Stephen Vargas
The proverbial “opening salvo” has been fired. Demands have been made. The outcome of the debate over an intensely contested piece of legislation regarding a highly controversial issue will greatly determine the future of the United States of America.
On December 15, 2009, United States Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) introduced ambitious comprehensive immigration reform legislation which many agree is too progressive to pass. However, Representative Gutierrez was undeterred by skepticism.
“This says, ‘Here, this is what we want; our proposal is out of the box,’” Representative Gutierrez said.
Among the demands made by one of the most prominent Hispanic legislators in the United States House of Representatives are: an “earned path to citizenship” for illegal immigrants residing in the country within six years, as well as for their spouses and children; a repeal of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act §287(g) local police cooperation program which allows local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration laws; a reduction in the number of U.S. border patrol agents and border fencing; enactment of the Development, Relief, and Education of Alien Minors Act, which would give illegal immigrant minors the opportunity to earn conditional permanent residency; a provision that would allow states to offer in-state tuition discounts to students who are not citizens and whose parents may have entered the country illegally; an increase in the number of temporary worker program visas for agricultural jobs, and; the creation of a new Labor Commission to make recommendations on future legal immigration flows.
“As a candidate for president, Barack Obama promised comprehensive immigration reform, and we have brought him the bill to accomplish this,” Representative Gutierrez said.
“Representative Gutierrez’s bill includes a number of important provisions,” Representative Sam Farr (D-CA) said. “The legislation includes language that will advance our efforts to secure our borders, protect our ports of entry and combat criminal activity.”
Despite Representative Farr’s claims, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity Act of 2009 will do little to ensure America’s security or prosperity. Instead, Representative Gutierrez and his cohorts, public officials and advocacy organization members, propose to decrease border and domestic security through decreased funding and elimination of security programs while diminishing the prospects of long-term economic viability for the United States and its legal residents by introducing tens of millions of legalized work-eligible individuals to compete with Americans for a decreasing number of jobs and granting illegal immigrants and their families access to already overburdened social services, including Medicaid, Medicare, the public school system, unemployment insurance, and welfare receipts.
The most alarming and controversial demand is the path to legalization for illegal immigrants residing in the United States on the date the bill would be passed on. What stands out about this provision is that, because eligibility is determined based on the date of passage rather than the date of the bill’s introduction, it creates a tremendous incentive for foreign nationals to enter the United States early in 2010 in hopes of becoming eligible for legalization. With at least twelve million illegal immigrants currently residing in the country and tens of millions of immediate family members living in foreign countries who would avail themselves of the unique opportunity to be granted U.S. citizenship without significant preconditions, the United States would experience an incredible population increase.
Although the provision does not technically grant amnesty – defined as an act of authority by which a pardon, the excusing an offense without exacting a penalty, is granted to a large group of individuals – to illegal immigrants because they would be required to complete several steps in order to become eligible for citizenship, the penalties are inconsequential in relation to the value of the privileges and immunities of United States citizenship. In order to avoid the amnesty label, the bill introduced by Representative Gutierrez requires illegal immigrants to pay a $500 fine, pass a background check, and learn English and civics in order to gain legal status.
Unlike the comprehensive immigration reform bill introduced in 2007 by the late Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Senator John McCain (R-AZ), this legislation includes no requirement that illegal immigrants pay back taxes for some of the period during which they worked illegally in the country. Representative Gutierrez also decided against including a “touchback” provision which would have required illegal immigrants residing in the United States to return to their home countries before gaining legal status, a requirement in previously debated immigration reform legislation.
The $500 fine is significantly less than the $2000 fine required in the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007, which was never voted on despite bipartisan support from veteran Senators Kennedy and McCain and Republican President George W. Bush.
The 2007 background check requirement would have been ineffective and, based on the laxity of the requirements in the Gutierrez bill, it can be inferred that current bill will allow government officials no more than the impractical 24 hour maximum period during which to conduct a complete background check of the foreign national seeking legalization.
The McCain-Kennedy bill imposed minimal English and civics education requirements on illegal immigrants, as the immigrants merely had to register for free English and civics courses and did not have to complete the courses or pass examinations. Based on the emphasis of this bill on legalizing as many foreign nationals as possible, it is difficult to fathom that the requirements in the Gutierrez bill will be any more stringent.
The idea of introducing a bill to legalize foreign nationals who would be eligible to compete for jobs with American workers without fear of immigration enforcement, in spite of the facts that 9.2% of work-eligible Americans receiving unemployment insurance and “real unemployment” at 17.5% of the work-eligible population, is unconscionable.
Rosanna Pulido, Citizen Candidate for the Illinois Fifth Congressional district, was concerned about the intentions of her fellow statesman and the ramifications such legislation could have on the State and its residents.
“With one in ten Illinoisans laid off of work, unemployment rates at the highest level in decades and millions of Americans facing tough financial choices, the last thing our country needs is another short sighted politician trying to fix a real problem by throwing hardworking taxpayers money at it,” Pulido said.
Pulido was also concerned about the effects of Representative Gutierrez’s bill on the national economy and American workforce which was, in relative terms, decimated by the economic recession, during which the unemployment rate more than doubled.
“With more than 16 million Americans out of work, passage of any amnesty legislation would expose the failure of Congress to live up to its basic responsibilities to the American taxpayer and the American worker,” she said.
Although Representatives such as Farr, Gutierrez, Xavier Becerra (D-CA), Mike Honda (D-CA), Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), Jared Polis (D-CO), Nydia M. Velázquez (D-NY), and Anthony Weiner (D-NY) and Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Charles Schumber (D-NY) champion the legislation as an effective way to fix what they consider to be a flawed federal immigration system and absurdly label the treatment of foreign nationals who illegally reside inside the nation’s borders a “crisis of human and civil rights” – an outrageous exaggeration of the truth and insult to those living in nations where genocide, female genital mutilation, and famine are common, particularly because the vast majority of illegal immigrants knowingly and willingly enter the United States seeking economic opportunities unavailable in their home countries – the measures disadvantage their constituents at a most inopportune time.
“With fifteen million Americans out of work, it’s hard to believe that anyone would give amnesty to twelve million illegal immigrants,” said Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX), a member of the House Judiciary Committee. “Even the open-borders crowd agrees that illegal immigrants take jobs from American workers, particularly poor and disadvantaged citizens and legal immigrants. This is exactly why we need to oppose amnesty.”
The “open-borders crowd” includes the Immigration Policy Center, a leading advocate organization for a path to legalization for illegal immigrants. In support of Representative Gutierrez’s bill, the Immigration Policy Center asserted that legalization would increase spending and tax revenue. Despite these benefits, legalizing millions of illegal immigrants and their family members would create a huge net deficit due to an increased demand for social services by the recently legalized individuals and higher unemployment rates for current citizens and legal residents.
According to Representative Smith, there are 19 states in which the number of illegal immigrants in the work force is at least 50% of the number of unemployed workers, including Arizona – with 290,000 people unemployed and 300,000 employed illegal immigrants – followed by New Jersey, Nevada, Maryland, and Texas.
“People feel shocked and completely betrayed that any elected official would propose legalizing illegal immigrants, stopping local police from enforcing immigration law, and stopping increased border security when we have over 15 million Americans out of work,” said William Gheen of Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee.
Even Representative Jeff Flake (R-AZ), who co-sponsored immigration reform legislation with Representative Gutierrez on several occasions, is opposed to the bill in its current form.
“It repeats the mistakes of the ’86 reform — massive legalization without a temporary-worker program to accommodate future labor demands,” Representative Flake said.
Congressman Gutierrez has introduced a bill which would threaten the prospects of economic prosperity for citizens of the United States of America. If this bill is enacted, it will affect virtually every resident of this country. The wealthy would be inevitably required to further subsidize social welfare programs through increased taxation. The middle and lower class citizens would face increased competition for a limited number of employment opportunities and social services as well as rising taxes and the possibility of overpopulation in already population-dense urban areas due to an influx of tens of millions of people in a period of years. If the bill passes, the quality of life enjoyed by Americans of all ages, ethnic groups, and social statuses will deteriorate to some degree. The people of this nation must not allow this fate to befall their country.
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