Flavia Jiménez is an Immigration Policy Analyst for the National Council of La Raza, the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the U.S.
Anyone interested in actually fixing the immigration problem has to be very disappointed in Congress’ antics on the issue over the last few weeks.
The House Republican leadership recently published its "Border Security Now" agenda, and it was nothing but more of their tired, harsh, costly and ineffective ideas—more fences, more detention beds, more indefinite detention of undocumented immigrants and the use of overworked, untrained law enforcement personnel to enforce complex immigration laws.
And while many congressional Democrats, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have been valiant in their opposition to these ugly proposals, it is also true that House Democratic leaders took heavy criticism from members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus for leaving immigration reform out of the agenda they are telling the country they will pursue if they win a majority in the House of Representatives. The overall message to Latinos from House Democrats is that many (but not all) will oppose the ugly proposals that Republicans are offering up, but proposing affirmative reforms is another matter.
The current legislative agenda in Congress clearly aims to disenfranchise immigrants and minorities. By passing the “Federal Election Integrity Act of 2006,” on Sept. 20, the House has signaled that it is willing to inconvenience all voters and prevent many groups, including poor and elderly voters, from voting—all to solve a problem that does not exist. One day later, the House approved a bill to construct a 700-mile border fence at a cost of $20 billion.
With no time to blink or think about next steps, the House on Sept. 20 also passed the Community Protection Act of 2006, the Immigration Law Enforcement Act of 2006, and the Border Tunnel Prevention Act, none of which will solve anything but will have unintended consequences for all.
The Community Protection Act allows the government to indefinitely detain noncitizens and creates an overly broad definition of “gang;” it also gives the U.S. Department of Homeland Security unfettered discretion to determine who is a “gang member” and deport that person, even if no crime has been committed. The Immigration Law Enforcement Act contains the most troubling provision of these misguided bills and permits state and local police officers to be used to enforce immigration laws. The primary responsibility for police officers is to keep our neighborhoods free of crime, yet this bill will undermine trust in the police within immigrant communities and hamper their ability to apprehend criminals. For this reason, many law enforcement officials have signed statements firmly stating their opposition to these policies.
Chief Joseph Estey, immediate past president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, has stated:
Many leaders in the law enforcement community have serious concerns about the chilling effect any measure of this nature would have on legal and illegal aliens reporting criminal activity or assisting police in criminal investigations. This lack of cooperation could diminish the ability of law enforcement agencies to police effectively their communities and protect the public they serve.
The bill proposing to use police officers as immigrant agents is just one example of the unworkable provisions that Congress is rushing through the approval process. Just like a border wall that will require enormous resources and a voting bill that makes it harder for part of the electorate to vote, this legislation will not solve our country’s immigration problems and will cause untold harm in communities throughout the United States.
It is absolutely necessary that we enforce immigration laws, but surely we can devise an approach along the lines of the original McCain-Kennedy bill that was much modified by the Senate. Even though the bill that eventually passed included some very troubling provisions, it still contained the fundamental elements of comprehensive immigration reform—a path to citizenship for current undocumented immigrants, the creation of new legal channels for needed workers, and reductions in the family-based immigration backlogs. This comprehensive approach is both more effective and more humane than the current misguided regime.
Americans—those with legal status and those without—deserve more than what Congress is now shoveling out when it comes to immigration. We are long overdue for our political parties to agree upon an effective solution to this problem. We must find a middle ground between hiding behind the desk and standing at the border with a rifle.
Immigration policy is a complex issue, but this fact doesn't give Congress a free pass. Both Republicans and Democrats should take a page from the book of all the new grassroots activists working for the pro-immigrant movement. Despite growing pains, they are moving ahead steadily and with clear purpose. They are working across political and ideological boundaries to make it known what they stand for and what changes they hope for to make America an even greater nation.
