To know where we’re going, we have to understand where we’ve been, and where we are today. So a couple of quick notes about past and present immigration policy.
The Past: For most of this country’s existence, our immigration policies were deeply racist. The US did not permit immigration from Africa/Asia for centuries, and we discriminated against Catholics, immigrants from Southern Europe and from Latin America in our immigration laws. We had explicit racial quotas till 1965, when, along with other great Civil Rights bills, the Hart-Cellar act of 1965 undid our racist immigration policies. We also used to have a very broad temporary worker program, which was used to hire laborers from Mexico, who were often abused and exploiited.
The Present: We have three main categories of legal immigration:
- Family-reunification: which is only available to immediate family (spouses, parents, children, siblings) of US citizens (and green-card holders in a few cases).
- Employment based: If you can demonstrate you’ve tried to hire domestically and cannot find anyone with the right skills, you can petition for an immigrant visa for an employee. This often means the employee cannot change jobs for years while the application is in process.
- Exceptional talent and Investor: this is a category of visas for scientists, authors, athletes etc. The investor category is abused by real-estate developers (like the Kushners and Trumps). They sell green-cards to acquire cheap funding for their projects.
It is also necessary to understand what the motivations of the different parties are, and what objectives this leads them to prize.
Republican objectives: The Trump administration is a white nationalist group that seeks to Make America White Again. Trump, Jeff Sessions, Stephen Miller, John Kelly, Steve Bannon etc. primary goal with immigration “reform”, is to reverse racial diversity in America. To that end, they want to kick out as many PoC immigrants as possible, and change immigration policy to allow as few new immigrants as possible. They are not concerned with the category of immigrant (family/employment/investor), or even whether an immigrant is undocumented. Their only concern is the number of immigrants. They want more immigrants from “Norway”, fewer immigrants from “shitholes” (i.e. countries not in Europe). Since the modern Republican party exists by masking it’s racism, the administration uses terms like “skills” and “merit” as a flimsy veil. Remember though, “Norway” is neither a “skill” nor an indication of “merit”.
Democratic objectives: Democrats stated goal is to provide a path out of the shadows for undocumented immigrants who’ve created lives in the US. The priority is childhood arrivals (DACA eligible and prior). Here, we’re talking about people who were brought to the US as children without proper documentation. In virtually all cases, they have no ties to their home country and for all intents and purposes are American children. They were often unaware they were undocumented till they applied to college or for driver’s licenses. There is the strongest possible case to be made for legalizing their status and creating a path to citizenship. Democrats would also like to see immigration numbers stay level, or perhaps even increase. All that said, the Democratic caucus, like the Republicans has a range of positions, based on political calculations and their own experience. Some Democrats are unwilling to advocate for or support humane immigration policy, especially if their constituents have been radicalized by Fox News and other right-wing propaganda.
With all that out of the way, we can consider what future policy should look like. The administration’s one-page “framework” has four major components:
- Punitive rhetoric and plans for walls, more ICE agents, deportations etc.
- A lengthy (10-12yr) path to citizenship for all DACA eligible persons.
- Modifying family-reunification to exclude all persons except spouses and minor children. This would exclude children over 18, parents, and siblings (who are all eligible under current law).
- Ending the diversity visa program, which is meant to encourage immigration from countries that do not send large numbers of immigrants to the US.
The one positive aspect of the initial position is that the administration is supporting citizenship for DACA eligible persons. This includes those who haven't applied for DACA permits (out of fear or poverty). I’m actually surprised the administration is offering this. It is almost certainly a ploy to create a wedge between those who support DACA eligible persons and the smaller group who want to see all undocumented immigrants be given a chance to legalize their status.
Despite all our concerns, if we can pull 1.8 million or 2.5 million (estimates vary) DACA eligible people out of the shadows, it will be an unequivocally good thing and we have to consider it seriously.
I see two major issues with the proposal:
- This is not real legislation with support across all Republicans. It is likely a feint from one of the three untrustworthy liars who will need to sign off to pass this into law (McConnell, Ryan and Trump).
- What the administration is asking for in return.
Like most of you, I would prefer a clean Dream Act. That is one without any other conditions. If we cannot get a clean Dream Act, it’s worth considering what else could/should be modified.
Refugee resettlement: I do not believe we should budge at all on protections for refugees. I consider our refugee resettlement program to be a moral imperative which we must continue to support. I would not accept quotas or restrictions here. This program is one of the reasons I am proud of our country. It must be preserved.
Family reunification: There are currently 4 million odd people who have applied for family-reunification immigrant visas but have not received them. They are parents, children and sometimes siblings of US citizens who are eligible but have been in a queue for years or decades because of various quotas. These people should not be affected by any change in immigration rules. If anything, processing should be sped up for them. The administration does want to remove the existing family-reunification immigrant categories for parents, adult children and siblings. Restricting/removing family based immigration for siblings is unlikely to do a lot of harm. The waiting periods are already so long, this category is almost useless. Restricting immigration for parents or adult children is more problematic. Immigrants often want older parents here so they can care for them. Like most of our restrictions, any changes here will disproportionately hurt poorer families who cannot afford to travel as frequently.
Quotas: We should seek to remove per-country quotas entirely. Historically, per-country limits have been set to ensure immigrants from Europe are processed speedily, while applicants from other parts of the world are deferred. The administration’s top priority is reducing the total number of immigrants. They will seek, however, to build a system that privileges “Norway”. This should not be allowed to happen, for the practical reason that having European immigrants in the same queue is likely to make more people sympathetic to higher quotas/limits.
Points, Merit, Diversity Visa: I would accept a points based system that accounts for various factors, such as the Canadian system, but the white nationalists have never embraced this, just talked about it as a smokescreen. So we should be wary of any such proposal from Republicans. The diversity visa has been an interesting experiment. It was partly created to encourage more immigration from Europe. It is one of the only ways a poorer person without formal higher education can hope to immigrate to the US legally. It’s a worthy program, but should be lower on the priority list.
Investor visas: I would like to see the real-estate based investor-visa scam (the one Kushner and Trump have both exploited) killed. This category should be reserved for actual businesses, not luxury apartment sales. Democrats should play hardball here and mine this aggressively by declaring the Kushner/Trumps are selling green-cards and urge investigation of their companies.
Undocumented immigrants: The administration’s top priority is to deport undocumented immigrants who are not DACA eligible. They have demonstrated their zeal here by tearing apart families with abandon, deporting spouses and parents of young US citizens. This could impact roughly 8 million people and we have to limit the damage to whatever degree we can.
Enforcement and the wall: I am tempted to say I don’t much care about the wall. It is bound to be an environmental disaster and ineffective, but if a wall is what it takes to protect millions of people, it we may want to let Trump build whatever folly he wants. We would need to make sure we hammer home his lie that "Mexico will pay for it" and investigate the inevitable corrupt contracts in unforgiving terms. Enforcement is far more important. ICE agents are already utilize excessive force and cause enormous harm to immigrant families via punitive detention. The administration gets to set most of the rules, but Democrats can work to include further due-process protections for immigrants.
The urgency is clearly around the DACA recipients, whom the administration wishes to target, and can because it has names, addresses and often bio-metrics as well. There’s a race against the clock here, since most DACA recipients will be deportable in March. Yet, even here, activists can find unexpected ways to exert leverage.