Immigration Reform That Just Might Work

By Tara Magner, MIT Center for International Studies. Posted October 18, 2007.

The debate over immigration reform in America has come full circle. It began in late 2005 with an "enforcement only" bill in the House of Representatives that relied on aggressive implementation of existing law and greatly restricting future immigration. The most extreme legislation proposed in this vein would have made felons of undocumented immigrants and prosecuted those who provide such immigrants with aid or comfort. In essence, the proposal threw down a gauntlet to any who supported immigrant rights. While the most punitive measures of that bill were largely rejected, the parameters that it laid out represent the current position of the U.S. government. Today's policy focuses on border security, employer sanctions and the detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants.

Efforts to provide a more comprehensive approach to immigration reform have also failed. The inability of Congress to pass legislation in either 2006 or 2007 reflects the lack of consensus among policymakers over how to resolve the broader issues. While there are major economic interests supportive of comprehensive reform, misperceptions about migration effects, cultural prejudices, and the real and perceived costs of immigration undermined support of bipartisan legislation. The result is that the Bush administration has retreated into an "enforcement first" or "enforcement only" approach that ignores the economic and labor needs of the country. This approach is one that has not worked in the past -- and will not work in the future.

Failed Reform on Capitol Hill

The Senate took a more comprehensive approach to resolving the nation's immigration woes in 2006 and 2007. The Senate approach included tough enforcement measures, but also offered a path to legalization for the undocumented. It also provided a temporary worker program with labor and wage protections, and increased legal channels for permanent immigration to the United States. The premise of the Senate approach was that each piece of the reform package was necessary to address a complex set of issues holistically. Nonetheless, opponents labeled these measures "amnesty."

The failure of Congress to pass a comprehensive reform package reflects a set of competing interests that proved impossible to reconcile. Advocates for comprehensive reform -- including business leaders in a number of key industries, pro-immigration organizations, and even the White House -- were defeated by a vocal minority that played upon fears that immigrants were displacing native-born workers, draining social programs and overtaking American communities. The majority of Americans believe the immigration system is broken and must be fixed in a manner that allows undocumented immigrants to legalize their status, but their voices were muted in this debate.

What do the debates of 2005-07 portend for the coming years? With a bad problem only getting worse, will the next several years increase pressure on powerful interests, especially business, to convince cultural conservatives that immigration reform is critical to the nation's future economic health? Can the border be secured and the law enforced in a manner that does not trample over individual rights? How can costs currently absorbed at the state level, such as for emergency medical care of uninsured immigrants, be alleviated so that state coffers are not drained as a result of federal inaction?

Economic Forces

These questions will persist so long as the underlying economic forces that spawned them remain. The free trade policies of the past thirty years and the opening of the American economy to imported goods have contributed greatly to a process of de-industrialization. Technological developments and a broad expansion of the service sector have also changed the face of many industries. These elements, combined with an aging and better-educated American workforce, left many U.S. industries without a steady supply of low-wage, low-skill American workers. American companies began to look elsewhere.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was expected to facilitate trade in goods but not labor. While NAFTA did not address migration directly, many supporters believed that it would create jobs in Mexico, reducing the flow of undocumented immigrants from Mexico to the United States such that, as then-Mexican President Carlos Salinas said, Mexico would export goods, not people. From 1994-2004, however, the decade after NAFTA came into force, unauthorized immigration from Mexico to the United States increased. The free trade agreement, combined with a financial crisis and stagnant job growth in Mexico, created a surge in Mexico's unemployed workforce. At the same time, a strong U.S. economy in the late 1990s fuelled migration to the north, much of it outside legal channels. Low-wage jobs in the United States serve as a magnet drawing labor to the north. Reports by the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that job growth in industries requiring low levels of formal education -- such as food service, hospitality, and construction -- will continue to increase.

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Tara Magner is director of policy at the National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago and a member of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Immigration. From 2003 to 2006, she served as a counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary.

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