Introduction

The U.S. Congress has produced two sharply different proposals for reforming the U.S. immigration system. A bill passed by the House of Representatives emphasizes enforcement efforts, including penalizing employers who hire illegal immigrants and tougher controls at the U.S.-Mexican border. The Senate bill, by contrast, would provide a path to citizenship for a majority of the estimated twelve million illegal immigrants in the country. A growing number of U.S. states have begun to act on their own, introducing measures to cut off support for illegal immigrants. Congress, meanwhile, is unlikely to grapple with a measure reconciling its two competing bills until after midterm elections in November.

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What is the state of the current national immigration debate?

Contentious and deeply divided, experts say. Public opinion polls show that most Americans are in favor of strong punitive measures to prevent and/or reduce illegal immigration. However, business leaders, policy experts, and politicians—particularly in the Senate—have proposed amnesty programs and other measures that will not cut off what they call a necessary flow of labor into the United States. “There’s a big gap between the elites and the American general public” on how to handle immigration, says Joseph Chamie, director of research at the Center for Migration Studies. Immigration is a “political hot potato in an election year,” he says. “It’s a lose-lose situation for politicians.” Most of them seem to agree; the immigration issue, originally scheduled for a vote this summer, has been pushed back until the late fall—after the midterm elections. In the meantime, the House and Senate are holding unusual public hearings on the issue.

What’s the status of the two immigration bills before Congress?

House and Senate passed competing bills on the issue that would have to be reconciled into one bill and signed by the president for any changes to take effect.

The House bill was passed in December 2005. The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act (HR 4437) reflected the anti-illegal immigration mood in the House, and proposed strong steps, including:

• Building a fence along 700 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border;
• Imposing stricter penalties on employers of illegal workers;
• Making it a felony to be an undocumented worker; and
• Making it a crime for humanitarian groups to help illegal immigrants.

The House bill would make it a felony for groups like Humane Borders and other charity organizations to give water or other assistance to illegal immigrants crossing the border from Mexico. The bill sparked massive protest rallies across the country and earned the opposition of the Catholic Church, which encouraged its adherents to defy it. Other critics said the House bill, with its focus on only one side of the immigration issue, would likely make the problem worse. “Enforcement is clearly an important part of the question, but enforcement alone is insufficient,” says Deborah W. Meyers, senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute.

After much heated debate, the Senate’s Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 was passed in May 2006. It reflected concerns about how to integrate the millions of illegal immigrants already in the United States into American life, and included measures to:

• Give illegal immigrants who have lived in the United States for more than five years a chance to apply for citizenship after paying fines and taxes;
• Allow employers to bring foreign workers into the country for six years, after which they have to return to their home country for one year;
• Reduce the size of the border fence proposed in the House bill to 370 miles;
• Increase the number of H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers; and
• Impose fines on employers of illegal workers.

Critics of the bill said it would effectively grant amnesty to more than ten million illegal immigrants, and slammed its provision to greatly increase the number of legal immigrants allowed into the United States from one million per year to five million per year. Advocates of the bill said it acknowledged the labor needs of the U.S. economy through a temporary worker program while offering a legitimate path for illegal immigrants already here to become American citizens and play an open, protected, and legitimate role in society.

What are the benefits of temporary worker programs?

Advocates of temporary or guest worker programs say they would acknowledge and legitimize a massive work force that is currently completely unregulated. While illegal immigrants work and pay taxes, they have no workplace protection and are vulnerable to exploitation or abuse. The giant pool of unregistered illegal immigrants in the United States—some twelve million—is also an enormous security risk in the age of terrorism. Proponents of guest worker programs, including many business associations, say they would honestly address the labor needs of the U.S. economy and give necessary protection to the workers who fill those needs.   

“There needs to be a legal mechanism for people to enter and work in temporary jobs,” Meyers says. She points out that many jobs—harvesting crops, for example—are seasonal, and many immigrants would like to come in, work for the season, and then return home. “Temporary worker programs are one approach, and certainly better than what we have now,” Meyers says. “If there are legal channels of entry, why in the world would you risk your life to enter illegally?” The New York Times favors guest worker programs that lead to citizenship, arguing in a March 15, 2006 editorial for “a comprehensive immigration bill, one that acknowledges that permanent guest workers, while important, are no substitute for immigrant citizens who work their way up to better jobs, pay more taxes, buy houses and consumer goods, and otherwise strengthen the social fabric.”

What are the drawbacks?

Critics of guest worker programs say they would create a permanent underclass of immigrants with no opportunity to integrate into society and no access to the privileges and responsibilities of citizenship. They say a guest worker program is effectively an amnesty that would reward people who broke the law by coming to America illegally, and claim it would encourage further illegal immigration. Some also say the programs are doomed to fail. “To expect someone to work here for six years and then go back—it’s not going to happen,” Chamie says. “It didn’t work in Germany or France, and it won’t work here.”

What other elements are required for effective reform of illegal immigration?

Experts stress that many changes to the current system are needed, including cracking down on employers who employ illegal immigrants. Last year, only three employers were cited for employing illegal immigrants. Tamar Jacoby, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, argues for a national Social Security registry that employers could use to find out if potential employees are authorized to work in the United States (PDF). In addition, many experts argue for increasing the numbers of visas for skilled workers and eliminating the backlog in processing visas. Only if many steps are combined—stronger border control efforts, workplace enforcement, increased visas, and some kind of path for illegal immigrants to earn citizenship—will the problem be brought under control, experts say. “We have to do all these things together. They’re all intertwined and necessary,” Meyers says.

What’s the political mood regarding immigration?

The issue is a highly sensitive one in an election year, with many experts saying the House bill passed because members of Congress wanted to show their constituents that they are tough on immigration. Others say that while most people share the goal of reducing illegal immigration, they do not agree on what to do about it. “Everyone agrees: we want people to come in legally, not illegally,” Meyers says. “But simply putting up more walls or adding border agents—without addressing the flaws in our system—is not responsible policy-making.”

What are the chances that substantive immigration reform will be passed by this Congress?

“My guess is that the House bill and the Senate bill won’t be able to be reconciled,” Chamie says. “The political concerns have undermined any rational program.” In any event, skittish members of Congress appear to have punted the issue until after the elections. It’s possible the issue could be resolved between the elections and January 2007, when new members are sworn in—but the political divisiveness of the issue makes this another fraught prospect for politicians, experts say. All told, the chances for reform are “certainly possible, but you wouldn’t want to be naïvely confident,” Jacoby says.

What is likely to emerge from the immigration debate?

Potentially, nothing. “In the short run, it will likely be the status quo,” Chamie says. “No enforcement, no guest worker program, and increasing numbers of illegal immigrants.” But Jacoby says there is pressure on politicians to act. “There’s a lot of momentum to do something,” she says. “The system’s broken, and voters are frustrated. Unlike in the past, [legislators] are afraid to go home and face their constituents without voting on it.” Meyers hopes the debate at least sparks an honest discussion about the multitude of issues—including education policy, health care, and the makeup of American society—affected by immigration policy. “There will always be some sort of immigration flow,” says Meyers. “But we want it to be regulated by the U.S. government and not smugglers.”