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| Immigration Policy | ||
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The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
—Emma Lazarus, engraved on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty
More than a decade after Proposition 187 bitterly divided Californians, immigration policy1 has emerged as an issue on the national political agenda. Thus, before we can focus on California’s unique subtext of dealing with its own “immigrant experience,” we should pay homage to the fact that in the end, given our constitutional design, immigration is ultimately a federal issue.
The United States admits more immigrants across its borders than any other nation—more, in fact, than all other nations combined. Immigration has always played a significant role in U.S. population growth; it is estimated that one-third of the nation’s annual population increase results from immigration.2 Immigrants and their children account for more than 60 million people, or one-fifth of all U.S. residents.
By 2050, if today’s projections are borne out, one-third of all Americans will be either Asian or Latino.3
Advanced globalization has exacerbated the “push–pull” phenomenon as labor markets and economic conditions both in the U.S. and surrounding nations have intensified. The rapid de-ruralization in many developing countries combined with the deep thirst for low-skilled cheap labor to fill jobs in the U.S. workforce (that American natives have avoided) has preoccupied public policymakers. During economic booms, unauthorized immigration can be tolerated or even tacitly encouraged; during recessions and heightened globalization, legal and illegal immigrants alike can be blamed for national and state problems they may have contributed to only indirectly.
The forces of globalization have provided much of the “push.” For example, average U.S. wages for production workers in manufacturing are about 8 times higher than in Mexico.4 On the “pull” side, many U.S. employers are eager to hire them. The vast majority of illegal immigrants work in the “shadow employment market.” One estimate is that 75 percent of adult illegal immigrants are in the workforce.5 Research on illegal immigrants’ patterns also demonstrated a family “pull” on joining relatives already in this country—as they provide shelter, support, and contentment of unification.
The other new reality affecting the debate on immigration reform is the spill-down of living in a post-9/11 era. Border vulnerabilities and international terrorism have replaced the older concerns that overly porous borders let in narco-traffickers and the criminal element with our past waves of illegal immigrants. We are in a new world of truth or fiction, where Islamic fundamentalists sneak into the United States disguised as Mexicans. Will our border fixation (southern, not northern) bring a more sane and rational reform of our immigration policy? If the history of the past 20 years in border enforcement is any indicator, it has produced no visible or tangible effect. Will expanding the Border Patrol or sending state National Guard units to patrol our borders stop real terrorists, or have we just demonized illegal immigrants fleeing economic (and in some cases political) oppression?
In his second term, President George W. Bush made immigration reform one of his highest policy priorities. However, he was working against a backdrop of fickle public attitudes and strange alliances (e.g., the Farm Bureau and the ACLU) and xenophobic elements within both political parties that converged to either kill or advance a comprehensive immigration reform package. Along with this goes the fact that the fates of 11 or 12 million illegal immigrants are being held in abeyance.
In 2006 the Senate leadership (both majority and minority members) banded together to push Bush’s reform overhaul measure through various means that were to appease the various contentious interests surrounding immigration reform. The vehicle was a bipartisan bill sponsored by Republican Arlen Spector and Democrat Edward M. Kennedy that was to advance the president’s agenda by creating a guest worker program, an “earned legalization program” (which some critics call an amnesty program in disguise), and a stronger work-site enforcement program; stiffening criminal penalties for those caught smuggling immigrants; and tightening border security. In May 2006 President Bush proposed a plan to place up to 6,000 National Guard troops along the border with Mexico for at least one year.6
As 2006 midterm elections approached and the Senate package of reform measures was making its way to the House of Representatives, serious doubts arose, mostly in the ranks of House Republican leaders. “We are going to listen to the American people, and we are going to get a bill that is right,” said Speaker J. Dennis Hastert.7 Representative Duncan Hunter, a Republican from San Diego, declared that the county was under siege and demanded federal dollars for a 15-foot-high wall to separate Mexico and the United States. Governors of Arizona and New Mexico declared states of emergency along the border, complaining that their repeated pleas for additional Border Patrol officers and federal money to defray the costs of illegal immigration in their states had been ignored by Washington.
In April of that year, immigrants and their supporters in the labor movement, civil rights organizations, and faith groups have banned together in a massive show of street protests in cities across America to express their pro-immigrant rights position. In Los Angeles, more than 500,000 immigrants and their supporters took to the streets, and some later organized a work and school boycott. Some claim that this had “awoken the sleeping giant”—galvanizing Latinos to “get political or else.” A 2006 poll by the Pew Hispanic Center found that 54 percent of Latinos think the debate over immigration reform has worsened discrimination against them. Just 15 percent said the debate had no effect.8
Only recently has California emerged as the primary gateway state for new immigrants. Ever since its founding as a state in 1850, however, California has been at the center of the immigration debate and to a large degree has led the national policy discourse. Some argue that immigration is essential to the continued prosperity of California and the nation, while proponents of stricter immigration laws have long argued that the influx of new Californians takes a heavy toll on the state’s resources and dilutes its culture. As early as 1870, drawn by the Gold Rush, fully 37 percent of California residents were foreign born.9 By the turn of the century, 25 percent of all Californians were foreign born. This declined subsequently to a low point of 9 percent by 1960.10 California has more illegal immigrants than any other state–an estimated 2.4 million. The California Department of Finance estimates that illegal immigration adds 73,000 people to the state’s population each year, thereby accounting for 12 percent of the state’s population growth this decade. Even so, California is not the destination state it once was. In the 1980s, almost half the nation’s illegal immigrants lived in California; today only 23 percent do. The number of illegal immigrants has been increasing dramatically in some Southeastern and Midwestern states. Still, traditional destinations such as Texas (1.4 million illegal immigrants), Florida (850,000), and New York (650,000) continue to rank after California with the largest illegal immigrant populations.11
California followed much of the classic patterns of ethnocultural cleavages spinning out of the U.S. East and Midwest as territorial expansion took place. White Protestant nativists aligned themselves politically against the newly arrived urban immigrant class, composed of European ethnics (e.g., Irish, Polish, Italian), Catholics, and eastern European Jews. The political reaction in most of the nation’s older cities was the rise of “ethnic party machines,” which not only delivered the ethnic vote during local elections but guaranteed that immigrant communities would receive a proportionate amount of the spoils of the public largess—from pork-barrel projects to government jobs.
As quickly as the window opened for ethnic political empowerment and coalition building during the machine era, so too did the door slam on the expansion of political rights with tighter immigration restrictions and the launching of the “good government” reforms during the Progressive era. The wave of immigrants from non-European nations into California and the West produced an even stronger political response. These included the large numbers of Asian and Mexican immigrants arriving to build the railroads and harvest the fields. Western state legislatures passed a series of constitutionally suspect measures—ranging from restrictions on property rights to the denial of education, health, and economic protection. The western states—California in particular—called on Congress to enact strict immigration quotas for certain groups and eventual exclusion from entry into the United States. From the Workingmen’s Party, formed in 1877 and organized against Chinese immigrants in San Francisco, to the later “fringe” movements such as the Asiatic Exclusion League of California, whose sole purpose was to pressure Congress to cut off Japanese immigration in the 1920s, California has been a wellspring for nativist and exclusionary movements since statehood.
The major political parties and West Coast state legislatures maintained a rigid system of exclusion and discrimination against Asian immigrants. Early Chinese and Japanese immigrants to California were politically disenfranchised and excluded from full participation in American life because of discriminatory laws and policies. As the major port of entry for these initial groups, California led the way in racially tinged discriminatory practices that were emulated by other states and even the national government. In 1854, for example, Chinese immigrants were prohibited from testifying in court against whites. In 1855, the state legislature imposed a $50 “head tax” on Chinese immigrants. San Francisco passed an ordinance that same year referred to as the “pigtail ordinance,” requiring Chinese lawbreakers to cut their hair within one inch of the scalp. In 1871, a Los Angeles mob, which included many prominent citizens, tortured and lynched Chinese men. In 1879, the new California state constitution barred corporations from hiring Chinese employees and prohibited the employment of people of Chinese descent in any public works “except for punishment of a crime.” This so-called Chinese exclusion provision remained in the state constitution until it was repealed in 1952. Also repealed in 1952 was a measure put into effect in 1913 by the Progressives called the Alien Land Law, which prohibited Asians—but not Europeans—who were not citizens from owning land in California. In 1882 pressure from California was instrumental in the passage of national legislation barring Chinese from acquiring citizenship and banning the entry of Chinese workers for decades.12
With the federal exclusion of Chinese from entering the United States, California’s agricultural interests started to recruit imported Japanese workers to its fields. In the vast Central Valley, more than 250 crops are grown, and cheap dependable labor to harvest the crops has always been a state mandate. In the end, however, the Japanese fared no better than did their Chinese predecessors, bearing the brunt of “yellow-peril” discriminatory policies that robbed the Japanese of their due process and citizenship rights. In 1906, for example, the San Francisco school board issued a mandatory order segregating Japanese school children in the system. During the same year, the state of California barred marriages between whites and “Mongolians.” Just a few years later, an open political quarrel arose on the “Japanese question” between the Republican leadership of the state and Democratic President Woodrow Wilson. Wilson ultimately dispatched his secretary of state, William Jennings Bryan, to cajole California not to pass anti-Japanese immigrant legislation. While the state backed off, California later passed legislation in 1913 to bar noncitizen Japanese from owning property or leasing farmland. Things were no better on the jurisprudential level, with the U.S. Supreme Court deciding in Ozawa v. United States (1922) that Asian immigrants could be barred from becoming naturalized citizens.13
This dual pattern of economic recruitment and social demonization played out through the development of California, the West, and indeed the rest of the United States. By 1924, immigration from Japan was effectively halted and new immigrant communities were recruited to replace them, including Filipino and Mexican laborers. When the Great Depression hit California, nativist sentiments awoke once again—resulting in the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Mexican agricultural workers. This exclusionary impulse is in constant tension with the insatiable desire for cheap labor to fuel the state’s economic growth. Not long after the mass deportation of Mexicans during the depression, California’s agricultural sector—the state’s largest and most politically powerful industry—persuaded Congress during World War II to establish the Bracero guest worker program that brought Mexican immigrants back across the border. This flip-flopping policy toward immigrants followed the nation’s economic cycles of expansion and contraction, with California and the West leading the nation’s immigration policy thrust.
California’s phenomenal growth over the past century was a direct consequence of a constant supply of cheap immigrant labor. During the 1980s, nearly one-fourth of all immigrants to the United States settled in California, and more than half of the 3 million undocumented immigrants granted amnesty under the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) settled in California. More immigrants arrived in California in the 1980s than in the previous three decades combined. By 2000, more than 26 percent of California residents were foreign-born; a 37 percent increase from 1990. In Los Angeles County alone, estimates are that nearly 40 percent of the population is foreign born.14 California’s historic immigration patterns have created a dysfunctional political culture that continues to be unable to successfully integrate new waves of immigrants as policy stakeholders.
Every now and then, an initiative comes along that galvanizes the public to such an extent that it becomes the engine that drives an entire election. Proposition 13 (property tax relief) served that function in 1978. So did … Proposition 140 (term limits) in 1990. This year it was Proposition 187—the initiative that denies educational, social, and medical services to those who cannot prove American citizenship.15
Nativist sentiments continue to rise up again and again in California to carry the immigration issue onto the national agenda. This is more than just a debate over legal status. Nation-states throughout the world are puzzling over the impacts of migration. Many nations that once welcomed immigrants freely are now ambivalent. This includes Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Germany, and the United States—to mention a few. In the case of the United States, individual states are sometimes at odds with the federal government’s immigration policies. The Field Poll recently found that 70 percent of California voters support comprehensive reform that includes secure borders, guest workers, and legalization of undocumented immigrants. In California, Nancy H. Martis captures this tension:
As certain as the seasons, issues surrounding illegal migrants and their rights in society come around again and again…. In 1913, the Legislature made no apologies when it ultimately passed a law designed to prevent Asian immigrants from owning and leasing land despite its clear intention to suppress undocumented residents. The law was signed by Progressive Governor Hiram Johnson over the objection of President Woodrow Wilson.16
In 1994, Governor Pete Wilson made Proposition 187 a cornerstone of his successful reelection campaign. Proposition 187—entitled “SOS” (Save Our State) by proponents—was designed to stop “illegal aliens” from entering the state. But, like past immigration reforms, the policy goes well beyond attacking the problem of undocumented immigration. There were three major provisions to the measure. First, it would have made undocumented immigrants ineligible for public social services, public health care services (except for emergency services mandated by federal law), and public school education at the elementary, secondary, and postsec-ondary levels. Second, it would have required that “all persons employed in the providing of (public) services shall diligently protect public funds from misuse” by excluding anyone who has not been “verified” to be in the country legally. State and local agencies would have been required, under the measure, to report persons who are suspected undocumented immigrants to the California attorney general and the Immigration and Naturalization Service and maintain records of such reports. The law stated:
If any public entity in this state to whom a person has applied for public social services determines or reasonably suspects, based upon the information provided to it, that the person is an alien in the United States in violation of federal law, the following procedures shall be followed by the public entity: (1) The entity shall not provide the person with benefits or services. (2) The entity shall, in writing, notify the person of his or her apparent illegal immigration status, and that the person must either obtain legal status or leave the United States. (3) The entity shall also notify the State Director of Social Services, the Attorney General of California, and the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service of the apparent illegal status, and shall provide any additional information that may be requested by any other public entity. (emphasis added)17
Finally, Proposition 187 would have made it a felony to manufacture, distribute, sell, or use false citizenship or residency documents.
Proponents of Proposition 187 argued that the proposal would end “the illegal alien invasion” and ultimately “save our state.”18 For them, this “invasion” has cost taxpayers in excess of $5 billion a year for welfare and medical and educational benefits, which acts as “magnets” to draw undocumented immigrants to the state in the first place. Further, the federal government has been derelict in its duties to control the nation’s borders, so the people of California must “send a message” to Washington. Opponents of Proposition 187 argued that while undocumented immigration may be a problem for the state, Proposition 187 is not the solution. Further, they point out that under Plyler v. Doe (1982), denying children of undocumented immigrants educational services is unconstitutional. Further, opponents were concerned about the ethical and practical implications of cutting medical services to this population, pointing out that untreated health problems would exacerbate existing public health concerns. But most importantly, the proposition’s vague language of “reasonable suspicion” underscored the concern of many that Latinos and other ethnic minorities— immigrant or not—would become a vulnerable class of citizens.
Voters in the general election of 1994 produced an electoral earthquake in the body politic, shifting control of Congress to the Republicans and throwing many incumbent Democrats from the state legislature. Clearly, voters were angry with “politics as usual” and eager to upset the status quo, much as they did two years prior, with the election of President Clinton. California’s divided government between a sitting Republican governor and a Democratic controlled legislature produced little substantive policy momentum.
As late as November 1993, the California Opinion Index barely measured immigration as a voter’s concern. In fact, of the 28 major issues California voters identified as a concern, immigration came in at 19. Crime, the state’s economy, the spread of AIDS, and public schools all ranked above it. At the same time, Pete Wilson trailed his Democratic challenger, Kathleen Brown, by 23 percentage points. In an amazing comeback, Wilson went on to defeat Brown by close to 1.4 million votes (Wilson’s 55 percent to Brown’s 41 percent). Wilson’s win was credited to his ability to associate his campaign with crime and anti-immigration themes—specifically through two ballot initiatives: Propositions 184 and 187. Wilson effectively controlled the campaign agenda, deflecting attention away from the state’s early 1990s recessionary economy, an issue on which he ordinarily would have been extremely vulnerable.
Wilson’s campaign message clearly resonated with the electorate. Stressing the themes of less government spending, law and order, lower taxes, and controlling illegal immigration appealed to groups that were overrepresented at the polls—older white voters. Teaming up with conservative Assemblyman Richard Mountjoy and Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, Wilson made Proposition 187 the foundation of his campaign. The campaign whipped up a dormant xenophobia that is never far from California’s political culture. Campaign literature screamed: “Proposition 187 will ultimately end the ILLEGAL ALIEN invasion” (emphasis in the original).19 By the end of the campaign, voters believed that the issue of illegal immigration was important. Sixty-four percent of white voters favored 187, while 73 percent of Latino voters voted against it. African-American and Asian voters were almost evenly split. Clearly, voters sought to “send a message,” as Table 15.1 illustrates.
In November 1995 U.S. District Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer threw out significant portions of Proposition 187, ruling them unconstitutional and setting in motion a protracted legal battle. Judge Pfaelzer ruled that Sections 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9 of the initiative were invalid because they were preempted by federal laws. In these sections, Judge Pfaelzer found that the state could not bar illegal immigrants from health care and social welfare services (since most of these services were federally funded), to which they were otherwise entitled under existing federal laws. The judge also ruled that the prior precedent, Plyler v. Doe (1982), should be followed in application to this initiative and therefore the exclusion of children of illegal immigrants from public elementary and secondary schools under Section 7 was invalid.
TABLE 15.1 REASONS GIVEN FOR SUPPORTING PROPOSITION 187
| Likely Yes Voters | |
| It will send a message to federal government to do more to protect our national borders. | 90% |
| It will free up money for the education of the children of legal residents. | 78 |
| It will reduce the number of illegal immigrants who move here to have their children born as U.S. citizens. | 76 |
| It will send a message to federal government to pay for the costs associated with illegal immigrants. | 74 |
| It will deter illegal immigrants from coming to California in the first place. | 71 |
| It will create more job opportunities for legal residents. | 69 |
| It will help reinforce English as our common language. | 62 |
| State government will save millions of dollars that are now being spent on illegal immigrants. | 61 |
| It will make it easier to preserve the American way of life. | 56 |
Source: The Field Poll, no. 1734 (October 17, 1994): 5.
At the same time Judge Pfaelzer only partially struck down Section 8 of the initiative, which would have excluded illegal immigrants from public postsecondary educational institutions. She ruled that the state does not have to provide postsec-ondary education to persons who are not authorized under federal law to be in the United States. However, a subsection that required admissions officials to report any illegal immigrant to authorities was ruled to be preempted by federal law. Beyond this, the judge let stand three other sections pertaining to severability and the criminal sanctions applying to the manufacture, sale, and use of false citizenship documents. On the sections ruled invalid, Pfaelzer stated that the measure’s provisions “directly regulate immigration by creating a comprehensive scheme to detect and report the presence and affect the removal of illegal aliens …” and that “the state is powerless to enact its own scheme to regulate immigration.”20
In short, Proposition 187 was effectively ruled unconstitutional. All that remained were two relatively minor laws that establish state criminal penalties for the manufacture and use of false documents. In July 1999, Governor Gray Davis reached an agreement with civil rights organizations and agreed to drop litigation and further appeal, effectively killing Proposition 187 for good.21
As California’s economy has rebounded from recession, people seem less concerned about immigration—legal or otherwise. Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole counted on a tough immigration reform proposal to win the state in the 1996 election (as Pete Wilson had done so successfully two years earlier), but the issue won him little support outside the ranks of the most dedicated Republican faithful. Dole lost the California vote to Bill Clinton in an election in which just 7 percent of Californians identified illegal immigration as a major issue influencing their vote.22 Two years later, Attorney General Dan Lungren tried the same Wilson-style campaign in his bid for governor, losing by a landslide to Democrat Gray Davis. In 2003 during the recall election of Gray Davis, the prominent Democrat seeking to succeed him, Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante attacked Schwarzenegger as “anti-immigrant.” Immigrant issues had become a central part of the recall campaign and played out profoundly among the state’s Latino population, who amount to approximately 16 percent of the California electorate. The irony, of course, was that Bustamante, a grandson of Mexican immigrants, and Schwarzenegger, who came to the United States as a legal immigrant from Austria during the 1960s, both claimed the mantle of compassion for the immigrant population in California. The differences played out in their policy positions. Schwarzenegger admitted voting for Proposition 187 (which he later said was a mistake), and Pete Wilson (the champion of Proposition 187) served as co-chair of Schwarzenegger’s election campaign. Schwarzenegger was also criticized about his membership on the advisory board of U.S. English, a group that supports making English the country’s official language. Despite the attacks by his Republican and Democrat rivals, Schwarzenegger went on to win the special recall election, with over 30 percent of the Latino vote.
In the early part of his first term, there was a good bet going that the moderate GOP governor who saw his state as a “purple” one (not conservative “red” or liberal “blue”) would be able to deliver more federal dollars to help California address the additional costs and burdens that illegal immigration was associated with. Schwarzenegger did spend a lot of personal face time lobbying his Washington GOP colleagues, delivering a few extra concessions from the feds (mostly to address the costs of capturing and housing the criminal immigrant element and a good chunk of anti-terrorism dollars, which aided in stronger border control).
Besides the mantra of “blame Washington” when it comes to responding to illegal immigration, Schwarzenegger’s early administration also used the tactic of “wait for Washington” to deflect many hot-button policy issues. For example, Senator Gil Cedillo, a Los Angeles Democrat, has pushed numerous times to have the state issue driver’s licenses to the estimated 2 million illegal immigrants who commute to work, take their kids to school, and go to the doctor. Opponents claim that issuing licenses would help terrorists open bank accounts and board planes. They also say that those here illegally should not be rewarded with driving privileges. Governor Schwarzenegger has vetoed this legislation passed by both Democratic-controlled state houses. The governor sidestepped one of the most contentious immigration issues, saying he wanted to defer future talks on driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants until federal officials develop national standards to overhaul the entire intelligence network. The governor cited language in the intelligence bill that directs the federal Departments of Transportation and Homeland Security to develop national standards for driver’s licenses. Interestingly, as California now waits for Washington to act, other states such as Tennessee have moved ahead in issuing licenses that are not valid other than for driving-related purposes.
Schwarzenegger took some heat from his conservative GOP base for his bold pronouncements that he wanted to put immigrants on a path toward citizenship. He sought middle ground in the immigration debate and focused on national policy. The answer, Schwarzenegger said, is to secure the borders and create a guest worker program, but insisted that “amnesty is not the answer … but it is not realistic either to round up 12 million people and send them home.”23
The price Republicans paid for Wilson’s initiatives is now political legend. Proposition 187 spurred such a backlash against the GOP that, in California, it has been reduced to minority party status—Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first term election notwithstanding. Schwarzenegger has avoided the mistakes of the past and will not be another Pete Wilson—even as he takes the slings-and-arrows of his fellow party loyalists. The governor wants to elevate what has become a nasty public debate and see it conducted “in a civil way without prejudice and without hatred.” Schwarzenegger said to the editorial board of the San Diego Union-Tribune that Californians are “making a big mistake” if they focus their anger on “Mexico or Mexicans or Latinos or whoever is coming through the south.”24
Schwarzenegger joined President George W. Bush’s call for comprehensive immigration reform. Yet the governor diverged from Bush’s plan in what was to be a collective national response to deploy National Guard troops to guard the 2,000-mile southern border. As commander-in-chief over the California National Guard, Schwarzenegger will not send state National Guard troops to other states, especially since they are often used for fighting national disasters such as fires and therefore would be stretched pretty thin. The governor has asked the federal government to pay all costs of the mission and made it clear that troops are deployed on a strictly temporary basis. Troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are excluded from border duty.
Nationally, in the November 2006 election, power shifted when the Democrats took control of both the House and the Senate. What was left as unfinished business was a comprehensive immigration reform initiative. Under the Republican control Congress, the House passed a bill that would tighten border security and crack down on illegal workers. The Senate supported legislation that would establish a guest worker program and allow illegal immigrants already in the country to work towards citizenship. Unable to compromise on a comprehensive measure, the House put forth a bill to require photo identification to vote and to deport illegal workers. The Senate left hanging a bill approved by the House that proposed a 700-mile fence along the Mexican border.
The entire issue of a comprehensive national immigration measure is now up for grabs yet again. In the transition period between congressional sessions, there were attempts to fashion a bipartisan consensus towards a measure that would include tighter border security and a guest worker program. Senator Edward Kennedy (the new Democratic chair from Massachusetts of the Senate Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship subcommittee), Senator John McCain (R–Arizona), and Representatives Jeff Flake (R–Arizona) and Luis V. Gutierrez (D–Illinois) were pushing for a bipartisan compromise during the final months of the Bush administration. At the same time, many House Democrats were newly elected moderates who campaigned against legalizing illegal immigration. In the 2008 election, Republicans tried in vain to woo back Latino voters who supported them at a rate of just 29 percent in 2006 (compared to 44 percent in the 2004 elections).
It was a Pyrrhic victory under the new Democratically controlled 110th Congress. A comprehensive immigration reform measure was brought back from the dead. The measure included border security provisions that would have added thousands of new border agents, along with high-tech security devices such as cameras and radar. It would have created a work-site system to verify that all workers have legal status. Republicans pushed to add $4.4 billion in funding to accomplish these goals. The measured was two-tiered stepped, in that once the borders were more secure, a temporary worker program would have brought in 200,000 workers a year, under a new “Z visa” that would have given preference for eligible illegal immigrants whose skills and education would benefit America’s development. The fate of 12 million undocumented immigrants was also addressed; however, neither party would call this a “blanket amnesty program.”
In the end, the bill could not overcome the fatal objections of the left or the right. The bill failed on a procedural vote to close debate and move the measure forward: 46–53, 14 votes short of the 60 needed. Many of the 15 Democrats who voted to block the bill saw it as needlessly punitive, while many of the 37 Republicans who opposed the bill complained that it was not strict enough.
With no national immigration reform and the general consensus that the status quo is unacceptable, cities and states will feel the pressure to take some “patchwork” measures to address the immigration debate. Given this new reality, the Schwarzenegger stalling tactic of “wait for Washington” will no longer carry the day. Parts of the comprehensive packages failed that have particular relevance to California—such as the agricultural jobs initiative, a special program for farm workers, and the Dream Act, which would give illegal migrant children a way to earn citizenship if they are in school or the military—may have a chance to be reintroduced as stand-alone legislation. Still, the main action has devolved unfortunately (or fortunately) to the other jurisdictional “laboratories of democracy” to try their skills at solving some part of this constitutional hot potato.
If politicians were to step outside the closed framework of addressing anxieties and look deeper into more cogent policy solutions, perhaps Californians could set the national model for others to emulate. One path has already been advanced by the state of California’s bipartisan Little Hoover Commission, which has advanced a residency program that would reward behavior of immigrants and encourage them to become responsible members of the political community. The program would offer access to driver’s licenses, in-state tuition, health care, job training, and housing to immigrants who stay out of the criminal justice system, pay taxes, learn English, make sure their children attend school regularly, participate in local civic efforts, and demonstrate willingness to become citizens.25
| A Nation of Laws and of Immigrants | George W. Bush |
I’ve asked for a few minutes of your time to discuss a matter of national importance: the reform of America’s immigration system.
The issue of immigration stirs intense emotions and in recent weeks, Americans have seen those emotions on display. On the streets of major cities, crowds have rallied in support of those in our country illegally. At our southern border, others have organized to stop illegal immigrants from coming in. Across the country, Americans are trying to reconcile these contrasting images. And in Washington, the debate over immigration reform has reached a time of decision. Tonight, I will make it clear where I stand and where I want to lead our country on this vital issue.
We must begin by recognizing the problems with our immigration system. For decades, the United States has not been in complete control of its borders. As a result, many who want to work in our economy have been able to sneak across our border, and millions have stayed.
Once here, illegal immigrants live in the shadows of our society. Many use forged documents to get jobs, and that makes it difficult for employers to verify that the workers they hire are legal. Illegal immigration puts pressure on public schools and hospitals, it strains state and local budgets and brings crime to our communities. These are real problems, yet we must remember that the vast majority of illegal immigrants are decent people who work hard, support their families, practice their faith and lead respectable lives. They are part of American life, but they are beyond the reach and protection of American law.
We’re a nation of laws, and we must enforce our laws. We’re also a nation of immigrants, and we must uphold that tradition, which has strengthened our country in so many ways. These are not contradictory goals. America can be a lawful society and a welcoming society at the same time. We will fix the problems created by illegal immigration, and we will deliver a system that is secure, orderly and fair.
Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a transcript of President Bush’s speech on immigration, as recorded by the New York Times.
Source: New York Times (May 16, 2006): A22.
Because of the disproportionate impact of immigration on the Golden State, the nation’s immigration policies have been especially important in California. California has been a destination of choice for immigrants from around the globe as well as for migrants from other states. The state’s opportunities, resources, and promise of a better life have guaranteed that people will continue arriving here, even during times when shifting political attitudes create a chilly climate for immigrants. Since its statehood, California’s immigration policy has swung between extremes, reflecting dual realities: Immigrants are essential components of the state’s economic growth, and California’s political culture has long demonized newcomers. “Welcome to California— Now Go Home!”26 California remains an ideal, to be pursued by people seeking a better life—whether native born or foreign born. This is unlikely to change anytime soon.
1. Portions of this chapter on immigration policy have been printed in Michael Preston, Bruce Cain, and Sandra Bass, eds., Racial and Ethnic Politics in California (Berkeley: Institute for Intergovernmental Studies, 1997).
2. William O’Hare, “America’s Minorities: The Demographics of Diversity,” Population Bulletin 47, no. 4 (Washington, DC: Population Reference Bureau, 1992).
3. Tamar Jacoby, ed., Reinventing the Melting Pot (New York: Basic Books, 2004), p. 6.
4. Based on Bureau of Labor Statistics, International Comparisons of Hourly Compensation Costs for Production Workers in Manufacturing, Supplementary Tables (Washington DC: Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2007), www.bls.gov/news.release/ichcc.t02.htm.
5. Lindsay B. Lowell and Richard Fry, Estimating the Distribution of Undocumented Workers in the Urban Labor Force: Technical Memorandum (Washington, DC: The Pew Hispanic Center, 2004).
6. Jim Rutenberg, “President Calls for Compromise on Immigration,” New York Times (May 16, 2006): A1.
7. Carl Hulse, “House Plans National Hearings Before Charges to Immigration,” New York Times (June 21, 2006): A1.
8. Roberto Suro and Gabriel Escobar, “2006 National Survey of Latinos: The Immigration Debate.” Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center, www.pewhispanic.org/files/reports/68.pdf
9. Doris Marion Wright, “The Making of Cosmopolitan California: An Analysis of Immigration, 1848–1870,” California Historical Society Quarterly XIX (December 1940): 332.
10. Dowell Myers, The Changing Immigrants of Southern California, Research Report LCRI-95–94R (Los Angeles: University of Southern California, School of Urban and Regional Planning, October 25, 1995), p. 1.
11. Hans P. Johnson, “Illegal Migration,” in At Issue (San Francisco: Public Policy Institute of California, April 2006), p. 2.
12. Morton Grodzins, Americans Betrayed (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949), and Roger Daniels, The Politics of Prejudice (New York: Atheneum, 1968).
13. Yuji Ichioka, “Early Japanese Quest for Citizenship: The Background of the 1922 Ozawa Case,” Amerasia Journal 4 (1977): 1–22.
14. Nolan Marone, Kaari Baluja, Joseph Costanzo and Cynthia Davis, “Foreign-Born Population: 2000,” (Washington, DC: US Census Bureau, 2003), www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-34.pdf.
15. Nancy Martis and A. G. Black, “Proposition 187,” California Journal (December 1994): 20.
16. Ibid., p. 9.
17. Ballot text of California’s Proposition 187 (1994).
18. “Argument in Favor of Proposition 187,” California 1994 Voter’s Guide.
19. Ibid.
20. Paul Feldman, “Major Portions of Proposition 187 Thrown Out by Federal Judge,” LosAngeles Times (November 21, 1995): A1.
21. Patrick J. McDonnell, “Davis Won’t Appeal Prop. 187 Ruling, Ending Court Battles; Litigation,” Los Angeles Times (July 29, 1999): A1.
22. Maria La Ganga and Dave Lesher, “Dole to Push Tough Stand in California Swing,” Los Angeles Times (October 26, 1996): A1.
23. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, “Keep the Immigration Debate Civil,” Los Angeles Times (September 12, 2006): A15.
24. Ruben Navarrette, Jr., “Prejudice in the Immigration Debate,” San Diego Union-Tribune (August 2, 2006): B7.
25. This case is strongly made by Peter Skerry. See his opinion editorial “How to Grab Back Control on Illegal Immigration,” Los Angeles Times (August 20, 2006): M1.
26. Bumper sticker popular during the summer of 1984, when Los Angeles hosted the Summer Olympics.