Holland versus Pizzo: the immigration debate continues

Posted by Joshua Holland at 2:42 PM on January 31, 2007.

On the front page today, regular AlterNet contributor Stephen Pizzo and I exchanged views on the merits of “comprehensive” immigration reform. Pizzo’s piece is here and my response is here.

Pizzo sent the following in response to my article. I’ll follow with a few words, and update this post if he wants to continue the back-and-forth.

Stephen Pizzo

I was distressed to discover that Josh found my essay on immigration "incoherent." And, this morning I set about writing a response. Four hours and way too many words later it dawned on me that I was wasting my time - and risking wasting yours as well.

So instead I hit the "delete" button and started over. This time I tried to keep it shorter if not sweeter.

First, I agree entirely with Josh's opening observation:

"Just about everyone agrees that our immigration system is a train wreck, but we're divided over how to go about fixing it. One of the reasons it's been so hard to agree on a policy is that the arguments surrounding the issue are often more emotional than grounded in fact, and the result is that it can be difficult to even agree to the terms of the debate."

Indeed. Both the left and the right are guilty as charged. Both are pursuing their own agendas and throwing sand into the eyes of voters by twisting the facts and nomenclature. Neither side's intentions are as entirely pure, just or humane as they claim.

My intention in writing that piece was not to suggest any particular solutions - though I did, albeit incoherently. I wrote that piece to warn liberals against falling back into the bad habits that drove so many American voters into the arms of the dark side a dozen years ago. We liberals find it easy to reel off the many sins of the right since the Gingrich revolution. But we fail too often to recognize what it was in our own behavior that drove voters into those grasping arms in the first place.

Yes, voters seem to have finally soured on conservative rule, and they are looking for alternatives. The right so abused their trust that voters are in open to giving liberals a fresh look. But it would be a serious mistake for liberals to chalk up Democratic gains last November as proof the left is back. Voters were not voting for the left, but against the right, and in particular against their war in Iraq.

Nevertheless, I believe that for the first time in over a decade, voters, especially those long-wayward blue collar "Reagan Democrats,"are open to liberal solutions to the avalanche of problems facing America. What they are not open to is simply switching from one bunch of double-talkers to another. And there's way too much liberal double-talk when it comes to immigration reform.

Liberals seem to have no trouble understanding why Americans reacted badly when the Bush administration tried to spin it escalation in Iraq by calling it a "surge." No one was fooled. But liberals don't seem to understand when many Americans balk at liberal groups that do the same with terms like "illegal immigrants," by repackaging it as "undocumented aliens." Voters just shake their heads and say, "Oh shit, there they go again."

I have no problem with the left throwing it's support behind the part of the Senate's plan that would "normalize" over 12 million illegal immigrants. Who knows, that might be the only solution. We need to talk about it. What isn't okay though is when those who support it try to obscure what it is by claiming, with straight faces, that it's not an amnesty.

I know it pisses me off, and I suspect many Americans, when those in favor of the Senate plan defend their it by claiming it's not an amnesty because those covered will "have to go to the back of the line."

Excuse me, but at any given moment millions of non-Mexicans have their names on a list that, when their turn comes, will get them a place "at the end of that line." So, as Judge Judy would say, "Don't piss on my shoe and try to tell me it's raining." Clearly 12 million illegal Mexican immigrants - not on that list -- would get to cut in front of those who followed the rules.

So it is too an amnesty. It walks like an amnesty, it talks like an amnesty, it's a frigging amnesty. One to the things Americans are most tired of is playing word games with special interest groups. Sick and tired. And it's precisely that kind of crapola that threatens to turn voters off to liberals once again.

So it's an amnesty. And if you're for it you so said so. But after all we've been through over the last six years, let's not see the left now scuttle down that Orwellian lane, perverting the language, and obscuring the truth. Because we've had quite enough of that.

As I said, such a mass amnesty may well be the only solution. But if that's what we end up with, let's go into it understanding clearly that that's what were doing.

But my fear now is that liberals will, once again, allow themselves to be bullied by those on our left who are mirror images of the right wing Neocons. I fear that we are allowing them to define the terms and frame the arguments around immigration and that, in an abundance of misplaced inclusiveness we are too often allow them to take center stage and let their narrow agendas go unchallenged. That's how we lost the country to the far right a dozen years ago. And the American public is no more ready for that kind of nonsense now than they were then.

Now, in an effort redeem my coherence, let me take another swing at solutions. Immigration reform, in broad strokes, does not need to be such a complicated issue. Let me risk offending Josh with a bit more "horse-sense."

We don't need a stupid fence, or an offensive wall. Nor is the militarization of the border either necessary or justified. All that's needed are unambiguous laws uncompromisingly enforced. Employers that hire illegals need to face swift and painful punishments -- not sometimes, not selectively, but whenever they break the law.

Aliens found to be in the country illegally need to be humanely, but promptly deported.

Once those laws are enforced consistently and without special preference to either industry or any particular ethnic group, the flood of illegals will drop to a manageable trickle. After that border security will cease being a hot-button issue and will return to what it should be, a routine law enforcement matter.

After that we can address the needs of farmers and employers who claim they can't get Americans to work for them.

Aand only then will we be able to have a sane and dispassionate discussion about what the hell to do with the millions who came here years ago, have put down roots and built lives and families. Only once the magnets that draw illegals here are managed, can this emotional debate cool enough to allow most Americans to finally view and treat the individuals and families now living in the shadows with the compassion, concern and justice worthy of our stated values.

But if liberals and progressives want to be part of that solution they need to start thinking and talking straight about immigration and immigration reform. Because straight talk - real straight talk - is the only way to blow away the piles of bullshit narrow special interests - on both sides -- have piled up upon it.

Pizzo, out.

Joshua back

Pizzo’s response, like his original argument, shows the importance of studying up on a subject before putting fingers to keyboard. That's especially true in matters of public policy like immigration reform, where there’s been an excessive amount of heated rhetoric but most people don’t have a thorough grasp of the competing proposals that have been put forward. I called his argument “incoherent” because he trashes the comprehensive approach for two-thirds of his article and then suggests that we adopt what is substantially the same approach in the final third. Perhaps “internally contradictory” would have been a more gentle phrase.

And it continues; Pizzo now seems to favor deporting all 12 million immigrants in this country illegally -- a wholly impractical idea that only a small minority of real hard-liners advocate and that's far outside the mainstream.

Having not looked deeply at the immigration issue, Pizzo falls back on arguing that we should be “straight-talkers,” and takes issue with the phrase “undocumented immigrant” (preferring “illegal alien”). That’s purely a matter of opinion -- I personally find that undocumented immigrant is more accurate because the other implies a degree of criminality that isn’t the case for most foreigners who lack papers (and I find it as Orwellian as Pizzo finds “undocumented”). More to the point, it’s an irrelevant discussion and a distraction; you can call a person who lives in this country without papers a large pie with extra cheese and pepperoni but at the end of the day we still have to figure out what to do with them. Arguing over what the PC phrase should be won't get us any closer.

Pizzo should look hard at the various proposals. It strikes me that while he means well, he’s internalized the organized anti-immigration (or anti-illegal-immigration if you prefer) movement’s framing of the issue. That is, he’s laboring under the impression that there’s a great mass of liberals ambling towards their own marginalization by advocating an approach well outside the mainstream. But that’s not the case; the measures in the McCain-Kennedy proposal, for example, poll extremely well with Americans across the political spectrum when they are accurately explained to them.

The “liberal” approach to which Pizzo objects is also a chimera -- he claims, falsely, that “comprehensive” immigration reform is a stealthy version of “blanket amnesty” (which is overwhelmingly unpopular among the public). But blanket amnesty is not the position favored by most progressives and Democrats -- in fact it was proposed by exactly one House Democrat and the proposal got no co-sponsors and never went anywhere. Nobody even took it seriously; it was a non-starter.

What distinguishes what’s been called a “path to citizenship” from amnesty is very simple: amnesty means being absolved of a criminal offense without punishment. The bill that the Senate passed last year -- the “comprehensive” bill -- required that applicants pay a minimum of $3,250 in fines for having broken the law. If that’s not a sufficient punishment, then Pizzo should tell us what is. Remember, entering the country illegally is a misdemeanor, and entering legally and then overstaying your visa is a civil code violation. I think a fine that’s probably equal to a quarter of most immigrants’ annual income is an appropriate punishment.

Only people who have worked here for six years and paid all their taxes were eligible for permanent status under McCain-Kennedy, everyone else would have to return to their country of origin and apply for the guest worker program. Then they’d only become eligible for permanent status after a certain period (I recall three years off the top of my head).

Ultimately, he and I both agree that comprehensive immigration reform is a superior approach to one that relies solely (or mostly) on enforcement. The bills presented last year weren’t perfect -- the Senate bill, for example, tacked on a fence in order to attract Republican votes -- but proposals like McCain-Kennedy are the best we’re likely to get (or at least the best we’re likely to get through Congress). Instead of dismissing it as a right-wing trap (when the right absolutely despises it) Pizzo’d be better off explaining it in detail and trying to build a consensus around what really is a commonsense approach.

PS: Here’s a quick guide to McCain-Kennedy, and here’s a comparison of the House (enforcement) and Senate (comprehensive) bills.

Tagged as: debate, immigration

Joshua Holland is a staff writer at Alternet and a regular contributor to The Gadflyer.