It isn’t a typical day in Washington when that liberal lion Sen. Edward Kennedy joins forces with a conservative Republican from Idaho, especially to take up a cause of prime importance to farmers. But that was the scene in April, as Kennedy and Sen. Larry Craig proposed an amendment to a defense spending bill that would have allowed illegal immigrant farm workers to win permanent residence and eventually apply for US citizenship.
Kennedy and Craig lost that fight, but the state’s senior senator has a new immigration bill – and a new Republican partner. Kennedy has teamed up with Sen. John McCain of Arizona on legislation pushing a set of reforms that would offer the possibility of citizenship to many more illegal immigrants.
“It’s long past time to put the underground economy above ground and recognize the reality of immigrants in our workforce,” Kennedy said at a May press briefing on the bill.
In the post-September 11 era, much of the immigration debate has centered on border security and ferreting out potential threats among the hundreds of thousands of foreigners entering the US each year. But as the cast of strange political bedfellows advocating on behalf of immigration makes clear, there are still many who view immigrants as a crucial ingredient in the American melting pot.
Nowhere is that more true than in Massachusetts, which, according to a recent MassINC report, The Changing Face of Massachusetts, has relied on immigrants for virtually all of its net population growth over the past two decades. Massachusetts now has the 10th highest proportion of foreign-born residents among the 50 states, with one in seven Bay State residents born in another country and immigrants accounting for 17 percent of the state’s workforce.
The impact of immigration cuts across the state’s economic spectrum, from seasonal labor needs on Cape Cod and in the lower-skill service sector to the science and technology firms that are the state’s economic future, not to mention the cottage industry of Massachusetts colleges and universities, where foreign students matriculate – and often pay full tuition – by the thousands.
The Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition has pushed for stronger protections for lower-paid immigrant workers and is behind legislation on Beacon Hill that would provide in-state tuition rates for illegal immigrants who are admitted to public universities. Those may not be the top priorities of the state’s business community. But MIRA’s executive director, Ali Noorani, says businesses, universities, and advocates for poorer immigrants are finding common ground these days, since they all agree on one thing: The benefits of immigration to the state, and country, should not be forgone because of security concerns.
“In the past, there has been a rift” between immigration advocates, says Noorani. “Student or professional immigrants may not see the undocumented immigrant janitor as a partner in the fight. That’s changing.”
Meanwhile, there is plenty to unite them. Anti-immigration members of Congress pushed through the Real ID Act in May. It requires states to check for immigration status when issuing drivers’ licenses. Currently, 11 states provide licenses to illegal immigrants, and Massachusetts is considering legislation to do so. Under the Real ID Act, states could continue to offer licenses to illegal workers, but they would have to state the immigrant’s status on the card. That means an immigrant could not use the card as a federal ID to board an airplane, for example. Another bill, the Clear Law Enforcement for Criminal Alien Removal Act, is pending. It would deputize local and state police to detain illegal immigrants – something that, with few exceptions, only agents of the federal Homeland Security Department can now do.
Republican senators John Cornyn of Texas and Jon Kyl of Arizona are sponsoring legislation that would attempt to boost border security while also granting more temporary work visas. Unlike the Kennedy-McCain bill, however, it does not offer more immigrants a chance at naturalization. A Cornyn spokesman told the Associated Press in May that the Kennedy-McCain bill was a “work and stay” program, while the Texas senator “prefers a work and return program.”
Meanwhile, the State Department has slowed the flow of both business travelers and university students by tightening up on visas since the September 11 attacks, prompting protests from business and university leaders. Harvard President Lawrence Summers was among them, warning in a letter last year to the State Department, “If the visa process remains complicated and filled with delays, we risk losing some of our most talented scientists.”
ennedy and McCain say that immigration foes must recognize the reality that US border security is weak, and efforts to improve it have failed in the face of strong economic forces driving Central and South American workers over the border. Every year, about 400,000 illegal immigrants enter the country, despite huge increases in the Border Patrol budget, while another 800,000 are admitted legally.
The lawmakers have teamed with a bipartisan group of House and Senate colleagues to introduce legislation, dubbed the 2005 Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act, which they hope will stem the flow of illegal immigrants. The bill would fine illegal immigrants at least $2,000 but also allow those already here who otherwise have abided by US laws and paid taxes to eventually apply for citizenship. Illegal immigrants first would apply for visas and then, after six years, for permanent residence, and, ultimately, citizenship. Low-skilled foreign workers who have jobs lined up in the United States could apply for three-year, renewable visas that could ultimately lead to citizenship. Immigrants would be required to take English and civics lessons and pass medical and background checks.
The Kennedy-McCain bill has won the backing of the US Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest business advocacy group, as well as the AFL-CIO. Labor unions, once a powerful anti-immigration voice within the Democratic Party, have changed tacks in recent years, as labor looks to the immigrant-rich service industries as the best hope for union growth.
The Bay State’s congressional delegation is in lockstep with immigration proponents on most issues. Kennedy has already notched some smaller victories, helping push through legislation in May that will allow Massachusetts businesses to hire more low-skilled, seasonal workers from abroad. The H2-B visa program hit its cap of 66,000 workers in January, but the new law exempts foreign workers who have taken seasonal jobs in the past. US Rep. William Delahunt, a Quincy Democrat whose district includes Cape Cod, was a key player backing the measure on the House side. And last year Kennedy was a leader in pushing through an exemption from the annual cap (recently reduced to 65,000) on H1-B visas, which are granted to foreign high-tech workers, for 20,000 foreign workers who hold advanced degrees from US universities.
But even in such an immigrant-friendly state, there are some who say job opportunities for native-born workers have suffered because of immigration. High-tech workers who lost jobs during the recent recession have complained of abuses in the H1-B program, which is supposed to admit only skilled foreigners who take positions for which there is no supply of qualified American workers.
Meanwhile, Paul Harrington, associate director of Northeastern University’s Center for Labor Market Studies, told a congressional panel in May that job losses since 2000 among teenagers, black males, and young adults without college degrees make it “clear that native-born workers have been displaced.” Harrington says that the 36 percent national employment rate among teenagers in 2004 was the lowest since the Labor Department started tracking the number in 1948.
Nonetheless, the view of immigrants as indispensable to the state’s fortunes clearly has the upper hand. The Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce has reached out to its university members and lobbied the Massachusetts delegation on the issue of visa delays for foreign students. Jim Klocke, executive vice president of the chamber, says he was “stunned” to learn that Massachusetts universities rely on foreign students to fill at least 30 percent of their graduate student slots.
“We’ve imported a lot of talent from overseas,” says Klocke. “If the overseas pipeline gets turned down or shut off, it’s a big long-term threat to our economy.”
Overall, matriculation of foreign students at Massachusetts institutions dropped by nearly 5 percent to 28,600 last year. It’s not a crisis yet, says Urbain De Winter, associate provost for international programs at Boston University, which has continued to enroll about 4,500 foreign students each year. But he worries about damage to “the perception of the United States” among international students. De Winter says he met recently with officials from the State Department, who expressed their commitment to reducing unnecessary barriers to student visas.
Far less certain, however, are the prospects for far-reaching immigration reform along the lines proposed by Kennedy and McCain. Their bill faces intense opposition from some Republicans and from anti-immigration groups. Already, both senators have been pilloried for supporting “amnesty” for illegal immigrants. Upon taking office, President Bush seemed likely to push reforms like those proposed by Kennedy and McCain. But the September 11 attacks changed all that, and it’s unclear whether Bush will be willing to cross members of his own party.
For Kennedy – and for a broad range of voices in Massachusetts – these and other pro-immigration reforms may make a lot of sense. Winning majority support in Congress could be a tougher matter.