Tom Tancredo in the mainstream

Today’s NYTimes has a front page story highlighting Tom Tancredo’s evolution from a fringe radical on immigration issues in the House to an influential voice on immigration issues. The story is here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/politics/24immig.html

The article notes that many of his ideas — a border fence; the criminalization physical presence in the US for undocumented noncitizens; and the criminalization of organizatons that assist the undocumented — are in the recently passed House immigration bill. (Of course, the aricle notes, even in the startling House immigration bill, Tancredo did not get some of his wishes, including “a moratorium on legal immigration, soldiers on the border a longer fence…. as well as a law that would deny citizenship to children born to parents who are not citizens or permanent residents.”)

Our focus should be on improving the process for legal immigration and developing realistic solutions to deal with the fact that our national economy is undeniably propped up on the backs millions of people who live in the shadows. Yet Tancredo, and others like him, have managed to shift the terms of the immigration debate to such an extent that even a bracero-style guest worker program is apparently too “soft” to garner House approval.

These lawmakers’ efforts to prey on their constituents’ political, cultural and economic insecurities do not actually make any of us more secure. It is my holiday wish that responsible lawmakers (and their constituents) will reignite immigration discussions that shift from hysterical hyperbole to economic reality. These discussions ought to take into account the fact that immigration contributions to the economy and that there is a demographic need for immigration. There are practical ways to ensure that we share the costs and enjoy the benefits immigration — but we’re not even having these important discussions.

More fundamentally, we should at least be trying to shift the tone of our immigration debates, so that our discussions become grounded in a recognition of and respect for the humanity of all people. And what better time to think about this than the holidays?

-jmc