Guest Column
Candidates, Congress, Polls
Migration News
April 2008
The presumptive major party presidential candidates, John McCain, Hillary
Clinton, and Barak Obama, have proposed or endorsed comprehensive
immigration reform, meaning stepped-up enforcement to prevent more
unauthorized foreigners from arriving and a path to legal status for most of
the 12 million unauthorized foreigners in the US. McCain was a leader in
the Senate's effort to enact immigration reform that was approved on a
62-36 vote in May 2006, often described as the Kennedy-McCain bill.
McCain avoided the immigration limelight in 2007. In a January 2008 debate,
McCain said that, if the Kennedy-McCain bill were up for a vote again, he
would vote against it because "Americans want the border secured first."
McCain said that he may support legalization as president if border-state
governors "certify" that the border is secure.
Senators Clinton and Obama supported the Senate's comprehensive immigration
bill in May-June 2007; it failed to garner the necessary 60 votes despite
strong support from President Bush. During the campaign, both Clinton and
Obama agreed on the need to step up enforcement of laws that penalize
employers who knowingly hire unauthorized workers, but disagreed about
driver's licenses for unauthorized foreigners. Clinton, after an initial
hesitation, opposed granting them, while Obama supported the idea. Obama
said he would try to enact comprehensive immigration reform in his first
term; Clinton has not laid out a timetable.
President Bush, in his farewell State of the Union speech of January 28,
2008, said: "America needs to secure our borders...We are increasing
work-site enforcement, we are deploying fences and advanced technologies to
stop illegal crossings, we have effectively ended the policy of 'catch and
release' at the border, and by the end of this year, we will have doubled
the number of Border Patrol agents." Bush asserted that the border cannot
be secured unless the United States widens existing and opens new channels
for foreign workers. However, he did not propose a new guest worker
program.
Bills. Representative Heath Shuler (D-NC) and Representative Brian Bilbray
(R-CA) attracted 150 co-sponsors, including 50 Democrats, for the Secure
America through Verification and Enforcement (SAVE) Act (HR4088). This
enforcement-only bill would expand the Border Patrol, which now has 15,000
agents, by 8,000 agents and, within four years of enactment, require all US
employers to use E-Verify to check on the legal status of new hires.
SAVE includes no provision for legalizing any of the 12 million unauthorized
foreigners in the US, a major reason why the Democratic House leadership
opposes it.
Representative Sue Myrick (R-NC) in April 2008 introduced a bill, HR5706, to
raise fines on employers who violate immigration laws for the first time
from the current range of $250 to $2,000 to $10,000 to $80,000. Under HR
5706, fines for repeat violators would rise from $3,000 to $10,000 to
$120,000 to $1.6 million.
A group of Republican Senators led by Jeff Sessions (R-AL) in March 2008
introduced a package of 15 bills aimed at discouraging illegal immigration.
The bills would, for instance, allow unauthorized foreigners to be sentenced
to two years in prison if they are apprehended twice in the US, remove 10
percent of federal highway funds from states that issue driver's licenses to
unauthorized foreigners, and give DHS access to Social Security
Administration data.
Polls. The Center for Immigration Studies in March 2008 released a poll that
found that many supporters of the major-party presidential candidates did
not know their exact positions on immigration.
According to CIS, most supporters of McCain, Clinton and Obama favor tougher
enforcement and no legalization. About two-thirds of Republican primary
voters said they supported a type of enforcement that would encourage
unauthorized foreigners to leave the US, a position shared by about 45
percent of Democratic primary voters (half of Democratic primary voters
favor legalization).
Polls find that Hispanics favor more immigration and legalization, according
to Synovate Research. When asked whether US borders should be more or less
open, most whites and blacks say less open, while half of Hispanics and a
quarter of Asians say more open. Large majorities of Asians, Blacks and
whites, 75 percent or more, do not support states issuing driver's licenses
to unauthorized foreigners, compared with 15 percent of Hispanics.
Opinion polls that ask voters to rate the most important issue in their vote
for president typically find that about 10 percent of respondents list
illegal immigration as their top issue (CNN/Opinion Research Corporation
Poll). In the March 2008 poll, over 40 percent of voters listed the economy
as their most important issue, 20 percent each the Iraq war and health
care, and about 10 percent each terrorism and illegal migration (www.pollingreport.com/immigration.htm).
In these polls, about two-thirds of respondents want the number of
unauthorized foreigners in the US reduced.
The Wall Street Journal on January 16, 2008 reported that media strategist
Lionel Sosa has raised $25 million from business groups to advocate the
legalization of unauthorized workers (www.MATT.org). Construction, farm and
services firms that hire unauthorized workers are expected to contribute to
the campaign, which will use 30-second spots that highlight the work done by
unauthorized workers.
The Southern Poverty Law Center released a report in March 2008 that
estimated there were 888 hate groups in the US, up from 600 in 2000. The
Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) was added to the list,
prompting a protest from FAIR, which rejected the SPLC's assertion that
calling for less immigration increased anti-Latino hate crimes. According
to the FBI, there were 819 anti-Latino hate crimes in 2006, up from 600 in
2003.
_____________________________________________________
George E. Condon Jr, "Growers hope immigration debate resonates in
presidential campaign," San Diego Union Tribune, April 7, 2008.
Migration News. April 2008. Vol. 15. No 2.
http://migration.ucdavis.edu or Migration News. 2008. Congress: Debate,
Bush, Polls. April. Vol 15. No 2.
http://migration.ucdavis.edu
Editor: Philip Martin
Managing Editor: Cecily Sprouse
Department of Ag and Resource Economics
One Shields Ave
University of California, Davis
Davis CA 95616
Email:
migrant@primal.ucdavis.edu
Home Page:
http://migration.ucdavis.edu
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed by HispanicVista.com (www.hispanicvista.com) without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)