SCHIP

Making the Case: Why Congress Should Pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform this Year

Today in the Senate, Senator Schumer is holding an important hearing: "Comprehensive Immigration Reform in 2009, Can We Do it and How?" Here at NDN, we believe the answer to whether Congress can pass reform this year is "yes." Below are seven reasons why:

1) In tough economic times, we need to remove the "trap door" under the minimum wage.

One of the first acts of the new Democratic Congress back in 2007 was to raise the minimum wage, to help alleviate the downward pressure on wages we had seen throughout the decade even prior to the current Great Recession. The problem with this strategy is that the minimum wage and other worker protections required by American law do not extend to those workers here illegally. With economic times worsening here and in the home countries of the migrants, unscrupulous employers have much more leverage over, and incentive to keep, undocumented workers. With five percent of the current workforce -- amazingly, with one out of every 20 workers now undocumented, this situation creates an unacceptable race to the bottom, downward pressure on wages, at a time when we need to be doing more for those struggling to get by, not less.   

Legalizing the five percent of the work force that is undocumented would create a higher wage and benefit floor than exists today for all workers, further helping, as was intended by the increase in the minimum wage two years ago, to alleviate the downward pressure on wages for those struggling the most in this tough economy.  

Additionally, it needs to be understood that these undocumenteds are already here and working.  If you are undocumented, you are not eligible for welfare. If you are not working, you go home. Thus, in order to remove this "trap door," we need to either kick five percent of existing American workforce out of the country -- a moral and economic impossibility -- or legalize them. There is no third way on this one. They stay and become citizens or we chase them away. 

Finally, what you hear from some of the opponents of immigration reform is that by passing reform, all of these immigrants will come and take the jobs away of everyday Americans. But again, the undocumented immigrants are already here, working, having kids, supporting local businesses. Legalization does not create a flood of new immigrants -- in fact, as discussed earlier, it puts the immigrant worker on a more even playing field with legal American workers. It does the very inverse of what is being suggested -- it creates fairer competition for American workers -- not unfair competition. The status quo is what should be most unacceptable to those who claim they are advocating for the American worker.  

2) In a time of tight budgets, passing immigration reform will bring more money into the federal treasury.  

Putting the undocumented population on the road to citizenship will also increase tax revenue in a time of economic crisis, as the newly legal immigrants will pay fees and fines, and become fully integrated into the U.S. tax-paying system. When immigration reform legislation passed the Senate in 2006, the Congressional Budge Office estimate that accompanied the bill projected Treasury revenues would see a net increase of $44 billion over 10 years. 

3) Reforming our immigration system will increasingly be seen as a critical part of any comprehensive strategy to calm the increasingly violent border region

Tackling the growing influence of the drug cartels in Mexico is going to be hard, cost a great deal of money, and take a long time. One quick and early step toward calming the region will be to take decisive action on clearing up one piece of the problem -- the vast illegal trade in undocumented migrants. Legalization will also help give these millions of families a greater stake in the United States, which will make it less likely that they contribute to the spread of the cartels influence.  

4) Fixing the immigration system will help reinforce that it is a "new day" for U.S.-Latin American relations.     

To his credit, President Obama has made it clear that he wants to see a significant improvement in our relations with our Latin neighbors and very clearly communicated that message during his recent trips to Mexico and the Summit of the Americas. Just as offering a new policy toward Cuba is part of establishing that it is truly a "new day" in hemispheric relations, ending the shameful treatment of Latin migrants here in the United States will go a long way in signaling that America is taking its relations with its southern neighbors much more seriously than in the past.  

5) Passing immigration reform this year clears the way for a clean census next year.  

Even though the government is constitutionally required to count everyone living in the United States every 10 years, the national GOP has made it clear that it will block efforts for the Census Bureau to count undocumented immigrants. Conducting a clean and thorough census is hard in any environment. If we add a protracted legal and political battle on top -- think Norm Coleman, a politicized U.S. Attorney process, Bush v Gore -- the chance of a failed or flawed census rises dramatically. This of course would not be good for the nation.  

Passing immigration reform this year would go a long way to ensuring we have a clean and effective census count next year. 

6) The Administration and Congress will grow weary of what we call  "immigration proxy wars," and will want the issue taken off the table.  

With rising violence in Mexico, and the everyday drumbeat of clashes and conflicts over immigration in communities across America, the broken immigration system is not going to fade from public consciousness any time soon. The very vocal minority on the right -- those who put this issue on the table in the first place -- will continue to try to attach amendments to other bills ensuring that various government benefits are not conferred upon undocumenteds. We have already seen battles pop up this year on virtually every major bill Congress has taken up, including SCHIP and the stimulus. By the fall, I think leaders of both parties will grow weary of these proxy battles popping up on every issue and will want to resolve the issue once and for all. Passing immigration reform will become essential to making progress on other much needed societal goals like moving toward universal health insurance. 

7) Finally, in the age of Obama, we must be vigilant to stamp out racism wherever it appears

Passing immigration reform this year would help take the air out of the balloon of what is the most virulent form of racism in American society today -- the attacks on Hispanics and undocumented immigrants. It will be increasingly difficult for the President and his allies to somehow argue that watching Glenn Beck act out burning alive of a person on the air over immigration, "left leaning" Ed Schultz give air time to avowed racist Tom Tancredo on MSNBC or Republican ads comparing Mexican immigrants to Islamic terrorists is somehow different from the racially insensitive speech that got Rush Limbaugh kicked off Monday Night Football, or Don Imus kicked off the radio.   

So for those of us who want to see this vexing national problem addressed this year, this important hearing is a critical step forward.  But we still have a long way to, and a lot of work ahead of us if we are to get this done this year.

(Also check out our recently released report, Making the Case for Passing Comprehensive Immigration Reform This Year, which succinctly lays out our case for why Congress can -- and should -- pass comprehensive immigration reform this year).

NDN Praises U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller for Offering Amendment to Help Legal Immigrant Children

NDN's ROSENBERG PRAISES ROCKEFELLER CHIP AMENDMENT TO HELP CHILDREN OF LEGAL IMMIGRANTS, SAYS IT'S A SIGN THAT PROGRESS CAN BE MADE THIS YEAR ON FIXING BROKEN IMMIGRATION SYSTEM 

NDN President Simon Rosenberg today applauded U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller for offering a successful amendment that will give states the option of providing health insurance to children of legal immigrants through Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Rockefeller offered the amendment during the Senate Finance Committee's consideration yesterday of a bill to expand the overall CHIP program.   

Rosenberg also praised Committee Chairman Max Baucus and other Finance Committee members who voted in favor of the amendment.

"For those interested in fixing our broken immigration system, the sensible resolution by the Senate Finance Committee yesterday is a welcome sign and a clear signal that progress can be made this year. For the last three years, the arguments of a few, deeply out of touch with popular sentiment, have held the immigration debate hostage, preventing progress on what Americans consider to be one of our most important national priorities."

Rosenberg continued, "In poll after poll, Americans rank fixing our broken immigration as one of their top priorities. Few blame the immigrants themselves. Most believe that any serious effort to fix the broken immigration system must include the offering of legal status and a path to citizenship for the millions of undocumented immigrants already here. The American people understand that leaving five percent of our workforce and their families living in the shadows, outside the protection of American law, easy prey for exploitation, with no chance to live the American Dream, is an affront to our core values, and something that cannot stand. It is for this reason that there is such a deep and intense desire in the public to fix the system now."

"The sensible resolution of this first debate in the new Congress over how to best treat the immigrants among us is a hopeful sign that leaders of both parties will be able to come together later this year and pass a comprehensive approach to fixing our badly broken immigration system. In the coming weeks, I urge the full Senate to pass this critical legislation," Rosenberg said.

On Congress, SCHIP and Immigration Reform

Over the next week Congress is likely to pass SCHIP, the program designed to provide health insurance to children who do not have it.  As these two stories show (here and here), the debate on SCHIP - the very first bill brought up by the new Congress - has already been impacted by the ongoing debate over immigration, with the Senate and House now planning on passing different versions of the legislation.  In response to questions from several reporters today, I issued the following statement: 

"That the debate over SCHIP has immediately become a debate about immigration should be a clear warning to the Administration and Congress that progress on many important domestic priorities this year may get caught up in the debate on how to best fix our broken immigration system. It is our belief that rather than having a series of tough and contentious proxy fights on immigration, our leaders should recognize that passing comprehensive immigration reform this year will not only help fix our badly broken immigration system - a priority of many Americans - but may also be the key to unlocking bipartisan progress on a whole range of other domestic and security related issues." 

There are many good reasons to fix our broken immigration system by passing comprehensive immigration reform this year: it is a well-crafted fix to a serious national problem; it has the overwhelming support of the American people and a deep and broad bi-partisan coalition behind it; it will demonstrate that Congress and the President have the ability to tackle the hard ones; it will help weaken the vast and increasingly dangerous culture of illegality in the border region, which will help our law enforcement officials address more pressing problems; it was able to muster 62 votes and pass a Republican Senate, demonstrating that this is not a toxic or "third rail" issue; it will help us better manage the all too porous border in a time of possible terrorist attacks; it will ensure that five percent of our workforce has the protection of American law, is paid minimum wage and has the right to unionize, something these workers do not have today; it will help quiet the very public demonstration of hatred and racism that has spilled out during this debate; and for the Democrats it will deliver on a promise made to the fastest growing part of the electorate, one that was critical to their victory. 

But as our country's leaders are also finding out with SCHIP, passing comprehensive immigration reform will also be a key that unlocks progress on other critical domestic priorities.  I hear talk in Washington that perhaps this issue will fall to 2011, or 2012.  To me this makes no sense.  Immigration Reform should be tackled this year.  Our broken immigration system is a vexing national problem that the American people want solved.  It is contributing to an increasingly dangerous border region, clogging our courts, tossing a federal problem back down to the states, and causing terrible harm to millions of families across the country.  Not solving it - when manifestations of it dominate the local news every day - makes our leaders look weak, fearful, political.  It will also slow down progress on lots of other issues, from housing and foreclosure reform, universal health care to putting laptops in the backpack of every child. These and other areas that will be subject to questions about whether the benefits confered may somehow be used by an undocumented immigrant or their children. 

Thus, the new Congress and the new Administration should be smart, pass comprehensive immigration reform this year.   The legislative process should start with a version of the original Kennedy-McCain bill from 2006, and its formula that called for cracking down on the border and on exploitive employers, better management of the future flow of both high and low skilled immigrants, and legalizing the status and offering a path to citizenship for those already here.  By doing so our leaders will not only be doing the right thing, they will free up the nation from the debilitating proxy fights over immigration that will continue to plague so many legislative battles in the years ahead.

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