Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution

by Jeb Bush

  In addition to the Japanese internments, another nightmarish episode during the war was turning away Jewish refugees. Most infamous was the case of the ship St. Louis, which was loaded with nearly one thousand German refugees. The boat came close enough to shore for the passengers to hear music from Miami resorts. But because of immigrant national origin quotas, they were forced to sail back to Germany, where many died in concentration camps. Other Germans were refused refugee status based on a fear of saboteurs. Eventually the United States realized its mistake and began admitting German refugees, and not a moment too soon. Among them was Albert Einstein, who convinced President Franklin Roosevelt to undertake the Manhattan Project, which relied heavily on German scientists to produce the atomic weaponry that altered the course of the war.22

  Following World War II, providing political asylum and refuge became a major feature of American immigration policy, and it remains so today. In 1948, the United States opened its doors to hundreds of thousands of displaced persons from behind the Iron Curtain.23 Since then, millions of refugees have come from Cuba, Vietnam, the Middle East, and elsewhere, fleeing persecution and privation.

  World War II also renewed the tug-of-war over immigrant labor. Early in the war, the United States faced a labor shortage that was filled in large part through the bracero program, which brought in five million Mexican field workers. The program was cumbersome and costly, and the workers were poorly treated, with many of them cheated out of wages that were set aside and supposed to be paid after their return to Mexico. Those shortcomings encouraged extensive illegal immigration, which in turn led the federal government to launch “Operation Wetback” in 1954, through which at least one million Mexicans and others of Mexican descent were deported. The bracero program was terminated in 1964.24

  The experiences of World War II prompted far-reaching immigration reform. Congress enacted over President Harry S Truman’s veto the far-reaching Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, also known as the McCarran-Walter Act, which abolished racial classifications but retained a national-origin quota system that continued to favor the declining number of immigrants from Western Europe. Reflecting the communist scare, it allowed for the deportation of immigrants engaged in subversive activities and the exclusion of those suspected of such activities. The law also established a preference for skilled immigrants.25 Though the law made some positive changes in U.S. immigration policy, it reflected a bias against certain types of immigrants. One of the cosponsors, Senator Pat McCarran, sounded more than a bit like contemporary immigration critics when he declared, “Today, as never before, untold millions are storming our gates for admission and those gates are cracking under the strain.”26 Although it has been revised in many ways since it was adopted, the 1952 law today remains the foundation for American immigration policy more than sixty years later.

  Following the 1952 law, the admission of refugees continued to be a major feature of American immigration—perhaps most notably with the mass emigration of Cubans to the United States following the country’s communist takeover. Since 1960, more than 800,000 Cubans have entered the United States, many of them risking their lives and leaving behind family members and possessions.

  Like many refugees, Cubans often were middle-class in their native country yet arrived penniless in the United States. Among them was Carlos Arboleya, who was chief auditor of Cuba’s largest bank but had only forty dollars when he entered the United States. Passed over for jobs for reasons ranging from discrimination to perceived overqualification, Arboleya took a job as an inventory clerk at a shoe factory and within a year became controller and vice president of the company. After returning to banking, he rose to become president of Fidelity National Bank.27 Cubans like Arboleya helped create a financial boom in Miami. His story is emblematic of many immigrants from countries all around the world who abandoned wealth and privilege to literally start over from scratch in America, rebuilding their own lives while pursuing the American Dream, enriching our nation mightily in the process.

  Congress revisited some of the shortcomings of the 1952 act more than a decade later. The Immigration Act of 1965 abolished the national origin quota system but established numerical per-country restrictions and limits on the total number of immigrants from the Eastern Hemisphere and for the first time from the Western Hemisphere. (The two caps were subsequently replaced by a single overall cap.) It also established the family preference system that remains in place today.28 As University of Massachusetts history professor Vincent J. Cannato remarked, after the 1965 law, “the aim of American immigration policy would no longer be economic—aligning the needs of the American economy with people able to meet them—but rather, for the most part, promoting family unification” under a very broad definition of family.29 The family preference system produced massive amounts of chain migration while suppressing work-based immigration, practices that continue nearly a half century later.30

  The numerical restrictions on immigration combined with the family preferences and the elimination of most guest-worker programs led to rising levels of illegal immigration,31 which Congress attempted to address in the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA). It provided amnesty for three million illegal immigrants, in return for increased border security and penalties for companies “knowingly” hiring illegal immigrants. However, aside from creating the H-2A visa for seasonal employment, IRCA failed to create new or increased avenues for legal immigration.32 The combination of amnesty and inadequate avenues for legal immigration exacerbated the problem of illegal immigration.

  Four years later, the Immigration Act of 1990 increased numerical limits on immigration. But, again, the vast majority of slots were reserved for family-based immigration, with only 140,000 slots for work-based immigrants and 55,000 for a diversity lottery.33 That is largely the system we have today: It encourages chain migration while stifling work-based immigration that is essential for economic growth.

  In 1996, Congress passed multiple immigration laws. It established mechanisms to exclude or deport criminals and to increase border security; it made most legal permanent residents ineligible for means-tested benefits for five years and for Medicare and Social Security for ten years after obtaining green cards; and it created mechanisms to detain and deport non-U.S. citizens who are suspected of being terrorists.34 Increased border security, however, induced many illegal Mexican immigrants to remain in the United States instead of crossing back and forth across the border as they previously had done.35

  In the early part of the George W. Bush administration, a high-level task force was established to negotiate comprehensive bilateral immigration reform with Mexican president Vicente Fox. Those negotiations tragically were cut short by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which dramatically altered American immigration policy.36

  Before 9/11, America’s doors were wide open to visitors. The nation greatly benefited in terms of commerce and foreign relations, but there were millions of foreigners in the country whom the government knew nearly nothing about.37 Because some of the 9/11 terrorists had entered the United States through legal channels, new measures were implemented to arrest the terrorist threat. A special registration system, the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), was instituted in 2002 and singled out foreign-born Muslims, Arabs, and South Asians. Congress established new procedures to review visa applications and required foreign visitors to carry machine-readable, tamper-resistant identification documents that included biometric identifiers. In 2005, Congress required states to demand proof of legal immigration status for driver’s licenses and to make the licenses tamper-resistant.

  At the same time that terrorist concerns dictated entry policies, concerns about illegal immigration also contributed to increased tightening of the borders. In addition to dramatically increasing resources for the Border Patrol, Congress in 2006 voted to build an additional 850 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border.38 Additionally, several states enacted policies aimed at reduci
ng illegal immigration.

  Although enacted for laudable purposes, the new entry restrictions produced painful consequences. Thousands of foreign visitors, many of them guilty of no wrongdoing, were detained for lengthy periods of time. The numbers of visas issued, foreign students studying in the United States, and foreign visitors all plummeted, and delays in processing visas and green cards grew enormously. Surveys identified the United States as the most unwelcoming country in the world for foreign visitors. The effects of the new policies were exemplified by Ejaz Haider, a visiting scholar at the Brookings Institution and a voice for Muslim moderation, who was detained for five hours for failure to reregister under NSEERS. “Perhaps for the first time in American history,” Haider observed, “we are witnessing the spectacle of families migrating from the United States in search of safety.”39

  Fortunately, in the latter half of the decade, federal officials moved to balance security and immigration interests. As discussed previously, the US-VISIT program created a screening system relying on biometrics and international databases that allowed greater access while safeguarding security interests.40

  The response to 9/11 momentarily diverted attention from the need to fundamentally reform America’s immigration policy. But in 2005, Senators John McCain and Ted Kennedy proposed a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship for many illegal immigrants. Both sides torpedoed the efforts. Opposition to the bill from the right was based primarily on demands to secure the border. In response to those concerns, border security resources—including personnel, fencing, and high-tech surveillance—were increased substantially. Deportations of illegal immigrants increased substantially, to about 250,000 annually.

  In 2007, another bipartisan immigration reform effort was made, led by Senators Jon Kyl and Kennedy. The bill would have introduced a point system similar to those used by other countries to identify and favor high-value immigrants, increased significantly the number of employment-based green cards, reduced family preferences, and established a guest-worker program.41 That effort failed as well: some liberals opposed it on the grounds of protecting American workers, while conservative opponents denounced it on the grounds of amnesty and border security.42 Ironically, Republicans who opposed the bill undermined the best chance to date to halt chain migration, which escalates welfare costs even as it subordinates work-based immigration that would bring enormous economic benefits to the nation.

  After the defeat of the 2007 bill, no significant efforts were made to enact comprehensive immigration reform. Just as in times past, large numbers of immigrants, many of whom entered the country illegally, gave rise to anti-immigration fervor. But instead of proposing ways to fix the system, the critics focused primarily on walling off our borders. Few elected officials, including President Obama, could summon the political courage to lead even as our dysfunctional immigration system exacerbated our nation’s economic woes.

  After the 2012 presidential election, however, both sides indicated a renewed interest in addressing immigration policy. Democrats owe the election in large measure to Hispanic voters, who set aside their earlier misgivings over the Obama administration’s failure to address immigration reform and voted overwhelmingly for the president’s reelection. Republicans increasingly recognize that they cannot win future national elections without increased Hispanic support. Both sides seem motivated to resolve the issue. Whether they will angle for political advantage or seek genuine bipartisan action for the good of the nation remains to be seen.

  Fundamental immigration reform is overdue. One constant feature of American immigration policy is that it repeatedly gets changed without getting fixed. Between 1986 and 1998 alone, there were twenty-one significant federal laws enacted affecting immigration.43 As Edward Alden observed, the Immigration and Naturalization Act “has been amended and tinkered with by Congress so many times that it is an incoherent jumble of conflicting mandates.”44 That is why we advocate so strongly for fundamental immigration reform designed and suited for the needs of twenty-first-century America.

  Those needs are changing as dramatically as our nation. Even if we did nothing to alter our immigration policy, immigration would continue to impact America. In 2011, the United States reached a tipping point: for the first time, fewer than half of all children born were non-Hispanic whites.45 Immigrants themselves are changing: as of 2010, Asians displaced Hispanics as America’s largest immigrant group.46 All together, U.S. residents who were born in foreign countries number about 39 million,47 or roughly 12.5 percent of the nation’s people. Those numbers should not frighten anyone; indeed, the proportion of foreign-born Americans as a percentage of the population is not much different than in times past, as the graph below illustrates:

  What the demographics do mean, of course, is that Americans will grow increasingly multiracial. Reform opponents raise the same tired arguments their predecessors raised for two and a half centuries: that the newcomers will not assimilate; they won’t learn English; they are disproportionately criminal, welfare-dependent, and subversive of American values. History repeatedly has proven those objections misplaced. Where would we be if we had allowed those arguments to prevail in the nineteenth century or at any time since then? Certainly, we would not be the most powerful, prosperous, and generous nation on earth. Nor will we continue to be if we allow those arguments to prevail today.

  Although today’s immigration wars are eerily reminiscent of those that have been waged throughout American history, today’s circumstances are different from anything we’ve seen in the past, in two major ways. For the first time, our nation faces a population decline that we may not be able to reverse without immigration. Second and relatedly, the diminishing ratio of workers and those whose social services depend on them is shrinking alarmingly. As a result, it has never been more important to America’s future to get our immigration policy right.

  Indeed, continuing to get our immigration policy wrong threatens to add burdens to our economy rather than to disperse them. Traditionally, American immigration policy was geared toward bringing in the brightest and hardest-working immigrants. Today, work-based visas account for only a small fraction of American newcomers. Meanwhile, other countries are reshaping their immigration policies and putting out a welcome mat to replicate past American success. It is America whose immigration policy today fails to reflect its own values and history.

  Our nation’s future depends in large measure on fixing our broken immigration policy. We need to correct the mistakes of the past but must not heed calls of immigration critics to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We must ensure that the immigrants who come do so for the right reasons—and once they are here, that they assimilate into American culture and heed American values. But we must also recognize that throughout our history, immigrants indeed have assimilated and have strengthened our nation in every imaginable way. That is the type of immigration we need in America’s third century.

  Our nation was forged by the immigrant experience, and an American immigration policy that addresses the unique needs of the twenty-first century must build upon that foundation and embrace newcomers who will help our nation continue to prosper and lead the world. By setting aside partisan division, embracing our nation’s values and its immigrant roots, and learning the lessons of our own history, we can help restore American greatness and set a future course of freedom and prosperity.

  5

  THE HUMAN DIMENSION

  “IT’S TIME TO RETIRE THE AMERICAN DREAM.”

  So wrote the commentator Robert J. Samuelson in a September 2012 Washington Post column titled “The American Dream’s Empty Promise.”1 The term has become so devoid of meaning and so illusory, Samuelson argued, that we “ought to drop it from our national conversation. It’s a slogan that shouldn’t survive—but it will endure precisely because it’s an exercise in make-believe.”

  What a sobering commentary on the state of our nation. And certainly in terms of economic opportunity, of the next gene
ration climbing to greater heights than their parents’, it may reflect reality, unless and until we change it.

  But immigrants are one group of people for whom the American Dream remains vibrant and tangible. Millions of people continue to aspire to American citizenship, and make tremendous sacrifices and take enormous risks to attain it, in order to earn a share of the American Dream. For them it is not a slogan; it is the purpose. And because they cherish the opportunity to become Americans, immigrants will always be necessary to keep the American Dream alive.

  Perhaps more than any other public policy issue, one’s position on immigration often depends on one’s encounters with immigrants. And certainly no public policy directly touches a greater number of lives than immigration—not just for those who come here, but those who greet them and those who are left behind. In formulating American immigration policy, given our nation’s values, we must keep the human dimension first and foremost in our minds.

  In a June 2012 speech to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, Senator Marco Rubio made this point very eloquently:

  The people who are against illegal immigration and make that the core of their argument view it only as a law and order issue. But we know it’s much more than that. Yes, it is a law and order issue, but it’s also a human issue. These are real people. These are human beings who have children, and hopes, and dreams. These are people that are doing what virtually any of us would do if our children were hungry, if their countries were dangerous, if they had no hope for their future. And too often in our conversation about immigration that perspective is lost. Who among us would not do whatever it took to feed our children and provide for them a better future?2