Craig, Crapo split on Senate immigration bill
Idaho Ready for Immigration Bill; Senate is Not
By Nathaniel Hoffman, 6-26-07
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| Caption: Martin Rodriguez was once an undocumented alien. Now he votes. | |
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BOISE, Idaho – Nampa businessman Chris Veloz had a bit of a shocker at last week’s Idaho Hispanic Chamber of Commerce inaugural gala. His friend, Martin Rodriguez, a Meridian Realtor, revealed in casual conversation that he had come to this country “the way most Mexicans do.”
He snuck across the border.
But that was way back in 1984, two kids, two careers and one amnestía ago.
The U.S. Senate is deep in negotiation, trying to make immigration lemonade from a bunch of really sour lemons. Lemons rotting on the trees. Lemons squeezed into open wounds. Bruised fruit being hurled from AM radio bunkers.
Meanwhile, Idaho’s Hispanic business elite is getting down to business.
Veloz, Rodriguez and 200 other Idaho entrepreneurs – about half of them immigrants to the United States – spent an evening last week spooning flan at the Hispanic Cultural Center in Nampa. The newly formed business group has cemented more than $100,000 in pledges from banks, insurance companies and dozens of small businesses for scholarships, business development services and business loans.
Veloz, a Nampa planning and zoning commissioner originally from Nebraska, had known Rodriguez for a few years, but they never discussed how he came to the U.S.
“I meet people all the time and I don’t really ask where they’re from,” Veloz told me by phone after the event. “I don’t condone people coming over here illegally, but they are here to work.”
Veloz believes in trickle down economics and the rule of law. But when confronted with a guy like Rodriguez at a gala affair, his politics are more complicated.
“If you’re here to work and you’re being productive maybe you’re okay,” Veloz said.
Who is okay and who is not okay is at the root of today’s conflict on immigration.
The bill that is before Senators this week says that foreign scientists and nurses and computer programmers are best. Fruit pickers and sheep herders, are okay if they don’t stay too long. The immigrant working poor; framers, landscapers, laborers, less okay. Brothers and cousins of immigrants, not so okay anymore.
It says a bunch of times that terrorists and drug dealers are not okay.
For Idaho and much of the west, the compromise bill that made a baby step toward Senate passage today, contains lots of verbiage on farm work, once the main occupation of immigrants here.
Small farm towns across Idaho had their labor camps and every summer the populations of Idaho’s rural counties swelled, the sounds of accordions from the borderlands filling the evening air.
It was a “basic workforce who can stoop over and pick up things” as Sen. Larry Craig, put it to me.
Much of that workforce, as Craig rightly pointed out, had higher aspirations. Many became equipment operators and foremen.
Rodriguez, who met me for coffee last week, jay walked the Rio Grande in 1984 fresh out of university. He wanted to make $10,000 to buy an apartment in Mexico City.
Two years later, Ronald Reagan signed off on a major legalization program and Rodriguez and his wife, who had followed him across the border, qualified.
“If we live here and try to be good citizens I think we deserve the chance to apply for amnesty,” he says.
Rodriguez went from stooping in the fields to cleaning hotels and then managing hotels and restaurants. Now he sells houses to a largely Mexican clientele in the greater Boise area.
Mexican immigrants in Idaho have swapped labor camps for subdivisions and are increasingly viewed as a vast untapped market with growing “buying power.”
That explains the number of bankers who jumped on board with the Hispanic Chamber.
And those bankers must know that a lot of that buying and borrowing is being done by the 12 million strong population of unauthorized migrants. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that in the last 10 years, 80 to 85 percent of migrants from Mexico have entered the country illegally.
This group of Américans in immigration limbo stands to gain the most from so-called Comprehensive Immigration Reform.
But that word, “amnesty” – Sam Byrd, the CEO of the new Hispanic Chamber calls it a “word bomb” – is largely to blame for holding up Congressional action on immigration for two years or longer.
There is vehement resistance to the idea that someone who crossed illegally into the country would benefit from the act. In Spanish it is amnestía, and not a bad word at all.
Immigrant advocates and Republicans who want to vote for it call it legalization , or earned legalization.
But whatever we call it, it is the most essential part of immigration reform and the section of the thick bill that keeps getting diluted in the name of political expediency.
The American Immigration Lawyers Association has a good summary of the bill that was written prior to some of the more recent amendments and more recent details can be found here.
“A very high number of my constituents believe that illegal immigration should not be tolerated or incentivized,” said Sen. Mike Crapo who voted with the minority Tuesday to block the immigration bill’s advance.
Crapo said he likes the temporary worker provisions in the bill, called the Y visa, and that he would like to see the country’s 12 million undocumented workers transitioned into a temporary worker program rather than legalized.
He is opposing the immigration bill because of the legalization provisions, and agrees with many of his constituents that illegal immigration is putting an undue burden on things like health care and roads.
Craig, whose AgJobs plan, now part of the larger immigration bill, would give undocumented farm workers a chance at gaining legal status and make it easier for growers to hire temporary workers, is supporting the Senate bill.
Besides his own provisions, Craig likes a portion of the bill that emphasizes merit – educational attainment and job class – over family ties for immigration purposes.
“It is amazing to me that coming to America opens the door for you to bring your whole family, meaning your whole generational family,” Craig said. “I support stopping what we call chain migration.”
Our immigration system has been weighted on familial ties since 1965 and arguably for much longer and this sea change in the nation’s immigration priorities embedded in the bill has not been widely debated.
I would be writing this in Ukrainian or probably Yiddish if it were not for 19th century-style family immigration.
There are lots of other bits in the immigration bill that deserve more attention: a nationwide employee screening system, a series of conditions that must be met before immigrants can apply for the new immigration statuses, worker protections, a brief clause that declares English a language, perhaps THE language, whatever that means.
And the bill does nothing to address the pressures that free trade in the hemisphere has put on workers south of the border.
“If we want a seamless economy then we’ve got to have seamless borders, we can’t have our cake and eat it too,” said Maria Mabbutt, a longtime farm worker advocate from Nampa.
The seamless border that already exists has given people like Martin Rodriguez, now a voting U.S. citizen, a head start on a global economy.
“Most of my clients are Hispanic,” Rodriguez said. “I don’t have too much competition.”
But even that is changing.
Mabbutt was amazed at the turnout for the Hispanic Chamber’s gala event.
“It’s the first event since I’ve been in Idaho that is full to capacity,” she said. “Full of middle class Latinos.”
Why doesn't the media beat a loud and continuing drumbeat over those social, political, and economic conditions in those countries where illegal immigrants are coming from? There has been much blood, heartache, and sacrifice in America just to get us this far in creating an imperfect country that continues it's quest towards a union and a society that sets life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as its compass points. These ideals don't come about unless people sacrifice for them in their native countries.
In my opinion, this bill needs to be stopped until at least the politicians understand what's in the 800-1000 pages. Also, this bill should be broken apart into more defineable and digestible parts. Politicians have to have a straight face when trying to explain how the provisions of this bill will be enforced when the previous immigrant lesgislation has been left hollow. Was it a lack of will, political calculus, or lack of ability? How can we trust them this time?
Thank goodness for statesmen like Senator Larry Craig. Instead of burying his head in the sand and talking out of both sides of his mouth for political expediency - like his seat mate Mike Crapo is doing - Larry Craig saw a problem and is trying to FIX it.
He may be taking a big political hit on this due to the huge volume of missinformation being circulated about the immigration bill and his position on it but I for one did not vote for him to sit on his hands.
I voted for a problem solver with strength and character and that is what Idaho has in our senior Senator.
If we ignore the problem of immigration it will only get worse. That is what Mike Crapo wants to do - ignore the problem. Larry Craig wants to fix it to provide both border security AND economic security for our nation. I support that effort and encourage those who feel the same as me to make that know loud and clear. I am a lifelong strong conservative Republican but I do not think that we should let the Rush Limbaugh's and Lou Dobb's of the world hijack our nation and scare the American people. We have a problem that needs to be solved. Thank you Larry Craig for having the GUTS to take it on!
Craig, this "quest towards a union and a society that sets life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as its compass points." is certainly being sought after in the native countries that you speak of. NPR, if you listen to it on the radio, hits these points on rare occaisions and more specifically Democracy Now or Pacific Network News has a fair amount of coverage as well should you have the ability to pick up these broadcasts in your county. The drumming and beating of the media is dependent on your source.
The issue of immigration in the States is not an isolated issue. Take for example, Mexico. El Salvadorians and Guatemalans have been flooding into Mexico for years, looking for a better life and improved social services. Costa Rica, where I lived for over a year, continues to struggle with Nicaraguans descending from the North to work the banana plantations, where the locals that I talked to said, "they are the only ones who will do the work". One only needs to travel from border to border to see the struggles.
Yet, as the State of Idaho or the States in general continue to deal with the concept of immigration, we are in effect struggling with a concept of class. Capitalism is the primary 'véhicule'. Occupation being our "forte". With the indigenous peoples rounded up and shoved a side, we have become what I like to call, 'New Pirates of the Modern Age'.
Saludos desde Moscow y saludos a Nathan para escribir una buena noticia...
Thanks for the thoughtful article. I hope you will look to the global as well as the personal; the causes, not just the symptoms.
Look at the trade policies our country has aggressively promoted as well as the role we have played pushing World Bank and IMF demands on economically fragile nations. These policies have transformed the economies of so many countries and precipitated massive migration both within and outside of their countries. What little these countries used to invest in their social safety net is gone so they can pay off their debts and meet the standards of international banks. Trade deals have virtually wiped out small farms and replaced them with huge corporate enterprises, turning former business owners and farmers into laborers with little hope to regain both their social or economic security.
People whose families have lived in the same village for hundreds of years are migrating to big cities in their own countries in search of work and basic public services (like a decent school for their children or hospital care for a sick family member). Many, but by no means all, continue looking and turn next to the US. They take huge risks in each of these moves.
Simply calling this a problem of "immigration" is like calling cancer a
problem of sores on the skin. If we just focus on symptoms, we'll never address the causes. It certainly is more comforting for powerful multinational interests to keep the focus off of them and on the immigrants instead.
It is also politically advantageous for those same interests to have one struggling family in a community look with fear at the family across the street rather than for both families to look up together at the economic policies that have contributed to both families' struggles. (And for both families to demand of their political leaders that they hold those powerful interests accountable)
If families in all countries of the world could make a living, successfully build small businesses, secure basic human needs for health and education, do we really think we would see the level of migration we see today?
Thanks, Nathanial for your good work. Take a look at some of the people who have the courage to point out causes of massive economic migration, not just the symptoms. One recent article I read by Deepa Fernandes of WBAI Radio is at:
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/06/11/ordering_the_tides_to_stop.php
As I understand it, Mexico is a very wealthy country with lots of oil, but that wealth is controlled by only a few families. As long as we will take the poor, old, ill, criminal, under educated, that is fine with them.
A simple way to determine if all of those immigrants are actually here to work would be to make them ineligible for any social programs until they have been working and paying taxes for a minimum of 10 years. They would need documentation of this, as in income tax forms. This would not be too much to expect if they are truly here to work.
For people who think that Mexico has unlimited wealth because of its oil, some ominous signs are on the horizon. From the Wall St. Journal "The virtual collapse at Cantarell -- the world's second-biggest oilfield in terms of output at the start of last year -- is unfolding much faster than projections from Mexico's state-run oil giant Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex. Cantarell's daily output fell to 1.5 million barrels in December compared to 1.99 million barrels in January, according to figures from the Mexican Energy Ministry."
In other words Mexico has reached peak oil, things will only get worse there economically, putting further pressure on illegal immigration into the US.
Here's how the senate voted today on the cloture motion: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=1&vote=00235#state
Grouped by Home State
Alabama: Sessions (R-AL), Nay Shelby (R-AL), Nay
Alaska: Murkowski (R-AK), Nay Stevens (R-AK), Nay
Arizona: Kyl (R-AZ), Yea McCain (R-AZ), Yea
Arkansas: Lincoln (D-AR), Yea Pryor (D-AR), Nay
California: Boxer (D-CA), Yea Feinstein (D-CA), Yea
Colorado: Allard (R-CO), Nay Salazar (D-CO), Yea
Connecticut: Dodd (D-CT), Yea Lieberman (ID-CT), Yea
Delaware: Biden (D-DE), Yea Carper (D-DE), Yea
Florida: Martinez (R-FL), Yea Nelson (D-FL), Yea
Georgia: Chambliss (R-GA), Nay Isakson (R-GA), Nay
Hawaii: Akaka (D-HI), Yea Inouye (D-HI), Yea
Idaho: Craig (R-ID), Yea Crapo (R-ID), Nay
Illinois: Durbin (D-IL), Yea Obama (D-IL), Yea
Indiana: Bayh (D-IN), Nay Lugar (R-IN), Yea
Iowa: Grassley (R-IA), Nay Harkin (D-IA), Nay
Kansas: Brownback (R-KS), Nay Roberts (R-KS), Nay
Kentucky: Bunning (R-KY), Nay McConnell (R-KY), Nay
Louisiana: Landrieu (D-LA), Nay Vitter (R-LA), Nay
Maine: Collins (R-ME), Nay Snowe (R-ME), Yea
Maryland: Cardin (D-MD), Yea Mikulski (D-MD), Yea
Massachusetts: Kennedy (D-MA), Yea Kerry (D-MA), Yea
Michigan: Levin (D-MI), Yea Stabenow (D-MI), Nay
Minnesota: Coleman (R-MN), Nay Klobuchar (D-MN), Yea
Mississippi: Cochran (R-MS), Nay Lott (R-MS), Yea
Missouri: Bond (R-MO), Nay McCaskill (D-MO), Nay
Montana: Baucus (D-MT), Nay Tester (D-MT), Nay
Nebraska: Hagel (R-NE), Yea Nelson (D-NE), Nay
Nevada: Ensign (R-NV), Nay Reid (D-NV), Yea
New Hampshire: Gregg (R-NH), Yea Sununu (R-NH), Nay
New Jersey: Lautenberg (D-NJ), Yea Menendez (D-NJ), Yea
New Mexico: Bingaman (D-NM), Nay Domenici (R-NM), Nay
New York: Clinton (D-NY), Yea Schumer (D-NY), Yea
North Carolina: Burr (R-NC), Nay Dole (R-NC), Nay
North Dakota: Conrad (D-ND), Yea Dorgan (D-ND), Nay
Ohio: Brown (D-OH), Nay Voinovich (R-OH), Nay
Oklahoma: Coburn (R-OK), Nay Inhofe (R-OK), Nay
Oregon: Smith (R-OR), Nay Wyden (D-OR), Yea
Pennsylvania: Casey (D-PA), Yea Specter (R-PA), Yea
Rhode Island: Reed (D-RI), Yea Whitehouse (D-RI), Yea
South Carolina: DeMint (R-SC), Nay Graham (R-SC), Yea
South Dakota: Johnson (D-SD), Not Voting Thune (R-SD), Nay
Tennessee: Alexander (R-TN), Nay Corker (R-TN), Nay
Texas: Cornyn (R-TX), Nay Hutchison (R-TX), Nay
Utah: Bennett (R-UT), Yea Hatch (R-UT), Nay
Vermont: Leahy (D-VT), Yea Sanders (I-VT), Nay
Virginia: Warner (R-VA), Nay Webb (D-VA), Nay
Washington: Cantwell (D-WA), Yea Murray (D-WA), Yea
West Virginia: Byrd (D-WV), Nay Rockefeller (D-WV), Nay
Wisconsin: Feingold (D-WI), Yea Kohl (D-WI), Yea
Wyoming: Barrasso (R-WY), Nay Enzi (R-WY), Nay
Thanks Craig... I put a short update on the bill here: http://www.newwest.net/index.php/main/article/immigration_reform_deal_dies_again/
Comment By tim, 6-29-07It was good to see some Democrats side with the wiser Republicans to appose the Bush/Kennedy amnesty act. All those who voted yea should be tried for treason.
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