February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Funny, but the truly landmark immigration reform bills do seem to crop up in the middle of decades, most often in the year just after the mid-point.
Granted, there are other bills outside this cycle. The 1990 Immigration Act was not a major change of course for immigration law but it was a standout for the Irish in that it contained the Morrison visa program and laid the groundwork for the diversity visa scheme which remains to this day just about the only way that most Irish can hope for a new life in America.
The starter for the present cycle of mid-decade reform was the landmark 1965 act which was born out of the Hart/Celler bill and steered through the Senate by Ted Kennedy who was, even then, the chairman of the Senate Immigration Subcommittee.
The ’65 act — signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson under the gaze of the Statue of Liberty — overturned the old system of national quotas that had been in place since 1921.
Up to the moment that LBJ signed, 70 percent of U.S. immigrant visas were available to just three countries: the United Kingdom, West Germany and, drum roll, Ireland.
The idea behind the new act was to replace the concept of quota with that of merit.
It was a worthy concept to be sure, but it was to have unforeseen consequences for the Irish about twenty years down the road.
Still, in 1965 it all seemed to make perfect sense. And chairman Kennedy was making sure it sounded sensible.
“Our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same. Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset. Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia. In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think,” the young senator said.
Notably, Kennedy did not mention Mexico or Latin America, the sleeping volcano of a future flow of immigrants that would, by the dawn of the 21st century, lead to calls for a fencing in of the United States along its southern flank.
For a while, Kennedy’s prediction seemed to bear out. The 1970s were relatively quiet. Still, people continued to arrive, increasingly whether they had visas or not. As a result, the engine of reform began to rumble again in the go-go 80s and culminated with the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act.
A decade later witnessed the naissance of the more barbed-sounding Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, also sometimes known by its short title — by just a single word mind you — the Immigration Control and Financial Responsibility Act.
Next up looks like being the 2006 act, a measure that, in terms of stringency, could leave the other measures in the proverbial dust.
Gone are the days when an immigration reform bill was called just that. Now it’s all about control, security, order and enforcement.
And times have indeed moved on when the bill crafted by John McCain and Ted Kennedy in the Senate — and Reps. Kolbe, Flake and Gutierrez in the House — passes off as an immigration sluice gate.
It is anything but.
But even this tempered measure is going to be dragged over burning coals by the walls-and-fences brigade on Capitol Hill.
What’s left of McCain/Kennedy when the dust settles will determine the fate of thousands of undocumented Irish, some of whom have been living in the U.S. long enough to remember barrels of oil costing what a pint of beer would set you back in a trendy bar today.
The other main bills are being offered up by Senators Cornyn and Kyl — a serious combo despite the fact that they sound like a comedy duo — and Arlen Specter, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The Cornyn/Kyl proposal will do nothing at all for the Irish. The Specter proposal, a so-called “chairman’s mark,” is an awkward attempt to straddle what middle ground there is left on the immigration issue.
One of its key proposals is an idea called “deferred departure.” This is a step down from Cornyn/Kyl’s “mandatory departure” but it still sounds like a lousy day at an airport.
The way Specter sees things possibly working is an undocumented person getting five years to clear out of the country — the fine for overstaying going up with each passing year — then being given a chance to get back in as a temporary worker and then, maybe, getting a chance at being a legal resident.
This is unlikely to tickle the fancy of the undocumented Irish. It would be torture on top of years of anxiety.
President Bush is gung-ho for a temporary worker scheme, again something that will not do much for the Irish. Critics argue that what this amounts to is six years working for low pay and then a pat on the back and adios.
A crucial aspect of the debate is how Bush defines “amnesty.” He has said repeatedly that he is against it, but he hasn’t said what he thinks amnesty precisely is. Does he equate it with “earned legalization” as proposed by Kennedy and McCain?
They don’t. The bipartisan duo are of the view that when you earn something, it isn’t free, ergo it isn’t an amnesty. Earning it means having to meet specified requirements, and as with the Specter proposal, paying a fine.
One requirement that will for sure meet with broad approval in the upcoming congressional debate is the need for payment of federal taxes by the undocumented.
This is possible to do, despite lack of status.
The worst possible scenario then for an undocumented person is to have paid taxes for years, only to be given a pink slip in the form of mandatory departure.
All will become clearer in the months ahead.