Asian and Latino Exclusion Act of 2007
The closer and closer I look at the provisions of the compromise deal reached between the White House and the bi-partisan group of senators that is being discussed in the Senate, the more evident the underlying racism of the bill becomes. The crux of my concern is with the elimination of family reunification categories related to siblings and adult sons and daughters, and the placing of a numerical cap on the parents of adult citizens-a category that had previously been unlimited. For the past 25 years, the primary beneficiaries of these categories have been Asian and Latino immigrants. It’s no coincidence that the attacks on family immigration categories have arisen over and over again once the origin of the beneficiaries were no longer mostly European. It should really make us wonder if the motivation behind the White House and the far right Republicans who were invited to the negotiating table was to bring us back to the 1920s when the racist national origins quota system was enacted or 1882 when the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed. To them, this is a battle over who has the right stuff to be a “true” American, and their answer is not your average family immigrant from Asia or Latin America. The brokered deal might as well be called what it really is-The Asian and Latino Exclusion Act of 2007.
The deal makers may claim, how can this be racist? After all, legalization is part of the deal, right? The problem is that the legalization part of the deal is so burdensome that it will discourage many undocumented from coming forward, and the expense is prohibitive-a $5000 penalty per applicant. But even those who do come forward and qualify, after years and years of toil, will not be able to use family immigration categories to reunify with close relatives because those categories will no longer be part of the system! This really reminds me of the Asian exclusion period when males only might be welcomed, but not women, for fear that families might be formed.
The proponents of the deal might also argue that many immigrants of color-particularly Asians-will be able to qualify under the new point system. First of all, I have my doubts about that claim, but even if “highly-educated” Asians were able to qualify, those folks are entering already under the current system of skilled employment visas and H-1Bs, so I’m not too worried about them. My concern is the class elitism of the point system, and the implication that working class immigrants of color somehow don’t contribute to the economy. As I point out in the op-ed I’ve appended below, empirically, that allegation is simply not true. Family immigrants work, fill important job needs, and immediately help to support local tax bases and the Social Security System. Furthermore, the proposed elimination of family categories comes at a time when many working class Southeast Asians who entered as refugees are becoming naturalized citizens. They will not be able to reunify with their close relatives who were left behind if the proposed eliminations are approved. Our humanitarianism toward refugees is devalued when we cut off their ability to reunify their families, in a move that further underscores the racial impact of the proposals.
Is the proposed point system worth tinkering with? Favoring those who speak English is per se evidence of the racial motivation, but that’s only one problem. You need 100 points to win the visa jackpot under the system, but you only get about 5 or 6 points for being the relative of a system, so that gets you no where. You realize the real problem with the point system when you contemplate who can get in. The system especially favors those with high degrees. Seems fine, but the problem is that there’s no linkage between the needs of employers and who gets a visa. So employers’ needs will likely continue to go unfilled, and a bunch a folks with high degrees may arrive with no work to be found. How screwball is that? Tinkering with the point system is, well, pointless. Even if you could convince the power brokers to give more points for relatives, with the crazy structure in place, you’d be hard pressed to get rid of it later.
Of course this is not just about the White House and right-wing Republicans. There was a bi-partisan team that made this deal with the White House. The real curious thing is that a year ago, a Republican-controlled Senate passed an immigration bill that was tons better than the deal being discussed today. Last year, 23 Republicans joined 39 Democrats to pass a bill that had a better legalization plan, a better guest worker framework, and an expansion on family categories that included backlog reductions. In November, the Dems took control of the Senate, but now we’ve taken a huge leap backwards on the immigration front. Come on Democrats! Stand up to the likes of Senator Kyl who was the outlier last year, but who somehow got invited to the White House on this. Stand up to the White House-hold the President accountable for his statement that “family values don’t stop at the Rio Grande.” He’ll live with the family reunification provisions of last year’s framework.
The White House-Senate compromise-the Asian and Latino Exclusion Act of 2007-must be stopped. At the very least, the Senate should start where it left off last year, with legislation that was introduced this year by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid – S.1348.
Below is my op-ed from the LA Times this past Saturday, which expands on my views of the attack on family immigration categories.
May 19, 2007
A BIPARTISAN group of senators and the White House struck a deal Thursday on a sweeping immigration reform plan. It seems on the face of it to have something for everyone: a path to citizenship for the country’s 12 million undocumented immigrants, a guest worker program for industry and a redoubling of border security for enforcement-minded voters.
But there’s one group for whom this compromise isn’t so grand: anyone in the U.S. with family overseas.
If passed and signed into law, this proposal would dramatically shift how the nation chooses its future immigrants. Historically, priority has been given to those with family members here. (Last year, 63% of immigration visas were granted to relatives of U.S. citizens or legal residents.) The Senate wants to adopt a new “point system” that would favor applicants who speak English, those with higher education and some with specific job skills.
Senate Republicans held the legalization aspect of the plan hostage until Democrats agreed to eliminate the immigration categories reserved for siblings of U.S. citizens and unmarried older children of lawful residents.
This represents a huge step backward. Just a year ago, the Senate approved a bill that would have retained all family categories and even issued additional visas to reduce severe backlogs. Five million foreigners are awaiting visas to be reunited with their families, and many of them have waited decades. There also are serious racial overtones to eliminating family categories, which are currently dominated by Asian and Latino immigrants.
Family reunification has been the bedrock of immigration policy since the national origins quota systems of the 1920s, and it was reaffirmed in the 1965 legislation that eliminated racial preferences. In 1981, the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy again determined that such policies were in the national interest, concluding that “psychologically and socially, the reunion of family members with their close relatives promotes the health and welfare of the United States.”
Let’s get something else straight about family immigrants — especially the siblings and adult offspring. They enter the United States and immediately go to work, helping to support the Social Security system and filling a range of jobs in which, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there is going to be a shortage of workers in the coming years.
It also doesn’t take much more than a stroll through any neighborhood in California to realize that many of these working-class, kinship immigrants are the ones who open small businesses — restaurants, groceries, light industry — that create jobs and revitalize neighborhoods.
Any thorough reconsideration of immigration policy must take into account how the nation has benefited economically and socially from our family-based system. It may be impossible to calculate the value of reunification, but we could begin by thinking of our own families — including our siblings and older children. How less productive would we be if we were constantly worried about their sustenance or safety? How more productive are we when we know that we can come home at the end of the day and enjoy their company?
Republicans claim that there is a tension between retaining family immigration and adding employment-based immigration. But that’s a false dichotomy. There is only tension if we accept the premise that visas are a scarce resource. If, instead, we view the two systems as complementary ways of achieving and reflecting our goals and values as a society, then we don’t have a tension problem at all.
In other words, if we use immigration to help our economy, to promote the social welfare of the country and to promote family values, then family and employment categories together can meet those goals.
In an era of promoting family values, proposals to eliminate family immigration categories seem entirely out of step. What’s the message? Brothers and sisters are not important? Once children reach a certain age, they need not bond with their parents? Eliminating such categories institutionalizes an anti-family message.
The preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights highlights the unity of the family as the “foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” And for good reason. Our families define us as human beings. Our families are at the center of our most treasured values. Our families make us whole. Our families make the nation strong.