If history is any guide, it depends entirely on whether the economy is growing.
By JEFFREY KAYE
The Star Tribune (MN)
The Obama administration has set a record for deportations of illegal immigrants, much to the dismay of advocates who had hoped the president would reverse the enforcement policies of his predecessor.
In fiscal year 2009, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported 387,790 people, a 5 percent increase over the previous year.
President Obama may have made immigrant-friendly promises during the campaign, but in the context of history, the deportations were practically inevitable. Immigrants have always been welcomed during good economic times, only to be vilified when times get tough.
In the latter 19th century, nearly 250,000 migrants from China, many recruited by U.S. companies, crossed the Pacific Ocean to work in America's fields and mines and on the railroads. But after the boom went bust, hatred -- motivated by racism and fear that Chinese workers were depressing wages -- rippled through national politics. In an effort to bring a halt to most legal immigration from China, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. It was the first time federal law had been used to limit migration by nationality.
During World War I, agribusinesses, worried about a labor shortage, prevailed on Herbert Hoover, then head of the U.S. Food Administration, to pressure Washington to allow in more Mexican farm workers. But with the onset of the Depression, Americans showed little tolerance for the migrants so recently courted. Hoover, now president, initiated a mass deportation program that continued into the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The cycle continued in the decades that followed. By 1981, as unemployment climbed, Attorney General William French Smith sounded the alarm: "We have lost control of our borders," and the Reagan administration unveiled an immigration reform plan to combine increased enforcement with legalization.
The reforms did little to stop illegal immigration, which ticked upward in the early 1990s as the service economy created a need for low-skilled workers. The combination of continued migration and economic uncertainty made for a volatile brew. In 1994, activists campaigned for a California ballot initiative designed to eliminate public social services for illegal migrants. Politicians seized on an emotional issue.
"They keep on coming!" an announcer ominously intoned in a campaign commercial, over black-and-white video of Mexicans rushing across the border.
Stepped-up enforcement was hardly a partisan issue. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both continued the militarization of the border.
In the face of declining congressional prospects for his own reform package, Obama is using executive powers to step up immigration enforcement. In doing so, he is following a long tradition: As goes the economy, so goes immigration policy.
Jeffrey Kaye is the author of "Moving Millions: How Coyote Capitalism Fuels Global Immigration," to be published in April. He wrote this article for the Los Angeles Times.
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/89183102.html?page=1&c=y
