Dealing with the trade-offs of immigration policy
Solving the problem will require ideological concessions on all sides
By Bruce Murray
AnalysisOnline Editor
All immigration politics is local
The lack of easy answers to the nation’s immigration problems demonstrates the basic conundrum of policy-making: tinker with an element of policy in one area, and it causes repercussions in another.
The stalemate over immigration reform has highlighted what happens when the federal government can’t muster the political will to enact tough legislation: The states and even local governments step in with their own solutions.
 A plethora of state and local measures have cropped up around the nation. Perhaps most infamously, the city of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, passed an ordinance that makes it illegal to hire or harbor illegal immigrants within the city limits. Costa Mesa, California, was preparing its police department to enforce immigration laws before the federal government stepped in to provide the city a full-time immigration agent to check the residency status of all inmates at the city jail.
“How do local governments adjust to the presence of immigrants in their midst when the federal government has dropped the ball?” asked Paul Lewis, assistant professor of political science at Arizona State University. “This leads state and local governments to step in. But states and localities that try their own enforcement policy are destined to frustration. When cities in Pennsylvania and elsewhere and try their own enforcement policy, it is a symptom of this frustration.”
Leading immigration experts, academics and policy makers hashed out these issues at the National Symposium on Immigration, Nov. 16 at the Arizona State Capitol.
Shooting oneself in the foot
In the 2006 general election, Arizona voters passed a constitutional amendment declaring English the official state language; and voters passed another measure that denies illegal immigrants access to the state’s family literacy program, in addition to denying financial aid to illegal immigrants for higher education and community colleges.
 “Arizona shot itself in foot,” said Arizona State Rep. Pete Rios. “We deny immigrants adult education classes (Prop. 300). But we didn’t stop there. We reloaded and shot ourselves in the other foot with English only (Prop. 103). The message we’re sending to immigrants: ‘We expect you to learn English, but we ain’t going to help you.”
Arizona’s Proposition 300 follows California’s polarizing Proposition 187 (1994), which was designed to deny illegal immigrants social services, health care, and public education. The measure was declared unconstitutional, and the resulting political fallout effectively ended the political career of then-Gov. Pete Wilson, in addition to shutting out the Republican Party in California for 10 years.
“California is a bellwether state for what happens in the rest of the nation,” said Georges Vernez, Director of the Center for Research on Immigration Policy at the RAND Corporation. “California was the first state to react to high immigration flows. New federal law is largely as a result of the backlash and counter-backlash of Prop 187.”
All fingers point at the feds
Paul Portney, Dean of the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management, asked his colleagues at the symposium if they could draw a comparison with national immigration policy and environmental policy. The federal Environmental Protection Agency enforces national environmental policy, but individual state EPAs are allowed to enforce more stringent standards in their jurisdictions.
Experts agreed that immigration policy and enforcement is the responsibility of the federal government and not the states, at least in theory.
“Who enters and stays in the country is a federal responsibility,” Vernez said. “With respect to enforcement, I don’t see any appropriate level of government other than federal government. Enforcement cannot be left to state level.
“Beyond that, the issue assimilation – or the extent to which immigrants should be assisted in learning English or encouraged to naturalize – I see no reason why states and locales should not be involved,” Vernez said.
Lewis added, “In terms of settling people in a comfortable, dignified and productive way, duly elected officials have a role to play. Local school officials play a big role in this.”
 Former U.S. Rep. Romano Mazzoli (D-Ky.) said the state ballot measure solution is the wrong solution. “It creates a crazy quilt policy that is bad for country. It may move Congress to do something, but it may be a way for Congress to bail off,” he said.
“I look upon these state initiatives as a cry for help,” said Doris Meissner, Senior Fellow at the Migration Policy Institute. “The abdication of responsibility at the federal level is absolutely indefensible. At issue is something so important to the nation’s future that it can’t be left at the state level. Ultimately, it cannot work without federal policy, and that reality is going to continue to be the case.”
Rios: “Congress has to get off its duff and do something.”
The ‘A’ word
The issue of amnesty for illegal immigrants is so contentious that it has become a major stumbling block for enacting immigration reform. Many people are still angry about the 1986 legislation that provided amnesty for illegal immigrants.
“The ‘A’ word automatically makes the issue radioactive. Legalization is a euphemism that means the same thing,” said Mazzoli, who was co-author of the Simpson-Mazzoli Immigration Act of 1986.
The primary criticism of amnesty is that it encourages more illegal immigration, thus compounding the problem. But it is also highly unlikely that most of the 11-12 million illegal immigrants currently in the United States will ever leave permanently.
“You have to deal ultimately with the reality of 11-12 million people who are here already and are deeply embedded in communities and the economy,” Meissner said.
Mazzoli said that in order to be politically palatable, any immigration legislation that includes legalization must also include enforcement and a guest worker program. “You have to do it all together in one package,” he said.
Although Congress has stalled on immigration reform, the issue will not go away soon. “The fact of the matter is, this issue will be here for a long, long time,” Meissner said. “You can do everything you want to deny it, but it is there, and it’s getting bigger and bigger.”
A wink and a nod
Arizona State Rep. Steve Tully said the government could enforce immigration policy if it really wanted to. Illegal immigrants could be detected every time they “touch the system,” such as submitting a Social Security number for employment, applying for social services, or getting pulled over by the police.
 “No one would come here illegally if they knew when they touched the system, they would be sent back. We could stop illegal immigration if you had to have a valid social security number to work, and we enforced it. It seems to me, we have adopted a policy that we don’t want to enforce. Immigration policy is like setting the speed limit at 55,” Tully said.
“We need to shift paradigms. We need orderly immigration and enforcement of the law. This is not a problem with immigration, but a problem with illegal immigration and lack of enforcement. We need to even out the benefits and the burdens of immigration. The country has ability to do this; it’s just the will,” Tully said.
Historically, federal enforcement efforts have focused on the border, with little enforcement on the interior or at the workplace.
“Most people want enforcement at border, and then live freely ever after,” said Dowell Myers, a professor at the USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development.
Increased border enforcement, particularly enforcement efforts along Mexico’s border with California, have had unintended detrimental consequences. With the squeeze at San Diego, migrants have moved eastward to remote areas. As a result, more people have died trying to cross the border in the dry desert, or as a result of smugglers abandoning them.
Myers said this problem highlights the need for a coherent national policy rather than regional or state policies that displace the problem from one area to another.
“A piecemeal system is totally ineffective,” he said.
Freedom of movement
Immigrants tend to concentrate in particular states, such as California, New York and Arizona, putting a strain on social services in those areas. Some have proposed managing the settlement of immigrants, or placing limits on immigration in particular areas stressed by over-immigration.
 Myers noted that Americans are a mobile people – and immigrants are even more so.
“America is a free country, and we have the right to interstate mobility. It’s very hard, once someone is in the U.S., to tell them to stay in a particular place,” he said. “The idea that every locality is responsible exclusively for its own people totally defies the logic of national and international mobility in which people are moving across borders and state lines.”
Yet municipalities and local governments are responsible for their roads, schools, hospitals and other infrastructure that is strained by immigration.
“What’s a mayor supposed to do?” Myers asked. “If there was more help financially, there would be a lot less squawking.”
The bright side of immigration
 Vernez distinguished between legal immigration and illegal immigration. Historically, legal immigration tends to draw highly skilled, highly educated people, while illegal immigrants tend to be at the low end the economic spectrum.
“The United States has benefited from the immigration of highly educated people from all over the world – from Russia, from India, from Argentina – people who have been educated from beyond what their own economies could absorb,” Vernez said.
Looking at demographic trends, Myers said that as the baby boom generation retires, the younger generation of workers will be necessary to fund their retirement.
“Nationally, we may have a vested interest in a growing population fueled by immigration to fund Social Security and Medicare,” Portney said. “We are projected to be successful economically because we have a growing population, in contrast to Europe, which is projected to have dire economic consequences down the line.”
“Immigrants do critical jobs in this country, and America is not reproducing at a high enough rate to supply the economy,” Rios said. “If we need immigration, why not our neighbors to the South? We are not at war with Mexico.”
Investing south of the border
Vernez said investment in Mexico is an important component of dealing with the immigration issue. In that, states can play a role in encouraging commerce and fostering good business relations.
“It remains to be seen how fast the economy of Mexico can grow to minimize the pressure to emigrate. Anything we can do to invest Mexico makes sense,” he said.
Portney noted that foreign aid is politically unpopular. U.S. direct foreign aid has been on decline since 1990, while remittances migrants send back to their home countries have become a more important source of revenue to the developing world.
“If you look at foreign assistance, the winds seem to be blowing in the opposite direction,” Portney said.
Myers said demographic changes south of the border could change the immigration equation: In 1970, the average family size in Mexico was six children; now the family size is down to 2.2 children per woman.
“That means the extra young men and women are not going to be there in 10 years, and so immigration pressures will be reduced,” Myers said. “There are big changes coming in Mexico that will be felt magnificently. That means we can work together with Mexico more equally.”
Investing north of the border
Vernez said if states are to get involved in immigration policy, they should adopt forward-looking policies that get the most out of immigration rather than obstructionist ballot measures.
“I think it is a mistake for states to cut down on investments such as education and providing resources for immigrants to learn English,” he said. “Realistically, those illegal immigrants who are here now are not going to leave. To deny them access to education – either primary education or higher education – or not provide them opportunities to become more productive is not in the best interest of any state.”
“Immigrants and their children have a role to play. We need to invest in them big time,” Myers said.
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