The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

Table of Contents

• Introduction

Executive Branch

• Looking Forward to New Blood in Washington
• Interview with Bob Edgar

On the Hill

• The Americans With Disabilities Act, Act Two
• As Home Foreclosures Climb, Efforts to Help Troubled Homeowners Continue
• The Year in Judicial and Executive Nominations
• Advocating for Federal Leadership on Education
• Facing New Challenges with the 2010 Census
• Modernizing the Federal Poverty Measure
• Piecemeal Legislation, Raids Take Place of Immigration Overhaul
• Below the Surface
• Interview with Kathryn Kolbert

In the Courts

• Wrapping up the Supreme Court’s 2007-2008 Term

In the States

• Colorado: Battleground for More Than Just the Presidency.
• Interview with Lilly Ledbetter

Leadership Conference Activities

• Preventing a Digital TV Divide
• Examining the State of Fair Housing in the 21st Century
• Bringing Diverse Communities Together
• 32nd Annual Hubert H. Humphrey Civil Rights Award Dinner
• Interview with John Payton

Piecemeal Legislation, Raids Take Place of Immigration Overhaul

Rob Randhava

Comprehensive efforts to overhaul our nation's immigration system remained on hold after the demise of a sweeping immigration bill in 2007, but the issue of immigration was still high on the public agenda in 2008.  This year's debate, both in and out of Congress, focused most heavily on enforcement.

This spring, immigration restrictionists in the U.S. House of Representatives attempted to use a rare parliamentary maneuver, a "discharge petition," to force a vote on the Secure America through Verification and Enforcement (SAVE) Act.

The bill threatened to divert attention from more evenhanded legislative efforts, but even more troubling, it would have established a mandatory "E-Verify" system nationwide – a system that would require all employers to verify, through Social Security Administration databases, that their employees were legally eligible to work in the United States.

Civil rights and civil liberties groups warned that such a system would turn into a bureaucratic nightmare for many Americans.  Widespread errors in SSA databases would prevent countless Americans from working; employers would be encouraged to practice racial and ethnic profiling; and SSA resources would be stretched far beyond their capacity – just as retiring baby boomers would need them the most.

Eventually, 190 House members signed the petition, falling short of the 218 necessary to bring the bill to a floor vote.  Similar anti-immigrant proposals were introduced in the Senate, but they were never considered. In late July, however, the House passed a far more limited bill that would have reauthorized a voluntary pilot version of the "E-Verify" program for five years.  Civil rights groups hoped that renewal of the more limited program, while also problematic, would kill any momentum for its expansion.

Not all of the discussion in Congress this year was about enforcement, however.  There was a bipartisan agreement on legislation that would expand the numbers of family- and employment-based immigration visas.  The proposal would have allowed unused family-based immigration visas to be used in subsequent years, which would help eliminate significant visa backlogs and allow hundreds of thousands of immigrant families to reunite.  Another proposal supported by LCCR and other civil rights groups, the Strengthening Communities Through English and Integration Act, would have provided extensive resources to help Americans learn English.  Making it easier for immigrants to assimilate and learn English, advocates believe, would go a long way toward defusing the cultural tensions that often spark calls for overzealous immigration enforcement.

In the meantime, draconian immigration enforcement efforts showed no signs of abating in 2008, with increasing workplace raids growing bigger and bigger.  In May, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested close to 400 workers at a slaughterhouse and meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa.  Unlike most previous ICE raids, in which undocumented immigrants were quickly deported, many of the workers arrested in the Postville raid were detained on criminal charges of using false documents.  An even larger raid took place in August at a plant in Laurel, Mississippi, resulting in the arrest of nearly 600 immigrant workers.

One outcome of the Postville and Laurel raids was to focus attention on ICE's detention practices and conditions.  One of the most controversial aspects of immigration raids has been that they tear families apart, and can even result in children being left behind when their parents are deported.  In the Laurel raid, ICE officials were careful to ensure that arrested mothers were released, with monitoring bracelets, so they could care for their children.  But nearly 475 other workers were shipped off to a detention facility in Jena, Louisiana, with many still facing possible criminal charges.

The Laurel raid also brought renewed focus to ongoing tensions between immigrants and native-born workers.  ICE officials claim that they were tipped off to the presence of undocumented workers by local union members and it was reported that some plant workers applauded as the arrests were being made.  Robert Shaffer, head of the Mississippi AFL-CIO, said that members had long complained that they were being undercut by immigrant workers.

At the same time, Shaffer put the blame where most civil rights and immigration advocates feel it belongs: on the employers who hire immigrants as cheap labor, rather than on the immigrants themselves.  "I'm not against people trying to make a living," Shaffer said in an August Associated Press interview. "I have a compassion for those folks. But at the same time, the taxpayers of Mississippi shouldn't be subsidizing a plant that won't even hire their own workers."

One important element of comprehensive immigration reform, when the debate resumes, will be measures to ensure that low-wage, native-born workers are protected from any potential job displacement.  Civil rights groups have been calling for a legislative package that would increase job training, improve labor protections, and expand awareness of job opportunities for native-born workers.  A key element of the proposal, requiring employers to step up their advertising of job vacancies before attempting to hire immigrant workers, stood a good chance of being added to the comprehensive Senate bill last year, before the entire bill was derailed by opponents.

Civil rights groups have been discussing their immigration priorities for 2009.  At the top of the list will be:

• Ensuring that immigrant children are included in health care programs for children;
• Reviewing and reversing many of the harsh enforcement policies of the Bush administration; and
• Moving forward with popular bipartisan immigration measures such as the DREAM Act (which would give legal status to high-achieving young undocumented immigrants if they go to college or perform military service) and AgJOBS (which would drastically improve agricultural guestworker programs and put agricultural workers on a path to legal status) before following up with a more comprehensive reform effort.

Rob Randhava is counsel for the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and specializes in immigration and housing/finance issues.