Obama Can't Avoid Immigration Issue

It is the issue few candidates were willing to discuss publicly before the election. Even in victory, the word “immigration” has barely left the lips of President-elect Barack Obama.

But in the presidential transition offices, immigration is cited as a top-tier issue that Obama will have to tackle early in his administration. It has also been assigned its own study group, one of seven working groups created by the transition team to examine high priorities.

Given that it intersects with the economy, health care, education and other key concerns, immigration is too complex a topic to ignore. As economic and health care initiatives are rushed out of the gate in January, proposed immigration reforms will likely be close behind.

And Obama and congressional Democrats can no longer avoid the issue that raises fears of hate speech and false arrests of citizens and legal immigrants at work sites while angering border control hard-liners. Immigration woes stand as a symbol of a broken government, and the onus is on Democrats to govern.

Backers of a broad bill that would combine border enforcement with expansion of visa programs will not forget Obama’s campaign pledge to produce an immigration bill during his first year in office.

The heat is on.

“We are not forgetting about our promise with regard to the immigrant community,” Melody Barnes, Obama’s top domestic policy adviser, pledged during a forum last week that drew 2,000 community organizers to Washington. It was sponsored by the Center for Community Change and the Gamaliel Foundation, for which Obama was once an organizer.

“We will start making down payments on that agenda,” Barnes added.

Those “down payments” are expected to come in the form of administrative rules changes advocated by a broad coalition of immigrant and civil rights groups, businesses, labor groups, and the faith community. The revisions could be ordered while Congress works on broader legislation.

Immigration activists are pushing for a moratorium on raids that have rounded up thousands of workers this year alone, traumatized and separated families, and violated basic civil rights.

While workers have become easy targets for authorities who want to portray stepped-up enforcement, the abusive employers who take advantage of the broken system and exploit undocumented workers have often been ignored.

The vast and inefficient immigration detention network also has deprived many of their legal rights. There have been reports of legal permanent residents dying while in custody.

In addition, immigration policy experts say the long bureaucratic delays on background checks and processing visas, and the ever-changing policy directives inside the Department of Homeland Security, require immediate attention from the new administration.

Notably, the agency does not have a person at the top to coordinate and streamline the procedures, and Obama has been urged to fix that, as well.

Meanwhile, business and labor groups won a federal court ruling this week that stops the Bush administration from accelerating rules that would prosecute businesses that fail to fire workers whose Social Security numbers do not match the Social Security database. Employers complain that the federal database is unreliable.

“Right now, we have an immigration strategy that focuses on fear. We need a policy that serves the national interest,” said John Trasvina, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

In an effort to keep the pressure on the incoming administration, Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.), an Obama ally, will be turning over to the transition team about 1,000 testimonials from citizens and family members who say they were torn apart by an ineffective and almost inhumane immigration system. This weekend, Gutierrez gathered more than 30 evangelical church leaders, representing 15,000 parishioners, at a forum demanding changes in immigration law. 

Outside Washington, the “279 votes” campaign for a broad immigration reform package is being readied in states such as Arizona, California, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Texas and Washington.

At the local level, community, church, business and labor leaders have been working for months on a revamped, pragmatic lobbying effort that is exploring which proposals can win the support of their hometown lawmakers to get the 218 House votes required to pass a comprehensive bill, plus the 60 Senate votes needed to overcome procedural hurdles, as well as the president’s signature, for a total of 279 ayes.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) recently told Gannett News Service he did not expect “much of a fight at all” on immigration legislation. Perhaps, after having twice tried and failed to pass a bill in the current session, the prospect of having seven more Democrats in the Senate gave him a downhill view.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) acknowledged after the election that the immigration debate “is a path that we must go down.”

The toughest argument facing civil rights groups comes from those who say bad economic times shrink the job market and add to the stress and competition with immigrants for jobs.

But without legalizing those who are now in the country illegally, the only winner is the bad employer who exploits workers. Improving the economy, health care and education helps all workers, the advocates maintain.

Even in a recession, there are still millions of jobs that only undocumented workers are willing to do.

“Comprehensive immigration reform is part of the solution, not the problem, with respect to our economic difficulties today,” said Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.

The new Obama administration and the stronger Democrat-controlled Congress should not be afraid of ending a fear-based immigration system, said Trasvina.

“I don’t think [Obama] has much to learn,” he said. “He does know the community, and he knows the immigrant workers.”

Gebe Martinez is a longtime journalist in Washington and a frequent lecturer and commentator on the policy and politics of Capitol Hill.