Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution

by Jeb Bush

  We believe the ideas encompassed in the DREAM Act and President Obama’s executive order should be made part of fundamental immigration reform. We especially like one aspect of the President Obama’s policy: encouraging the completion of high school or a GED by providing legal immigration status. Many Hispanic-American children are doing poorly in school, and roughly half drop out before graduation. Since Obama announced his policy, many young Hispanics who were brought illegally into the United States have been working to qualify for GEDs to avoid deportation, which obviously is a positive development both for the kids and the country.32 Given the educational challenges facing many Hispanics, we think that predicating legal immigration status on earning a high school diploma or its equivalent is an inspired idea.

  Indeed, we would go further than President Obama’s policy by creating a clear and definite path to citizenship. As an overall policy, we propose that those who were brought illegally into the United States under the age of eighteen, who have resided in the United States for at least five years, and who have committed no significant crimes also should be entitled to permanent legal residency, without having to plead guilty to a crime or suffer legal consequences. We do not intend such a policy to provide refuge to young people who come to the United States on their own volition and want to step in front of the line. Rather, the policy should extend to those young people who have been here long enough to consider themselves Americans.

  Beyond that, those young people who graduate from high school or its equivalent, or who enter military service, should thereafter receive a green card. By residing in America since they were children, committing no crimes, and earning a high school degree or volunteering for military service, those young people will have demonstrated the qualities we want in American citizens. Such a plan provides certainty and stability for young people who have done nothing wrong and who fully deserve the benefits of American citizenship.

  Dealing on an ad hoc basis with immigrants who entered the country illegally does not provide a permanent solution for the immigrants nor for the nation as a whole. We need to address this problem in a fair, firm, and comprehensive way, while at the same time fixing our immigration processes so that in the future, millions of people do not feel the need to enter our country illegally because there are no viable means for them to do so lawfully.

  5. BORDER SECURITY

  Unfortunately, there is only one method to prevent illegal immigration that repeatedly has proven itself effective, and it is a “cure” that is worse than the disease: a bad U.S. economy. Immigration is tremendously sensitive to market forces. A long and deep economic recession has accomplished what the erection of border fences and massive increases in U.S. Border Patrol resources could not: reducing net migration from Mexico to zero or less.

  Many on the right say that we must secure the border before we do anything to reform our immigration system. The fact is that we can’t do one without the other. Although border security is an essential component of broader immigration reform, broader immigration reform also is an essential component of border security.

  Demanding border security as a prerequisite to broader immigration reform is a good slogan but elusive on the details and measurements. What do advocates of such an approach mean by “operational control” of the border? That not a single immigrant will cross illegally? That no illegal drugs will cross the border? That no terrorists will enter our country? What exactly is the magic moment we must wait for before we can fix the broken immigration system?

  We have already taken greater efforts to stem illegal border crossings than ever before. The number of Border Patrol agents increased from 11,000 in 2006 to more than 17,000 in 2009, which is five times the number of agents in place twenty years ago.33 We have built hundreds of miles of fence supplemented by high-tech surveillance. Deportations of illegal immigrants increased to a record level of 319,000 in 2011.34 Those efforts, combined with greater enforcement of immigration laws against those residing in the United States, a deep and lingering American economic recession, and improved economic conditions in Mexico, have significantly stemmed the flow of illegal immigrant border crossings. Unfortunately, they also have had the effect of changing the way that migrants come to the United States—instead of crossing the border and returning to their families on a regular basis, increased numbers have remained in the United States and brought their families here.35

  Nor are illegal crossings the sole source of illegal immigration. The Pew Hispanic Center found that nearly half of illegal immigrants initially crossed the border legally and overstayed their visas.36 We need to swiftly deport individuals who overstay their visas rather than allowing them to stay indefinitely or to pursue multiple appeals. Our failure to enforce visa requirements is one of the major causes of large numbers of illegal immigrants residing in the United States for substantial periods of time.

  For that same reason, true border control requires not only detection of illegal crossings but also an effective system to monitor those who enter lawfully. And that requires immigration policy reform that goes beyond fencing the border and placing more boots on the ground. Still, the bottom line is that today there is no avalanche of illegal immigration. To emphasize halting illegal immigration as a cornerstone of immigration reform is fighting yesterday’s war.

  None of this is to say that we do not have a border security problem. Quite the contrary. But the nature of the problem has evolved. It is no longer merely illegal immigrants crossing the border. Border security today encompasses threats from drug cartels and terrorists. Each threat requires distinct responses.

  As the number of illegal aliens entering the country has declined, the movement of illegal drugs and weapons across the U.S.-Mexican border has intensified. On the Mexican side of the border, full-scale war among paramilitary drug cartels has left fifty thousand people dead over the past six years. Discoveries of dozens of horribly mutilated corpses has become a regular feature of Mexican life.37 The cartels are presenting a direct challenge to the Mexican government—so much so that in 2010, then–secretary of state Hillary Clinton characterized the cartels as “an insurgency.”38 Their resources are enormous. The Sinaloa drug trafficking organization is headed by billionaire fugitive prison escapee Joaquín Guzmán Loera.39 The Los Zetas cartel was originally composed of former elite airborne special force members of the Mexican army. The Congressional Research Service reports that in their fight over enormous profits, the cartels have created “an environment of urban warfare with commando-style raids on state prisons, abductions of journalists, murder of police, and attacks on military posts.”40

  Given Mexico’s inability to control the drug cartels and the massive drug market in the United States, spillover effects are inevitable. The most vivid example is the horribly failed Operation Fast and Furious, in which weapons obtained from U.S. authorities were linked to at least a dozen violent crimes in the United States, including the death of a Border Patrol agent.41 Given that the cartels control an estimated 90 percent of the illegal drugs entering the United States, their effects extend to American gangs, crime syndicates, and drug addicts.42

  It is important to differentiate border security problems involving illegal immigration and drug cartels. Otherwise, immigrants are blamed for violence and other ill consequences for which they are not responsible. But the problems are merging, as drug cartels expand into the human smuggling business. Indeed, even as illegal crossings by Mexicans are declining, the numbers of Central Americans fleeing violence and poverty and entering the United States through Mexico are increasing.43 Because illegal immigrants and drugs both flow across our southern border with the involvement of crime cartels, the appropriate responses overlap.

  In terms of illegal immigrants, many have advocated walling off the border. The image of a fence makes us seem more like Fortress America than the country whose attitude toward immigration is embodied by the Statue of Liberty. A fence encompassing all 1,969 miles of our southern border would
be enormously costly and not necessarily effective. Several hundred miles of fencing have been completed at a cost of more than $49 billion—yet the Congressional Research Service says that illegal immigrants simply shift to other areas.44 Similarly, experiments with “virtual fences” using cameras, radar, and unmanned aerial vehicles so far have not proved effective,45 despite additional billions of dollars in costs.46 We would give federal authorities broad discretion to meet the border security challenge with the most cost-effective combination of real and virtual fencing, aerial surveillance, and increased Border Security staffing. We also support giving the Department of Homeland Security authority to take security actions in the fifty national parks within one hundred miles of U.S. borders.47

  At the same time, fighting the drug cartels at the border may present a threat of potentially epic proportions, calling for a strong response. The cartels are paramilitary organizations with dangerous and sophisticated weaponry. Our Border Patrol officers are neither trained nor equipped to blunt the cartels’ firepower if it comes to that. As a result, the president should be authorized to deploy military or National Guard forces if necessary to counter the cartels’ threat and secure the U.S. border.

  Preferable to U.S. military deployment would be efforts to increase the effectiveness of Mexican authorities in dealing with the cartels on their side of the border. U.S. officials have worked closely with their Mexican counterparts, including the deployment of unmanned aerial surveillance vehicles and the opening of a compound to gather intelligence in northern Mexico.48 We should continue to work closely with Mexico to fight corruption in the police and military and to reduce the power of the drug cartels. Meanwhile, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) should continue to prioritize efforts against U.S. drug cartels, coordinating closely with local law enforcement agencies in communities where such cartels inflict devastating crime and violence.

  In addition to the Mexican drug cartels, the fact that several of the 9/11 terrorists entered the country lawfully under a leaky immigration system has heightened national security concerns—so much so that immigration enforcement has been placed under the Department of Homeland Security. We have argued earlier that immigration should be separated from yet coordinated with national security, so that while we protect our nation against terrorism we do not inadvertently thwart tourism and the entry of students and workers who are vital to our economic well-being.

  Post-9/11 antiterrorism efforts led to massive backlogs of foreign visitors entering the United States and to controversial registration and detentions of Middle Eastern visitors. In an effort to harmonize the interests of security and commerce, in 2003 then–secretary of homeland security Tom Ridge implemented the US-VISIT program. The system relies on biometrics fingerprinting, which is used to identify everyone entering the United States except short-term visitors from Mexico or Canada, comparing them with a database that by 2008 contained 90 million set of prints.49 The system builds upon extensive intelligence and information sharing with foreign countries so that the border is the last rather than the first line of defense against terrorists.

  Biometric identification can be a vitally important tool in enforcing immigration laws. Although fingerprints are the most common form of biometric identification, it also includes DNA, iris scans, facial recognition, voice imprints, and other forms of unique identification.50 Police can use mobile fingerprint scanners to immediately check identification of criminal suspects.51 The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security (relying on biometric data obtained through the US-VISIT program) have the two largest biometric databases in the world, each with more than 100 million records.52 Through ICE’s Secure Communities Program, when state and local authorities arrest a criminal suspect, a check of FBI records also automatically scans the DHS database. Where no match is found with legal immigration status, the suspect is detained.53 The use of biometric systems in law enforcement inevitably raises issues of privacy and false identification, especially where the processes are physically invasive (such as DNA collection) or are less reliable and violate expectations of privacy (such as facial recognition). As a result, expanding such practices as a part of immigration enforcement requires measures protecting individual privacy, requiring immediate correction of false identifications, and setting forth procedures for obtaining and using biometric data. Fortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court in 2012 set narrow parameters for the use of high-technology surveillance in the context of GPS tracking without a warrant.54 The use of biometric identification must conform to the protections of individual liberty that are sacrosanct in America.

  Requiring visitors to provide biometric identification upon entry and exit—when combined with the identification of low-risk visitors and broader use of “trusted traveler” programs—will protect American security interests without imposing undue burdens upon foreign visitors. Biometric data can quickly be compared to the Department of Homeland Security database to detect security risks. Several countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom, and France use biometric data for foreign visitors. As the use becomes increasingly widespread, international databases will grow even more effective in minimizing risks.

  We also recommend a biometric electronic verification system, featuring tamper-proof fingerprint identification cards, for all visa holders.55 Such requirements will allow us to determine for the first time who exactly is in our country and whether they have overstayed their visas. That process is reinforced by the interview system for people from foreign countries who wish to obtain U.S. visas. Biometric data thus serves the dual objectives of monitoring and enforcing both immigration and national security.

  The tourism industry, which produces revenues and goodwill, has taken a beating since 9/11. We should make it as easy as possible for visitors who are low security risks to enter the United States. Despite efforts to speed up the visa process for those entering the country for business, tourism, or study, the system remains overwhelmed, causing delays and uncertainty. Congress should appropriate adequate resources to make sure our visa system is efficient and effective. A more streamlined system will more than pay for itself, not only through user fees but also in increased economic activity by foreign visitors.

  Immigration policy and national security should be complementary objectives. Understandably, we spent a great deal of time and resources emphasizing security after 9/11, sometimes to the severe detriment of our national immigration policy. Fortunately, that investment has paid off, allowing us to restore the proper balance between those two vital national objectives while no longer compromising immigration and tourism, upon which so much of our nation’s prosperity depends.

  6. TEACHING CIVICS AND OUR NATION’S FOUNDING VALUES

  Debates over immigration have always been marked by concerns about assimilation. It may be that in the era of the Internet, Hollywood movies, and popular television shows, assimilation into American culture may begin long before people even enter our country. But assimilation into the American identity—the values on which our nation is based and the constitutional mechanisms designed to perpetuate them—ultimately is far more important yet a much more difficult task.

  In order to become citizens, immigrants must demonstrate fluency in English and pass an examination on basic American civics and history. There are one hundred possible questions, from which ten are asked of prospective citizens. Answering six out of ten questions constitutes a passing grade.56

  We do not mean at all to minimize the tremendous efforts that immigrants go through in order to become citizens, including learning English if it is not their native language and taking classes in American civics and history. But we believe that it should not be enough to earn citizenship to be able to correctly answer six questions about names, dates, and basic American institutions. Instead, aspiring citizens should be able to demonstrate a fundamental understanding of our nation’s values and mechanisms of democracy. Thus we would expand the civic knowledge necessary for citizenshi
p to include our nation’s founding documents, the crucial role of a market economy in promoting freedom and prosperity, and the means and importance of civic participation. We are counting on immigrants not only to pursue and embody the American Dream, but also to recognize and embrace the values that make the dream possible.

  Such essential knowledge should not be required of immigrants alone but of all Americans. Even though the citizenship examination is extremely basic, a survey by the Center for the Study of the American Dream found that one-third of existing Americans could not score a passing grade.57 Imagine that: many of our own children (and adults), who have inherited their citizenship and were educated in the American public education system, cannot pass the basic examination that new Americans must pass in order to become citizens. That is a sad commentary on the state of civics education in our nation today.

  “Many people believe that in a highly-competitive global economy, civics education is no longer important,” observes Education Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. “If you want to succeed, the message is: Take advanced science and math courses. But don’t worry about those civics classes.”58 As a result, reports David Feith in the recent book Teaching America, American history “is the only subject in which more than half of high school seniors can’t demonstrate even basic knowledge.”59