October 24, 2008

During a period of time where the electorate (which includes a whole bunch of new citizens, by the way) is worried about a severe credit crisis, the lack of health insurance, and a looming recession, the Department of Homeland Security decides to throw a little fuel on an immigration debate that everyone seems to have forgotten about.

Thursday’s release of a final administrative rule regarding “no-match” letters is opposed from all corners of our economy. The so called “no-match” rule turns an advisory letter issued by the Social Security Administration – designed to ensure that individuals paying into the Social Security system are properly credited for their work – into a tool for tracking down undocumented workers.

Inaccurate databases, human error, and failure to report name changes can all contribute to the “no-match” problem, but this new rule is likely to turn all no-match letters into scarlet letters, leading to unnecessary dismissals and possible discriminatory hiring practices.

Given our country’s rapidly unraveling economy, measures that further weaken businesses and threaten the economic security of our nation and of legitimate workers – native and immigrant worker alike – are bizarre.

The Administration was under no legal obligation to issue these regulations. In fact, the initial rules were contested in court.

Recent news reports and Congressional hearings have uncovered scandals in the immigration enforcement agency’s handling of its charges, pointing to the need for greater accountability. Instead, both Congress and the administration are loosening the reins—Congress, by giving ICE buckets and buckets of new taxpayer dollars, and now the administration, by finalizing a policy that will be hazardous to our economic health and by dragging the Social Security Administration into the fray.

It is clear the Bush administration is determined to continue tightening the screws on immigrants with new deportation-only initiatives, using its last few months in office to put regulations in place that will make it that much more difficult for a new administration to tackle immigration in a straightforward and reasonable way.

The next administration and Congress should move quickly to help America get back on its feet by enacting immigration reform that is fiscally responsible, creates genuine security for communities, and leads to rational regulation of immigration. The no-match rule makes no contribution to those objectives and should be overturned before it disrupts the economy even further.

In the meantime, someone over at DHS needs to read a newspaper and see what is happening in the real world.

This post was written by Ali Noorani, the Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum

Business is the focus of today’s news and opinion on immigration.  Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post takes a front-page look at enforcement against businesses caught hiring unauthorized workers, concluding that the number of criminal prosecutions against employers and supervisors is up, but that barely a dent has been made in the overall immigration mess:

A three-year-old enforcement campaign against employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants is increasingly resulting in arrests and criminal convictions, using evidence gathered by phone taps, undercover agents and prisoners who agree to serve as government witnesses.

 

But the crackdown’s relatively high costs and limited results are also fueling criticism. In an economy with more than 6 million companies and 8 million unauthorized workers, the corporate enforcement effort is still dwarfed by the high-profile raids that have sentenced thousands of illegal immigrants to prison time and deportation…

 

In the first nine months of this fiscal year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) made 937 criminal arrests at U.S. workplaces, more than 10 times as many as the 72 it arrested five years ago. Of those arrested this year, 99 were company supervisors, compared with 93 in 2007. – “In Immigration Cases, Employers Feel The Pressure,” Spencer Hsu, Washington Post, July 21, 2008

But as Hsu’s story points out, officials from both the Bush Administration and the Clinton Administration that preceded it feel that no significant progress at curtailing illegal hiring will occur until Congress changes the laws:

Stewart A. Baker, assistant secretary for policy at the Homeland Security Department, recently told immigration experts the disparity can be traced to ineffective policies that need to be addressed by Congress…

 

“If you want law enforcement, you have to have laws that are enforceable,” said Doris M. Meissner, who headed the former Immigration and Naturalization Service under the Clinton administration. The 1986 law banning the hiring of illegal immigrants, she said, “has just been chronically flawed from the time it was passed.” – “In Immigration Cases, Employers Feel The Pressure,” Spencer Hsu, Washington Post, July 21, 2008

Meanwhile, the editorial page at the New York Times follows up on Julia Preston’s front-page report July 6 (“Employers Fight Tough Measures on Immigration”) on the business community getting more engaged in immigration reform efforts in Washington and around the country.  Today’s editorial notes the hodge-podge of state and local measures going after immigrants and businesses that hire immigrants unauthorized to work:

States and cities complain about the broken immigration system, but they can’t create the intricate web of policies needed to fix it — that’s up to Congress. All they can do is try to crack down locally on illegal immigrants and the businesses that hire them. The result has been haphazard enforcement without reform, which only makes the problem worse. – “Pushing Back on Immigration,” New York Times editorial, July 21, 2008

 

The Times editorial goes on to note that businesses who want to play by the rules are the main losers in the current equation:

Many companies have operated with impunity in hiring and abusing undocumented low-wage workers, people who are all the more compliant because they are illegal. Like immigrants, good employers need a path to get right and stay right with the law. Current immigration law — with far too few visas and no path to legalization for the undocumented — does not provide one, and misguided state and local enforcement efforts simply layer on the confusion. They impose undue hardships on by-the-books businesses and reward the exploiters. – “Pushing Back on Immigration,” New York Times editorial, July 21, 2008

The editorial then calls on the business community to step-up to the plate when it comes to fixing our immigration system:

If the country is ever going to emerge from the immigration chaos that Congress bequeathed it last year, it will be because business interests — largely seen as AWOL in the bitter debate — finally joined the fight. – “Pushing Back on Immigration,” New York Times editorial, July 21, 2008

While we welcome more business voices at the table – and have been working with this wing of the pro-immigrant, pro-reform movement for years – other key actors that have been AWOL for most of the last year (at least in a constructive sense) are the President and Congress.  We would always welcome them back to the table.

Two must reads we’ve seen so far today:  One was today’s Washington Post Metro section front page look at law students aiding in immigration law clinics.  With so much deportation going on and with so many obstacles to legal immigration and staying legal, it’s all hands on deck. 

The second was the lead story in Sunday’s New York Times by Julia Preston on how the business community is starting to stir to put pressure on GOP lawmakers about immigration.  Employers trying to play by the rules are being tarred with the same brush as bottom-feeding employers who exploit the illegal status of workers.  Until we find ways of allowing for sufficient legal immigration, many small business owners are suffering.

The Post story looks at how much need there is for legal counsel in immigration-related matters.

But there is a growing realization, students and professors said, that policies on issues such as asylum and due process are evolving as never before, particularly since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. A growing immigrant population also means that legal status often complicates what might have once been simple criminal or labor cases.

 

“It’s not just that people think immigration is important, but they’re seeing that it affects everything,” said Hiroshi Motomura, an immigration law professor who will join UCLA in the fall.  – Karin Brulliard, “Law Students Rush to Meet Needs In Booming Field of Immigration,” Washington Post, July 7, 2008

The Times story looks at how at the state and local level, businesses are uniting to keep up the pressure for immigration reform and beat back harmful initiatives aimed at immigrants – which are having a tremendous impact on the economy and business environment.

The offensive by businesses has been spurred by the federal enforcement crackdown, by inaction in Congress on immigration legislation and by a rush of punitive state measures last year that created a checkerboard of conflicting requirements. Many employers found themselves on the political defensive as they grappled, even in an economic downturn, with shortages of low-wage labor.

 

Mike Gilsdorf, the owner of a 37-year-old landscaping nursery in Littleton, Colo., saw the need for action by businesses last winter when he advertised with the Labor Department, as he does every year, for 40 seasonal workers at market-rate wages to plant, prune and carry his shrubs in the summer heat. Only one local worker responded to the notice, he said, and then did not show up for the job.

 

Mr. Gilsdorf was able to fill his labor force with legal immigrants from Mexico through a federal guest worker program. But that program has a tight annual cap, and Mr. Gilsdorf realized that he might not be so lucky next year. His business could fail, he said, and then even his American workers would lose their jobs.

 

“We’re not hiring illegals, we’re not paying under the table,” Mr. Gilsdorf said. “But if we don’t get in under the cap and nobody is answering our ads, we don’t have employees.” His group, Colorado Employers for Immigration Reform, is pressing Congress for a much larger and more flexible guest worker program. – Julia Preston, “Employers Fight Tough Measures on Immigration,” New York Times, July 6, 2008

Littleton, Colorado?  Isn’t that where anti-legal-immigration firebrand Rep. Tom Tancredo is from?  Boy, his agenda sure is helping the local folks!!!

For more information on what the business community is facing and how they are pushing back, visit ImmigrationWorksUSA.