Ambivalence Prevails in Immigration Policy
By ERIC SCHMITT
Once inside the border, however, illegal immigrants who evade the
Border Patrol and survive scorching deserts and treacherous mountains find
a nation that is increasingly willing to ignore laws that forbid hiring
them and to embrace them in homes and workplaces. Labor-strapped employers risk steep fines and even jail to hire
undocumented workers. Some lawmakers who have voted to increase the Border
Patrol scream in protest if raids by the Immigration and Naturalization
Service upset businesses in their districts. More states are issuing
driver's licenses to illegal immigrants for public safety reasons and in
recognition that the immigrants are here to stay. "There's a fundamental ambivalence in our nation over what to do about
illegal immigrants who are living in our communities and who have become
contributing members," said Joseph R. Greene, the immigration service's
assistant commissioner for investigations. To be sure, illegal immigrants still confront tough laws aimed at
deterring them from coming here. On any day, the I.N.S. detains 20,000
immigrants in government facilities or county jails, most awaiting
deportation. But even as President Bush called President Vicente Fox of Mexico on
Friday and expressed "deep sadness and condolences" over the deaths of 14
migrants in the Arizona desert this week, the incident has highlighted the
country's conflicting stands on immigration. On the one hand, Mr. Bush has tried to live up to his pro-immigrant
campaign position. He has urged Congress to extend a deadline for illegal
immigrants to apply for legal residency in the United States without first
returning to their home country. He has also agreed to allow thousands of
Salvadorans living here illegally to remain in the United States for up to
18 months to help El Salvador recover from several devastating
earthquakes. Yet there is no consensus on solutions for stanching the flow of at
least 300,000 immigrants who enter the country illegally or overstay legal
visas every year. Advocates of a more restrictionist immigration policy argue that tough
border enforcement must be coupled with tougher interior enforcement.
"We're essentially dangling jobs in front of these people, but they have
to run the gantlet to get them," said Mark S. Krikorian, executive
director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, an
independent, nonprofit research organization. But in a sign of the priorities of the I.N.S. and Congress, there are
9,400 Border Patrol agents, compared with the equivalent of 300 full-time
I.N.S. agents to enforce workplace laws. Because of the political repercussions, Mr. Greene said, the I.N.S. has
virtually abandoned large raids on employers, except for those suspected
of collaborating with smugglers or displacing native-born workers. There are some tangible signs that American society is more willing to
treat illegal immigrants as de facto community members than as criminals.
In a step that immigration experts say would have been inconceivable a
few years ago, Utah, North Carolina and Tennessee are issuing driver's
licenses to illegal immigrants. Several other states, including Texas,
Illinois, California and Minnesota, are considering such a move. This serves a public safety purpose by training and testing immigrants
who are driving anyway. But it also grants to foreigners who are breaking
the law just by being here a valuable piece of identification they can use
in many ways, including applying for a job and cashing checks. At the same time, immigrants have become a powerful force that
politicians are loath to anger. For the first time since the 1930's, one
of every 10 Americans is foreign born. Both political parties are
aggressively wooing Hispanics, who have drawn even with blacks as the
nation's largest minority. While in some polls Hispanics have expressed ambivalence toward illegal
immigration, they have punished candidates -- Republicans in particular --
for anti-immigrant positions. "All of this has been a part of a new discussion to have policies match
reality rather than bend reality to match policies," said Frank Sharry,
executive director of the National Immigration Forum, an immigrant
advocacy group. In many respects, the conflicting impulses today are a backlash against
the anti-immigrant backlash of the mid-1990's championed by Gov. Pete
Wilson of California. Mr. Wilson, a Republican, was re-elected on the back
of Proposition 187, which put tough restrictions on services for illegal
immigrants and their children. Though voters overwhelmingly supported the
proposition, it was later voided by the courts. Since then, a booming economy has made immigrant labor a coveted
commodity. Were the nation's estimated six million to nine million illegal
immigrants expelled tomorrow, thousands of hotels, restaurants,
poultry-processing plants, landscaping companies and garment factories
would very likely close. Mr. Bush's election signified the ascension of the pro-immigrant wing
of the Republican Party, which still has powerful anti-immigrant critics.
And other powerful forces that once were critical of open immigration
are courting the new residents. After years of viewing immigrants as a
threat, competing for jobs and depressing wage levels, the A.F.L.- C.I.O.
last year called for amnesty for all illegal workers, seeing immigrants as
potential union members. While most experts agree that greater prosperity in Mexico is the
ultimate solution to keeping its people home, Doris M. Meissner, the
I.N.S. commissioner under President Bill Clinton, said cross-border
cooperation could ease the problem. "The border needs to be a place where the flows of people and goods are
regulated," Ms. Meissner said. "What the U.S. has been doing in recent
years is bringing some order out of the chaos."
ASHINGTON, May 26 -- The United States spends as much as $2
billion a year to build walls, post 24- hour patrols and crack down on
illegal immigrants streaming across its 2,000-mile border with Mexico.
Page Top