After the midterm elections, momentum for “comprehensive immigration reform” has slowed considerably, allowing us time to take a step back from attempts to push another enormously complex piece of legislation through Congress without sufficient consideration. Yet the president has repeatedly vowed to pursue “comprehensive U.S. immigration reform” with a view to enacting legislation that would provide a “pathway to citizenship” for 10-12 million illegal immigrants in the United States. That effort when it begins again, and it is just a matter of time before it does so, will be shaped in part by the deliberations and recommendations of three blue ribbon immigration panels that have recently published their reports.
The three task forces whose immigration reports will be examined were convened by the Migration Policy Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations, and jointly by the Brookings Institution and Duke University. This three-part analysis examines the issues they have debated, the recommendations they have made, and the relationship of those issues and recommendations to the ongoing immigration debate that has been gathering political steam for the last five years.
Part 1 will explore the nature of these blue ribbon task forces and the meaning of the “comprehensive immigration reform” that they advocate.
Part 2 deals with immigration ceilings, family preferences, the real meaning of diversity, and their implications for the task forces’ proposals.
Part 3 addresses the desire expressed by all three task forces to remove immigration policy making from the political process, as well as the difficulties of implementation after legislation is signed, including the nature of the penalties imposed on legalization applicants.
Part 1 An Analysis of Blue Ribbon Task Forces
Abstract: In this, the first of our three-part analysis, we examine the nature of three blue-ribbon task forces. We focus on the impact of the institutional settings in which they took place, their expert participants, the issues examined, and the range of options that were considered. Being expert does not mean that invited participants had no preferred understandings, assumptions, frames of reference, or policy preferences. We trace the impact of these assumptions and inferences through a consideration of the many policy areas that the task forces take up, and some that they avoided. Continue to Detailed
Part 2 Immigration Ceilings, Family Preferences, and the Real Meaning of Diversity
Abstract: We begin the second of our three-part analysis with the observation that the trajectory of task force recommendations and past adjustments in immigration numbers has been ever upward, never holding long at new higher levels, and certainly never decreasing. This trend is substantially the result of a family reunification policy that gives preference to immediate and more distant family members of legal immigrants, and under conditions of legalization, for the extended families of formerly illegal immigrants as well. We analyze the relationship of these policies to the issue of backlogs, proposed changes in the weight accorded to skilled immigrants, and the neglected issue of broadening immigration diversity.
In this section, we also take up a question unaddressed in the three blue ribbon immigration task forces concerning how many immigrants each year would be a reasonable number, given their impact and the questions that arise about their assimilation and integration into the American national community.
The issue of broadening immigration diversity also has implications for immigrant assimilation and integration. We define those terms as including more than cultural familiarity or economic advancement and stakeholding, and argue that it entails emotional attachment and identification as an American. The breadth or narrowness of immigration diversity has an effect here. Evidence suggests that an attachment gap is developing among some groups of immigrants, precisely those who now make up a disproportionate share of the immigrant population. Continue to Detailed
Part 3 Penalties, Politics, and Implementation
Abstract: Blue ribbon task forces have a close relationship with the political leaders, committees, and organizations that shape legislation and policy. Yet, they believe their analyses are beyond partisan politics. In reality, they are immersed in the political process, as they must be if they are to have influence, which is a primary purpose for their existence. This, the last part of our three-part analysis of "comprehensive immigration reform" and grand bargains, explores the relationship between expert advice and the political process.
Blue ribbon immigration task force experts proceed on a very different basis from those with legislative and political responsibility. This can be summed up in the fact that experts give advice, while political leaders make policy. The two have different constituencies as well. Experts are primarily responsible to their own views and substantive integrity, policy makers are responsible to the public.
The "political process" therefore can legitimately be seen, in substantial degree, as part of the democratic process. Insulating the immigration decision process from the democratic process of politics, as all three task forces propose, would act to mute the public's more direct impact on policy. Experts have their own policy views and preferences and it is not clear why they should be accorded more weight.
The debates surrounding immigration reform raise many issues in the context of a proposed legalization/enforcement grand bargain. Few are more difficult, misunderstood, and misrepresented than the subject of penalties. Just what constitutes a penalty is not as obvious as it is often presented. Fines, for example, must be balanced against future earnings. Paying taxes must be balanced against access to Social Security. And does it really count as a penalty to have to learn English?
The political process is often contentious and does not stop once an immigration bill has been signed into law. Administrative rules on a large number of important issues continue to be debated and adjudicated long after presidential signing ceremonies are over. If war is the continuation of politics by other means, then implementation is surely the continuation of policy debate and bargaining beyond the enactment of legislation. Continue to Detailed
CONTINUE TO FULL REPORT on Center for Immigratino Studies
