Testimony
Source: Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
Recipient: House Subcommittee on Immigration
Date: 05/03/07
I would like to begin by noting what I hope are a few general points of agreement. First, I believe that everyone in this room can agree that our nation's immigration system is badly broken. It fails to keep up with economic realities, it fails to provide an orderly way to keep track of who is here, and it is so unfair and so burdensome that it fails to give people enough incentives to play by the rules. America's immigration system clearly need sweeping changes, and it needs them soon.
I would like to begin by noting what I hope are a few general points of agreement. First, I believe that everyone in this room can agree that our nation's immigration system is badly broken. It fails to keep up with economic realities, it fails to provide an orderly way to keep track of who is here, and it is so unfair and so burdensome that it fails to give people enough incentives to play by the rules. America's immigration system clearly need sweeping changes, and it needs them soon.
Second, I think we can also agree that in fixing our immigration system, we also have to include more effective – but also more realistic and more humane – immigration enforcement. Immigration enforcement is important, but it is simply unrealistic to attempt to stretch fences across our massive national borders, and we certainly cannot leave federal immigration law enforcement in the hands of private groups like the Minutemen. As a nation, we can take more sensible measures like hiring additional inspectors and border patrol agents, making better use of technology, and working more closely with Mexico to cut down on problems like human trafficking and the drug trade.
Third, I would hope that we can also agree on the importance of giving the roughly 12 million undocumented immigrants, living and working in our country, a realistic way to come out of the shadows and legalize their status. As a lifelong civil rights advocate, I do not see this as an issue of economics. I see it as a moral one, and I believe it goes directly to our most basic understanding of civil and human rights.
It is easy to focus on the charge that undocumented immigrants have broken the rules in order to get here. We do not need to condone violations of our immigration laws. But as we do in most other circumstances, we should also look at why these individuals broke the rules. Motives count. And most of these 12 million people have broken the rules not to "steal jobs," to live off the government, or to take advantage of anyone else. Instead, most of them have been motivated, to the point where many have even risked their lives to come here, by the desire to escape economic or political hardships that few native-born Americans today could fully understand. And they are all too often enticed here by employers who are perfectly happy to use and abuse them in the process.
When we consider the motives of the bulk of the undocumented immigrants who live and work in our country, it is clear to LCCR – and hopefully to everyone – that our policies should not treat them as fugitives. For example, undocumented immigrants should not be so afraid of the police, due to their immigration status, that they even refuse to report crimes in their own neighborhoods. When they go to work, they – like every human – have a right to know they will be treated safely and paid fairly. If they drive on our roads, it is in the interest of everyone to make sure they have been insured, trained, and certified to obey the rules of the road. And regardless of how they may have initially come here, if they show a willingness to play by the rules and contribute to our economy and our society, we should have policies in place that will reward their hard work and allow them to enjoy the fullest protections of the law.
It is with these thoughts in mind that LCCR looks forward to a vigorous and thoughtful debate over the leading immigration reform proposal in the House, the STRIVE (Security Through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy) Act of 2007, H.R. 1645. While the STRIVE Act certainly needs to be improved in some areas, on the whole, it represents a much more credible and pragmatic approach to fixing our nation's immigration system than the leading bill in the last Congress, H.R. 4437.
