Comprehensive (not just piecemeal) immigration reform will define the new American century.
On June 27, the U.S. Senate passed a bipartisan immigration overhaul, 68-32. Now, the U.S. House must act.
The reform components in the Senate bill dovetail with the public interest. This includes an incremental path to citizenship that takes up to 13 years. Farm workers and Dream Act students will have a manageable waiting period. And those with registered-provisional immigrant status can emerge from the shadows and work in the United States without threat of deportation.
Lawmakers still need to harmonize the issuing of H1B visas to draw technical talent and the H2A agriculture workers who compete with naturalized citizens.
A huge investment in border security ($30 billion is too much) is matched with mandatory use-of-force rules. For Washington, this includes limiting the area for warrantless searches to 25 miles of the Canadian border. And border agents will no longer monitor schools, churches and community centers, as they do now, trolling for undocumented workers.
The status quo elevates fear of reporting crime, of getting medical help for a child, of worshiping on Sundays.
On Friday, Reps. Rick Larsen and Suzan DelBene convened an immigration round table in Everett and Skagit County with farmers, students, and business leaders. Reps. Mike Sells and John McCoy also participated.
“Everyone can agree that our current system is broken,” DelBene said. “We have an incredible opportunity now to put a new foundation in place and reform our immigration system in a way that strengthens our economy.”
If 11 million undocumented residents “self-deported” tomorrow, America’s agricultural and service sectors would collapse and sales-tax revenue would nosedive. This is an economic question as much as it is a human rights and public safety question.
A White House report prepared by the National Economic Council, the OMB and other executive agencies, notes that the Senate bill will boost real GDP relative to current projections by 3.3 percent or $700 billion in 2023. It also will reduce the federal budget deficit by $850 billion over the next 20 years and enhance Social Security with an infusion of $300 billion to the Social Security Trust Fund in the next decade.
If House Republicans such as Washington’s Cathy McMorris Rogers and Doc Hastings sandbag comprehensive immigration reform, they do so at their party’s political peril. Punting is not leadership, history is not static, and the status quo is not tenable.
As David Brooks, a conservative, writes in the The New York Times, “Whether this bill passes or not, this country is heading toward a multiethnic future. Republicans can either shape that future in a conservative direction or … they can become the receding roar of a white America that is never coming back.”
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