Via The New York Times

MUCH of today’s debate about immigration
revolves around the same old questions: How much do immigrants
contribute to production? Do they take jobs away from people born in
the United States? And what kinds of social services do they use? Yet
every immigrant represents much more than just one worker or one
potential citizen. To understand fully how immigration will shape the
economy, you can’t just look at one generation — you have to look into
the future.

Multimedia

Graphic: Jobs Held by the Next Generation

Sociologists and economists
are just beginning to study the performance of second- and
third-generation members of immigrant families. Because of the variety
of experiences of people from different countries and cultures, it’s
not easy to generalize. But recent research has already uncovered some
pertinent facts.

Education is a good place to start, because it’s
strongly correlated with future earnings. Children of immigrants
complete more years of education than their native-born counterparts of
similar socioeconomic backgrounds. “You can expect a child of
immigrants whose parents have 10 years of education to do a lot better
than a child of natives whose parents have 10 years of education,” said
David Card, a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley. Being a child of immigrants, he said, “sort of boosts your drive.”

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By Tim Cavanaugh

Via The Statesman Journal

June 13, 2006

Among the many measures and half-measures
that are being proposed to solve the crisis of illegal immigration,
there have been some real doozies: a 700-mile wall to keep people out
(or in?); a temporary guest-worker program that may end up harming both
American and Mexican employees; even a scheme for the largest mass
deportation in U.S. history.

But here’s
one good idea you won’t hear about. Let’s allow the North American Free
Trade Agreement to live up to its promise and permit citizens of
Canada, the United States and Mexico to move and work freely among the
three countries.

If that sounds crazy,
it’s only because a century’s worth of regulatory corrosion and toxic
bureaucracy have made us forget that this is how things used to be. For
most of American history, immigration was either open or so lightly
regulated that the United States was effectively open to everybody.

A
policy of borders without visas would in fact be more restrictive and
formal than the system that applied through much of American history
because it would depend on proper identification — either a passport or
some other recognized papers — to cross from one country into the other.

There
are two objections to an open border policy: national security and
economics. One is specious; the other is based on ignorance of the way
free markets work and free people behave.

First,
national security. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, this
line of thinking goes, we cannot afford any laxity at our borders. This
case breaks down on logic, facts and history. We already have laxity at
both our northern and southern borders. If you believe undocumented
immigrants are a security threat, things could not be more dangerous
than they are now, because the near-impossibility of entering the
United States legally drives thousands of people to cross the border in
secret.

Free movement would be more secure
than our current system, removing Mexican workers’ incentive to swim
across the Rio Grande and allowing U.S. Customs and Border Protection
to track everybody who’s entering the country legitimately, with 100
percent assurance that anybody who crosses the border in secret is up
to no good.

Continue reading

Via The Portland Tribune

Immigration concerns could lead to tougher DMV regulations

  The 2007 Oregon
Legislature must decide whether to require everyone applying for a
state driver’s license to prove they are in this country legally and
have a valid Social Security number.
   Oregon law does not
currently require those applying for driver’s licenses to be U.S.
citizens or legal aliens. But a 2005 federal law called the Real ID Act
requires all states to issue driver’s licenses only to legal U.S.
residents with proof of their citizenship status. The act was passed
for a variety of purposes, including cracking down on potential illegal
immigrants, fraud, ID theft and child-support evaders.
   Under the
act, citizens will be required to produce birth certificates,
naturalization papers or passports. Legal aliens will have to show
their immigration and residency documents. The act also requires all
applicants to have valid Social Security numbers.
   The requirements would apply to both new applicants and people renewing their licenses.
   All state governments must comply with the law by May 2008. If not,
the driver’s licenses and identification cards they issue will not be
accepted as identification for such federally regulated activities as
boarding an airplane, opening a checking account, collecting Social
Security benefits or qualifying for federally guaranteed student loans.
   State Senate Majority Leader Kate Brown, D-Portland, said it is too
early to know what the Legislature will do because the federal
government has not yet finished writing the rules to implement the law.
But Brown is concerned that Congress has not appropriated any money to
help pay for the new licenses, which, she says, could cost up to $100
each to issue.
   “People aren’t going to be willing to pay that,
and there will be gridlock at airports if the federal goverment doesn’t
get its act together,” Brown said.
   One goal of the Real ID Act
is stemming the flow of illegal aliens, according to co-sponsor U.S.
Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis. In a Jan. 27 letter to constituents,
Sensenbrenner said the act helps to bring “the issue of illegal
immigration to the forefront of the national debate.”
   Jim Ludwick, the director of Oregonians for Immigration Reform, believes the state should comply with the Real ID Act.
   “If we don’t comply, we face financial ruin. There are so many
things we won’t be able to do with our driver licenses — including
getting a job,” said Ludwick, whose statewide advocacy group favors
tougher immigration laws.
   A number of immigration-rights groups
oppose the federal act, saying it will turn the Oregon Driver and Motor
Vehicle Services into a de facto immigration agency and will not
prevent illegal immigrants from driving without licenses.
   “It
will just marginalize undocumented workers even more and fuel a huge
black market in forged documents,” said Aeryca Steinbauer, a
coordinator for Causa, an immigrant-rights organization whose name
means “cause” in Spanish.
   Oregon currently is one of 10 states
allowing illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, provided they
are Oregon residents. According to DMV spokesman David House, the
Legislature made the decision because it considers driving to be a
safety issue.
   
   Safety first
   
   Like other applicants, illegal aliens must pass written and hands-on driving tests to obtain their licenses.
   “The feeling was, they’re here and driving anyway, so we need to make sure they’re safe drivers,” House said.
   No committee of the Legislature currently is studying whether to
comply with the act. According to House, the state DMV has provided
individual legislators with background information on the act if they
ask.
   The act also applies to identification cards issued by the state agency.
   An analysis prepared by the Oregon DMV says that if the Legislature
agrees to comply with the act, “every driver in Oregon will be required
to provide proof of identity, Social Security number, legal presence
and address before being issued a driver’s license or identification
card.”
   
   Illegal residents hard to count
   
   The
DMV analysis predicts the new requirement could prevent 2.6 percent to
6 percent of driving-age residents from qualifying for a license.
According to House, the figures are only a guess because no one knows,
for certain, how many illegal aliens live in Oregon.
   Government
agencies and nonprofits both publish estimates of the number of illegal
immigrants in Oregon. They vary widely, with the government figures on
the lower side.
   The U.S. Census Bureau estimated there were
90,000 illegal immigrants in Oregon in 2000. The Oregon Employment
Department estimates the number is much higher now, somewhere between
120,000 and 132,000. The nonprofit Pew Hispanic Center put the figure
of “unauthorized migrants” even higher in an April 2006 fact sheet —
between 125,000 and 175,000. Also in April, the Oregon Center for
Public Policy, a liberal think tank, issued a report that
“conservatively” puts the “undocumented” immigrant population between
128,000 and 150,000.
   A 2005 study by Bear Stearns, a national
investment consulting firm, concludes the higher estimates are more
accurate — and may even be too low. The study, titled “The Underground
Labor Force Is Rising to the Surface,” does not break the illegal
immigrant population down by state. But it concludes that the federal
government is drastically underestimating the number of illegal
immigrants in the country.
   According to the report, the number
of illegal aliens in the country is at least twice the U.S. Census
Bureau’s estimate of around 9 million.
   The size of this
extra-legal segment of the population is significantly understated
because the U.S. Census Bureau does not capture the total number of
illegal immigrants,” reads the report.
   Although there are no
exact numbers, the majority of immigrants in Oregon — both legal and
illegal — are Hispanic. The Census Bureau estimates that 311,400
foreign-born people lived in Oregon in 2002. Of that number, the
largest group — 36.17 percent— was born in Mexico. For comparison, all
Asian countries put together accounted for 29.37 percent of the
foreign-born population.
   The Census asks people if they speak a
language other than English at home. In 2000, approximately 321,350
Oregonians said yes, with more than 214,605 saying their primary
language was Spanish. The next most-common languages — German,
Vietnamese and Russian — each had less that one-tenth the number of
Spanish speakers.
   
   Many workers undocumented
   
   The
new requirements in the Real ID Act undoubtedly will inconvenience many
Oregonians who have lost their proof of citizenship or immigration
papers. But, if the new requirements prevent illegal immigrants from
driving, they also could cause problems for employers who rely on them,
knowingly or otherwise.
   “Undocumented immigrants are critical to
the state work force. Without proper identification, these people will
find it harder to prove identity in banks and retail establishments and
to qualify for Oregon jobs,” according to the DMV analysis.
 
 Whatever the figures, the employment department believes that the vast
majority of adult illegal immigrants are working. A routine 2001
Immigration and Naturalization Service audit found that illegal
immigrants are a significant presence in the Portland area. As part of
the audit, INS officials reviewed the paperwork for 3,306 service
industry employees and found that 834 — 25 percent — were in violation
of immigration laws.
   The results of the audit were released days
before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Since then, Congress has abolished
the INS and assigned its enforcement powers to a new agency within the
U.S. Department of Homeland Security: U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement.
   ICE no longer conducts routine audits on employees
within a service sector, according to Virginia Kice, ICE’s western
regional communications director and spokeswoman. Instead, Kice says
ICE is focusing its investigations on what she calls key components of
the public safety infrastructure, such as airport employees.
 
 Federal investigators found 124 illegal immigrants working at the
Portland International Airport in December 2001 and arrested 30 of them
for using false documents as part of a national sweep called Operation
Tarmac.
   According to Kice, ICE also is targeting employers who
intentionally break the law to employ illegal immigrants. Last month,
21 illegal immigrants were arrested at the North Portland office of
IFCO Systems North America, a pallet-building company. Nationally,
1,200 illegal immigrants and seven current or former company managers
were arrested during the sweep. Federal officials accuse the company of
recruiting workers in Mexico and Central America and paying to smuggle
them across the border.
   Kice said ICE is conducting other investigations but declined to discuss them.
   Ludwick expects more investigations and arrests if the state complies with the Real ID Act.
   “Right now, Oregon driver’s licenses are an open invitation to
fraud,” he said. “But once the state toughens up its requirements,
identifying people who aren’t supposed to be here will be easier.”

Via The San Fransisco Chronical
By Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau

Washington —
Seldom do California’s liberal Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and Alabama’s
conservative Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions agree on anything. But they joined
Tuesday in a failed attempt to kill the guest worker provision of the Senate’s
broad overhaul of U.S. immigration law, calling it a threat to U.S. workers.

Their 69-28 defeat — one of a sequence of amendment battles that
backers of the Senate bill won handily — demonstrated a powerful momentum
behind the underlying legislation. Senators on both sides said President Bush’s
push for the bill in a prime-time speech Monday night, in which he called for
National Guard troops at the Mexican border, had aided its prospects.

But even if the Senate bill passes, it faces a difficult future. The House
passed a border enforcement bill, and conservative Republicans show little sign
of bending to Bush’s will on an issue that has riled GOP voters across the
country. The bills would have to be merged and House leaders persuaded in an
election year to embrace Senate provisions creating a program to allow legal
residence and citizenship for illegal immigrants now in the country — an
idea they have rejected repeatedly as tantamount to amnesty.

The emotional Senate debate Tuesday threw a spotlight on the deep
fractures the immigration issue opens in both parties, the strange and fragile
alliances it forges and the conundrums posed by any attempt to control the flow
of human beings over national boundaries.

Those alliances included the call by Boxer and Sessions to kill a proposed
guest worker program that would provide temporary visas for future immigrants
with jobs in the United States.

“There are 3.6 million workers in construction with an average wage of
$18.21,” Boxer said. “I meet with my working people in California. They’re
fighting hard for these jobs, they want more of these jobs, not less of these
jobs, and the last thing they want is a guest worker program that is going to
provide a big pool of workers who will get far less than this amount and take
jobs away from my people.”

“There is nothing temporary about this guest worker program,” agreed
Sessions, saying the bill offers new migrants — as well as most of the
estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already in the country — a path to
citizenship, leading to extraordinary new numbers of blue-collar migrants.

Several senators on both sides of the aisle — including Dianne
Feinstein, a California Democrat who voted for the immigration bill in the
Judiciary Committee — cited a new analysis released Monday by the
conservative Heritage Foundation that predicted far more people immigrating
into the country than anticipated as a result of the Senate’s legislation.

Feinstein and Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., prevailed 79-18 on an amendment to
reduce the number of low-skill guest worker visas from 325,000 a year to
200,000 and to remove an automatic escalator that would have increased the
low-skill visas by 20 percent each year that the ceiling was reached.

The Heritage analysis added up all the provisions of the 616-page Senate
bill and extended them over 20 years, producing a mid-range estimate of more
than 100 million new legal immigrants — a third of the current U.S.
population — if the guest worker programs grow at 10 percent a year and
workers bring their families as currently allowed.

“It all adds up to millions and millions of people,” Feinstein said.

In addition to a new guest worker program for unskilled immigrants, the
overall bill would provide a path to earned citizenship for those immigrants
who entered the illegally country before January 2004, toughen border
enforcement, impose new sanctions on employers who hire illegal immigrants,
provide a separate program for 1.5 million farm workers and expand visas for
high-skilled migrants.

Guest worker provisions include not only the visa program for low-skill
workers but also an expansion of H1B visas for high-skill workers, many of whom
are employed in Silicon Valley. The H1B visa is the primary U.S. work permit, a
nonimmigrant classification used by a foreign worker who will be employed
temporarily in a specialty occupation.

“We did not realize the extent to which large numbers of people are
brought in on some of these visas,” Feinstein said, noting that the Judiciary
Committee took its earlier action under a strict deadline to produce a bill.

Feinstein said she would like to eliminate the 20 percent escalator in the
H1B skilled visa category as well.

“It’s simply too many,” Feinstein said, adding the H1B category — which
has stirred controversy among U.S.-born engineers — could generate 3.67
million foreign workers over the next 10 years.

The proposed H1B expansion from 65,000 visas to 115,000, with the 20
percent escalator each year the ceiling is breached, is eagerly sought by
computer makers who contend that educated foreigners are an asset to the
industry and vital to maintaining the U.S. technological lead. It has stirred
opposition among native-born engineers who contend that foreign tech workers
have undermined salaries and discouraged U.S. children from entering tech
fields.

Supporters of the bill, including its chief sponsors Sen. Edward Kennedy,
D-Mass., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., countered that the bill contains
protections for U.S. workers and immigrants alike, including requirements that
employers search for U.S. workers first and pay prevailing wages.

The first critical test vote after Bush’s speech came Tuesday when the
Senate defeated an amendment by Sen. Johnny Isakson, D-Ga., that would have
required the administration to certify that the borders were secure before
legal immigration could be expanded. The amendment, which would have brought
down the entire bill, lost 40-55 when 17 Republicans joined 38 Democrats to
defeat it.

The vote “was a good sign that we’ve got a majority coalition to hold
together on it,” said Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., a key conservative backer of
the legislation. He said Bush’s call Monday to send 6,000 National Guard troops
to the border helped undermine a key conservative objection.

“A number of people have been calling for National Guard troops on the
border for some time,” Brownback said. “So he said, fine, he’ll do it. I think
it helped on that.”

Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., another chief sponsor, said he was nervous
before the vote on Isakson’s amendment because it was “the toughest for most
people. I think (support) will grow from here.”

The Senate, continuing to work through several dozen amendments, is set to
vote on passage by Memorial Day.

Some members speculate privately that the difficulty of melding any Senate
call for broader legal immigration with the House enforcement crackdown,
combined with Bush’s political weakness, could delay a conference committee
until after the election — and possibly kill the bill entirely.

Yet the progress of the legislation has been eerily similar to the
struggle over the last major immigration overhaul 20 years ago, where a fragile
coalition of business and ethnic lobbies cobbled together legislation that
skirted defeat several times.