GUEST COMMENTARY: A LONG, HARD LOOK AT THE CHAOS THAT NOW MASQUERADES AS IMMIGRATION POLICY IN THIS COUNTRY, BY GARY ENDELMAN
Gary Endelman practices immigration law at BP Amoco
Corporation. The opinions expressed in this column are purely personal and do
not represent the views or beliefs of BP Amoco Corporation in any way. This
article is copyrighted by ILW.COM and is reprinted with permission. You can read
other articles by Mr. Endelman, and subscribe to future articles at www.ilw.com
August 15, 2000
Hon. George W. Bush
Austin, TX
Dear W:
I wanted to congratulate you on your acceptance speech at the
"Up With People" convention that just ended. W, as an admirer and a
naturalized Texan who got here as fast as he could, I know that your
compassionate conservatism will cause you to take a long, hard look at the chaos
that now masquerades as immigration policy in this country. Let me explain.
In 1996 the Republicans we did not see on television passed
something called the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act
of 1996 (IIRIRA). IIRIRA mandates the removal of all persons convicted of an
"aggravated felony" which the statute defines as an offense against a
person that carries a sentence of 12 months or more. This broad definition
frequently includes misdemeanor offenses under state law. While these minor
convictions do not cause a person to lose any civil or political rights, they
can still have a devastating immigration impact. Respected civic leaders active
in their communities and raising small children now face being kicked out of the
US precisely because they may have committed a minor crime 20 or 30 years ago.
W, I know you have zero tolerance for crime, but perhaps you were out of town
when IIRIRA became law and I wanted you to know all about it. Recently, the INS
tried to deport Mary Anne Gehris, a Georgia woman who came to the U.S. from
Germany as an infant. Twelve years ago, she was charged with misdemeanor
hair-pulling, receiving a one-year suspended sentence. After she reported this
on her naturalization application, the INS placed her in removal proceedings and
only rescue from the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles saved Ms. Gehris.
W, I support the expeditious removal of convicted felons, as you do, but maybe
the inclusion of hair-pulling in the list of removable offenses is not the most
rational use of our national resources.
W, I know you believe in family values. That is why you
should know how current US immigration policy divides families rather than
uniting them. Did you know W that a husband who gets a "green card"
and then gets married to a nice lady in his home country can not bring her right
away to the US? Nope, sure can't. In fact, W, they may be apart for several
years. Beyond that, some US consular bureaucrat can refuse to issue her a
tourist visa to visit her husband for fear that she will not return. W, just
think if you and Laura had to be apart that long! I know fixing this state of
affairs will be a top priority in a Bush Administration.
W, no public figure cares more about education than you do.
Listen to this. Your advisors may have told you that the children of
undocumented parents have the right to attend public school in Texas. Well, it's
true because that crazy Supreme Court said so; be careful on getting too upset
about that, W., since a conservative corporate lawyer from Richmond appointed by
Richard Nixon was the Justice who wrote the majority opinion. No telling what
happens to folks once they get inside the Beltway. Anyway, remember that IIRIRA
law I mentioned earlier in this letter? Well, that same image-challenged
Republican Congress made it against the law for the child of a corporate
executive, even one willing to contribute to the GOP, to attend public primary
or secondary school on a student visa even though that undocumented child can do
so. W, I know they do things different in Washington but please help me figure
this one out!
W, sit down when you read this next little bit, cause it is
the weirdest part of all. You may have been told that some foreign-born folks
come here looking for good jobs. We even have a whole system of law just for
employment-based (EB) immigration. This is a well-kept secret so your advisors
may not have sprung this one on you yet. The problem, W, is that the policy
elites, on the Left and the Right, do not regard EB immigration as having any
moral justification. They are alien-centered and regard causes like refugees and
family reunification to be worthy of moral support. Immigration to them is
international social work. To the extent that they take economics into account,
which is not much, they argue that refugees and family reunification can supply
more than enough workers for our economy. In their eyes, now pay close attention
here W, American employers directly benefit from immigrant workers and that is
the real problem! They regard anything that benefits American employers as
morally suspect. That a benefit to an American employer is also a benefit to the
American economy is an idea foreign to their way of thinking.
W, I know you agree with me that the American economy changes
constantly. Can you please tell that to the INS and DOL when you move into the
White House? They do not know that or act as if they don't. These agencies see
foreign workers as a problem that will not willingly go away and so must be kept
in check. Discouraged employers sometimes give up on the whole mess. Even
liberals like Ted Kennedy and good, though not compassionate, conservatives like
Lamar Smith - I'll tell you about him later, W, since he needs a whole letter -
are unable or unwilling to use immigration as a lever for economic growth. There
is no reason, W, why the labor controls system we have now should continue to
exist; why industries that are riding high now should continue to suffer
staffing shortages; why problems that plague the current system cannot be
solved. I know that when you run the show, W, we will have an EB immigration
system that changes as the economy changes, that serves the needs of that
economy and makes economic growth not only possible, but predictable. There is
no reason, W, why immigration cannot become a strategy rather than a process, a
formula for the creation of new jobs rather than an obstacle to guard jealously
what jobs now exist against the forces of change.
W, the only reason to have any employment-based immigration
is to enrich the nation and that is the yardstick by which it should be judged.
The purpose of EB immigration is NOT to protect the jobs of US workers but to
create new jobs and expand national wealth. The problem, W, is that concepts
like new jobs and national wealth are far from the minds of the "inside the
Beltway" crowd. Apart from the CATO institute, Bill Bennett/Jack Kemp's
Empower America, and a few other Bush Stalwarts, no policy wonks think that EB
immigration is anything other than US worker protection. W, Michigan is going to
be a key electoral state for you, so you might want to read what Michigan's
Republican Senator Spencer Abraham said on the floor during last year's debate
to raise the H-1B cap. His speeches were laced with constant references to US
worker protection. The policy elite that thinks you are not smart enough to be
President regards EB immigration as a form of corporate welfare. Since EB
immigration does not, in their view, have any ethical legitimacy, they insist on
the most stringent labor controls in return for permitting any EB immigration at
all.
Under a W presidency, I am very sure that the focus of EB
immigration policy will change from protection of what now is to creation of
what can be; from specific workers to the economy as a whole; from a spotlight
on immigrants to one on immigration. This change of direction, W, cannot work in
Congress or among the general public, no matter how hard you smile, unless the
proposition that immigration is good for the economy is granted. So long as
Americans refer to immigration in the language of "let's help these poor
unfortunates," they are not going to grasp that we need immigrants as much
as they need us. The policy elites on both sides of the aisle will not give up
the mantra of immigration as social outreach without a struggle. We may have to
wait until Jeb takes over for this flower to bloom.
While the Clinton-Gore Administration is hawkish on free
trade and constantly uses all those big words to talk about the global economy,
they think of immigration solely as a domestic issue whose only
"international" implication is not to make Mexico mad. Most advocates
of a Fortress America EB immigration strategy are not fools. Rather, they
believe there is simply no way that even the most anti-employer approach on
immigration can cause the US to lose jobs. They do not believe that our foreign
competitors can affect us much. The US, in their eyes, is all-powerful and no
other nation can hope to compete seriously with us. Even when confronted with
the decimation of the domestic steel and coal industries they prefer to turn a
blind eye and continue to advocate the economic theories of the 1960s and 1970s.
For them, W, the Berlin Wall has not yet fallen. Their economic world-view and
beliefs are shaped by the all-powerful US of the immediate post-World War II
era. This past May, W, the Washington Post, whose editorial page will matter a
lot more to you in a few months, mentioned that the United Steel Workers had
lost 500,000 members over the last 25 years. These jobs are now in Korea and
elsewhere, in part, because the Steelworkers Union and DOL insisted on
maintaining an artificially high prevailing wage. These policies certainly
helped the fortunate few who got paid more than the world market deemed
competitive, but the laws of supply and demand had not been repealed, the
business cycle was not cancelled, and these same jobs gradually migrated
overseas. Since our economy is part of the larger global one, an immigration
system that denies such a relationship must always be dysfunctional. W, did you
ever consider taking immigration away from the Justice Department and placed in
a government agency whose goal is to advance the nation's international economic
interests? Think about it.
W, it is not just mature industries that are hurt by an
immigration system at odds with how the world works. Emerging industries are
just as vulnerable, W, perhaps more so. When US domestic wages are set without
reference to the realities of global economic competition, mature industries
lose jobs. Emerging industries lose something equally precious, the possibility
for jobs. The jobs are lost to the US even before they are created. The talent
for starting that new industry just does not achieve critical mass in the US in
the face of much lower wages abroad. As an example, W, consider that Intel's
workforce in Malaysia was about one engineer for every ten workers about a
decade ago. Today, by contrast, it is about one engineer for every three
workers. If DOL, INS, AFL-CIO and the Institute of Electronic and Electrical
Engineers are granted their wish, our semiconductor, microprocessor and allied
industries will witness the same cruel fate that befell our steel and coal
industries a few decades ago. Will there be any voices raised in protest? When
an actual US worker finds that her job is migrating overseas, she can raise hell
with her Congressman (hopefully a Bush backer!) and perhaps something can be
done. However, for emerging industries, there is no US worker losing a job. It
is the US worker's "future" job that is slipping silently away and
with it the promise of prosperity. While this kind of job loss is more abstract,
and may be dismissed by skeptics as hypothetical, it is, in fact, all too real.
America deserves better than an immigration system that kills off new jobs
before their time.
There is no wall behind which American workers can hide from
change. Immigration is an economic, not a political, phenomenon. Just as
economic nationalists have traditionally raised tariffs to keep out imported
goods, the DOL and INS now seek to hold the line against people and talent. In
both instances, the resistance fails, as it must, because no fixed
fortification, no intellectual or administrative Maginot Line, can ever adapt to
the flexibility of economic forces that will inevitably seek an alternative path
of lesser resistance. When this happens, the American worker or employer who
truly believed in the illusion of security will find it that much more difficult
to adapt to the new world order.
In the end, the time spent in trying to beat back foreign
trade or foreign workers will be better devoted to preparing Americans to meet
this challenge or, even better, to creating an immigration policy that will
transform these challenges into tangible assets for sustained national growth.
W, some day I hope you get to make a farewell address. When
that day comes, you could do worse than quoting what Ronald Reagan said about
immigration in his goodbye:
"I've
spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever
quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But, in my mind, it was a tall,
proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God- blessed and
teaming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city of free
ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city
walls, the walls had doors, and the doors were open to anyone with the will and
heart to get here. That's how I saw it and see it still."
Yours for the cause, W. Be true to Texas!
Your Friend,
Gary Endelman
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