Latest Outrage

It’s All About the “Illegals,” Or Is It?

February 11th, 2008

Many claim that their concerns about immigration are limited only to "illegals," saying, they are not against legal immigration, only illegal immigration, or, they oppose ‘illegals' getting benefits others don't get. Others claim they oppose amnesty because it puts illegals ahead of those waiting patiently to enter legally.

First, such assertions are disingenuous because they imply that there is a reasonable opportunity for potential immigrants to legally come to the U.S. There isn't. Unless you have an immediate relative who is a citizen (spouse, minor child, or parent) the wait is 10 to 20 years, sometimes more. Second, their actions are rarely consistent with their talking points. Perhaps the best example is the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has officially designated a "hate group."

• Take legal immigration: As Miami Herald columnist Andres Oppenheimer has noted, FAIR not only doesn't support more legal immigration, its website calls for a drastic 70% cut in the number of legal immigrants allowed into the country (Miami Herald article, below).

• Consider the question of public benefits: In 1996, Congress cut off federal benefits to legal immigrants, some of which were subsequently restored years later. FAIR applauded then, and today helpfully offers suggestions for more ways to deny legal immigrants benefits that are supported with their tax dollars.

• What about legal immigrants who want to become American citizens? Last July, the federal government increased the citizenship application fee from $330 to $595 - this on top of fees that legal immigrants already pay for legal residency (increased from $325 to $905) and fingerprinting (increased from $70 to $80). For a family of four, the new fee structure costs $2,595, or more than 5% of the total annual income for the average Latino household.
• While The Washington Post, among others, strongly criticized the move (Post editorial below), FAIR supported the fee increases.
• These "user fees" were meant to pay for improvements in the efficiency of the process. Instead, the backlog for processing those applications has grown to 15-18 months on average, even longer in some jurisdictions.

So the next time you hear a hate group insist that it's only "illegals" they're concerned about, look behind the rhetoric. We suspect that legal immigrants, and their U.S. citizen family members, would prefer less rhetorical love and more substance - like equal access to benefits that their taxes pay for, and reasonably efficient government services that their user fees are supposed to ensure.

MIAMI HERALD (Oppenheimer Column): Five myths of anti-immigration talk
BY ANDRES OPPENHEIMER
January 13, 2008

It's time to debunk the biggest myths of the antiimmigration movement that has swept this country over the past two years, and may still have an impact on the 2008 presidential race: that they are not anti-Hispanic nor oppose legal immigration, but are only against ''illegal'' immigration.

Before we get into why most U.S. Republican presidential hopefuls -- with the exception of Sen. John McCain -- and cable television anti-immigration crusaders on CNN and Fox News are deceiving the public with their claim that they are only against ''illegal'' immigration, let me tell you what brings me to address this issue.

Last week, after I wrote about the loss of ''antiimmigration'' candidates in the New Hampshire primary, I was instantly flooded with more than 100 e-mails that almost unanimously criticized me for labeling Republican hopefuls Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and others as ''anti-immigration'' candidates.

They are not ''anti-immigration,'' but anti-''illegal'' immigration, the readers said, almost in unison. So here goes my respectful response to this and other big myths of the anti-immigration movement:

• Myth No. 1: ''We are only against illegal immigration. Undocumented immigrants should get in line for visas.'' That's deceptive because you can't demand that people get into line when, for the most part, there is no line to get into.

While the U.S. labor market is demanding 1.5 million mostly low-skilled immigrants a year -- and will demand many more in coming years, as the U.S. population becomes increasingly educated -- the current immigration system allows into the U.S. an average of one million legal immigrants a year, and most of them are already here.

''There is a huge mismatch between what the U.S. labor market needs and the supply of immigration visas,'' says Frank Sharry, head of the National Immigration Forum, which advocates both secure borders and a path to legal residence for many of the 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.

On top of that, most anti-immigration groups want to reduce legal immigration. The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a favorite of radio and cable television Hispanic immigrant-bashing news shows, wants to reduce legal immigration from the current 1 million a year to about 300,000, with a 20-year cooling-off period.

• Myth No. 2: ''Anti-immigration advocates are not anti-Hispanic.'' Maybe many aren't, but when was the last time you heard anti-immigration Republican hopefuls or cable television talk show hosts lashing out against illegal immigrants from Canada?

In addition, the escalating immigration hysteria has created an ugly environment that affects all Hispanics -- both legal and undocumented -- in many parts of the country, as recent studies by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center have shown.

''We are seeing more discrimination and harassment,'' says Michele Waslin, of the Immigration Policy Center. "Anybody who is Hispanic-looking or has an Hispanic last name is being treated as an undocumented immigrant.''

• Myth No. 3: ''We are a nation of laws, and the law says you have to enter the country legally.'' Yes, but we are also a nation of immigrants. And, by the way, nearly half of all undocumented immigrants enter the country legally, and overstay their visas.

• Myth No. 4: ''Building a border fence will solve the problem.'' Wrong. As long as the per capita income in the United States is five times bigger than that of Mexico, and as long as U.S. labor market demands millions of low-skilled jobs that Americans won't fill, people will jump over the fence, dig tunnels under it or come through Canada.

• Myth No. 5: Those of us who criticize anti-immigration groups are ''amnesty'' and ''open borders'' supporters. Baloney. I, for one, support both border protection and an earned path to legalization for millions of undocumented workers who pay taxes and are willing to learn English.

My conclusion: Let's call things by their names, and agree that most opponents of a comprehensive immigration package are anti-immigration.

The only way to solve the current immigration crisis will be to legalize undocumented workers who have paid their dues, and to increase economic integration with Mexico and the rest of Latin America in order to reduce poverty and emigration pressures south of the border. The rest is, for the most part, populist demagoguery.

THE WASHINGTON POST (Editorial): High Price, Poor Service
Despite exorbitant fees, the wait to become a naturalized citizen is three times as long as it was last year.
Saturday, January 26, 2008; Page A16

IN JULY, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services increased naturalization and visa fees across the board by an average of 66 percent. One fee more than septupled: the application to change from temporary to permanent residency, which went from $180 to $1,370. Immigration advocacy groups and other critics (including us) decried the ghastly expenses immigrants faced. Still, USCIS pledged that the increases would benefit applicants by allowing the agency to reduce processing times: from six months to four months for permanent residency visas, and from seven months to five months for naturalization applications.

Fast-forward to today. As USCIS Director Emilio T. Gonzalez testified at a House hearing last week, permanent residency applications now take about a year to process, and naturalization applications take a whopping 18 months. USCIS attributes this to the surge in applications it received in June and July -- 3 million applications and petitions in the summer of 2007, up from 1.8 million in the summer of 2006 -- and says it had no way of anticipating the increase. But USCIS should have known that raising fees so precipitously would have this effect. After all, any expected fee increase encourages people to apply immediately. This motivation, coupled with the heated immigration debate and the corresponding naturalization drives led by advocacy groups, surely led to the explosion in applications.

USCIS has responded to the new backlog with a plan to hire 1,800 more staffers. Mr. Gonzalez said this will allow USCIS to reduce wait times for naturalization and permanent residency visas to six months in 2010. This timeline is unacceptable: It will prevent hundreds of thousands of applicants who filed for naturalization in 2007 from participating in the presidential election.

One potential solution, both to this immediate backlog and to the long-term problems facing USCIS's processing, is to stop requiring that USCIS be self-supporting. Unlike other government agencies, it receives no regular appropriations from Congress. Instead, its budget must be covered from funds generated by user fees. The agency has "no plans" to ask Congress for funding, according to spokesman Christopher S. Bentley, because USCIS is "comfortable" with this model, no matter the hardship its high prices may place on its disproportionately poor clients.

Clearly this model isn't working, and it is contrary to American values. The United States has a historical mission of welcoming immigrants. Given the public (as well as private) good that comes from citizenship,

USCIS should receive annual funding so that it can process applications expeditiously, carefully and affordably for new Americans and legal residents.