Guest Column

FOCUSING ON CONSTRUCTIVE SOLUTIONS TO U.S. IMMIGRATION POLICY

From the Congressional Record – House (House of Representatives - April 19, 2005)

Mr. GUTIERREZ: Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to begin what I hope will be the start of a constructive dialogue about our Nation's immigration laws.

There has been a lot of heated rhetoric about this topic in recent months. But what I believe has been lacking from this debate is a discussion of real solutions and an accurate portrayal of the real contribution of our Nation's immigrant community.

In Congress, on cable shows and in newspaper columns across the country, we witness undocumented workers being unfairly and inaccurately blamed for all of our Nation's ills. In fact, it seems as though there are some cable show hosts out there who have made this practice the cornerstone of their programming. Just look at Lou Dobbs and his ``Broken Borders'' segment. If you ask me, it should be called the ``Broken Record'' segment. Because night after night after night, it is the same thing. It is about giving a platform to anti-immigrant extremists so they can espouse their misguided, misleading, and often malicious views.

Mr. Speaker, I am the first to admit that our Nation's immigration system is simply not working. It is not meeting the needs of our Nation, it is damaging families, and it is hurting businesses. But rather than targeting Windex-wielding cleaning ladies, we should be talking about practical solutions.

Do these individuals actually believe we should deport the more than 10 million undocumented working men and women working in this country? Do they think that is truly the answer? Let us say they say yes. Do they think our Nation has the will or the requisite resources to round up these individuals and ship them all off? If that is the case, I would simply ask them, what would life be without the more than 700,000 undocumented restaurant workers washing dishes and cleaning tables, 250,000 household employees, or the almost 1 million undocumented farm workers? These industries where these workers toil would literally come to a screeching halt if not for their labor. Their absence would cripple entire communities. Fruits and vegetables would rot on the vine, office buildings and hotels would go uncleaned, and children would go unattended.

So this evening, I thought I would set the record straight and give the folks at CNN and other news outlets a little unsolicited editorial advice. I think we should be talking in this country about mending borders. Rather than a segment about broken borders, why not create a segment about mending borders on your stations? How about a segment where elected officials, policy analysts, and immigration experts on all sides of the political spectrum discuss ideas and proposals for fixing our flawed immigration policy? How about, instead of endless footage of workers crossing the border, we see footage of real contributions of immigrants to our agricultural industry?

I wish I could turn on the television set one night and see scenes like this, by Rick Nahmias. This is the face of our immigrant community, right here, Mr. Speaker. It is back-breaking, thankless labor. These men and women are exposed to dangerous pesticides and punished by brutal working conditions. They lack safety equipment and have no place to send their children to school. Many of these workers wake up at 2 in the morning to take a bus to our fields, and they do not return until long after dark.

But this is why we have fresh fruits and vegetables at our grocery stores and on our kitchen tables. It is men and women like this in this poster who sustain our $30 billion agricultural industry. According to the Department of Labor, at least half the 1.8 million crop workers in the U.S. are undocumented. That is the Federal Government.

I would like to show the next poster, one we never see on TV. The subtitle of the article is ``Jobs Americans Won't Do.'' I wish everybody would read the front page of The Wall Street Journal on March 11. The Wall Street Journal article focuses on the challenges growers have finding workers. For example, ahead of a recent lettuce harvest, one grower took out ads in local papers for field workers to pick up the lettuce. He needed about 350 workers. The grower got one reply, just one reply. Mr. Speaker, the simple truth is our aging, more educated workforce is unwilling to pick the lettuce.

I do not blame them. It is truly arduous work. So rather than attacking immigrants for filling these important jobs and for sustaining our vital agricultural industry, let us talk about creating a system that allows them to come out of the shadows and work here legally and safely and humanely. Rather than unfairly attacking immigrants for draining entitlements, let us talk about the undocumented workers who are here in this country and, according to the Social Security Administration, subsidize our Social Security system by $7 billion. Unfortunately, I have yet to see a segment about this on the cable channels.

Mr. Speaker, rather than focusing on the fiery rhetoric that boosts cable ratings, I would rather we focus on the words of the late Pope, John Paul II, who said, Undocumented migrants are the most vulnerable of foreigners. With those words as our guide, I hope we can work together to create an immigration system that is reflective of their enormous contribution and the greatness of this Nation.

REAL SOLUTIONS FOR IMMIGRATION POLICY

From the Congressional Record – House (House of Representatives - April 27, 2005)

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to continue my ongoing efforts to offer real solutions to fix our immigration system and to highlight the real contributions of our Nation's immigrant community.

Last week, we talked about CNN's Lou Dobbs and his ``Broken Borders'' segment. We talked about how Mr. Dobbs uses his show to offer a venue to anti-immigrant extremists. We talked about how, between all of his regular guests, one would be hard-pressed to find a solution to the challenges we face, because they would rather demagogue and divide than offer tangible ideas or pragmatic proposals. I guess they think it is better for ratings, better for raising money for their organizations, or better for riling up their membership.

Well, let me say this: It is not better for America. It is not better for America to do nothing about an immigration system that hurts families, hampers businesses, and harms communities.

So, this evening, I thought we could continue our discussion on mending borders, and I thought we could do it by answering a few questions that Mr. Dobbs left unanswered at the end of his show last week.

Let me start with Ray from Michigan's comment. Ray wrote the following to Mr. Dobbs: ``Isn't hiring illegal aliens just another way to outsource labor? The money doesn't stay in the United States.''

Well, Ray from Michigan, since Mr. Dobbs did not refute the inaccuracy of your statement, let me point you to a recent study by the Inter-American Development Bank.

According to the study, approximately 16.7 million U.S. workers born in Latin America had a combined gross income of $450 billion last year, of which 93 percent was spent locally. That means billions of dollars spent at local stores for local services, that means hundreds of thousands of jobs created. Just look at Chicago. According to a study by the Center For Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois, the estimated 220 undocumented immigrants in the Chicago area alone added $5.5 billion to the local economy, creating more than 31,000 jobs.

So I would simply and respectfully say to Ray from Michigan that immigrants make enormous contributions to our economy and to our communities, and we should work together to create a system that allows them to come out of the shadows and work here legally, safely, and humanely.

Now, let's go to Judy in Belvedere, Illinois. Judy wrote the following to Mr. Dobbs: ``I feel like this country is finally waking up to the fact that the illegal population is draining our country of millions of taxpayers' money.''

Let me respond with a few points, the first being that all immigrants pay taxes, income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, gasoline taxes, cigarette taxes, every tax when they make a purchase. As far as income tax payments go, sources vary in their accounts, but a range of studies find that immigrants pay between $90 billion and $140 billion in Federal, State, and local taxes.

And let us not forget the Social Security system. Recent studies show that undocumented workers sustain the Social Security system with a subsidy as much as $7 billion a year. Let me repeat that: $7 billion a year.

Mr. Speaker, I know I have provided a lot of facts and figures this evening, so let me close with a newspaper quote describing immigrants: ``These people are by their nature unruly and not fit for civil society and government. We have little hope of containing them, other than by force of law.''

Somebody writing to Lou Dobbs? No. The source of the quote, an editorial in the esteemed New York Times. In their defense, it was in 1895.

And what unruly, ungovernable misfits was the New York Times writing about? Italian immigrants.

Now, my point in reading this quote is not to be critical of the New York Times or, let me be clear, to say anything disparaging about Italian immigrants.

My point, I hope, is obvious.

Uncertainty and fear and ignorance about immigrants, about people who are different, has a history as old as our Nation. Boston and Philadelphia papers in the early 19th century editorialized against the Irish who they said were ruining our Nation, for the only real Americans, those, of course, being of English ancestry. It is not new or unusual for the real Americans, meaning those immigrants who came to America a little bit longer ago, to fear the outsiders, the pretenders, the newcomers. But I think we have an obligation to set the record straight.

Because the truth is, today's immigrants, as they have for generation after generation, work the longest hours at the hardest jobs for the lowest pay, jobs that are just about impossible to fill. They pick our fruit, they care for our children and elderly, they change bedpans, they clear our tables and wash our dishes. And they do those jobs not because they want to take away anything from America, but because they want to give their skills, their sweat, their labor, for a better life and to help build a better America, just as those who came before them.

I hope we in this body can work in a bipartisan manner to ensure that our immigration system can better reflect their contributions.