Julia Koehler on Immigration Reform

Here is a guest post from a reader of ImmigrationProf, Julia Koehler, on immigration reform:

I would like to share some thoughts about the news that Immigration Reform won't be on this year's agenda for the Obama administration - would be interested to know what you think. I have come to the conclusion that putting comprehensive immigration reform on the table now would be a bad thing; so the news that is has been pushed back is good news.

The mob mentality that has recently been surfacing around the topic of health insurance reform tells me that anti-immigrant hate is actually a free-floating hate and anger that can and will coalesce around certain subjects - immigrants certainly among them - but that is so irrational that people will resort to violence, even when it is against their own financial interest. Many of these people would financially benefit from a health insurance reform. In spite of that fact, they come out ready to beat proponents of reform because their anger can be so easily channeled by suggestions from Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and the like.

For a first-hand description of this, see e.g. http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/9188

Can you imagine what they would do if a "comprehensive" immigration reform were proposed now?

Also, the fiasco of the health insurance reform bills wending their way through various committees in Congress, and in the process losing any meaningful reform plans that would be sustainable in the long term, makes me worry about the idea of a comprehensive reform. In the case of health reform, the White House is now actively suppressing positive proposals like the ability of Medicare and a public plan to negotitate drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry. The idea of the Obama administration is that "compromise" on this and other critically important issues will help a final bill pass. Can you imagine the "compromises" they will promote with respect to an immigration bill, just so that it gets passed and is "bi-partisan," e.g. so that Senator Sessions of Alabama doesn't find it unacceptable? Think guest worker program, think "touch back" - people being asked to "go home" in order to regularize their status.

Then, despite such "compromises", Lou Dobbs and Pat Buchanan and Rush Limbaugh will rally their troops against any bill that makes it out of a committee in Congress, and I am afraid that the violence seen in town meetings on health reform will be just a mild warm-up.

It seems more useful to work for piecemeal reforms, in incremental pieces. Starting with a moratorium on raids, ending all 287g programs, and closing down the detention center network. The Obama administration must be questioned about the fact that the President himself is saying, he can't predict whether immigration reform can pass, yet he is stepping up 287g programs. I think stopping the increased unjust "enforcement" that is part of the Obama administration vision has to be the most urgent goal, not "CIR."

The only enforcement that serves justice and fairness to Americans and immigrants, is enforcement of labor law and of safety regulations - OSHA needs to be strengthened and get the billions of dollars that the Obama administration has budgeted for ICE.

Piecemeal increments are more likely to be achievable I think, such as stopping deportations of anyone who is not convicted of a violent crime, and establishing a visa with the right to reside and work in the US - and travel back and forth - for the 12 million undocumented people. Most of my undocumented friends do not have American citizenship high on their priority list. But being able to go visit their families and come back to their job here is #1 on the list of many people I know. Not to say this is easy to achieve. But again, all "CIR" proposals in the public realm right now that I know of are more unjust than beneficial.

The whole idea that CIR needs to include a "fine" , which everyone has seemed to agree to, promotes the underlying concept that undocumented people are criminals of some sort who need to acknowledge their misdeeds and accept a punishment. This concept is baseless and only justifies the "enforcement" that we are seeing now. This is just one example of the fundamentally harmful provisions of all CIR proposals that I have heard of.

Lastly, please take a look at an article called "Against comprehensive reform - of anything", in Salon of 7/14, at http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/07/14/reform/

I think the energy put into CIR these days needs to be refocused on specific goals that ease the tremendous burden of suffering of undocumented families, without adding to it.