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Yesterday was a big day in national news. The Supreme Court struck down voluntary programs adopted in Seattle and Louisville to attain racial diversity in public schools. The conservative court also determined that it is unconstitutional to execute a prisoner that is mentally ill (adding to a previous ruling that the mentally retarded cannot be executed).
But the big news was Congress's refusal to pass a comprehensive immigration bill. In a vote of 53-46 Thursday, the Senate effectively killed any substantial immigration reform until at least 2009. Why did this bill, after massive marches, heated debate, and a Democratic-led Congress that has struggled to pass major initiatives failed? The reasons are myriad, but can be distilled to a few key reasons. A President that was asking Congress to take a big risk while having no credibility (can you say lame duck?), coupled with apathy on the part of business (a group that was supposed to be the catalyst for this legislation), and you have a recipe for dead legislation.
So why are you reading about this on Chicagoist?
Take a walk down just about any street in Chicago, and you'll understand why. If it isn't the dishwasher at the next hot restaurant in the West Loop, it's the engineer downtown; if it isn't the cleaning lady or landscaper in the Lincoln Park, it's professor in Hyde Park or the programmer in River North. Immigration, both legal and otherwise, impacts all of us here in the City by the Lake. As Louis Gutierrez pointed out to Lou Dobbs last night on the Communist News Network, there is no better time to amend the clearly broken immigration laws that we are suffering under than now.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy of this vote is that it leaves all of us hanging. The borders aren't any more secure - a serious concern for more than just economic reasons - and nobody's job is safe, except maybe the boss's. While George W Bush had made immigration reform a key component of his presidency, fantasizing with Vicente Fox over the great chance to import cheap labor with no strings attached, with the added opportunity to push down wages and bust some unions in the US and the chance to export poverty and alleviate some of the economic frustrations in Mexico, it seems that this year isn't the year that we will actually get economic justice and border security from Washington. Perhaps the saddest thing about the vote yesterday is that much of the working class will continue to buy into the line they are being fed by the capitalist: that illegal Mexicans are stealing our jobs. Until the Federal government puts it power and resources behind stopping bosses from accepting bogus identification, and attaching real consequences to hiring undocumented workers, American workers will continue to suffer depressed wages and benefits. Immigrants will continue to work in the shadows of our economy, missing out on the supposed benefits of the global economy and the promise of prosperity that we were sold in the 80's and 90's.
Although a controversial issue, practical matters should prevail, especially in the Senate - the great house of debate and reason - cooler heads must prevail. Border security is important, but shouldn't we also bring these people out from the shadows? Certainly we can't deport 12 million people: it would be a logistical nightmare and an economic disaster.
Until business owners are held accountable for their employment actions, the stream of undocumented workers will continue to pour into the US, hoping for a chance at a better life. And the US will continue to miss out on the benefit of bringing workers with advanced degrees and technical expertise into the country to work and contribute. If we're trying to set an example and export democracy around the world, how can we effectively do this if we don't let more people into the US to experience work and life on our shores?
Image via Victor J Blue
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Well, Kevin, your few key reasons are rather simplistic. The perception (or reality, depending on your view) that the bill offered amensty was a big reason. Perhaps that is what you meant. As well, traditional nativist attitudes played a role. Perhaps you meant that as well.
Question: What is "economic justice?" I tend to agree with most of your ideas, but when you include fuzzy phrases such as this, I am left to wonder what propaganda script you are copying from. Either that, or you are writing for a select club of people who "get it," and you feel no need to write with clarity instead of fashionable buzz words that seem to come from a sociology textbook. Either way, your message is watered down--probably not a good thing for someone who seems dedicated to changing people's minds about politics and government.
guest #1: Fair critique. I try to write my opinion pieces in a way that assumes that my audience has thought about the issues already and has at least a little bit of an analysis already. Perhaps I need to spell my opinions out a little better.
From the San Jose, CA Mercury-News:
"It's easy to find reasons to dislike the bill. The point system to allocate green cards serves neither skilled workers nor family members of immigrants. Requiring temporary workers to return to their home countries for a year after a two-year stint in the United States isn't practical. There's still a huge technical challenge in setting up an accurate system for employers to check the immigration status of workers without causing needless headaches for thousands of legal residents.
"But the larger benefits are profound. The legislation pours billions of dollars into border enforcement and holds employers accountable when they hire undocumented workers. It establishes a program to bring immigrant farm workers to the United States to fill a yawning labor shortage. It expedites visa applications that have been stuck in bureaucratic limbo for years, penalizing people who have followed U.S. laws.
"Most important, the bill offers a way for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in this country to come out of hiding. Legal residency won't be easy, cheap or fast, but if they persevere, they would be able to stay in the United States and make even more productive contributions to our economy and communities."
I happen to think that nothing but the easing of the visa process is good about what it proposed. Border protection in this bill would have made the Rio Grande wall a reality. Sending people back to their country of origin is not only stupid, but dangerous, breaking up families and possibly setting people fleeing political oppression up to be disappeared. Guest workers are treated as little more than slave laborers (see Amnesty USA for more details).
What Kucinich said in the debates on Tavis Smiley last night is the real immigration reform: immediately cancel NAFTA and WTO and bring some economic justice to our part of the world.
Ferdy: Kucinich is often the left-wing voice of reason. He says what many in congress won't. The problem with immigration is that it is a symptom of a larger problem, the fall-out from an economic globalization model that is designed to benefit the bottom line of a business, while largely ignoring the human component of moving work, money and product across borders.
Kevin: I've thought about the issue probably as much as you have, and done research, and I would guess, based on your writings, that my knowledge of politics and government and economic history is at least the equal of yours.
My objection to a phrase such as "economic justice" is that is basically means nothing. It is a vague phrase pretending to be smart. It is a propaganda phrase--even good-hearted people engage in propaganda.
Sure, I can assume what you mean--you are not talking about welfare for CEOs, after all--but if you really, really want to reach people, you need to be clear in your writings, and not merely write the choir, so to speak. This is a huge problem with people on both the left and right wings--talking only to the converted.
You and others on the left (this is Chicago, after all, not Tulsa or Indiana) often have this "preach to the choir" attitude that is really counter-productive, in that you hamper your own efforts to be clear about your ideas and change some minds. I don't understand why you people keep doing this. It is almost as though you don't want to reach out to a wider population.
Jargon does not equal thinking or communicating.
Ferdy-
Part of the problem is a lack of credibility in washington. The billions for security in the bill mean nothing as of now; approval for a wall and funding for the vast majority of it has been given almost a year ago, and yet no wall is up, the laws on immigration in general haven't been enforced in how many years? All of the sudden now we're supposed to believe that those in washington are going to start enforcing a provision in this legislastion put there to get the bill passed?
Why doesn't washington start enforcing the laws in this country, secure the borders, and then debate immigration? Only then will people believe they are serious when they say they want to create new legislation.
"Perhaps the saddest thing about the vote yesterday is that much of the working class will continue to buy into the line they are being fed by the capitalist: that illegal Mexicans are stealing our jobs."
The saddest thing has been watching liberal democrats attempt to sell our their best constituency: working class Americans.
The issue isn't stealing jobs. The issue is that the jobs pay less when there's more competition for them.
Bush wanted a bill that would amount to rich agrobusiness getting richer and poor people in urban areas having jobs that pay less. That's reprehensible, but we're used to it from the man.
What's worse is that Gutierrez is choosing race over class. And our low earning citizens deserve better than Democrats who still cling to the deceptive rhetoric of 'jobs American's don't want'.
If the flow of low wage workers stopped (whether through border enforcement or fining irresponsible businesses), those jobs would simply pay more.
I'm just saying. Gutierrez is advocating what George W. Bush is advocating, but for different reasons. Bush wants to line the pockets of the wealthy while keeping the costs of various services low. Gutierrez wants to help hispanic people at the expense of every other low wage earner.
What assholes.
Kevin,
The Congress passed the bill. The Senate blocked it (even though its the same bill the Republican Senators backed a year ago).
The Senate Republicans have sworn to be obstructionist. Hell, McConnell's bragging about it. With a 50-49 majority, nothing can be done. All the Republicans have to do is vote against cloture. And cloture (the vote that's required to vote on a bill) requires 60 votes.
The Republicans have even blocked bills they voted for cloture on, bills they voted for. They've voted against sending bills to the House/Senate committees that clean up the House and Senate versions of the Bill as the House and Senate need to pass the same bill. So, the Republicans are voting yes on bills, and then voting no on actually cleaning up the bill to send to the President (who will veto the bill, anyway).
This has happened on numerous bills, including the Homeland Security bill.
The Senate Dems need to start calling the Republicans bluff and force them to actually filibuster instead of giving up when cloture fails. They need to make Mitch McConnell read the phone book to the tv cameras.
That's the only way anything will get done in a Senate that's basically at break even. All the Democrats can do right now is decide which bills go to the floor and when they are voted on.
Kevin - If that's what you believe, then why are you regurgitating with all the newspapers are saying. President Bush's credibility has nothing to do with this, and the media has done a piss-poor job of digesting what this bill really means for readers. Even the GOP recognizes what a terrible bill this is--unworkable and tantamount to mass deportation of people the U.S. economy relies on. They're not going to go against their business constituents to ratify Bush's blatantly isolationist ideologies.
And, finally, this bill was deeply flawed. Better to let the Republicans defeat it and revisit the issue in 2 years when the Democrats can remove the indentured servant clause (aka guest worker program).
There's no reason for a "guest worker" program. Its high time that employers are forced to pay decent wages to Americans, not import cheap labor from mexicans. If they can't make a profit paying market-rate wages, they shouldn't be in business.
Now, if you go big picture with this, we only 2 real choices for dealing with the immigration issue. Shut down NAFTA (amazing, I wholeheartedly agree with Fox News' new favorite Democrat) and help Mexico rebuild its economy.
Either that or throw open the border, watch wages in this country fall as people flood in, and the 2 economies stabilize. NAFTA severely destabilized the Mexican agrarian economy, by flooding Mexico with cheap American corn.
Small Mexican corn farmers went out of business, and all the factories that were supposed to open in Mexico under NAFTA instead went to China when China received "Most Favored" trade status (as Chinese labor is even cheaper than Mexican labor). So mexican farmers (and workers in the towns that were supported by the farmers - farmers got to buy stuff - they have to go to town to buy stuff - the people who sold stuff provided jobs. The stuff had to be shipped from somewhere - the process of shipping stuff provided jobs - and producing the stuff provided jobs) went to cities where the factories were supposed to be, along with all the people they once supported and found no jobs. So they went North, where they could find jobs.
The law of unintended consequences.
Why did Mexico agree to a trade pact that would put millions of their workers out of work? Because they thought all those factories were going to come to Mexico and pay better wages than what the workers were getting in the agrarian economy. The factories didn't come.
I'm just saying. Gutierrez is advocating what George W. Bush is advocating, but for different reasons. Bush wants to line the pockets of the wealthy while keeping the costs of various services low. Gutierrez wants to help hispanic people at the expense of every other low wage earner.
What assholes.
EXACTLY, Your whole post was dead on GUEST 7.
"Jobs that Americans won't do" a bullshit slogan if there ever was one. Used by conservatives to continue the ever increasing race to the bottom of wages and job quality and used by liberals to protect one poor demographic at the expense of all others.
Kevin:
You may have thought out your positions, but you then confuse it a bit by using loaded phrases like "Communist News Network". I see that, I think "conservative republican/right-winger", like when I see "Democrat party". Then you write "line they are being fed by the capitalist" and "economic justice" which, especially the phrasing "the capitalist", strongly implies a socialist/leftist bent. It's confusing.
The underlying question for me is, Why this bill, and why now? Why are we so concerned about "normalizing"/granting amnesty/taking out of the shadows a cohort who were and are willing to risk breaking the law to work and live in the USA? There hasn't been meaningful enforcement of immigration laws (except those with AIDS and some middle-eastern muslims in the past 6 years) since the '86 amnesty; and this bill did not propose to require genuine enforcement, so why do we "have to" deal with the "12 million" (a made-up number btw) illegal immigrants? No one is actually calling for their deportation, so there isn't a NEED to deal with them. Their children, if born here, are citizens.
Why not first do something REAL to stop the future flow of illegals. Pass a border and immigration security bill that (1) increases the caps on the number of legal immigrants and (2)stays the enforcement of existing immigration laws against otherwise law-abiding illegal immigrants (i.e., we can still deport you if you're a gangster or a thief or a murderer or whatever) who arrived in the USA before, say 90 days prior to the first proposal of the bill (to prevent a rush to the border). Then, after the border and immigration security measures are implemented and proven to mostly stop illegal immigration, deal with those who are still here illegally--which will, undoubtedly, be a smaller number.
We need to avoid repeating the mistake of '86--general amnesty for illegal aliens, leading to a belief that it will happen again. If the '86 amnesty had implemented real penalties for illegal immigration, there would be much less "need" to fix the problem again. The rewards for making it in illegally far outweight the risks of being caught.
Why would anyone want to immigrate to a country whose president is a complete moron, whose government is corrupt and dysfunctional, whose healthcare system is broken, and whose public school system produces students who, each year, fall further behind other countries in basic skills?
In Chicago, we have a substandard public transportation system, poor mail delivery service, ruthless street gangs, deaths attributed to gun violence, and a abusive police force.
So who would want to abandon their homeland for a country with all of these shortcomings? And who would want to live in Chicago where buses and trains can't get workers to their jobs in a timely manner, and where they are likely to be brutally attacked by police officers?