by hard-line critics of immigration reform are depressingly simple, which makes them simply depressing.

 

They boil down to this: the immigration problems we have today, and a vast array of other problems, begin and end with immigrants themselves, the people who have committed the offense of being here illegally — or just being here, period, in undesirable numbers, with undesirable habits and undesirable effects on the health of the nation.

 

Their presence here is seen as overwhelmingly if not entirely bad, an unpardonable offense for which American citizens are made to suffer.

 

In this view, the problem is not going to be solved by repairing a complex system of immigration laws and regulations, by tinkering with the economic machinery to find a better fit between labor demand and supply, or by being more diligent about enforcing existing rules about workplaces and hiring. And it certainly won't be solved by being creative or more welcoming and humane toward immigrants in a way that rewards their hard work and desire to participate in the system more fully.

 

It will be solved by keeping people out, and kicking people out. Do that, the restrictionists insist, and you will help resolve a host of other problems — the invasion of neighborhoods and street corners by Latino men; the upsurge of gangs and drugs; urban congestion and suburban sprawl; human trafficking; the demise of white European culture and values; the strain on jails, hospitals and schools, and the threat to the very stability of the United States.

 

It's no wonder some people compare immigrant workers to locusts, bacteria or an occupying army. If you could find a 250-year-old American to discuss this, he or she would tell you how familiar this all sounds. Identical arguments were once made about Chinese laborers, Japanese-Americans, Roman Catholics, the Irish, Italians, and the original unloved — though fully documented — outsiders, African-Americans. Let's not even talk about American Indians.

 

II. The Disturbing Role Played by Fear

 

Many of those who favor a get-tough approach to immigration do not like having their arguments mocked and their tolerance questioned. They hate being dumped into the loony bin with Colonel Custer, the Know-Nothings and the Ku Klux Klan.

 

That is understandable. But xenophobia is not restricted to a fringe element within the anti-immigration movement. Panicky arguments about the dangers of immigration have been made by supposedly responsible people — including members of the United States House and Senate, and state, county and local officials around the country. United States Representative Tom Tancredo of Colorado may be the best-known xenophobe in Congress. He created an immigration caucus to further his firebrand views. It now has about 100 members and a Web site that is a one-stop shop for fear-stricken anti-immigration arguments.

 

One member of Mr. Tancredo's caucus is John Culberson of Houston, who issued a "Border Security Alert" last October warning that "Al Qaeda terrorists and Chinese nationals are infiltrating our country virtually anywhere they choose from Brownsville to San Diego." Besides that, he said, "a large number of Islamic individuals have moved into homes in Nuevo Laredo and are being taught Spanish to assimilate with the local culture."

 

Because of that, Mr. Culberson said, "Full scale war is underway on our southern border, and our entire way of life is at risk if we do not win the battle for Laredo."

 

The view of America as a nation under siege led the United States House last December to pass an immigration bill, sponsored by James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, that sees the problem as entirely an issue of enforcement. It would make it a federal crime to live in the United States illegally, which would turn millions of immigrants into felons, ineligible to win any legal status. It would also make it a crime for churches and social service agencies to shield or offer support to illegal immigrants. The debate in the Senate over immigration reform had its own low moments, including the successful passage of a non-sequitur amendment by Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma to declare English the country's national language — an undisguised swipe at Latino immigrants and their supposed reluctance to assimilate. A guest-worker program in the Senate bill was sharply scaled back after the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, issued a report warning that if the bill as written passed, the country could end up swamped with up to 193 million new legal immigrants within 20 years. That number, greater than the populations of Mexico and Central America combined, was hysterically off the charts. The bill was hastily amended and the estimates revised downward to a still unrealistic 66 million, or 47 million if you count only net new arrivals, not people already here who would be legalized.(The Congressional Budget Office, by contrast, projects 8 million net new migrants over the next 10 years under the Senate bill. The National Foundation for American Policy, counting newcomers and immigrants already here, studied the Senate bill and came up with a figure of 28.48 million over 20 years, or 1.42 million a year. That's a lot, but far less than the anti-immigration number masseurs would have you believe.)

 

If you dig into the widely discussed arguments connecting immigrants to things like rampant overpopulation or the demise the English language, you will discern the influence of any number of hard-line restrictionist immigration organizations. Scratch those groups, and underneath you will usually find a kook. There are usually not many degrees of separation from ostensibly rational, often-quoted organizations like the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which calls itself a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to research and policy study, and people like its co-founder John Tanton. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, says that Mr. Tanton, a retired Michigan eye doctor, "is widely recognized as the leading figure in the anti-immigration and 'official English' movements in the United States."

 

A profile on the law center's Web site says: "In addition to FAIR, where he still is a board member, Tanton has been a central player in an array of anti-immigrant, nationalist groups and institutes, including Pro English, U.S. Inc., Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), U.S. English, and Numbers USA."

 

Who is this Mr. Tanton? He is someone who has depicted Latino immigrants as a horde of alarmingly procreative Roman Catholics of questionable "educability," and who runs a publishing company, Social Contract Press, that sells titles on immigration topics like "The Camp of the Saints," that have been denounced as racist and vile.

 

The Anti-Defamation League, in a 2000 report on FAIR, traced its nativist roots and offered what it called "a glimpse into how advocacy can cross the line into a divisive and troubling tendency toward scapegoating of the foreign born." It's worth reading.

 

FAIR and its allies are hardly the only hard-core immigration foes out there, and their more unprintable opinions would be rejected passionately by great numbers of people in the enforcement-only immigration camp. But their influence is still significant: their arguments mirror the immigration talking points of many leading conservatives. And it shows just how much of the current panic has its source not in people's gray matter, but in their viscera.

 

III. An Array of Too-Costly Solutions

 

The restrictionists have a variety of clear-cut solutions. But the reassurance they offer those who worry about immigration is a false one, for a simple reason: their price tags are simply too costly for them to be seriously considered. Anyone who seriously proposes them is engaging in little more than demagoguery.

 

Take the restrictionists' favorite solution: deporting 'em all. It is a straw man in the debate, because only the most rabid talk-show callers would be willing to pay that price — $200 billion or more, at least double the Department of Homeland Security budget. And that cost does not even count the psychic toll it would take on our nation to rip immigrants out of homes and workplaces and schools and eject them. As unlikely as we would be to pay this cost once, it is even less likely we would be willing to pay it again and again, as we would no doubt have to as new immigrants arrived to replace the ones who were sent home.

 

Then there is the hard-liners' other favorite solution — fortifying the border, which any restrictionist will tell you is the most urgent priority of immigration reform. Billions have already been lavished at the southern border — California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas — in walls, patrols and technology. Since 1986, the border patrol budget has been raised 10 times, and the number of border patrol agents has gone up eightfold. The House of Representatives, in its disturbingly get-tough immigration bill, wants to erect a 700-mile wall, which will fatten a few powerful contractors' bottom lines by untold millions, and President Bush has already sent in the National Guard.

 

These price tags will only seem higher when measured against results.

 

We have already spent a lot on enforcement, and have precious little to show for it. A Wall Street Journal editorial[$] titled "The Border Brigades" noted that "U.S. immigration policy at least since the passage of the Simpson-Mazzoli law in 1986 and certainly since the 1990's has emphasized 'security' above all else." But this has not slowed illegal immigration in the least. The Pew Hispanic Center reports that the population of illegal immigrants has shown "steady growth" in recent years, which is putting it mildly. In 1986, the last time the country was consumed with a debate about immigration reform, the illegal population was estimated at 3 million. Today it's 11 million to 12 million.

 

Those who are wedded to the iron-fisted approach oppose any immigration reform that would ease pressure at the border by including a temporary-worker program or granting visas to legalize people already here and their relatives waiting to enter. They will not admit, or do not understand, that they are simply insisting on throwing good money after bad.

 

IV. Local Fear and Loathing

 

America's approach to immigration has to be worthy of a nation built on immigration, and dedicated to the ideal of equality. Unfortunately, the measures that are being implemented at the local level — where most of the action is occurring — look a whole lot like bullying and bigotry.

 

Cities and counties in California, Arizona, New York and elsewhere have enacted ordinances cracking down on day laborers, the most visible and vilified members of the immigrant population. That does not mean that illegal immigrants are not being hired. It simply means the government is making their harsh lives harsher. Day laborers have been subject to police harassment and illegal evictions. And that does not include the freelance hostility and abuse directed at them by abusive contractors, regular citizens, protesters and vigilante groups like the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.

 

Other places are focusing on ripping immigrants out of the social fabric — passing rules that bar them from being helped by the society they are contributing to. In April, Gov. Sonny Perdue of Georgia

 

signed one of the harshest anti-immigration laws in the country, a package of restrictions that, among other things, requires adults seeking state benefits to prove they are here legally, and state agencies to check every employee's immigration status. Never mind that much of Georgia's economic vitality stems from the immigrants operating its textile mills, picking its peaches, preparing its meals and building and tidying its expansive suburbs.

 

Some of these outbursts are merely silly. In Danbury, Conn., the mayor has cracked down on volleyball, a favorite pastime of Ecuadoran immigrants. Nashville tried to ban taco trucks but not, tellingly, hot dog stands. Silly, but mean-spirited.

 

V. Sending In the Police

 

Others local measures are more serious. The most wrongheaded of the local crackdown impulses may be the one to enlist state and local police to enforce immigration laws. Law-enforcement officials themselves hate it. City councils and police departments around the country are resisting efforts to make them shoulder what is and should remain a federal responsibility.

 

For example, Minneapolis and St. Paul's mayors and police chiefs have spoken out against a proposal by the Minnesota governor to enlist local police officers in immigration enforcement — and they are speaking for many other mayors and police chiefs who feel the same way. Chief John Harrington of the St. Paul Police Department told the St. Paul Pioneer Press that local cops were already buried in other work — like fighting violent crime — that was more urgent than checking people's immigration papers.

 

"The City of St. Paul doesn't have enough cops to handle the load of things we already have on the books, the basic city ordinances and statutes and those egregious federal crimes — drug trafficking, kidnapping, bank robbery — that we have now," Chief Harrington said. Checking up on immigrants, he insisted, would take his officers away from tracking down serious criminals, including sex offenders. He also argued that the cost of sending 550 officers for the six months of training that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials recommend could better be used fighting crime at home.

 

There is another way cracking down on immigrants hurts, rather than helps, in the fight against crime. As Chief Harrington and many others have pointed out, local police officers — unlike their federal counterparts — need the help of the community to do their jobs. Illegal immigrants are already a hidden population. Turning local cops against them will drive them further into the shadows. This will hinder investigations — witnesses will vanish, and criminals, uncaught and unpunished, will flourish.

 

Part 2: The Harder but Better Way

 

I. A 796-Page Attempt to Do Better

 

If the hard-liners trying to kill comprehensive immigration reform are a disciplined chorus singing one note, pure and bell-clear, the other side is more like a crowd struggling to pull together the "Messiah" in a stadium sing-along. They are an alliance of the dirt-poor and powerful, of plainspoken Republicans like Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham and a lion-in-winter liberal, Edward Kennedy. They include business interests, some labor unions, editorial pages like this one and editorial pages not at all like this one. A diffident President Bush has been trying to fit in somewhere.

 

What unites these motley allies and distinguishes them from the hard-liners is their understanding that bountiful immigration is a blessing — a mixed blessing, but a blessing all the same. Their efforts to solve the problem lack clarity. They grapple with contradictions. Their approach, embodied in a 796-page brick of a Senate immigration bill, is at once punitive and forgiving. It throws money at the border but also includes a path to citizenship for many, though not all, of the illegal immigrants already here. It paves the way for millions more whose hopes of entering the country have been stymied, sometimes for decades, by bureaucratic backlogs.

 

Critics of the bill have called it unworkable and incomprehensible. They have a point. But flawed as it is, the Senate bill is the only one that acknowledges and seeks to enhance the contributions that immigrants make to this country's economy and culture. It's the only one that tries to enlist immigrants present and future, illegal and otherwise, in the job of making this country better. And therefore it is the only one with any hope of making the excruciatingly difficult and complicated cost-benefit equation of immigration end up in the black.

 

II. How Badly We Need Them

 

As a conduit for workers into this country, the existing immigration system is greatly out of balance with demand. The legal path for an unskilled worker to enter the United States is through one of about 5,000 visas issued for such workers each year, which means it is no path at all. The United States economy has adjusted, of course, by hiring temporary workers and illegal workers by the millions. The invisible hand doesn't ask for ID for the roughly 500,000 people who enter illegally each year.

 

Immigrants — legal and illegal — fill a vital niche in the American economy. They make up 12 percent of the United States population but 14 percent of its workers, according to the Congressional Budget Office. From 1994 to 2004, the agency said in a report last December, the number of foreign-born workers grew to 21 million from 13 million, a rise that accounted for more than half of the growth of the U.S. labor force. According to the American Immigration Lawyers Association, immigrants hold 40 percent of farming, fishing and forestry jobs in the United States, 33 percent of jobs in building and grounds maintenance, 22 percent of food preparation jobs and 22 percent of construction jobs. Tearing the approximately one third of those workers who are illegal away from their livelihoods and families would be ruinous to the economy, particularly the agricultural and tourism industries in states like California.

 

Throw away the arguments that immigrants are tax leeches. On the contrary. They pay more in taxes than they consume in services. They all pay sales taxes. Illegal immigrants who use fake Social Security numbers to get hired pay income and payroll taxes — but don't collect Social Security and are ineligible for Medicaid. The amount of unclaimed Social Security tax has more than doubled since the 1980's, to roughly $189 billion. Because immigrants tend to be younger and healthier than native born workers, they use government services more sparingly. A comprehensive study of immigration and its economic effects — "The New Americans: Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration," by James Smith and Barry Edmonston for the National Research Council in 1997 — summed up its conclusions this way: Because immigrants on average have less education than the native-born, they earn less and pay lower taxes. But immigrants also consume far fewer services. As a result: the average immigrant pays nearly $1,800 more in taxes than he or she costs in benefits, even when you factor in the cost of public education for his or her children.

 

The report emphasizes that the proper way to understand these expenditures is as an investment in America's future. In a country that absorbs about one million newcomers per year, each yearly cohort of immigrants pays $80 billion more in taxes over the course of a lifetime than it consumes in services. In other words, there is no economic crisis being caused by immigration — but there could be one if it came to a halt.

 

An open letter to President Bush and Congress made the rounds of the Internet last week. Signed by more than 500 economists in varied fields, including five Nobel Prize winners, it argues that immigration is a net economic gain for America and its citizens and "the greatest anti-poverty program ever devised."

 

III. Acknowledging the Costs

 

It would be wrong to argue that tighter enforcement has no place in sensible immigration reform, or that immigration does not bring with it an array of problems. There are all sorts of things that supporters of immigrants should — and do — own up to. It is not only good-hearted immigrant workers with sore feet, blisters and hungry families, for example, who pour across America's borders. Drugs, counterfeit goods and weapons do, too. No terrorists have been known to have entered from Mexico, but it could happen. If there were a realistic way of sealing the borders against all drug dealers, felons, and terrorists, we would certainly want to consider it. But there is not. Law enforcement should focus vigilantly on all of these, but the border is not where those battles will be won.

 

There is one conundrum of illegal immigration that is very real: the cost it imposes on people who would compete for jobs with undocumented low-skilled immigrants. It stands to reason — how could a job market absorb so many new people and not see wages fall? An often-cited study by two Harvard economists, George J. Borjas and Lawrence F. Katz, found that from 1980 to 2000, a wave of illegal immigration from Mexico had reduced the wages of high school dropouts in the United States by 8.2 percent.

 

But that study gave only a partial picture. It failed to account for the economic growth that immigrants cause — the many jobs that cheap immigrant labor creates, and the gaping demographic niche it fills. As Eduardo Porter pointed out in The Times in April, "Over the last quarter-century, the number of people without any college education, including high school dropouts, has fallen sharply. This has reduced the pool of workers who are most vulnerable to competition from illegal immigrants."

 

This is no consolation to the janitor in Los Angeles who has seen his job disappear, or the by-the-book contractor who can't compete with the fly-by-night operation that hires — and underpays and exploits — illegal day laborers by the truckload. Any serious attempt at immigration reform has to grapple with the fact that many Americans — young black men, among others — who have been overlooked and shunned in the job market for generations will likely continue to be overlooked. That is especially true as the economy hums along through the energy of immigrants, many of them illegal. If immigration decreases costs and increases the national prosperity, we need to find a way to make sure that those gains are shared with those on the low rungs of the economic ladder.

 

IV. Anger on the Ground

 

Farmingville, a working-class community on Long Island that has been utterly transformed by Latino immigration, is a prime example of the challenges that burgeoning immigration poses and the resentment it inspires. Longtime residents became acutely aware of the presence of dozens of Latino men on street corners and piling up in illegally subdivided rooming houses. This was a clear example of globalization at the local level, and to many in Farmingville the costs were obvious and unacceptable. Young men crowding the 7-Eleven parking lot, intimidating women and girls with sexually aggressive catcalls. Men urinating in the street, loitering and generally creating a nuisance of themselves. You couldn't talk to these people, and you couldn't make them go away.

 

They were the visible manifestation of broken borders, and some aggrieved people took it on themselves to solve the problem. They beat up workers and firebombed their homes. They held signs and marched. They harassed and heckled day laborers, they wrote letters and had meetings.

 

The Farmingville conflict is being repeated, in different forms, in communities across the United States. But the anti-immigrant activists in Farmingville accomplished nothing, unless you consider waging a successful battle against the creation of a day-labor hiring site a success. Five years after the furor erupted and became the subject of a well-regarded documentary, Farmingville has as many day laborers as ever. It doesn't have a hiring site.

 

V. The Cost Abroad

 

There are many books that document the hardship for Latinos migrating to El Norte. The book "Coyotes" by Ted Conover, a white journalist with a fondness for living his stories, is a good one. In villages where most of the young men go abroad, the result is a a reliable stream of remittances to their hometowns — $25.5 billion in 2003, according to the Congressional Budget Office — which is a vital source of revenue for poor countries.

 

But it also means that communities, particularly small ones in the south of Mexico and Central America, lose their brightest, best and strongest men and women for months or years at a time. The energy that could be expended in making a community grow or a local business prosper is spent in another country, and while cash is welcome, it is often a poor substitute for having children and spouses at home, as the toll in broken families attests.

 

VI. Uncertain Possibilities

 

The current immigration "system," if you can call it that, is broken. It's rich in perversities. So is the effort to fix it.

 

The House bill is simply noxious. The Senate alternative has some serious flaws. It attempts to divide the population of illegal immigrants into three groups, being relatively gentle on some immigrants and tough on others, depending on how many years they have been here. Millions of newer arrivals will have to volunteer to leave the country — to report to be deported. It's hard to imagine that a significant majority of them will ever do so. But in any case, it seems highly unlikely the full Congress could, in the current climate, pass anything as good as the Senate bill.

 

A significant number of pro-immigrant groups have already concluded that doing nothing — passing no immigration bill this year — would be better than passing some awkward hybrid of the existing Senate and House bills.

 

They may be right. With elections looming in November, the get-tough argument may have the upper hand. It is an approach supported by a majority of the House, backed up by thousands of constituents who have been making phone calls and mailing bricks (yes, actual bricks) to their elected representatives to drive the point home. But it's foolish to think that walling off America and reforming immigration through enforcement alone is anything but self-defeating.

 

It's not only because the costs of security are so high, or because the contributions that legal and illegal immigrants make to this country are so positive. Those who have been working as hard as the hard-liners have been to close this country off to people who came here to seek work and a future have a radically astringent vision of what this country should be. To militarize the border, to turn illegal immigrants into felons, means trying to reverse the polarity on the American magnet, to repel the people who have struggled, dreamed and died to get here.

 

It means turning this singular country into just another industrial power with a declining birthrate and a self-defeating antagonism to the foreign born. It means defining down what America stands for, no matter what the cost to the American economy, its traditions and values and moral standing.

 

It's dangerous. It's not rational. But the argument on the restrictionist side isn't about being rational. It's about being afraid.

 

Lela Moore contributed research for this article.

 

June 26, 2006

 

Triad -

Triad -- BB&T Corporation (NYSE:BBT) today said it will begin offering free international money transfers throughout its banking network covering more than 1,400 financial centers.EasySend (or "EnvioFacil") previously was available only at one of BB&T's 135 designated Hispanic Banking Centers for a $5 remittance fee and a $5 account opening fee. BB&T is now waiving the fees for clients who have a checking account, savings account or payroll card with BB&T.

Introduced in 2004, the money transfer product was originally designed primarily for Hispanic immigrants who regularly send money back to family in their native country.

It has since evolved into a popular product for immigrants from anywhere in the world, a competitive advantage in the $110 billion global remittance market over financial institutions focused only on Hispanic countries, BB&T officials said.

"EasySend allows clients from all over the world to conveniently and safely transfer funds," said Scott Qualls, Deposit Access Products manager. "They can even bring cash to a BB&T branch for a transfer. And now they can also do that for free at any financial center in our footprint - from Maryland to Florida and west to Kentucky.

"We look forward to continuing to meet our clients' immediate money transfer needs in a high quality fashion and building long-term financial relationships over time."

Once an EasySend account is set up, clients will typically mail their family a packet with an ATM card and instructions on how to pick up cash from any Visa Plus ATM worldwide using a personal identification number (PIN). BB&T is also now waiving the 2 percent ATM withdrawal fee for clients with a BB&T checking account, savings account or payroll card.

"At BB&T, our focus with money transfers is much broader than Mexico and the rest of Latin America," said Jorge Moller, BB&T's Multicultural Markets manager. "Our EasySend product is open to everyone who needs to send a money transfer, regardless of their country of origin. We felt it was important to be a global player in the remittance business.

"The demand is certainly already there and now that we've eliminated the fees, the product is more accessible and will only continue to grow in popularity."

EasySend allows clients to open an account with cash. Or if they already have a BB&T account, they can transfer funds directly into an EasySend account. Accounts can have a maximum balance of $2,500 each month. The minimum deposit is $25; the maximum is $1,000.

Winston-Salem, N.C.-based BB&T Corporation and its subsidiaries offer full-service commercial and retail banking and additional financial services such as insurance, investments, retail brokerage, corporate finance, consumer finance, payment services, international banking, leasing and trust.

BB&T operates more than 1,400 financial centers in the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Indiana and Washington, D.C.

With $110 billion in assets, BB&T Corp. is the nation's ninth largest financial holding company. More information about BB&T Corp. is available at www.BBT.com.

WALL STREET JOURNAL: Public Warms to Bush Immigration Stance

Republicans Are Unlikely to Benefit in November Amid Weak Poll Results for Congress, President

By JOHN HARWOOD
June 15, 2006; Page A4

WASHINGTON -- Add this to the list of things that have gone right lately for President Bush: Americans appear to be drawing closer to his view on the immigration debate.

But that hasn't alleviated the squeeze on Republican candidates in the fall elections. A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows that the party's conservative electoral base remains at odds with broader public opinion on the issue, including sentiment of the nation's swelling Latino population.

By 50%-33%, the survey shows, Americans support the views expressed by President Bush and also by businesses, Hispanics and Democratic leaders: that steps to strengthen border security should be combined with a guest-worker program for prospective immigrants and those who have been in the U.S. for at least two years. Yet a 44% plurality of conservatives back an agenda combining border security and deportation of illegal immigrants -- making it difficult for Republican politicians to embrace the majority opinion.

IN THE POLLS

 

¹ • The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll ²
 
• Track Bush's approval ratings³
 

On immigration, President Bush "is where the American public is," says Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who helps conduct the Journal/NBC survey. "The difficulty is, the base of the Republican Party is marching in the other direction."

Moreover, conservatives are disproportionately likely to say immigration will be important to their vote. Among Americans calling immigration a top-tier issue, 72% say they are more likely to back a candidate seeking a fence along the Mexican border, while just 37% say they are more likely to support one who favors a guest-worker program.

Mr. Hart's Republican counterpart, Bill McInturff, adds that the guidance Republican lawmakers will take from the findings is "don't blink" from the tough border-security position staked out by the House in negotiations with the more-moderate Senate. Yet that strategy could prove self-defeating, if it sinks prospects for a compromise, because the poll also shows that conservatives will be most upset if Congress doesn't act. The survey of 1,002 adults, conducted June 9-12, has a margin for error of 3.1 percentage points.

Republicans and Mr. Bush are both ill-positioned to suffer further political setbacks. The poll, conducted before Bush adviser Karl Rove was cleared of potential charges in the Central Intelligence Agency leak case but after U.S. forces killed Iraq's al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi, showed Mr. Bush's overall job-approval rating essentially unchanged at 37%.

Optimism about the war edged up slightly, with 53% of Americans saying that Mr. Zarqawi's death would improve the situation in Iraq at least a little. But Americans no longer share the president's assertion that "I made the right decision" to go to war in the first place. A 53% majority calls attacking Iraq "the wrong decision," while 41% side with Mr. Bush.

A 61% majority called things in America "off on the wrong track," more than twice the 27% who said things are headed in the right direction." Approval of Congress remained at an abysmal level -- 23% -- while Americans sided with Democrats on most opinion measures. By 49%-38%, respondents said they want Democrats rather than Republicans to control Congress after November's elections.

The contours of individual congressional districts make it difficult for Democrats to translate such advantages into the 15 seats they need to recapture control of the House; Democrats must gain six seats to regain a Senate majority. But the poll suggests that Republicans' 2006 woes are both broad and deep.

By 51%-36%, Americans say they worry less about a different Democratic direction than about the possibility that Republicans remain in power and keep the same policies. And they prefer Democrats by a wide margin on issues such as health care, gasoline prices and the economy, while traditional Republican advantages on values and terrorism have shrunk.

Five months before Election Day, Democrats also enjoy an edge on voter intensity. Some 60% of self-described Democrats expressed a very high level of interest in fall elections, compared with 52% of self-described Republicans.

One early source of solace for the president's party is that such a differential didn't fuel outsize Democratic turnout in last week's special House election in California won by Republican Brian Bilbray. In part, that may be because neither of America's main political parties currently enjoys a good reputation. While the Republican Party is viewed negatively by 47%-34%, so is the Democratic Party by 39%-35%.

"Somebody has to win this," Mr. McInturff says. But "if there were a 'none of the above' option, people would seriously consider it."

The economy -- an issue Republicans, as the governing party, hoped to capitalize on -- is providing little traction. Reminded of a host of positive statistics on job growth, overall growth and tax cuts, just one in four Americans say those reflect their personal view of the economy.

Even among Americans earning more than $75,000 a year, just one-third embrace the positive view. The top economic concerns cited by respondents: health-care and education costs, gas prices, the federal budget deficit and inflation.

Mr. Bush has fared better in the debate over immigration, which now trails only the Iraq war as a top-priority national issue for voters as a whole. Among Republicans, it outranks even Iraq in importance.

The survey indicates that Mr. Bush has achieved his goal of "a civil debate" on the issue, despite the cultural, social and economic passions aroused by the presence of 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. In December, Americans by 53%-37% said immigration hurts the country more than it helps.

Today, despite predictions of a backlash from demonstrations this spring demanding immigrants' rights, the public is more evenly split. Some 44% say immigration helps the country, while 45% say it hurts.

Moreover, Americans in all regions of the country back the approach supported by Mr. Bush and embodied in recent Senate legislation calling for a 370-mile fence on parts of the Mexican border and a guest-worker program. Conservatives -- almost alone among age, income and demographic categories -- prefer the House approach of building 700 miles of fencing and deporting illegal immigrants.

Write to John Harwood at john.harwood@wsj.com

 

Immigration fix may not pass by election

 

By Charles Hurt

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Published June 20, 2006

 

     House leaders cast doubt yesterday on the possibility of passing

immigration reform legislation this year and said, in an unusual

move, that they will hold hearings across the country to gauge voter

concern on the topic.

     "I'm not putting any timeline on this thing, but I think we need

to get this thing done right," House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of

Illinois told reporters yesterday.

     Immigration legislation has been stalled for nearly a month over

deep opposition by House Republicans to the Senate's proposal, which

provides a path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal

aliens now in the U.S. The House last year approved a bill to secure

the border without dealing with the current illegal alien population

or the "guest worker" program President Bush wants.

     Mr. Hastert has instructed Homeland Security Committee Chairman

F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin and other chairmen who

oversee immigration-related legislation to hold field hearings to

determine exactly what voters want.

     "We want to have hearings on this bill," he said. "I've asked the

various chairmen to go out and have hearings so we understand what

the American people are saying."

     Among the sharpest criticisms of the Senate bill are that it

grants Social Security benefits to illegals for work they performed

here illegally, that it requires illegals to pay just three of five

years in back taxes and that it could lead to 100 million new legal

immigrants during the next 20 years.

     Polls show that voters overwhelmingly want Congress to secure the

border and that they oppose granting illegals a path to citizenship.

     Asked if he would rule out putting a bill on the House floor that

included a path to citizenship, Mr. Hastert said: "I'm not ruling out

anything right now. I'm just saying that our number one priority is

to secure the border, and right now I haven't heard a lot of pressure

to have a path to citizenship."

     Mr. Hastert avoided any timetable for getting a bill done this

year, but members of Congress in both chambers told The Washington

Times last week that they are growing increasingly doubtful that the

thorny issue can get addressed before the November elections.

     "If this legislation is ready to pass in September, then we'll

pass it," he said, "but we're not going to pass it before it's ready."

--

 

June 18, 2006

Economic View

NY Times

Immigration Math: It's a Long Story

By DANIEL ALTMAN

MUCH of today's debate about immigration revolves around the same old questions: How much do immigrants contribute to production? Do they take jobs away from people born in the United States? And what kinds of social services do they use? Yet every immigrant represents much more than just one worker or one potential citizen. To understand fully how immigration will shape the economy, you can't just look at one generation — you have to look into the future.

Sociologists and economists are just beginning to study the performance of second- and third-generation members of immigrant families. Because of the variety of experiences of people from different countries and cultures, it's not easy to generalize. But recent research has already uncovered some pertinent facts.

Education is a good place to start, because it's strongly correlated with future earnings. Children of immigrants complete more years of education than their native-born counterparts of similar socioeconomic backgrounds. "You can expect a child of immigrants whose parents have 10 years of education to do a lot better than a child of natives whose parents have 10 years of education," said David Card, a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley. Being a child of immigrants, he said, "sort of boosts your drive."

As a whole, though, the second generation also tends to move toward the American average, Professor Card said. Some graduate from high school even though their parents didn't, but some whose parents have doctorates will earn only bachelor's degrees.

Still, it can take several generations for poor immigrant families to catch up to American norms. "For the largest immigrant group — that is Mexicans and Mexican-Americans — the picture is progress, but still lagging behind other Americans," said Hans P. Johnson, a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. "They're doing much better than their parents, graduating from high school, but they still have very low graduation rates from college."

But despite the lag in education, Mr. Johnson said, Mexican immigrants and their families don't have much trouble finding jobs. "One of the paradoxes of Mexican immigration is that you have these workers with low skills but incredibly high employment rates," he said. "The second generation isn't able to maintain employment levels that are quite so high, but they're basically in the same ballpark."

Second generations of immigrant families are managing to climb the skills ladder, too. A recent survey by the Census Bureau reveals that 40 percent of the female workers and 37 percent of the male workers in the second generation took professional or management positions, up from 30 and 24 percent, respectively, in the first generation. The survey, taken in 2004, included many adults whose parents came to the United States decades ago, noted William H. Frey, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington who compiled data from the survey. With more recent immigrants, he said, it's possible that lower education rates may eventually lead to worse outcomes.

Other factors could also make success more difficult for today's children of immigrants, compared with those of the past.

One is increased competition. The children of Italians and Poles who came to the United States around the turn of the 20th century didn't face much of it, because the government imposed quotas on immigration after their parents arrived, said Roger Waldinger, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. By contrast, the children of recent arrivals face competition from successive waves of immigrants from numerous regions.

Inequality of income and wealth is another factor that could affect opportunities. "The second generation of Italians and Poles came of age in an era of historically low inequality," Professor Waldinger said. "The second generation of Mexican immigrants is coming of age in an era of historically high inequality, and that has to work to the disadvantage of those with low levels of schooling."

But there are also forces working in the opposite direction. For one thing, the children of today's immigrants will have much better access to education and the labor market than those of a century ago. "It almost certainly will be the case that tomorrow's third generation will have better outcomes than today's third generation," Mr. Johnson said. "The conditions today are better in terms of educational opportunities."

Adding to that, members of several immigrant groups have often risen quickly to — or even started at — the top of the wage scale. Professor Waldinger said that "the median for Indian immigrants is 16 years of schooling" and that, on balance, "the Indians, the Koreans, the Chinese — they're already successful." One reason, he added, is that society is "much more open to outsiders" in top jobs and at elite colleges than it ever was before.

EVEN if successive generations of immigrants manage to become as economically successful as native-born Americans, a big question will remain: How many people do we really want in the United States? From the standpoint of government fiscal policy, Professor Card said, you could argue that the only immigrants you'd want in the United States were those "whose children are going to get Ph.D.'s" and would therefore be economically productive.

Some people might argue that a larger population raises housing prices and causes more pollution, he said. But there can be advantages to size, too. "If you have population growth, you can finance intergenerational transfer systems" like Social Security and Medicare, he said. And lest we forget, he said, "big countries have more power."

Mr. Frey agreed that waves of immigration could help to solidify a country's position in the world. In that respect, he said, Europe and Japan have a problem. "They have a very aging society because they don't like immigrants," he said. "They're going to end up on the back burner of the global economy."

June 15, 2006

4 Are Held in Attack on Mexican Immigrants

By JULIA C. MEAD

NY TIMES

Four Long Island teenagers claiming to be federal agents beat and robbed two Mexican immigrants fishing off a jetty Monday night after demanding to see their green cards, the authorities said yesterday. The assault, which the police said took place on a beach in Rocky Point, was the latest in a series of attacks on Latino immigrants in Suffolk County.

The four teenagers — William Foley, 16; Nicholas J. Provenzano, 19; Daniel Sturgis, 19; and Jesse Lee Ward, 18; all of Rocky Point — are non-Hispanic whites. They were charged with robbery and assault as hate crimes, both felonies, and arraigned yesterday in Suffolk County's First District Court in Central Islip.

Judge Paul Hensley ordered Mr. Sturgis held in $100,000 cash bail or $200,000 bond and the other three in $25,000 bail or $50,000 bond. All four were being held at the county jail last night.

James D'Angelo, who represented Mr. Ward and Mr. Foley in court, said all four pleaded not guilty. "They are denying involvement in this," Mr. D'Angelo said.

Violence toward Latino immigrants has erupted regularly in Suffolk.

Nearly six years ago, two white supremacists tried to kill two Mexican day laborers in Shirley. In 2003, a Mexican family's house in Farmingville was firebombed. Last year, a Latino community leader was beaten in Montauk by a man who shouted ethnic slurs. And in April a teenage neo-Nazi sympathizer chased three Latino classmates in East Hampton with a machete and a chain saw that he was revving.

The attack on Monday night occurred as the two Mexican men, whom the police did not identify, were fishing. "These men were just sitting on the jetty, minding their own business," said Sgt. Robert Reecks, head of the Police Department's hate crimes unit.

The teenagers then punched and kicked the two fishermen, stole their money, yelled racial and ethnic epithets and accused Latinos of stealing jobs from United States citizens, Sergeant Reecks said.

Witnesses heard the yelling and ran to the victims' aid, and also helped the police track down and identify the suspects, he said. The victims were not seriously injured and did not require medical attention, the police said.

June 19, 2006

Here Illegally, Working Hard and Paying Taxes

By EDUARDO PORTER

NY Times

MINNEAPOLIS — It is 5:30 in the evening as Adriana makes her way to work against a flow of people streaming out of the lattice of downtown stores and office towers here. She punches a time card, dons a uniform and sets out to clean her first bathroom of the night.

A few miles away, Ana arrives at a suburban Target store at 10 p.m. to clean the in-house restaurant for the next day's shoppers. At 5:30 the next morning, Emilio starts his rounds at the changing rooms at a suburban department store. A half-hour later, Polo rushes to clean the showers and locker room at a university here before the early birds in the pool finish their morning swim.

Adriana, 27; Ana, 27; Emilio, 48; and Polo, 52, are all illegal immigrants, denizens of one of the most easily overlooked corners of the nation's labor force and almost universally ignored by the workers, shoppers and students they clean up after.

"It's like you are invisible," Adriana said.

Invisible, perhaps, but not hidden. In contrast to the typical image of an illegal immigrant — paid in cash, working under the table for small-scale labor contractors on a California farm or a suburban construction site — a majority now work for mainstream companies, not fly-by-night operators, and are hired and paid like any other American worker.

Polo — who, like all the workers named in this article, agreed to be interviewed only if his full identity was protected — is employed by a subsidiary of ABM Industries, a publicly traded company based in San Francisco with 73,000 workers across the country and annual revenues of $2.6 billion. Emilio works for the Kimco Corporation, a large private company with 5,000 employees in 30 states and sales of about $100 million.

More than half of the estimated seven million immigrants toiling illegally in the United States get a regular paycheck every week or two, experts say. At the end of the year they receive a W-2 form. Come April 15, many file income tax returns using special ID numbers issued by the Internal Revenue Service so foreigners can pay taxes. Some even get a refund check in the mail.

And they are now present in low-skilled jobs across the country. Illegal immigrants account for 12 percent of workers in food preparation occupations, for instance, according to an analysis of census data by the Pew Hispanic Center. In total, they account for an estimated one in 20 workers in the United States.

The building maintenance industry — a highly competitive business where the company with the lowest labor costs tends to win the contract — has welcomed them with open arms. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, more than a quarter of a million illegal immigrants are janitors, 350,000 are maids and housekeepers and 300,000 are groundskeepers.

The janitorial industry has been transformed in recent years as a handful of companies have consolidated by taking over hundreds of small local operators. That activity has gone hand-in-hand with the steady advance of immigrants, legal and illegal — almost all of them Hispanic — who have been drawn into what was once an overwhelmingly American-born work force.

Adriana works for Harvard Maintenance, a New York contractor that has some 3,700 janitors and cleans landmarks like Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium. ABM Industries, Polo's employer, is the biggest contractor in Minneapolis and St. Paul, with about 35 percent of the market and a portfolio of high-profile customers that include the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport and some downtown buildings.

ABM is a coast-to-coast force in the business, responsible for cleaning a virtual Who's Who of the nation's best-known buildings, at one time even including the World Trade Center in New York, where several illegal janitors died on 9/11.

Despite a murky legal status, ABM hired Polo just as it would hire any other worker. His wife and daughter — who already worked at the university — recommended him to their supervisor, who collected Polo's application and paperwork, gave him an ABM uniform and put him on the payroll. He makes $11.75 an hour, has health insurance and gets two weeks of paid vacation every year.

The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 made it a crime for companies to knowingly hire illegal immigrants. Employers say they do their utmost to comply.

"We don't ever knowingly hire undocumented workers," said Amy Polakow, a spokeswoman for Kimco.

Harvard Maintenance issued a statement: "While we are dismayed that an employee allegedly has submitted fraudulent documentation," it said, "we screen all new hires and make sure they provide proper paperwork."

Buying the Documents

A written statement from ABM said that "if an individual were found to have presented falsified work authorization documents to gain employment, their employment would be terminated."

Still, in many cities it would be hard to put together a cleaning crew without resorting to an illegal work force.

Adriana used to work for ABM too, she said. But last year Harvard Maintenance, a rival contractor that entered the Minneapolis market two years ago, won the contract to clean her building. Adriana guesses that except for a couple of legal immigrants from Ecuador and a couple of Somalis, the rest of the three dozen or so janitors on her shift are illegal immigrants.

And when the contractor changed, the work force in her building did not. "All the workers," Adriana said, "are the same ones."

Illegal immigrants operate in a kind of parallel employment universe, structured in many ways like the legal job market but with its own rules and procedures.

To begin with, acquiring the necessary documentation to work is a routine transaction these days. In Minneapolis, one only has to mill about for a few minutes in a Kmart parking lot known to immigrants and a young Guatemalan with a Patrón tequila hat will approach on his bike and quietly offer to help.

A set of Polaroid photos can be purchased for $10 at the photo outlet- sporting goods store up the street — a quick snap against a white backdrop tucked among the soccer balls and jerseys of national squads from all over the world.

The documents themselves cost $110. Within two hours of having received the photos, the Guatemalan is cycling back into the parking lot to make the drop of the ID package. It includes a green card with the customer's photo and somebody's fingerprints, along with a Social Security card, for which the number was plucked out of thin air.

Some illegal immigrants do not even need the green card. Until the late 1990's, Mexican illegal immigrants typically arrived in Minnesota with their birth certificate and Mexican voting card, which could be used to obtain a legal Minnesota state ID.

But getting a Social Security number could be a little more complicated in the old days. Lily, 38, another janitor cleaning a building downtown, knew no one in Minneapolis when she arrived illegally from Guatemala 14 years ago. So when a neighbor said she needed papers, she called the smuggler who brought her across the border at his home in Mexico.

He asked her to make up a nine-digit number, which she did by combining the date she left Guatemala and the date she arrived in the United States two months later. She sent him some photos and $75 and received her fake papers by return mail.

Documents in hand, getting a job is straightforward. A common first step for new immigrants is to apply to a temporary work agency for the first job. But as immigrant communities have grown, new arrivals have been able to tap into networks of friends, relatives and former neighbors to help them navigate the United States and jump straight into a permanent job.

When Adriana and her sister arrived in Minneapolis from Mexico in 1998, their mother was waiting for them. She paid the smuggling fee of $1,700 per person and helped Adriana into her first job at the building where she worked and where she knew the supervisor well.

"You know, it's the chain," Adriana said. "I just got a job in my building for a cousin."

In some industries with many illegal immigrants, like construction, farming and landscaping, employers often turn to labor contractors to assemble crews of workers — transferring onto them the responsibility of checking the paperwork. That helps establish deniability in case of an immigration raid.

By contrast, the big building maintenance contractors do much of the hiring themselves. But some still distance themselves from the job market itself by delegating hiring to supervisors in individual buildings — often immigrants themselves — who will receive the job applications, help fill in official documents and copy supporting papers.

Adriana said she never had to step into ABM's offices, which are across the Mississippi River from downtown Minneapolis. She said that the supervisor knew she did not have proper papers.

Cheaper Labor

Starting about 30 years ago, as illegal immigration began to swell, building maintenance contractors in big immigrant hubs like Los Angeles started hiring the new immigrant workers as part of a broader effort to drive down labor costs. Unions for janitors fell apart as landlords shifted to cheaper nonunion contractors to clean their buildings. Wages fell and many American-born workers left the industry.

Between 1970 and 2000, the share of Hispanic immigrants among janitors in Los Angeles jumped from 10 percent to more than 60 percent, according to a forthcoming book by Ruth Milkman, a sociologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, titled "L.A. Story: Work, Immigration and Unionism in America's Second City." (Russell Sage Foundation, August 2006.)

The pattern repeated itself as immigrants spread throughout the rest of the country. By 2000, Hispanic immigrants made up nearly 1 in 5 janitors in the United States, according to Ms. Milkman's research, up from fewer than 1 in 20 in 1980.

When the Service Employees International Union started to reorganize the industry in the late 1990's, it adapted its approach in some cities to appeal to illegal workers. For instance, union contracts in Los Angeles include clauses instructing employers to contact the union if an immigration official "appears on or near the premises" and barring the employers from revealing a worker's name or address to immigration authorities.

Building maintenance contractors and those who contract their services underscore their efforts to keep illegal immigrants off the payroll. But beyond that they are reluctant to discuss the presence of illegal immigrants in the janitorial work force.

In a statement, Target pointed out that its stores were cleaned by outside contractors. "As in the past," it read, "if we find any illegal behavior by our vendor, we will immediately terminate their contract."

Mr. Mitchell said ABM had "put in place policies, procedures and ongoing managerial training for compliance with immigration law." Harvard Maintenance's statement added that "we believe our screening programs currently in place are among the best in the building services industry."

For all these efforts, however, it is remarkably easy for illegal immigrants to get a regular, above-board job.

The law requires employers to make workers fill out I-9 "employment eligibility" forms and provide documents to prove they are legally entitled to work.

But the employers benefit from one large loophole: they are not expected to distinguish between a fake ID and the real thing. To work, illegal immigrants do not need to come up with masterpieces of ID fraud, only something that looks plausible. "To bring a criminal prosecution we need to show an employer knowingly hired an illegal immigrant," said Dean Boyd, a spokesman at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the branch of the Department of Homeland Security that enforces immigration rules. " 'Knowingly' is the key word."Yet the standard of plausibility is not particularly tight. "Some of these documents are so visibly wrong that you don't need to be an expert on what a Social Security card looks like," said Michael Mahdesian, chairman of the board of Servicon Systems, a private contractor that cleans aerospace and defense facilities as well as office buildings in California, Arizona and New Mexico.

Mr. Mahdesian said Servicon was more careful than other contractors — forced by the nature of its clients in the military industry to make more rigorous checks to keep illegal immigrants out. But he said that each time Servicon took over a cleaning contract in a new office building, it found that 25 percent to 30 percent of the workers it inherited from the previous contractor were working illegally, and had to let them go.

"Most companies in this industry doing commercial office buildings take the view that it is not their job to be the immigration service," Mr. Mahdesian said.

Companies have little to fear. The penalty for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants includes up to six months in jail — or up to five years in particularly egregious cases — and fines that range from $275 to $11,000 for each worker. Yet fines are typically negotiated down, and employers are almost always let off the hook. Only 46 people were convicted in 2004 for hiring illegal immigrants; the annual number has been roughly the same for the last decade.

In a rare raid, about 50 illegal workers — including a handful of ABM janitors — were arrested at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport in 2002, according to Tim Counts, a spokesman for the Minnesota office of immigration and customs enforcement. With one exception — the Wok & Roll Chinese restaurant in the airport terminal — no charges were brought against the companies that hired them, Mr. Counts said.

Pushing for Unionization

Despite becoming a fixture of the labor market, illegal immigrants remain vulnerable at work. Wages declined as illegal immigrants entered the janitorial labor pool. Janitors' median earnings fell by 3 percent in real terms between 1983 and 2002, when the Labor Department changed the definitions of building maintenance jobs and other occupations.

Meanwhile, earnings across all occupations rose by 8 percent, after accounting for inflation. Though unionization has helped push janitors wages back up in many cities, they remain lower in markets with many illegal immigrants in the labor force.

In New York City, janitors cleaning commercial buildings make $19 an hour. Mike Fishman, president of the Service Employees International Union's local in New York, points out that the union never lost ground in the city, and it is still unusual to find illegal immigrants cleaning office buildings there.

In Southern California, by contrast, unions were decimated in the 1980's, and only started recovering in the late 1990's. According to Mike Garcia, president of the union's main local in the state, Southern California's unionized janitors earn between $8.50 and $11 an hour.

Unscrupulous employers still victimize illegal workers frequently. Veronica, a 39-year old illegal immigrant from Mexico, had been working for a temporary employment agency for about a year, crating boxes of beauty products for Aveda, when the agency fired her, then rehired her under a different Social Security number to avoid paying her for the vacation time she had earned.

"They don't want you to gain seniority," she said.

When Adriana started her cleaning job downtown, she said, the supervisor recorded her on the payroll under a different name. But rather than change the entry on ABM's payroll, he asked her to buy a set of documents with the new name — forcing her to live for years with two identities, one for work and one for everything else.

Adriana only managed to recover her real name by tagging it on as a middle name when Harvard took over the contract at her building and she reapplied for her job. Now, the name on her state ID is similar to the one on her Social Security card and paycheck.

Many get caught using bad Social Security numbers and lose their jobs. The Social Security Administration sends "no match" letters every year to about eight million workers and about 130,000 employers. Though the letter warns employers not to fire workers because of the mismatch, many do.

Lily, the Guatemalan immigrant, used to clean the offices of General Mills in suburban Minneapolis for a building contractor named Aramark. Earlier this year, she said, the company fired her and other workers, stating that it had received a letter from the government claiming the workers' Social Security numbers were wrong.

"They wanted to get rid of the people the supervisor didn't like," Lily said.

In a statement, Aramark said it "fully complies with federal laws and guidelines regarding employment eligibility, and has procedures in place to confirm employment eligibility of our employees. Should we discover that an employee does not have proper documentation, their employment with Aramark is terminated."

It added that it did not fire workers simply on receipt of a "no match" letter, but gave workers up to 90 days to fix the problem.

The one thing that illegal immigrants did not have to worry about, at least until recently, was the immigration police.

But life has been getting tougher. Minnesota, for instance, tightened its requirements to award state ID's or driver's licenses.

And, lately, immigration authorities have been pursuing illegal immigrants more aggressively. Since April, there have been high-profile raids at several work sites across the country, including IFCO Systems, a pallet and shipping container maker, where agents apprehended nearly 1,200 illegal workers and some managers.

Since Oct. 1, 2005, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has arrested more than 2,100 people in "work site enforcement investigations," compared with 1,145 for the entire previous fiscal year and 845 in fiscal 2004. It is also bringing more serious charges — such as harboring illegal immigrants and money-laundering of illicit profits — against employers who hire them.

Agents have also been sweeping through Minneapolis and other cities, seizing immigrants who had been served with deportation orders and expelling them from the country.

But immigrants adapt. Pablo Tapia, the leader of a church-based community group, has been holding tutorials for immigrants on how to avoid being deported. One rule is "don't open the door" if immigration authorities come knocking. Another is "stay calm and do not run" if agents raid the workplace.

"Just keep working," Mr. Tapia recommends. "If you run, it can be used against you in court."

In Depth: Why We Need The H-1B

The U.S. IT industry needs a free flow of talent--probably more free than we have. That'll take addressing the abuse, fear, and retraining problems that stand in the way.

By Marianne Kolbasuk McGee,  InformationWeek
June 12, 2006
URL: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=188703365

Many American IT pros won't want to hear this, but importing tech workers into the United States isn't just an economic necessity; it might be critical to saving their jobs.

Congress is giving its most serious consideration in years to increasing the number of people who can work in the United States each year under H-1B visas. Two main proposals remain on the table: Leave the cap at 65,000, or raise it to 115,000. That's a difference of only 50,000 jobs in an economy that employs about 144 million people, yet advocates maintain that the country's technological leadership hangs in the balance.

Think the United States is the only place to work? Think again, Huang says. Photo by Eric Millette

Set the visa number too low, and tech-driven U.S. companies won't get the people they need (at least not at the salaries they and their shareholders increasingly demand), so they'll be more likely to relocate those positions abroad. Set the number too high, critics maintain, and U.S. IT organizations will become glorified sweat shops, driving down salaries for all tech pros and discouraging young Americans from entering the field.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services already has enough applications for the 65,000 H-1B visas it will issue for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1--the fourth straight fiscal year the cap will be reached. And with the U.S. tech unemployment rate hovering around 3%, near its record low, and tech employment above 3.4 million, near its all-time high, expect H-1B visa demand to far exceed supply unless the cap is raised. For those U.S. employers turned away, offshoring the work to India, China, and other counties remains an attractive option, despite recent salary inflation in those countries. There's no arguing with the economics.

The H-1B cap has been moved three times since it was first set at 65,000 in 1992: up to 115,000 in 1999, up to 195,000 in 2001, and down to 65,000 in 2004. History suggests the demand for such visas isn't insatiable--the 195,000 cap was never hit, even in the boom of 2001, when companies snatched 163,600. In 2003, when U.S. IT employment bottomed out amid widespread cost-cutting, companies grabbed 78,000 H-1B visas, leaving 117,000 on the table.

There isn't an exact count of how many of the country's 3.6 million available tech workers are on H-1Bs. The visas can go to any industry, but IT companies are by far the biggest users. According to the National Foundation for American Policy, a nonprofit that advocates raising the cap, as many as 450,000 H-1B visa holders across industries may be in the United States waiting for green cards.

While the immediate point of debate is 65,000 versus 115,000, some proposals go further. One would raise the cap annually by 20% if the previous year's quota is met, and another would simplify the green-card process, making it easier for temporary foreign workers to work permanently in the United States.

While some argue passionately that these additional H-1B workers will only take jobs away from American tech workers, the opposing view is that the increase will actually create jobs. Smart foreign-born overachievers allowed to work--and perhaps stay--in the United States could help provide new ideas and expertise to drive technology innovation in this country, creating more jobs for the future. Those new jobs might require different skills than are needed today, but that's just the point: Technology is evolving, and the U.S. workforce needs to make sure it can keep up with changing demands.

The biggest long-term risk is that the United States<