Obama Dives into Immigration Reform, But Lines are Already Being Drawn

By Suman Raghunathan, New America Media. Posted June 29, 2009.

Another key piece of immigration legislation already introduced in Congress is the DREAM Act, a bipartisan proposal to allow undocumented high school graduates with at least two years of college or military service to apply for legal status. First introduced in 2001, and since then kept alive by the organizing and advocacy efforts of young undocumented immigrants nationwide, the DREAM Act has met opposition from members of Congress who protest it gives a ‘free ride’ to undocumented youth. The bill would allow roughly 65,000 immigrant young people to gain legal status and dramatically lower in-state tuition rates at state and community colleges.

It’s also likely some form of workplace enforcement program will be part of the discussion. Such an approach would likely go hand-in-hand with efforts to bring undocumented workers out of the underground economy and level the playing field with respect to wages, workplace safety, and the right to unionize. Obama has expressed support for a workplace enforcement program that would target employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers to circumvent fair wage and hour laws. Unfortunately, this part of the worker enforcement equation is increasingly complicated, and there are few models that have been shown to work.

The existing (and controversial) federal E-Verify program, which would require businesses with federal contracts to screen employees using a Social Security Administration database, has at least a 10 percent error rate. The Obama administration has put implementation of this program on hold until September, pending a review. Nevertheless, it’s likely the administration will face some pressure to develop a system to screen potential employees’ work authorization.

Employers generally oppose such programs, and have largely avoided prosecution for hiring undocumented immigrants – with the notable exception of the Rubashkin family, owners of the now-infamous Agriprocessors plant in Postville, Iowa.

Questions abound about how to ensure the future flow of legal immigrants –skilled and unskilled– into the country. There is currently no way for unskilled low-wage immigrants to legally enter the U.S. with the option to stay here: the existing guest worker program is small, difficult to enforce, and only provides seasonal agricultural workers to a limited number of businesses.

Many believe the last immigration reform proposal in 2007 collapsed over the issue of broadening the guest worker program, an approach popular with business interests (and with Sen. John McCain, who after Thursday’s meeting said he would not approve a bill that didn’t include such a program), and reviled by powerful unions such as the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win labor coalition. Organized labor and immigrant advocates outline numerous concerns over wage levels and workforce protections for workers recruited through such a program, seen decades ago in the much-vilified Bracero program.

Similarly, the existing H1-B program for highly-skilled workers is often decried as too limited and leaving workers at the hands of their employers in the U.S. – an arrangement that deprives them of fair pay and other worker protections.

Even as Obama announced his commitment to streamline the immigration process and reduce the wait for citizenship application processing to six months, questions remain about other parts of the nation’s immigration architecture, including the immigration detention system.

Over the past year, numerous human rights and due process violations in the nation’s detention system have come to light – including U.S. citizens swept up in detention raids and unlawfully imprisoned, according to Detention Watch Network, which reports the number of people held in detention facilities has tripled compared to 10 years ago. Reports abound of immigrants being deprived of medical attention while in detention facilities. Immigrant and detention rights advocates will likely push hard for increased investigations of the detention system.

Politically speaking, the 800-pound gorilla in the room is the economy. Despite arguments from immigration reform advocates that large-scale reform will actually bring economic benefits, members of Congress have so far proven skittish about taking on such a heated issue in the midst of the recession. But the situation may be changing: Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid recently underlined his commitment to enacting immigration reform this year, and reportedly has gone so far as to hold a place in the Senate calendar for the proposal.

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