By Kevin R. Johnson
Special to The Sacramento Bee
Published Sunday, Jun. 21, 2009
Controversy over immigration and immigrants has a long, if not illustrious, history in the Golden State. Agitation over immigration into California of Chinese, who were viewed by critics as racially and culturally inferior and "un-assimilable" into decent society, led Congress to pass a series of infamous laws known as the Chinese Exclusion Acts.
Earlier, the Legislature imposed a foreign miner's tax directed at the Chinese as well newly minted U.S. citizens who had been Mexican citizens before the U.S.-Mexican War ended in 1848.
In 1913 and 1920, California passed "alien land" laws, which were designed to restrict the ownership of real property by Japanese farmers. During World War II, the U.S. government interned people of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast, with the vocal support of then-California Attorney General Earl Warren.
This is not simply ancient history. In 1994, Gov. Pete Wilson jump-started his lagging gubernatorial campaign by blaming "illegal aliens" from Mexico for the state's economic woes and backing Proposition 187, an anti-immigrant milestone that was struck down by the courts. In 2006, the city of Escondido passed a law, which because of the threat of litigation was never enforced, that would have barred landlords from renting to undocumented immigrants, prompting one former law enforcement officer to say the city simply wanted to keep "brown" folks out of town.
So, it should not have come as a surprise when someone recently pointed the finger at "illegal aliens" as one of the causes of the state's long-running budget crisis.
But what was refreshing was Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's quick dismissal of the "myth" that undocumented immigrants somehow are responsible for the state's fiscal woes.
Undocumented immigrants aren't to blame for California's budget problems. Indeed, they have contributed mightily to the state's economy, a model for the nation during boom times, through their labor, tax payments and contributions to the community.
As Schwarzenegger's recent comments suggest, however, fiscal concerns about immigration are on the minds of many state and local policymakers in these challenging economic times. There indeed are some very legitimate issues concerning the economics of immigration.
Each year, the federal government collects billions of dollars in taxes and Social Security contributions from undocumented immigrants. At the same time, state and local governments pay much for providing services, such as elementary and secondary school educations and police and fire services, just as they do for other residents. The bulk of the revenues from undocumented immigrants go to the federal government, but much of the costs are paid by state and local governments.
This fiscal disconnect creates tensions at the state and local levels over immigration. It is a tension that is acute in tight budgetary times.
To address some of the fiscal issues, state and local officials might do what border governors, including those from California, New Mexico and Arizona, for years have directly – and, at times, successfully, done – sought financial assistance from the federal government to help cover the costs of immigration.
Unfortunately, some states and localities have failed to engage the difficult fiscal issues raised by immigration. For example, anti-immigrant forces employed anti-Mexican rhetoric – one observer in jest suggested that the local politicians had borrowed the speechwriter for the late Alabama governor and one-time ardent segregationist George Wallace – to convince the City Council of rural Hazleton, Pa., in 2006 to pass its very own "Illegal Immigration Relief Act," to try and drive undocumented immigrants out of town. A district court found that federal immigration law trumped the ordinance and struck it down, with an appeal pending.
Other cities followed suit. In Valley Park, Mo., for example, the (now former) mayor, an ardent supporter of the city's own immigration ordinance, betrayed his true concerns in proclaiming, "You got one guy and his wife that settle down here, have a couple kids, and before long you have Cousin Puerto Rico and Taco Whoever moving in …"
These are not mere racial insults. In the past few years while the nation has debated immigration reform, hate crimes against Latinos have hit-all time highs. Teens beat to death a Mexican immigrant in a small town near Shenandoah, Pa., and an Ecuadorian immigrant in Long Island, N.Y.
We need congressional action to calm the national immigration storm. Congress has failed to enact meaningful immigration reform for years. The so-called "comprehensive" immigration reform proposal that failed in the U.S. Senate in 2007 would not have resolved the immigration issues. With a guest-worker program, a path to citizenship and more enforcement, that proposal – while better than nothing – is eerily reminiscent of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which provided these same "remedies" and declared that the "problem" of undocumented immigration had been "solved."
The question of the day is how to better address the phenomenon of immigration. Efforts to close the borders have failed. As New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said, if you build a 12-foot fence, migrants will use 12-foot ladders. Despite the escalating enforcement measures of the last 20 years, the undocumented immigrant population has doubled from approximately 5 million to 6 million in 1994 to 12 million today.
And consider the horrible human consequences of the current immigration system. Crosses pop up daily along the U.S.-Mexico border, macabre reminders of what risks migrants will take in pursuit of better lives. Human trafficking has become a booming business. Our labor market today resembles new Jim Crow, with undocumented immigrants – largely people of color – exploited in violation of the wage and condition laws.
To begin to reform the laws in a lasting way, the nation needs to acknowledge that undocumented immigration is in no small part a labor migration. Workers in Mexico want work. Employers want workers. The magnet of the U.S. economy is just too strong. The lagging economy has put a damper on undocumented immigration, which should teach the nation a lesson of what is truly at work here.
What the United States needs to do is bring our laws concerning legal immigration more in line with the nation's labor needs. Allowing easier migration of labor in North America, like that permitted in the thriving European Union, is one possibility. At bottom, we need to regulate, not ban, workers from coming to the United States. This will require some liberalization in our employment visa system.
To claim that undocumented immigrants should have waited in line like everyone else is meaningless. Under our current system, there are few ways for low- and medium-skilled workers, groups that employers demand in the greatest numbers, to come lawfully to the United States.
http://www.sacbee.com/740/story/1962167.html
