SALON

Thursday, Apr 18, 2013 3:12 PM UTC

Immigration: The latest watered-down compromise GOP hates anyway

New proposal will do little to fix our broken system, and passing it will cost Obama real capital. Sound familiar?

By

Topics: gang of eight, Steve King, Immigration, Immigration Reform, Gun Control, Marco Rubio, Barack Obama, Democrats, Republicans, Undocumented immigrants, ,

Immigration: The latest watered-down compromise GOP hates anywayMarco Rubio, Chuck Schumer (Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite/Ross D. Franklin)

The road to citizenship isn’t exactly shovel ready. In fact, even calling it a road might be a stretch. It’s more like a long on-ramp. With a tollbooth. And potholes. And a guard station. And a giant electrified fence.

In their desire to find a compromise acceptable to the chronically short-sighted and self-destructive Republican Party, Democrats have crafted an immigration bill that is for the most part as unobjectionable as it is uninspired. The bill cobbles together a series of pragmatic concessions that, while perhaps sufficient to overcome conservative objections, will likely prove wholly insufficient at actually addressing the problem it was designed to solve — that is, fixing our broken immigration system. The tangle of hurdles and exclusions, loopholes for businesses and pitfalls for immigrants, is precisely the mess we should be cleaning up, not making worse.

There are some great things about the immigration reform bill put forward by the so-called Gang of Eight in the Senate. Activist Prerna Lal has combed over the details here. Specifically, all deportations of law-abiding undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States before Dec. 31, 2011 (a key compromise threshold date) would be halted. Asylum and adoption procedures would be improved and the rights of some immigrants to have lawyers in court would be strengthened. Current visa backlogs would be cleared. Visa categories would be created or expanded for science and technology workers, farmworkers and the families of immigrant workers. And some immigrants would indeed have access to citizenship, largely through a 13-year waiting period and process.

And that’s where it gets complicated. If you came into the United States after Dec. 31, 2011, you cannot get on the road to citizenship. If you come into the United States on the proposed W-visa for low-wage workers, you cannot get on the road to citizenship. If you committed document or passport fraud or any one of an expanded list of infractions, you cannot get on the road to citizenship. If you are the same-sex spouse or partner of a permanent resident or citizen, you cannot get on the road to citizenship.

Plus, even if you can get to the road, it’s layered with traps. First of all, the new system would be strongly tied to employment and employers. That makes it hard for the millions of undocumented immigrants contributing to the informal economy to prove their work history and qualify for citizenship. And new immigrants coming into the country may be unduly beholden to the whims, and potential abuses, of employers.

As it stands now, the bill would also require all employers to use the deeply flawed E-Verify system to confirm the status of workers. According to a study, small businesses will have to spend upward of $25,000 each to get E-Verify up and running, and even then the system is over 50 percent inaccurate. The bill would also spend $4.5 billion dollars on increased border security, despite the fact that most immigrants arrive through approved travel and simply overstay their visas and unauthorized border crossings have sharply declined. Not to mention the fact that the Obama administration already spends more on immigration enforcement than all other federal law enforcement priorities combined. At a time when Republicans say there’s not enough money to make sure that poor kids can eat, they can scrounge up billions for fencing and drone patrols along the Mexican border.

And after all that, many conservatives still don’t like the bill. “The Gang of Eight’s bill is aggressive and outrageous amnesty,” Republican congressman Steve King (Iowa-4) said in a statement. “Republicans who support this bill have effectively said to Americans, ‘we are prepared to sacrifice the Rule of Law on the altar of misguided and erroneous political expediency’.” And so the stock in trade tactic of Democrats in the Obama era plays out again, with Democrats asking not for what they want but a watered down compromise of what they think Republicans will embrace, which ardent and extremist Republicans nonetheless spit on and shut down. That, having so decisively won the last election largely because of the increased power of Latino voters, Democrats would still be so spineless and Republicans would still be so tone-def says a lot about the S&M-like pattern into which both parties have fallen and from which they can’t seem to get up.

The Gang of Eight bill is not all bad, and it could be much worse. But the immigration reform bill needs to be a starting point for passionate advocates and sensible politicians to improve upon — not a lowest common denominator that Republicans take their pick axes to and make even worse.

More Sally Kohn.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • This photo. President Barack Obama has a laugh during the unveiling of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Tx., Thursday. Former first lady Barbara Bush, who candidly admitted this week we've had enough Bushes in the White House, is unamused.
    Reuters/Jason Reed

  • Rescue workers converge Wednesday in Savar, Bangladesh, where the collapse of a garment building killed more than 300. Factory owners had ignored police orders to vacate the work site the day before.
    AP/A.M. Ahad

  • Police gather Wednesday at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to honor campus officer Sean Collier, who was allegedly killed in a shootout with the Boston Marathon bombing suspects last week.
    AP/Elise Amendola

  • Police tape closes the site of a car bomb that targeted the French embassy in Libya Tuesday. The explosion wounded two French guards and caused extensive damage to Tripoli's upscale al-Andalus neighborhood.
    AP/Abdul Majeed Forjani

  • Protestors rage outside the residence of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday following the rape of a 5-year-old girl in New Delhi. The girl was allegedly kidnapped and tortured before being abandoned in a locked room for two days.
    AP/Manish Swarup

  • Clarksville, Mo., residents sit in a life boat Monday after a Mississippi River flooding, the 13th worst on record.
    AP/Jeff Roberson

  • Workers pause Wednesday for a memorial service at the site of the West, Tx., fertilizer plant explosion, which killed 14 people and left a crater more than 90 feet wide.
    AP/The San Antonio Express-News, Tom Reel

  • Aerial footage of the devastation following a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in China's Sichuan province last Saturday. At least 180 people were killed and as many as 11,000 injured in the quake.
    AP/Liu Yinghua

  • On Wednesday, Hazmat-suited federal authorities search a martial arts studio in Tupelo, Miss., once operated by Everett Dutschke, the newest lead in the increasingly twisty ricin case. Last week, President Barack Obama, Sen. Roger Wicker, R.-Miss., and a Mississippi judge were each sent letters laced with the deadly poison.
    AP/Rogelio V. Solis

  • The lighting of Freedom Hall at the George W. Bush Presidential Center Thursday is celebrated with (what else but) red, white and blue fireworks.
    AP/David J. Phillip

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 3 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username ( profile | log out )

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Facebook has been used to find ex-lovers, childhood BFFs or the one who got away. He used it to find the guy who, without his consent, made him his drug mule.
186 points187 points | 18 comments
vote
“This could be a career ender for Michele Bachmann”
121 points122 points | 35 comments
vote
Poll: 3 in 10 voters say “armed revolution might be necessary” - 29% say they believe they'll have to act "in order to protect our liberties" in the next few years
43 points44 points | 16 comments
vote
Capitalism, not feminism, killed home cooking–and fixing our broken food system is gonna take a lot more than some privileged women embracing “new domesticity”
31 points32 points | 19 comments
vote
"New evidence reveals big banks still illegally foreclosing on thousands of homes – and weak settlement allows it."
27 points28 points | comment

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: "The Shelter Cycle": Raised in a cult

Recommendations