Obama, lawmakers to discuss immigration issues

Tyche Hendricks
 
President Obama plans to sit down today with congressional leaders for the first serious discussion about the thorny issue of immigration policy since he became chief executive.
 
The meeting is likely to cover the issues of legalizing illegal immigrants, enforcing immigration law, accommodating future immigrants and, some analysts hope, incorporating them into American society.
 
Obama has voiced support for comprehensive immigration reform, and aides say he hopes this initial conversation will lead to a more substantive debate later in the year.
 
Many analysts are skeptical that Congress will vote on an immigration bill this year but some believe this is a good time to assess the objectives of immigration policy and the broader question of how well immigrants are actually assimilating into American society.
 
When immigration reform has been debated in recent years, proponents have suggested that a comprehensive bill would be a "win-win-win" arrangement, said Noah Pickus, a professor of public policy at Duke University. Such a bill could include enforcement, a path to legal status for illegal immigrants, reduced waiting times for family reunification visas and more avenues for workers to enter the country legally, on either a permanent or temporary basis.
 
"The hard thing to do is to start a conversation that acknowledges the trade-offs and tough choices," said Pickus, author of the book, "True Faith and Allegiance: Immigration and American Civic Nationalism." "Paradoxically, when you have the economy we have right now it's easier to see the choices and the costs and benefits. When the economy is doing really well, who loses can sometimes be hidden in the overall gains."
 
The major pillars of current immigration policy, enacted under the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, are: eliminating restrictive country quotas that put immigrants from different nations on unequal footing; emphasizing family-sponsored immigration; and, to a lesser extent, certain employment preferences.
 
Today, the debate is over how many immigrants to admit and how to ensure that people don't come illegally, as well as whether to scale back the types of family members who can be sponsored. Another issue is whether to increase the proportion of employment-based visas and if so, whether to give them to high-skilled or low-skilled workers.
 
Despite public anxiety over the country's current high level of immigration, recent academic research has shown that immigrants and their children are succeeding in the United States at least as well as their predecessors did during the last large immigrant wave a century ago.
 
"There's a pattern of overall successful assimilation," said Brown University sociology Professor Michael J. White, who just published a study, "Achieving Anew," looking at educational achievement, workplace success and neighborhood integration for immigrant families over a decade or more.
 
But others say there's more the federal government can do to help immigrants succeed. Integrating immigrants into the civic and economic life of the United States has mostly fallen to state and local governments and schools, noted Marc Rosenblum, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.
 
"There has not been a lot of real hard thought about how to facilitate successful integration," he said. "As a society, regardless of what else happens with comprehensive immigration reform, we all benefit from giving immigrants the tools to succeed. It's a smart investment."
 
Rosenblum believes the country should put more emphasis on education, English instruction, workforce development, recognizing foreign professional credentials and promoting citizenship.
 
Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors reduced immigration, agreed that more should be done to help immigrants assimilate. She suggested that restricting the number of immigrants could help and would also aid unemployed U.S. workers and those competing with low-skilled recent immigrants for jobs.
 
Vaughan said she hoped Obama and the policymakers he meets with would review the 1995 findings of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, chaired by former Rep. Barbara Jordan. The commission, whose findings were endorsed by then-President Bill Clinton, recommended reducing immigration levels and increasing border enforcement.
 
"That should be on agenda," Vaughan said. "We don't need a new study."
 
With U.S. unemployment approaching double digits, support for reduced immigration may be gaining traction.
 
Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Carlsbad (San Diego County), the chairman of the House Immigration Reform Caucus, said he was dismayed that the administration has delayed implementing an electronic employment verification system for federal contractors.
 
If he were to discuss the issue with Obama, Bilbray said: "I'd tell the president he could gain some credibility with the American people that Washington can be trusted to enforce the law. ... If the administration really goes after the employers, I think we can find a happy ground there."
 
The prospect of a legislative debate on an immigration bill this year has grown slim, however, with health care and climate change on the front burner. And Bilbray suggested that Obama - steered by his Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who has been famously cautious about spending political capital on immigration reform - may be pulling back from the hot-button issue of legalization.
 
"I don't think the president wants to touch amnesty with a 10-foot pole now," Bilbray said.
 
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee's immigration subcommittee, said recent polling showed that voters still want a comprehensive solution to a dysfunctional immigration system, including legalizing illegal immigrants.
 
"If they're here without visas, they're quite easy to exploit and that's a situation that troubles Americans," she said. "The way to deal with that is to require the people who are undocumented to step forward and be registered and be part of the mainstream so you can avoid the undercutting of the American workforce."
 
Lofgren will attend the 2 p.m. White House meeting, which was twice delayed this month, along with a couple of dozen congressional leaders from both parties. Those expected to attend include: Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and Mel Martinez, R-Fla., as well as Reps. Loretta Sanchez, D-Garden Grove (Orange County), Howard Berman, D-North Hollywood (Los Angeles County), Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., and Lamar Smith, R-Texas.
 
If immigration reform is to succeed, said Pickus, Obama will have to be willing to listen to opposing viewpoints and honestly recognize that any solution will have winners and losers.
 
"When the president can give a speech on immigration like he did on race, we'll be ready for reform," he said. "I don't see him ready to do that now, but I do see him as well positioned to get there."