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Even then, the reform Obama tried to pass was middling at best. It would have taken undocumented immigrants 13 years to gain citizenship. It would have added an insane $46 billion for increased border security. That was a false option for us, says Shah of the Detention Watch Network. It was like, lets terrorize some communities in order to benefit others. And in the end, no deal was to be had with a Republican Party that was being torn apart by the vehemently anti-immigrant forces that would one day propel Trump to the Oval Office.

The overall result has been a massive build-up of enforcement, without the corresponding changes to legalization that Democrats want. A report by the Migration Policy Institute found that, in 2012, the federal government spent $18 billion on immigration enforcement, 24 percent more than all other principal law enforcement agencies combined.

In this respect, Trump is not an anomaly, but rather the culmination of draconian immigration policies that resulted from decades of over-compromise. As Jimnez says, What we have seen from Democrats is this false notion and political miscalculation that more aggressive enforcement and criminalization of some members of the community will get you a pathway to citizenship for others.

Still, some centrist Democrats feel that the party should move backwards instead of forwards. Last week a new political group that includes Democratic mayors, governors, and congressmen was launched to prevent the Democratic Party from moving left. Called New Democracya nod to Bill Clintons New Democrat campaignone of the groups strategies is to bridge the cultural divide to combat what it calls corrosive identity politics: On immigration, for example, Democrats should stick to their guns in supporting a humane path to legalization. But we also should take seriously public concerns about the breakdown of public order, the impact of low-skill immigrants on native workers jobs and pay.

But if Obamas case is any example, Democratic politicians will reap few political rewards from the center and the right by adopting their concerns. And given the virtual reign of terror immigrants are facing under Donald Trump, these compromises have become increasingly unacceptable to progressives. With all undocumented immigrants being fair game, ICE officials have crossed invisible lines to raid schools, churches, and courthouses. Lawyers are playing what The New York Times has called a game of cat and mouse, shuffling their immigrant defendants out of courtrooms if they suspect ICE agents are there, waiting to pounce.

While deportations have decreased under Trump compared with Obama (in large part because more undocumented immigrants are being arrested in the interior of the country, rather than near the border) immigrant arrests have increased, including of those who have never committed a crime. Even children who are protected under DACA have been arrested. This has all contributed to a climate of fear: Some children are too afraid to go to school, while other immigrants are even avoiding the doctor.

As a result, the worse it gets under Trump, the more the pro-immigrant community will feel justified in demanding more from Democrats. The community is ready to stand up against them if Democrats think that the old way is the way forward, says Jimnez of United We Dream. Sharry adds, The pro-immigrant movement is not interested in a balanced approach in which Republicans get a lot of the enforcement they want and Democrats get the legalization they want and they arrive at a deal.

Democrats may meet harsh resistance even when they attempt to mitigate the damage Trump is threatening to wreak. In the spending deal passed in May to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year, Democrats celebrated a win because they had stripped funding for Trumps border wall. But they also conceded $1.5 billion in border security funding.

There is now a campaign led by pro-immigrant groups to push Democrats to defund the deportation machine in Trumps 2018 budget request, including reducing the funds going to Department of Homeland Security, which controls ICE and CBP. They have also zeroed in on Trumps request for a drastic increase in immigrant detention beds. All of these Democrats openly support DACA and are for some form of comprehensive immigration reform, but theyre also quietly, through the appropriations process, supporting funding for things like more detention beds, says Shah of the Detention Watch Network.

Shah notes that appropriations is a key battleground, since its an area that Congress controls and that has a lot of impact on the immigrant community. RepresentativeLuis Gutirrez, along with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, sent a letter advocating for such an approach in March and Senator Kamala Harris, along with other Democratic senators, did the same in June.

The problem is that it might be too late. The hardline immigration wing of the Republican Party is pushing to end DACA, which Trump has not done yet. A group of ten Republican state attorney generals has threatened to file a federal lawsuit over the constitutionality of the program if Trump does not act. As Dara Lind explains at Vox, if DACA is killed, it would put a lot of political pressure on Congress to find some sort of compromise to protect the newly vulnerable Dreamers. Democrats would be negotiating from a position of weakness and would likely be more willing to concede on enforcement policies or even sign on to permanent policy changes. The most draconian measure would be Senators Tom Cotton and David Perdues RAISE Act, which would create a merit-based immigration system that has been criticized for drastically slashing immigration levels and fortargeting immigrants of color.

In key policy areas, progressives have set goals, from a $15 federal minimum wage to free college tuition. In health care, for example, the goal is getting everyone insured, whether through single-payer or other means. On a movement level, it gives activists and politicians alike goal posts that have to be reached. On a rhetorical level, it shifts the Overton window towards the idea that everyone in the country deserves comprehensive coverage. But is there an equivalent that could work with immigration reform?

There is the established goal of making sure all 11 million undocumented immigrants in America have a quick and non-punitive pathway to citizenship. Many also agree that we should make it easier to enter the country legally in the first place by reforming our visa system so that it prioritizes separated family members and allows more people to enter both overall and from countries with greater demand.

But other aspects of a comprehensive package are trickier. Chomsky told me that its difficult to apply the health care model to immigration reform because the latter is even more complex: Immigration is both national and global. Its not a single issue thing, its a multi-issue thing. Foreign policy, social justice policy, economic policythey are all tied up with the dynamics of immigration. Even if those 11 million undocumented immigrants could instantly gain full citizenship rights today, the root causes of what forces people to leave their homes in the first place would still lay unaddressed.

Then theres the fact that immigration overlaps with another policy area that itself is badly in need of reform. When youre looking at the way immigration intersects with the criminal justice system, Shah says, you are also grappling with the need for a broader racial justice paradigm shift.

But there are certain principles that progressives have to agree on. Decriminalization has to be at the root, Chomsky says. We need to create a just domestic immigration policy that begins from the perspective that all people have certain inalienable rights. This includes treating the vast bulk of immigrants as job-seekers and potential contributors to society, not suspected felons or terrorist threats.

Take, for example, the fact that ICE has started to target parents who have brought their children over the border. In doing so, they are taking advantage of the Democratic position that these children came to the U.S. through no fault of their own, implying that the fault does lie with someone. The Trump administration merely assigns that fault to their parents. Dividing immigrants between good ones and bad onesor as Obama put it, felons, not familieshas played right into the criminalization narrative.

On the deportation side, Democrats should seek to dramatically scale down the ICEs activities. On the access side, what most activists want is not a set quota of immigrants allowed into the country, but a flexible system that is sensitive to the economys needsa system that takes into account worker rights, family reunification, and the needs of employers.

For undocumented immigrants, the next few years will be a desperate battle to survive. (As Sharry dryly put it, Lets see if theres a population of undocumented immigrants here to be legalized, before we reengage on immigration reform.)But if someone like Trump can be elected, immigrants in this country will never be safe unless Congress passes real reform, one that dismantles our current deportation and detention regime.Trump might be an exceptionally racist president, but he is working with the tools that his predecessors gave him.

See the article here:
How Democrats Gave Us Trump's Immigration Nightmare - New Republic

It may not be his intention, but President Trump is making the case for comprehensive immigration reform almost every time he opens his mouth.

His recent embrace of the immigration plan offered by U.S. Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia ignited a debate over a rock-bottom question: To whom should we open our doors and give access to Americas promise?

Trump made his position clear. Cut the number of visa seekers in half, down to about 500,000 from 1 million a year. In the process, drastically reduce the visas issued to family members of those already here.

Everybody elses eligibility would be based on a point system, from one point for a high school diploma, to 25 points for a Nobel Prize. Proficiency in English the greater the better is a door-opener, too.

The door swings widest for the well-off and better educated. A Ph.D. in math and science from a U.S. school earns 13 points toward the 30 points needed to apply. A $1.8 million investment in a business earns 12.

The Trump-backed plan does not favor the Statue of Libertys call to send us your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. On the contrary, it appears to aggressively reject those of less-privileged station. In so doing, it ignores our nations history and countless stories of immigrants whove achieved extraordinary success here, despite having no job or English-language skills when they arrived.

That said, the policy of family reunification the primary ticket to entry does deserve reconsideration. Trump and many others, including Jeb Bush, effectively argue the policy should better reflect workforce needs. Were inclined to agree, within reason.

It makes no sense for our country to grant visas mostly to family members, including distant relatives, in whats called chain immigration. But while todays family standards are too loose, the proposed remedy granting visas only to someones spouse and children is too tight.

Although the family issue deserves more examination, Trump is focused mostly on the policy of awarding H-1B visas to foreign tech workers, which he believes threatens the jobs of U.S. workers.

I will end forever the use of H-1B visas as a cheap labor program ... no exceptions, he said on the campaign trail.

However, those most in need of workers with H-1B skills the leaders of Silicon Valley say that without those skilled workers, the U.S. tech industry will suffer a blow.

Economists will tell you, too, that because of our nations low birth rate, we need more immigration to achieve the 3 percent economic growth targeted in the presidents budget.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the continent, President Trumps Mar-a-Lago staff is getting ready for the winter tourist season. The pressing need is to to hire about 70 cooks, waiters and waitresses, maids and the like.

Trumps concern for American workers appears to be less impassioned when it comes to his own staffing needs. All 70 of the seasons hires will come from abroad, mostly Central Europe and Haiti, according to published reports.

Mar-a-Lago cant seem to find qualified Americans to do the work the resort demands.

The resort dutifully abides by the letter of the law, running two small print ads in the Palm Beach Post on un-consecutive days. If the ads generate no response for 14 days, Mar-a-Lago is cleared to bring in the foreigners.

Trump argues that qualified Americans reject offers of seasonal work. He has no choice, he says. Every hotel operator has the same problem, he says. American workers dont want these jobs, he says.

One side of Trumps mouth calls for protecting American jobs from foreign workers, the other hires foreign workers to do American jobs.

And the president does nothing to set an example. Surely some unemployed kitchen worker in West Palm Beach would welcome a job, if even for a short time. But he needs to know such a job exists. Two ads in a newspaper he may not read isnt likely to do the trick.

Perhaps participation in the kind of recent job fair Mar-a-Lago failed to attend also would stir up a few needy job seekers.

As we debate who we will welcome to America, we remain divided about what to do with the 11.3 million undocumented aliens living under the cloud of a deportation threat.

The jaundiced eye may question the real motive behind the rhetoric and the tweets.

Who are the undocumented 11 million targeted by the Trump Administrations get-tough deportation policy?

They are black and brown and poor and hoping for the life America has given dreamers since Plymouth Rock.

A reasoned debate about immigration is worth having and is long overdue. But its going to need a champion who can walk the talk.

Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and written by one of its members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Rosemary OHara, Elana Simms, Gary Stein and Editor-in-Chief Howard Saltz.

Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and written by one of its members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Rosemary O'Hara, Elana Simms, Gary Stein and Editor-in-Chief Howard Saltz.

Read the original here:
Immigration reform needed, but Trump plan falls short - Sun Sentinel

August 16, 2017 By Staff / Baptist Standard

We lived in the Middle East as IMB missionaries for almost 30 years. During the civil war in Lebanon (1975-1991), many of our national friends came to the U.S. as refugees. Now there are millions more refugees from Syria and Iraq and many more people living in poverty in Central and South American who are desperate to come to the U.S. It should be obvious that we cannot accommodate all these people and millions more who want to fulfill their "American dream". As Christians we want to show love and compassion, but it has to be limited. We cannot throw our arms opened wide to the whole world. It would be much better for us to go to them and tell them about Jesus and teach them the Bible. Families ought to be kept together when possible, but when people come into the U.S. illegally, that is a privilege and not a right. Our system needs fixing but it cannot be unlimited no matter how compassionate we may be.

David King Marshall, Texas

See more here:
Letters: Immigration reform - Baptist Standard

Anjana Drukpa, a junior at Lincoln High School in Des Moines, Iowa, arrived in the U.S. from the mountains of Nepal when she was only 7 years old. She movedwith her two sisters and her single mother. She wanted us to come here to have a better life, better housing, for safety and education, so we can learn, pursue our career and then get a job, says Drukpa, who is one of 13 high school students recording their immigrant stories for a podcast project at Drake University, also in Des Moines. Were just working really hard to make our mom proud for what she has done for us.

Drukpas story and those of her classmates have become part of the U.S. experience generations of immigrants and refugees landing in a new country from far away to discover opportunity and a better life. Many of us have friends, co-workers and neighbors with similar tales of how they integrated into the U.S. culture and economy. These connections make the recently proposed RAISE Act more personal and provocative than your typical policy reform.

Our sister publication Knowledge@Wharton recently sat down with Kent Smetters, a Wharton professor of business economics and public policy, to talk about the impact of proposed immigration reforms on the U.S. economy. KWHS gleaned a few of the essentials from that interview and other sources to help you start thinking about how the RAISE Act would impact your lives and communities.

The current immigrant situation in the U.S. About 800,000 legal immigrants (we are not talking about undocumented immigrants here) come into the United States every year, a quarter of a percent of the U.S. population, which is 325 million and counting. About 45% of those immigrantsare college-educated, and the rest are typically very unskilled. The way to think about immigration in America is to adopt a barbell approach: We have a lot of people who are very unskilled, and a lot of people who are college-educated.

RAISE and its impact. RAISE stands for Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy. Reintroduced by U.S. Republican Senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue in early August and endorsed by President Donald Trump, the RAISE Act seeks to raise the bar for skill sets but also aims to reduce the number of legal immigrants allowed into the country by 50% over the next 10 years. It lowers the total amount of legal immigrants every year to roughly about 400,000. But it tries to change the skill mix such that instead of 45% of them being college-educated, it would be around 75%.

The motivation for these policy changes. According to its sponsors, the RAISE Act seeks to spur economic growth and raise American workers wages. For decades our immigration system has been completely divorced from the needs of our economy, and working Americans wages have suffered as a result. Our legislation will set things right, said Sen. Cotton in a statement.We will build an immigration system that raises working wages, creates jobs, and gives every American a fair shot at creating wealth, whether your family came over on the Mayflower or just took the oath of citizenship. Added Sen. Perdue: We want to welcome talented individuals from around the world who wish to come to the United States legally to work and make a better life for themselves. The RAISE Act will create a skills-based system that is more responsive to the needs of our economy and preserves the quality of jobs available to American workers.

A critical look at the numbers. Wharton research indicates that the RAISE Act could actually be a big negative for the nations gross domestic product (GDP) and employment. GDP is the most important economic indicator of the U.S. economy as well as economies around the world. GDP measures all goods and services that a country produces from cell phones and strawberries to the plumber who fixed your sink last week and it can be a kind of directional marker, giving clues about everything from your likelihood of getting a job, to the interest rateyou will pay on a car loan or other debt. It also tells economists when to start using the R word: A recession is often defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction in GDP. A steadily rising GDP typically means that the economy is humming, whereas a weak GDP means the economy is hurting.

What the heck is PWBM? PWBM is the Penn Wharton Budget Model, a simulator that helps analyze the potential impact of proposed policy changes. ThePWBM is non-partisan and worksat the intersection of business and policy to help policy makers, the public, and businesses make fact-based decisions. It is not meant to make policy recommendations. See the related links that accompany this article (in the toolbar to the right) to access the PWBM website.

What the numbers tell us. Smetters, who is faculty director of the PWBM, says the model tells us that between now and 2040 the proposed RAISE Act could shave two percentage points off GDP growth and cause a loss of more than four million jobs. However, in the short-term, reforms would have little negative impact on jobs and GDP, while wages would actually rise, although they would flatten out over time. Overall, the impact will be negative for both GDP and jobs. If there were no change in the number of visas issued, but all you did was to increase the skill mix, that would be positive for GDP, which would go up by about a third of one percent over time. But you will have a negative effect on GDP by reducing the total number of visas (those immigrants allowed into the country). The main points are that if you simply tilt the balance towards more skilled workers, thats a positive because skilled workers are going to be net producers for the economy, not just in terms of the taxes they pay but in terms of job creation. But if at the same time you reduce the total number of immigrants, the effect goes in the opposite direction.

Increasing immigration. Even if we didnt change the skill mix but we just increased the number of legal immigrants, it would have a very big positive impact on the economy. That is both in terms of total GDP and the number of jobs. Now, someone might say that this is obvious if you have more people. But it turns out that it even increases the amount of GDP per person, or how much money is available across everybody including native-born workers. The reason behind that is that immigrants tend to work pretty hard, and they tend to have a very high attachment rate to the labor force. They are less likely to be on unemployment insurance and things like that, and so they are really a net positive, even at a per-person level, not just at an overall level.

Playing with the PWBM. The Penn Wharton Budget Model is available online and free for use by the general public. You can go right to thePenn Wharton Budget Model website and play with the different simulators by just literally moving different dial controls to see what would happen, for example, to Social Security. There are many different options there of how we could fix Social Security, and you could move those dial controls accordingly. There are more than 4,096 combinations with Social Security alone. Because its a very deep model that does a lot of big data and a lot of complex theory, you dont have to wait a half-hour, or an hour for your results. We use cloud computing to pre-compute every single combination ahead of time so that you get instant results.

What is the RAISE Act and who does it affect?

Did you and your family immigrate to the U.S.? Share your story in the comment section of this article. How do you feel about the RAISE Act?

What is the Penn Wharton Budget Model and what does it tell us about the current proposals for immigration reform in the U.S.?

See original here:
Immigration Reform in America: The People, the Proposals and the Economics - Knowledge Wharton Highschool

Community Idea Stations

WCVE Forum: The Challenges of Immigration Reform Community Idea Stations While debate continues to swirl over the status of immigrants already in America and whether or not to build a wall, doesn't it make sense to start examining what our immigration process should look like going forward? In this presentation presented by ...

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WCVE Forum: The Challenges of Immigration Reform - Community Idea Stations