What we have to sacrifice

It is a sad day when a tradeoff has to be made between human rights and family unity.

Few people really expected Senate bill S. 1348 on comprehensive immigration reform to look the way it did. It has left people on both ends of the political spectrum unhappy: Conservatives have made sure that there are strict border security policies and penalties for a host of different things. And though it legalizes the 12 million undocumented immigrants in the US today, there are thousands of dollars in fines that many will not be able to afford, strict requirements, and the process will take many years. It's certainly not amnesty, but ultimately it would still offer a path to permanent status in this country.

Ultimately, the "grand bargain" seems to have been: legalization of the 12 million undocumented for cuts to family immigration. Reunification has been central to our immigration system: two thirds of green cards a year are received through a family tie. US citizens can currently petition for parents, children, spouses, and siblings; legal permanent residents for children and spouses. Family unity is vital to the stability of communities. In the extreme case, you have the bachelor towns of the 19th century where Chinese men had no stake in society without their families, whom they weren't allowed to bring to the US due to discriminatory immigration laws, and the Chinese population was literally dying off as a population as they aged.

While we are not facing a situation so dire, under the new bill, adult children and siblings would have to go through the merit system, which rewards only 10 points out of 100 for familial ties. They, in addition to parents of US citizens who will be capped for entry (currently uncapped), totaled 190,000 in 2006, or one fourth of our family-based immigration system. Proportions are even higher for certain regions of the world, e.g. 35% of all immigrants from Asia--not just family sponsorship--are entering through family categories that will disappear under the new system. Women will also be disadvantaged by the point system, since education level is a main criterion, and many countries around the world limit access to education for women and girls. Did anyone think about that when drafting this bill? Let's not pretend there's a level playing field out there. Suffice it to say, the demographics of immigrants coming to the US would change quite dramatically.

All of this is supposed to benefit our economy. The merit-based points system (college admissions, anyone?) admits immigrants based on how they will contribute to our economy, i.e. as labor. Points are awarded for education level, occupation, family ties, English proficiency, age, and a few other factors. While many countries have successfully used point systems with similar parameters to admit immigrants to their countries, family reunification is not sacrificed for economic priorities. For example, Canada allows citizens and permanent residents to petition for even grandparents (real “extended family”). Unfortunately for us, we can only have both family-based immigration as is and the point system if there are more visas given out overall, something many Senators are dead-set against. So because we are not allowing the number of green cards to increase, family visas have to be “freed up” for the point system.

More conservative Republicans might have allowed one "family amendment" to pass in exchange for an amendment that would require the undocumented to return to their countries of origin before receiving legal status. So…human rights or family unity? (We don’t have to call it human rights. Words have created much controversy in this discussion--"Restrictionists are calling this 'amnesty', but they were going to slap that label on anything this side of mass deportation." Let’s call it humane policy reform.)

Much of this is moot by now. Surprisingly enough, the Lieberman amendment (Safe and Secure Detention Act), passed Wednesday night in the Senate, while the Menendez-Hagel amendment did not. The Menendez amendment concerned the 800,000 people petitioning for family reunification that would be thrown out of line, so to speak, when their applications were declared null and void under the current bill, which sets May 2005 as the cutoff date. It was the most likely family amendment to pass, since it would only change the cutoff date from May 2005 to January 2007. Even conservatives recognized that this was only fair. Symbolically speaking, it did win a majority vote (53-44), but Senator Kyl made sure 60 would be needed for it to pass.

We'll have to wait to see what happens in the next few days, especially after Reid's cloture vote yesterday may have killed the debate. While there are serious pros and cons to passing the bill (leaning more and more to the cons), consequences for not passing the bill are not light, either. A chance for comprehensive immigration reform like this will not come again for several years, while passing it means that there is at least some hope for better reform from the House. In the meantime, millions of undocumented immigrants will continue to live in the shadows, subject to raids and deportation. Would they rather have hope for legalization, even if it is an expensive and difficult process, or wait a few more years for more sympathetic and comprehensive reform? Can we really sacrifice the reunification of 100,000s of family members in comprehensive immigration reform?

In the end, it’s going to be a tough decision for every organization, every Senator, and every American.