Emanuel's Immigration Report Card

Rahm Emanuel, a former aide to President Clinton and Obama’s pick for chief-of-staff, will come back to the White House with a failing record.

During his first year in Congress, the Federation for American Immigration Reform gave Cong. Emanuel (D-IL) a 0% rating – with the number reflecting the percentage of time that Emanuel voted FAIR’s preferred position. Other restrictionist organizations that track congressional votes have confirmed FAIR’s assessment that Emanuel is irredeemably liberal when it comes to immigration reform.

NumbersUSA, the organization that spearheaded the grassroots mobilization against the Senate’s 2007 immigration reform bill, gives Emanuel a failing lifetime position. He flunked the NumbersUSA test, receiving an “F” on his “immigration-reduction report card.” U.S. Border Control gave Cong. Emanuel an 8% rating, indicating his “open-border stance.”

In other words, Emanuel, picked to exert control over Obama’s team and its policy agenda, is about as bad as you can get. He has, after all, cosponsored the McCain-Kennedy reform proposal, voted no on building a border fence, and even cast a “no” vote on a bill that would require hospitals to notify immigration agents when treating illegal immigrants.

But immigration restrictionists aren’t particularly worried. That’s because Emanuel, after the drubbing that immigration reform received in mid-2007, let it be known that the Democratic leadership in Congress wouldn’t be pushing comprehensive reform in 2008 or even in the first term of the next administration.

Calling immigration the “third rail” of American politics, Emanuel began backing away from comprehensive reform in 2007, even as he continued to oppose overly restrictive immigration and border bills.

Emanuel has come under fire from Latino columnist Ruben Navarrette for keeping immigration reform off the table this year. “House Democrats, under orders from Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., kept the controversial issue off the legislative agenda in 2008. Why? Organized labor. Democrats' slavish adherence to unions required that they derail any proposal that includes guest workers, as any bill with a chance to win Republican support would have to do,” wrote Navarrette. At the annual convention of the National Council of La Raza, Juan Salgado, board chairman of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, shocked participant, stating: "Congressman Rahm Emanuel said to me two weeks ago, there is no way this legislation is happening in the Democratic House, in the Democratic Senate, in the Democratic presidency, in the first term.” Emanuel’s office confirmed the congressman’s position. Emanuel’s spokesman Nick Pappas told the Washington Times: “Congressman Emanuel has worked hard to make comprehensive reform a reality and that work continues. However, President Bush and congressional Republicans’ failure on this critical matter has set back efforts to enact real reform.”

In turn, Salgrado said, “I was caught off-guard by the statement. I interpret his comments as a lack of courage on what they know is right. Listen, we’re here at the NCLR conference, and what it’s to take is not the attitude of Rahm Emanuel, if this is a second-term issue. What it’s going to take is boldness by the president.”

Restrictionist Take on Elections

NumbersUSA, founded in 1997, is one of a trinity of closely related policy organizations dedicated to restrict immigration flows. It describes itself as a “nonprofit, nonpartisan, public policy organization that favors an environmentally sustainable and economically just America.”

The other two major restrictionist organizations based in Washington, DC area are the Center for Immigration Studies and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).

NumbersUSA was the lead organization is mobilizing grassroots opposition to the proposed comprehensive immigration reform bill that the Senate was considering in June 2007. Its organizing efforts proved a tremendous boost to its membership base. It now boasts that it counts on 640,000 members with an average of 1,300 members in every congressional district.

Commenting on the Obama and McCain candidacies, Beck told the Los Angeles Times, "These two guys were pretty much at the bottom of all the candidates. They're the worst, the bottom of the barrel, that ended up winning."

“That's the reality we're dealing with: a choice we don't consider a choice," said Beck. "The chances of influencing one of these two guys to take a pro-worker, pro-environment position are very low.” However, he said that "bringing public pressure to bear to not dismantle enforcement and improve border security has some chance of success."

NumbersUSA tracks the immigration positions of congressional candidates and members, as well as presidential contenders. It sponsors the Americans for Better Immigration website (http://www.betterimmigration.com/) that grades candidates and notes the ones that are “True Immigration Reform Candidates.” While not endorsing candidates, NumbersUSA does promote the reelection of the members of the Immigration Reform Caucus.

Americans for Better Immigration “believes the problem with immigration today is not the individual immigrant but the numbers. ‘Better’ immigration is lower immigration.” While Beck, like other restrictionist leaders, is not pleased with either presidential candidate, he says NumbersUSA is focusing on building local opposition to liberal immigration reform and support for such restrictionist bills as the SAVE Act.

In Beck’s view, a Democratic Congress "doesn't necessarily mean bad things for us." He points out that some freshman Democrats who beat Republican incumbents in 2006 are tough on illegal immigration because "they need a way to show people that they're different from the party leadership." "We've spent the last seven years separating the Republican back bench from the party leadership with tremendous success," Beck told the Los Angeles Times, adding that his sights are now on the Democrats. "We'll continue to push that line hard."

Photo: Roy Beck, NumbersUSA

Business of Outsourcing Immigrants

Immigrants are good for business and economic growth say immigration advocates and immigrant rights activists. Immigrants take jobs away from citizens and keep wages low contend immigration restrictionists. Macroeconomic studies tend to support the claims of immigration proponents, although restrictionists rightly can point to certain economic sectors to support their arguments against immigration. But there’s one industrial sector that depends both on immigrants and tough immigration enforcement. That’s the private prison industry, which has been experiencing record profits for the last few years. The immigration crackdown is also considered an economic development opportunity for an increasing number of local governments that are building new jails or expanding old ones to make room for arrested immigrants. In many cases, private prison firms team up with county and state governments to attract business from the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice. Immigrants are the fastest growing sector of the federal detainees and prisoners, and there’s hundreds of millions of dollars to be made by enterprising business and governments. The private prison industry is now well established and is spreading throughout the world. Immigrants were the industry’s first prisoners, and the upsurge in immigrant detention during the Bush administration has reversed a downturn in industry profits at the turn of the century. It all started in 1983 as a result of a policy environment created by the Reagan administration that favored all variants of free-market policies, including privatization of government services such as health care, foreign aid, and the penal system. Two prison corporations – Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group – dominate the immigration detention business. Other key private prison firms that are profiting from the surge in immigrant detention are Cornell Cos. and the Management and Training Corp. Rep. Tom Tancredo spoke earlier this year in favor of the expansion of the GEO Processing Center in in Aurora, Colorado. "Does anyone think we don't have 1,100 illegal aliens in the area?” he said, “I don't think that there's much to worry about. If there are 1,500 beds available I guarantee you they will be used." GEO was seeking the county government’s permission to expand its 400-bed ICE detention center in Aurora to make room for another 1,100 detainees. Immigrant-rights advocates and opponents of private prisons spoke out against the expansion, which the county eventually approved.

Missouri Is FAIR Territory

On Monday Gov. Matt Blunt signed a tough anti-illegal immigration law for Missouri. Among other things, the law requires the state police to enforce immigration law, makes it a crime to help an undocumented immigrant obtain a driver’s license, and requires that all applicants for public assistance show proof that they are legal residents. In addition, the new law empowers the attorney general to file civil actions against employers who hire illegal workers and allows the state to cancel contracts with such companies. The law is the latest in an array of new state anti-immigration laws. Like in other states caught up in the anti-immigrant hysteria, the Federation for American Immigration Reform was involved in the Missouri initiative. FAIR director Dan Stein greeted the new law, saying: “Kudos to FAIR activists in Missouri for this important victory!”

He boasted, “FAIR's legal affiliate IRLI, the Immigration Reform Law Institute as well as FAIR activists were involved in making sure that this measure was crafted as well as instrumental in keeping the pressure on to pass it. Kudos to FAIR activists in Missouri for this important victory!” See previous post: Anti-Immigrant Movement's Legal Arm

Photo: Dan Stein

Anti-Immigration Movement's Environmentalism

Environmentalism is not opportunism on the part of immigration restrictionist groups. Protecting the environment was fundamental to the founders of the U.S. restrictionist movement. A new campaign by restrictionist groups that links traffic congestion, environmental destruction, and urban sprawl to immigration growth is being criticized by liberal groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center as being an attempt to win new adherents to immigration restrictionism. A new anti-immigration coalition called America’s Leadership Team for Long Range Population-Immigration-Resource Planning placed large ads last month in such national publications as the New York Times and The Nation. One ad shows an eight-lane highway clogged with stalled traffic with the caption: “One of America’s Most Popular Pastimes.” Another ad shows a bulldozer plowing through a forest with the provocative caption: “One of America’s Best Selling Vehicles.” In the traffic congestion ad, the member groups – Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS), Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), NumbersUSA, Social Contract Press, and American Immigration Control Foundation – state: “We’re the nation’s leading experts on population and immigration trends and growth.” SPLC notes that this was “not the first time that … anti-immigration activists have tried to woo environmentalists in an attempt to gain political support for their cause.” SPLC, which categorizes NumbersUSA, and American Immigration Control Foundation as hate groups, points out that John Tanton, a founder and principal figure in FAIR and Social Contract Press, lobbied the Sierra Club in 1996 to approve a plank calling for immigration restrictions, and in 2004 an anti-immigrant faction sought election to the Sierra Club’s board of directors. But it would be wrong to dismiss these immigration restrictionists as simply opportunists attempting to create inroads among liberals and environmentalists. The modern restrictionist movement emerged from the zero population and environmental movements of the 1970s. Unlike most immigration advocates, such leading restrictionist organizations as FAIR, Social Contract Press, Center for Immigration Studies, and Numbers USA have environmental credentials that date back four decades. Tapping his base in environmental and population control organizations such as the Sierra Club, National Audubon Society, and Zero Population Growth, Tanton in 1979 cofounded FAIR and was instrumental in founding many other leading restrictionist groups, including Center for Immigration Studies and NumbersUSA. Because of his central role in creating the organizational infrastructure of restrictionism, SPLC calls Tanton “the puppet master of the modern anti-immigration movement.” While anti-population environmentalism is no longer a pillar of restrictionism, it continues to be a strong tendency among the anti-immigration forces. The leading restrictionist institutes in Washington – NumbersUSA, FAIR, and Center for Immigration Studies – continue to publish analysis and studies detailing what they claim are the direct links between immigration, environmental destruction, and the declining quality of life in the United States.

The public voice of the anti-immigration environmentalists is Richard Lamm, the former Colorado governor who is the coauthor of The Immigration Time Bomb: The Fragmenting of America. Lamm, who serves on FAIR’s advisory board, led the restrictionist slate of candidates who in 2004 sought unsuccessfully to win control of Sierra Club’s elected board of directors. Immigration restrictionists have become experts in out-flanking immigrant rights activists and immigration proponents.

But they have repeatedly failed in other attempts to integrate the U.S. environmental movement into their fold. Groups like the Sierra Club have rebuffed attempts to merge environmental and restrictionist forces.

The new campaign indicates that some of the leading restrictionist organizations believe that with higher gas prices and rising environmental consciousness it may be an opportune time to make another bid to link environment, population, and immigration issues. Those who are concerned about the escalating immigration crackdown in America would do well to forward their own arguments about immigration and sustainable development.

Fear & Loathing in Anti-Immigration Movement

Immigration restrictionists, pumped up by their long string of victories at all levels of government, are pushing their “attrition through enforcement” with increasing vengeance. Having seen the pro-immigration forces swept aside in the anti-immigration onslaught, restrictionist groups have sharpened their rhetoric and escalated their demands.

Moving beyond their security-first, enforcement-first agenda, restrictionists now insist that all government agencies join together in a mounting a pyschological warfare against immigrants. NumbersUSA, whose influence has soared since its key role in mobilizing grassroots anti-immigration activists against the Senate’s comprehensive immigration bill last year, has spearheaded the “Attrition Though Enforcement” agenda that now unifies the restrictionist forces.

It’s also an agenda that the Senate’s new Border Security and Enforcement First Caucus (see June 24 blog post) has taken up as part of the Republican offensive, led by Sen. Elizabeth Dole and other southern senators, to broaden and intensify the going immigrant crackdown.

Illustrative of the new fear-mongering language used by even the most established restrictionists, Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, says: “To be effective at discouraging future illegal immigration, enforcement cannot be limited to tracking and deporting violent criminal illegal aliens. All illegal aliens, no matter how well-behaved they are, must fear detection and arrest if enforcement is to be a deterrent to illegal immigration.”

Restrictionists have no problem with big and bigger government when it comes to the immigration crackdown. They call for ever-larger increases in the Department of Homeland Security’s budget and demand that Congress appropriate enough funds to underwrite immigration enforcement by local police. “Dozens of law enforcement agencies are blocked from cracking down on illegal immigration because Congress in the past failed to appropriate enough money,” says Beck.

While the main restrictionist organizations have until recently focused almost exclusively on illegal immigrants, the anti-immigrant ideology that underlies their restrictionism is becoming increasingly evident. With the crackdown on illegal immigrants well underway, they are now urging Americans to reconsider their openness to legal immigrants as well.

Mark Krikorian, easily the most frequently quoted restrictionist in the media, has published a new book, The New Case Against Immigration, Both Legal and Illegal, in which he lays out his case that America should shut the door to all immigrants.

According to Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, “Obviously, different kinds of immigrants will have diff erent impacts; an illegal alien, for instance, undermines the rule of law but places less of a burden on government ser vices than an otherwise similar legal immigrant.

“Likewise, a skilled immigrant does not have trouble learning and speaking English, but he may be more susceptible than his low- skilled counterpart to a politics of ethnic grievance and be more able to pursue dual citizenship and a transnational lifestyle.”

Heaven forbid, a transnational lifestyle.

Photo: Detained immigrants in Val Verde County Jail.

Anti-Immigrant Movement's Legal Arm

How are law and policy made? A look at the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) is instructive on both counts. The institute is the legal branch of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the oldest restrictionist institute in Washington, DC. FAIR’s president Dan Stein previously was executive director of the Immigration Reform Law Institute. ILRI made national news recently with its anti-racketeering lawsuit filed against a property-management company that leases apartments to illegal immigrants. Also this week a story in the Los Angeles Times took note of the institute’s role in shaping anti-immigrant bills that are being passed by a bevy of state legislatures. IRLI says it “seeks to defend the rule of law.” It does this through lawsuits that seek to add an anti-immigrant bias to current laws and by encouraging state governments to institute new anti-immigrant laws. IRLI boasts that it is “America's only public interest law organization working exclusively to protect the legal rights, privileges, and property of U.S. citizens and their communities from injuries and damages caused by unlawful immigration.” It contends that the “injuries caused by illegal aliens in your community have become a growing crisis in communities nationwide.” The new federal lawsuit filed by ILRI challenges the right of landlords to rent to illegal immigrants. In the suit against a Connolly Properties in Plainfield, NJ, the institute seeks to establish a legal precedent that cities can use to punish landlords who have undocumented tenants. ILRI contends that the company’s practice of leasing to illegal immigrants is tantamount to unlawful harboring and should be considering a criminal enterprise – thus the use of federal racketeering law. ILRI has previously worked with town officials in Hazelton, Pa. and Riverside, N.J. to support ordinances that aimed to penalize landlords who rented to illegal immigrants. A judged ruled the Hazelton ordinance unconstitutional, and Riverside officials rescinded the ordinance. Michael Hethmon, IRLI’s general counsel and director, said his group decided to take the case as part of its strategy of “attrition through enforcement,” or urging illegal immigrants to leave the country by making it more difficult for them to find employment and housing. “We have felt for a long time that the racketeering statute would be useful in dealing with situations where businesses and commercial enterprises were heavily involved with illegal immigration,” Mr. Hethmon said. “We’ve also felt that individual citizens, communities, neighborhoods and law-abiding small businesses have always needed tools with which they can defend themselves against the harmful effects of illegal immigration.” Outside the courtroom ILRI is working with a growing number of state governments in designing anti-immigrant laws that hold up to legal challenges. “Since 2001, state and local governments have played a growing role in the struggle of American citizens against illegal immigration,” ILRI explains. “IRLI lawyers have specialized expertise in the development and drafting of immigration enforcement and relief measures being considered by state legislatures and local governments.” In the last year and a half, ILRI has assisted Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia and other states in shaping anti-immigrant measures. “We see this state and local activity as not only effective in itself . . . but there's also the long effect as, one by one, these states line up," Hethmon said. "As these jurisdictions confront this issue, it builds up a positive and helpful kind of pressure on Congress."

Immigration Restrictionists Caucus in U.S. Senate

The House has its restrictionist Immigration Reform Caucus, and its counterpart in the Senate is the recently formed Border Security and Enforcement First Caucus.

According to its mission statement: “The Caucus is a platform to let Americans know that some in the U. S. Senate are continuing to make sure that the laws already on the books will be enforced, act as the voice of those concerned citizens who have expressed their opinions time and time again for interior enforcement and border security, push for stronger boarder security and interior enforcement legislation, and work together in the U.S. Senate to defeat future legislation that may be considered amnesty.”

Headed up by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the caucus is calling for “full Senate consideration” of 15 restrictionist bills, many of them sponsored by Sessions. One bill spearheaded by Sessions calls for a “mandatory minimum” sentence for those who illegally enter the United States ranging from 10 days for a first-time violation to 20 years for “felons and repeat offenders.” The caucus says that each bill in the “enforcement-focused package represents a specific step toward: securing America’s borders; increasing enforcement at the workplace; and ultimately, restoring law and order to our nation’s broken immigration system.” The bills are described as “achievable, bite-sized steps that the Republican coalition believes a bi-partisan Congress should be able to accomplish between now and November.”

The Border Security and Enforcement First Caucus has adopted the "attrition through enforcement" strategy favored by restrictionionist groups such as Numbers USA, Center for Immigration Studies, and Federation for American Immigration Reform.

Copying the language found on NumbersUSA website, the caucus says: “The principal mission of the Caucus is to promote a true, achievable alternative: attrition through enforcement. Living illegally in the United States will become more difficult and less satisfying over time when the government – at ALL LEVELS – enforces all of the laws already on the books.”

Sen. John Vitter chairs the caucus, whose members include: Sen. Jeff Sessions, Sen. Jim DeMint, Sen. James Inhofe, Elizabeth Dole, Sen. Richard Burr, Sen. Saxby Chambliss, Sen. Johnny Isakson, Sen. Roger Wicker, Sen. Johnny Isakson, Sen. Mike Enzi, and Sen. John Thune.

Explaining why he joined the Caucus, Sen. Isakson elevate border security as the number one concern of Americans. “There’s no greater domestic issue in this country,” he said, “than the problems on our southern border with Mexico, and it is time that Congress makes a commitment to make border security a reality…America is too important, and this issue is too critical to the American people.”

Photo: Sen. Sessions presenting his anti-immigration bills at caucus press conference.

Save Us from the SAVE Act

The Secure America Through Verification and Enforcement Act (SAVE Act, HR 4088) is a declaration of war against unauthorized immigrants. Backed by over 160 congressional representatives, including forty Democrats, the SAVE Act is being promoted by immigration restrictionist organizations, such as NumbersUSA, Federation for American Immigration Reform, and Eagle Forum, as providing legislative authority for their “enforcement only” strategy. But rather calling for a massive deportation of the country’s 12-13 million illegal immigrants, the restrictionists are currently mobilizing behind an “attrition through enforcement” campaign that puts “constant pressure on illegal aliens and their employers by ICE and local governments.” According to NumbersUSA President Roy Beck, an “attrition through enforcement” strategy is the “most effective and efficient solution” to “our illegal immigration nightmare.” By increasing the pressure on immigrants through employer verification and immigration enforcement by all law enforcement agencies, local and national, the SAVE Act, according to Beck, is the “middle-ground solution.” It’s what “most Americans want” since the bill offers an option that involves neither “massive legalizations” nor “massive round-ups.” By requiring local police to enforce immigration law, putting 8,000 more Border Patrol agents out in the field, and requiring employers to verify the legal status of all workers within four years (using a highly flawed national employment database), the SAVE Act aims to increase pressure on immigrants to “self-deport.” While the Democratic leadership has attempted to delay the bill until there is time to craft another comprehensive immigration reform proposal that includes a legalization component, the House Republicans are mobilizing behind a “discharge” measure that would force the bill to a floor vote. Needing a majority of 218 votes to discharge the bill, the House Immigration Caucus has succeeded in winning the support of 186 members. Immigration restrictionists crashed in the presidential campaign, but they are not a spent force. Having succeeded in quashing comprehensive reform and elevating a “security” agenda to the top of the immigration policy agenda, they are pushing now to pass the SAVE Act in the House. In keeping the focus of immigration reform on security and enforcement – calling for more Border Patrol agents, more judges (to order deportations), and more border fencing -- restrictionists like Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-Cal.), the SAVE Act’s cosponsor (along with Rep. Heath Shuler, D-NC ) have escalated the horrifying war against immigrants. The Democrats need to mobilize themselves to hold the line against the likes of Rep. Tom Tancredo, NumbersUSA, Immigration Reform Caucus, and all those seeking to increase the fear and vulnerability of immigrants. Attrition is not an acceptable policy alternative. Nor is it an efficient and cost-effective solution. As the Congressional Budget Office concluded, the SAVE Act will cost the nation dearly. If implemented, federal revenues will decrease by $17. 3 billion over the 2009-2018 period as immigrant workers are pushed outside the tax system, and increase discretionary spending by $10.3 billion over the same period.