The Failure of Immigration Reform Has Created a Living Hell. What's Next?

I am an immigrant advocate. I have worked in the nation's capitol for more than a decade in pursuit of comprehensive immigration reform legislation that would enfranchise millions of undocumented workers, reunite families separated for years by restrictions and backlogs, and admit needed workers in a way that would protect their rights, and do so in a way that would restore the rule of law to our nation's dysfunctional immigration system.

A year ago I predicted that an admittedly flawed comprehensive immigration reform bill would clear the U.S. Senate, get improved and approved in the House of Representatives, and be signed into law. I was wrong. In June of 2007 the Senate bill crashed and burned before the House ever had a chance to take it up.

The so-called “grand bargain” that had been birthed in a back room by the White House and leading Republicans and Democrats in the Senate turned out to be an orphan. The right wing went nuts and mobilized in opposition to what it called an “amnesty” bill. Many in the progressive community stayed on the sidelines or actually opposed what they saw as a Bush- and business- friendly bill that was not sufficiently pro-worker and pro-immigrant.

Those of us who supported the Senate bill held our noses in doing so. We knew the Senate bill was deeply flawed, but we believed the legalization component for the 12 million undocumented immigrants was decent and the family reunification provisions could be fixed before final passage, and we were hopeful that if the bill passed the Senate, the House would make it more worker- and immigrant-friendly on a number of fronts. Truth be told, we were motivated as much by fear as by hope, for we worried that in the aftermath of a failed immigration reform effort, the situation for immigrant workers and families on the ground would become a living hell.

We never got to test the first assertion, since the House never took up comprehensive reform once the Senate bill died. Unfortunately, the second prediction has come true. Immigrant workers and families are currently subjected to a virtual state of siege. High-profile raids, state and local anti-immigrant initiatives, and aggressive police enforcement of immigration laws in a growing number of communities have created a climate of terror that permeates the daily lives of some 20 million people in mixed-status families (most undocumented immigrants live in households with other family members who are citizens or permanent residents). They fear the knock at the door in the middle of the night, the red police light in the rearview mirror for a traffic violation, the helicopter over the work site, and the agents sitting in parked cars near elementary schools, for each could mean arrest, detention, deportation, family separation and dashed dreams.

What happened? Why did comprehensive immigration reform fail? Didn't a Republican-controlled Senate approve a version of comprehensive immigration reform in 2006 with 62 votes, 23 of them Republican? Why did a more right-leaning version of comprehensive immigration reform fail in 2007 in a Congress controlled by Democrats? And what will it take to get back to immigration reform with a path to citizenship for the 12 million undocumented immigrants currently working and living in the United States?

Here's my take on the specific and big-picture reasons we lost.

The specific reasons are twofold. First, the right-wing revolt against President George Bush and the bill intimidated all but a handful of Republicans into opposition. By way of background, the right-left legislative strategy we adopted relied on Bush, Republicans and business allies to deliver 25 to 30 Republican votes in the Senate to reach the filibuster-proof margin of 60 votes. This seemed doable when the grand bargain was first unveiled. But after the party's conservatives decided to join with the extremist anti-immigrant groups to rise up in protest, only 12 Republicans voted for a bill designed to attract their votes. Second, as a policy solution to the complex challenge of illegal immigration, the grand bargain was viewed not only as too liberal by the right, but as too conservative for the left and too unworkable for the policy experts. This combination meant that the bill, which needed to catch an updraft of support from a public wanting a solution and constituencies wanting a bill, instead met a stiff headwind of resistance.