Immigration Reform Faces an Uncertain Future
IMMIGRATION
WENY-TV
Lindsay Perna
Boston University Washington News Service
April 22, 2009
WASHINGTON—Roger Hugo is leaving the literacy program in Schuyler County that he has coordinated for the past two years, and the foreign-born dairy workers who participate in the program are upset.
They are among the 1.9 million non-English-proficient people five and older in New York and the 19.7 million nationwide who are enrolled in a federally financed literacy program like Hugo’s, according to the Migration Policy Institute’s latest figures for 2007.
In fact, the number of foreign-born persons who are not proficient in English increased by 12 percent in New York from 2000 to 2007, according to the institute.
Hugo’s dairy workers are a minority within a minority. Nearly three in five immigrants nationally are on a waiting list for these types of English literacy programs. In cities like New York, program coordinators have resorrted to a lottery system to select participants, Pang Houa Moua, the director of community education outreach for the Asian American Justice Center said.
Money allotted to literacy programs “hasn’t kept up pace with the large demand of immigrants coming to these programs,” Moua said.
Of the 39 million immigrants nationwide, 4.2 million live in New York state, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Pro-immigrant organizations complain that despite these numbers, the New York congressional delegation is taking its time in regaining its footing on comprehensive immigration reform. After last year’s bitter debate over immigration, they say that lawmakers are opting for less controversial steps in reforming the system, making it seem that immigration policy is not a priority at a time when workers need it the most.
Defenseless in an Economic Crisis
Foreign-born workers, legal and illegal, are finding an increasing need to improve their language skills during a recession that makes them more susceptible to losing a job and more vulnerable after the fact.
“Immigration waxes and wanes with economic tides,” said Stephen Yale-Loehr, who teaches immigration law at Cornell University Law School. “The social safety net that U.S. workers have does not exist for them.”
Though New York lawmakers have restored some state-based support, immigrants are still stranded in dire situations. Schuyler County, for example, had an unemployment rate of 10.4 percent in February, well above the statewide rate of 7.8 percent but below Elmira’s 11.9 percent.
Many legal immigrants who are not citizens and have been in the United States for fewer than five years cannot access major federal public benefit programs, such as cash welfare and food stamps, according to the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996.
“Congress has a lot of important issues on its plate right now,” Yale-Loehr said, adding that he does not see Washington doing anything to change that anytime soon.
Reform Forecast
Instead, lawmakers are paving the way for piecemeal legislation in immigration reform, making the easy decisions first.
Muzaffar Chishti, the director of the Migration Policy Institute’s office at New York University School of Law, said that since 2007, when Congress actively debated a comprehensive package of reform, the Republican caucus could not come close to agreeing on terms for its passage.
The Democratic majority, meanwhile, has not taken a strong, cohesive stand on immigration either, Chishti said.
The Dream Act, of which Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) is a co-sponsor, is intended to create a pathway for citizenship and to make college more affordable for immigrant students. The bill got nowhere in the last two sessions of Congress.
Gillibrand’s spokesman, Matt Cantor, said that she supports providing opportunities for students “who lived virtually their entire lives here in the United States” while insisting on “strict accountability” for undocumented workers. She also backs tax breaks to businesses that provide English education.
She will work with President Obama on comprehensive reform, Cantor said. But she is “not working for foreign-born workers.”
Laws like these at least “show you have good intentions,” Chishti said.
He suggested that because Gillibrand has moved from a conservative House district to the entire diverse state, she is “going to be as pro-immigrant as any New York politician tends to be.”
But even on these softer issues, some New York Democrats are divided. Freshman Rep. Eric Massa, for example, who represents the state’s Southern Tier, does not support the Dream Act.
“American citizens are being asked to sacrifice too much,” he said in a phone interview. It is “not right to use federal money to create educational benefits for non-U.S. citizens.”
Massa added: “We will see what the president presents, but if it involves those slots of amnesty and federal programs for illegal immigrants, I will not support it.”
Nor can much support be expected from Republicans.
Freshman Rep. Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania, for example, represents a rural district much like Schuyler County. Saying that he was not familiar with the Dream Act, he supports another relatively small immigration reform step: the Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits and Security Act. This legislation, not yet introduced in this session, enables many undocumented farm workers and those admitted under the guest workers program to earn temporary “blue cards,” giving them the opportunity of permanent residence by continuing to work in agriculture.
Thompson said he supported a “temporary worker program that is well-designed” for jobs in the farm industry, which he said “pay pretty decent wages, but it’s hard to find local citizens who are interested in that kind of work.”
Thompson is adamant about sealing the borders, but will “have to see what proposals come on the table,” he said. “If they are here illegally, it may be a good time for them to go home.”
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) chairs the Senate Immigration, Refugees and Border Security Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee.
The immigration issue must be solved even in these difficult economic times, Schumer said.
“I believe there is a real chance of passing comprehensive reform this year that achieves border security, tough workplace enforcement and a rational system for the flow of future legal immigration — and the Senate panel on immigration will be holding a hearing next week designed to obtain a clearer picture on the feasibility of reform this year,” the senator said.
He is a Dream Act co-sponsor, and there will be “a lot of attention on how Sen. Schumer will approach this assignment,” Chishti said.
Making Things Worse
While Schuyler County’s literacy program may be in jeopardy, Chemung, Broome and Tioga Counties represent a different demographic of foreign-born inhabitants of the Southern Tier.
The most recent image of immigrant unrest came to a head on April 3 when a Vietnamese immigrant and naturalized U.S. citizen killed 14 people at an American Civic Association English language learning session in Binghamton.
James Harris, the executive director of the Literacy Volunteers program in Broome and Tioga Counties, has overseen about 60 to 70 English language learning clients each year. They are largely students and skilled workers on temporary H-1B visas.
Though the program “operates on shoestrings” from state education funds, his students, who come from Eastern Europe, South Korea and Southeast Asia, all do well and look to improve, Harris said.
Denise Holland, coordinator of the Chemung program, has been helping a similar set of skilled and educated immigrants for the past 20 years.
Holland said that “99 percent, if not 100 percent, of our ESL [English-as a-second-language students] are dependable, are striving for success and really want to go for a better life.”
The latest issue on the H-1B front is a provision in the stimulus bill that requires recipients of federal money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program to go to greater lengths to hire a foreign worker.
Anastasia Tonello, a partner in the New York City firm of Laura Devine Attorneys and member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, blames that requirement, as well as the economy, for the decline in H-1B hiring.
David Santos, the northeast spokesmen for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said that though there were spikes in H-1B applications in the past two years, it was an “anomaly that we would get all of the applications [this year] in the first two hours.”
Immigration Services processes visas, facilitates immigration law and appropriates funds for community-based organizations.
“As far as immigration reform is concerned, we aren’t doing anything right now in anticipation of that,” Santos said.
He said that “the U.S. is extremely generous,” with the immigration laws that “make sense.”
To Santos, “the idea that this is a new hot topic is a fallacy—this has been a hot topic since the birth of the nation.”
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