Immigration Reform: The Facts, the Politics, and Why

BY JACK KREWSON

Let’s get past the politics with regard to immigration reform.  According to the Department of Homeland Security’s yearbook on immigration statistics, illegal border crossings are down 80% since their peak in 2000. Between 2009 and 2011 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) completed more employer audits and debarrings than during the entire previous administration.  Indeed, the Obama administration has deported illegal immigrants at nearly double the rate of the Bush administration.  Under the Obama administration the number of border patrol agents has increased from 14,923 to 21,444, exceeding the requirement of 20,000 agents set under the Bush administration.  For the sake of your sanity, I’ll stop there.  The bottom line is this: The United States has increased its commitment to border security under President Obama and enforcement is going better than ever.  This, however, is not a tagline you will hear much in the news.  For better or worse, politics affect policy; the debate over immigration reform, notably its immense focus on border security, reflects this fact.

The Senate side

The version of the immigration reform bill S744 passed by The United States Senate in early July balances the liberal desire to provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants with the conservative drive to increase border security.  The primary enforcement provision is the bill’s requirement of a 90% effectiveness rating for border enforcement within five years.  That means that 9 out of every 10 attempted illegal crossings would have to be thwarted by ICE estimates.  If this target is not met, a border commission made up of state officials as well as presidential and congressional appointees would convene to offer new strategies with an additional $2 billion at their disposal for enforcement.  The bill also requires an enhanced e-verification system to ensure that those who obtain temporary citizenship cannot simply stay after their term has expired.  The bill would also provide an additional 20,000 border security agents, effectively doubling the 21,444 mentioned above.

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, while approximately 8 million of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants play integral roles in the labor force, they are more susceptible to wage theft and poor working conditions.  The immigration bill would solve the problem posed by unauthorized immigrants who are already here by creating an accountable path to citizenship. It would bring undocumented immigrants out of the shadows and on to the tax rolls by allowing them to apply for provisional status and eventually earn citizenship, but only after navigating a tough 10-15 year process that requires that they pass criminal and security background checks, pay fines and back taxes, learn English, and go to the back of the legal immigration line.  Further, there are a series of benchmarks that must be met in order for any of these individuals to obtain permanent residency status, including meeting the 90% border security rate mentioned above.  So if both sides of the aisle are happy, as evident by the bill’s passage 68-32, what’s the problem?

Bipartisan Vs. Bicameral:

The problem, is the entire house and the oversized struggle bus they appear to be riding. Don’t you just love the drama of a divided congress?  At least this summer’s congressional record is consistent: the Senate decides on some sort of compromise that no one is entirely happy with (thus is the nature of compromise) and sends it to the House with high hopes. The House promptly avoids the matter altogether, tries to come up with a different option, and eventually fails to pass anything.  One major point can be gleaned from the already dim and progressively dimmer prospects of both the Farm and Immigration reform bills respectively: when the concept of bipartisanship meets that of bicameralism, the House of Representatives fractures and crumbles, destroying any chance of bipartisanship trapped inside.

One look at House re-election rates and things start to make sense: 87% of House incumbents were re-elected in 2010. The House has a particularly strong incumbent advantage by design.  Each of their districts is gerrymandered by their state legislators, which pretty much guarantees the member, or at least the party he or she represents, a majority vote. This ideological alignment ensures that Republicans in the House have no incentive to vote for an immigration bill that includes a pathway to citizenship for currently undocumented immigrants.  Because the Hispanic vote trends Democratic, Republican districts need not fear reprisal from this demographic of constituents because it simply doesn’t exist in their districts.  Indeed Hispanics make up just 10% of the voting age population in Republican House districts compared to 21% in Democratic Districts.

In the case of immigration reform, the buck stops with Republicans in the House and what their constituents want. House Majority Leader John Boehner has indicated that the Senate version will not be brought to a vote in the House because a majority of the majority party does not support it (also known as the Hastert Rule).  Several members have indicated that the House leadership plans to achieve its goals of immigration reform in several smaller bills, as opposed to the Senate’s single larger one. This would begin with a bill tackling border security and end with a bill setting up a pathway to citizenship.  One large barrier to this approach is institutional.  Once different versions of a bill on the same topic pass both chambers of congress they are referred to Conference Committee where the discrepancies in each bill are hashed out in a manner as pleasing as possible to representatives from both sides. Thus, chances of reconciliation in Conference Committees are nearly impossible because the aims, provisions, and scope of the House and Senate versions would be vastly different. What many do not seem to understand is that this Immigration Reform Bill really does reflect a compromise of what both parties want.

The loudest voices of opposition to this bill fear an economic downturn and lost job opportunities for “hard working Americans.” Individuals holding this view fail to recognize the simple economics of undercutting wages.  When employers can pay undocumented immigrants lower wages through frequent minimum wage violations and off the clock hours, legal workers are the ones who get short changed.  Further, under the legislation, work visas will not be allotted for any areas where unemployment is above 8.5% to ensure that this labor force only enters where needed.  Overall economic implications of the bill are stunning.  Indeed, The Congressional Budget Office estimates that overall, the Senate proposed bill would reduce the deficit by around $135 billion over the period from 2013-2024. This figure accounts for necessary increases in enforcement as well as additional benefit program and discretionary funding needs.  The equation is simple: 9.6 million more legal workers equals 9.6 million more people paying taxes – people who are already here in the first place.

Perhaps Carl Becker was right, and “democracy works best when there is nothing of profound importance to discuss.”  He was referring to the Civil War, and slavery.  While I don’t predict that a war will erupt any time soon over the issue of immigration, it is worth pointing out the storied, albeit unfortunate, history of influence written by racial discrimination.  Whether most of the disconnect lies with ignorance of economics or xenophobia is up for grabs.  Having answered calls all summer in a Congressional office, I still couldn’t tell you which is the prime culprit.  I can tell you that both exist.

Ultimately, ideologically indentured representatives in the House are responsible for yet another important issue on the verge of compromise being tossed aside.  For those advocating limited government, this stasis is a win.  Of course, there are those on the left who are also unwilling to compromise (see gerrymandering), but this bill specifically is, if anything, more conservative than not.  This unwillingness to compromise, especially on anything that the Obama administration vaguely supports, has become the hallmark of many Republicans in the legislative branch.  As the president said,  Republicans are for “shutting down the government just because I’m for keeping it open.” This attitude is dangerous.  It is the same attitude that plunged our country into the sequestration which has cost thousands of government employees their incomes, which in turn won’t be spent in our consumer economy. It’s no wonder Congress’s approval rating is holding at a remarkably low 15%. If you think you can solve this problem, well, you should probably run for office.