GOATMILK: An intellectual playground edited by Wajahat Ali

By Wajahat Ali

If one listens to the hysterical rhetoric of certain pundits and politicians, one would surely believe America is being attacked or infiltrated by nefarious aliens. Like the paranoid ranting of actor Kevin McCarthy in the famous last lines of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, we are lead believe that, “They’re here already! You’re next!” The clandestine “pod people,” the aliens if you will, exist by slowly but surely eradicating the very fabric of American culture. They take over your jobs, replace English with Spanglish, aid Al Qaeda, and make America as American as Apple Flautas. The “alien threat” generally refers to Mexican immigrant workers, some of them undocumented and illegal, and the “scourge” of their existence on our economic well being, security and livelihood. The “illegal immigration” debate cannot be ignored especially in light of the upcoming Presidential elections. Considering the topic ranks second in terms of importance according to Republican voters, right behind the economy, the immigration debate warrants careful analysis. I sat with two of Senator Obama’s recently appointed “immigration advisors” Kevin R. Johnson, Associate Dean of The University of California Davis School of Law and author of the excellent and incisive new book on U.S. immigration laws Opening the Floodgates, and Bill Hing, Professor of Law and Asian American studies.

ALI: Let me read you a latest headline that highlights some statistics:

“The Southern Poverty Law Center, in a report titled “The Year in Hate,” said it counted 888 hate groups in its latest tally, up from 844 in 2006 and 602 in 2000. The most prominent of the organizations newly added to the list, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, vehemently rejected the “hate group” label, and questioned the law center’s motives. FAIR said the center was using smear tactics to boost donations and stifle legitimate debate on immigration. ‘Their banner may be ‘Stop the hate’ but it’s really ‘Stop the debate,’ said FAIR’s president, Dan Stein. ‘Apparently you can’t even articulate an argument for immigration reform without being smeared.’”

Ok, first question, doesn’t FAIR and others, like Lou Dobbs, have the right to demand safe borders and not grant amnesty to illegal immigrants? Is this hate speech, or rather free speech? Secondly, assuming these facts are true, give me the factors from your research causing this sudden rise of hate?

HING: First of all, anyone has a right to advocate for border control and safe borders. Ok, sure. That’s a given. But, it’s the manner in which it’s done, and then secondly it’s when you go beyond just advocating for border control and into the area of race and ethnicity that it becomes hate. First things first, it’s the manner in which they do it. Many members of Congress, of course, advocate for border control. All three of the political finalists in the Presidential candidates advocate for border control. But, do they then do the “Willie Horton” and then focus in on the race, the language, the out of control nature of what’s happening to society and American culture, once they start doing that they begin to breed an atmosphere of contempt with those individuals that are coming across the border based on their race, rather then focusing on reform of the Visa system or the border system in a manner in which the border can be enforced in a humane and professional manner.

KJ: I think any American, which includes Lou Dobbs and includes folks with FAIR, certainly have a right to demand more secure borders and reform of immigration law enforcement. I don’t think anybody really disputes that. The issue is sometimes when they talk about immigration and immigrants, there is only one kind of immigrants. Lou Dobbs, night after night, talks about immigrants from Mexico, and illegal immigrants from Mexico, and terror from Mexico. To the extent that there’s any discussion on Dobbs’ show other than any immigrants other than Mexico, it’s about terrorists from the Muslim and the Arab world. So, what comes about is that immigration and immigration reform is all about Mexico and terror. And that’s when it crosses the line into implementing hate and dislike for certain immigrant groups. And when Dobbs is talking about immigration enforcement, he is usually talking about a border fence along the Mexican border. He is not ordinarily talking about anything with the Canadian border.

And when you hear about FAIR, they say often the exact same thing. Talking bout illegal aliens as if the only undocumented peoples in this country are people from Mexico. Talking about crackdowns on illegal aliens, and talking about how illegal aliens are criminals, and if they’re not criminals then they are terrorists. So, I think that groups certainly should be able to talk about what they want to talk about. There are groups that do talk about immigration and aren’t classified as hate groups by The Southern Poverty Law Center. But, I think some groups do cross the line. Groups like the Minuteman certainly do cross the line, where you talk to some of them, or if you see some of the interviews, they talk about hunting down Mexicans. You hear about some of the folks in places like Hazleton, Pennsylvania who say pretty clearly they want to get rid of “The Mexicans.” [Hazleton passed the notorious Illegal Immigration Relief Act punishing landlords, who rented to undocumented immigrants, with fines up to $1000 per undocumented immigrant.] Not immigrants, they’re just talking about “The Mexicans.” People have a right to talk and should be talking about immigration reform, but a lot of time instead of talking about reform, the talk is a racial code to attack certain groups. And that is not a good thing.

ALI: Let’s talk about the upcoming elections: Democrats and Republicans have their wedges issues – for the latter, amazingly, immigration ranks second behind the economy. Is indeed illegal immigration a top 3 problem for America?

HING: (Chuckles) No! I think the so-called immigration problem is not even in the top 100 problems facing the United States. If what we’re concerned about as a country are things ranging from National Security to the economy to health care to the environment etc., etc. The fact there are people in the United States with undocumented status, that is not a direct correlation between that and any of the four or five things I’ve mentioned. Of course, what anti immigrant folks will say is, “How can you say there are no connections between undocumented workers and national security?” In fact, all one needs to do is look at the 9-11 Commission report to find that there was no connection between so called “illegal immigration” and the perpetrators of the attacks. Those are all people who came to the country legally, they were well vetted by Al Qaeda in terms of their backgrounds; they all appeared squeaky clean. They did not come across the Mexican border. Illegal immigration, to me, is not even a problem when I say it isn’t in the Top 100. The people who are the topic of the complaints are decent, hardworking people, law abiding people. People with strong family values. They respect the environment. They love this country. They are conservative in many ways. If people only took the time to get to know them, then they’d realize how it’s really not a problem.

KJ: I think that most Americans, if pressed, will tell you that it’s the economy, it’s the war and it’s not immigration. If you look at the people who ran for President whose issue front and center was immigration, people like Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter, either most Americans haven’t heard of them and certainly didn’t vote for them. They are gone from the Presidential races. If you look at the Illinois Congressional races, you have an anti-immigrant zealot who ended up not going anywhere. Even though some polls show people thinking immigration is an important issue, it can be a wedge issue. The people trying to make it their issue have not gotten far in their campaigns. I think that most Americans understand we can’t deport all undocumented immigrants. Most Americans don’t want to see another New Bedford, Massachusetts occur in their hometown. At the same time, many Americans do want to have the borders more secure, and I think the politicians are listening to that. I think the “get tough on immigrant” stuff you see on Lou Dobbs and some politicians propagating that, they aren’t getting too far with it.

ALI: Illegal Immigration is a problem to many. Every country has to have secure borders – that’s just a fact. So, why do liberals and progressives become so passionate in helping those, who for all intents and purposes, break the law? And, furthermore, how we do, if it all, secure these borders?

KJ: We should have a system where a vast majority of people enter legally and remain legally. It’s not good for the nation to have a system where people enter illegally and aren’t on any official record system. I’m all in favor good record keeping and legal immigration. At the same time, we currently have immigration laws which are unrealistic and unenforceable; where economic and political needs for workers lead to mass migration. We have 10 to 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country, and they are employed by many in this country: we as a nation benefit from them working here. Then the question is if we want to secure our borders, then we probably need to have more realistic immigration laws.

We currently have an immigration law in effect that in my mind is very similar to the Prohibition era, anti alcohol law. Where they are violated on a mass basis, where otherwise law-abiding people do violate the immigration laws, and where there are some very severe negative consequences. Here, you have criminal elements getting involved in immigrant smuggling, you have human trafficking, you have the revival of slavery in certain parts of the United States where immigrants are forced to work particular industries – not just the sex industry, but that’s just one of the industries. I think if we want secure borders what we want to do first is come up with some realistic “admissions criteria” that more closely match the economic magnet that’s bringing immigrants to the United States. Until we do that, we will have people violating the laws, because the laws are unrealistic.

HING: First of all, the reason why I am passionate and other people are passionate in the immigration rights advocacy movement is because we understand that there are large, global economic forces, including NAFTA, that have profound effects on, again, the typical undocumented immigrant from Mexico. And how those phenomenons have visited extreme hardship on the economies of countries like Mexico, then we begin to understand why people come across that border in large numbers. Once we understand that it’s something out of their control. They can’t control NAFTA. They can’t control competition with China. Once we realize it’s out of their control, we then begin to understand why they come across that border. Yes, there is a border. Yes, there is a law that makes it illegal to enter the country without inspection. However, just like anything else, in times of understanding why people act, I think decent people begin to respect people in very much a manner that we saw during the Civil Rights Movement. People will step up and understand that these are acts of civil disobedience against laws that at their heart are emblematic of injustice, and they are properly contested. My work as an immigrant rights advocate is, in my opinion, in the vein of the Civil Rights Movement, of civil disobedience. Where we are pointing out injustices of the law that represent these greater forces that impact immigrants.

ALI: Michelle Malkin and other right wing, conservative individuals have made suggestions about illegal immigration aiding and abetting terrorism – a funnel for Al Qaeda. Bill O’reilly sparred with Geraldo last year using a story about an immigrant who committed an assault on a woman as an example of terrorism stemming from “porous borders.” So, talk to me about the connection between illegal immigration and those who aid and abet terrorism.

HING: I refer to the 9-11 Commission report. There was no connection between illegal immigrants and terrorism. But, more importantly if we actually not only got to know the undocumented immigrants, but granted them legal status, we would be freeing up so many resources in this country to actually do a better job of ferreting out those people in our midst who would do us harm. We waste a lot of time, energy and money focusing on the undocumented immigration problem. We can free up those resources and start figuring out who among us, like the Timothy Mcveighs who would do us harm, and who abroad are trying to figure out ways of entering the country, or figuring out how to attack the country. Those resources would be available. To me there just isn’t any connection between the image of the typical, undocumented immigrant: namely, an undocumented worker from Mexico. Let’s be honest, that’s who we are talking about. There’s absolutely no connection between that individual who is coming here to wash dishes, or work on the farm, or work in the garden. I mean, we found out on May 1^st, 2006 we found out how indispensable those people are to our survival when they went out on a day of protest. It’s insane to try to make a connection between illegal immigration and terrorism.

ALI: A lot of people say Democrats are more tolerant and enlightened regarding immigration, yet under President Clinton the statute was passed enforcing mandatory detention of illegal immigrants who commit certain aggravated felonies. Furthermore, Demore v Kim, a Supreme Court case, upheld this as lawful. So, you guys are assisting Obama’s camp. Suppose Democrats win, how will Clinton or Obama do anything different?

KJ: I think you’ve raised a very important point. In my mind, immigration isn’t really a red state-blue state, Republican –Democrat issue. It’s a very complicated issue. I think I have a lot more in common with President Bush’s positions on immigration than I have with President Clinton’s positions on immigration. Some people would say that the 1996 law you refer to is one of the most draconian immigration laws passed by Congress. It was signed by President Clinton and enforced vigorously by him as well. Clinton was also the President who saw the massive growth of border enforcements, things like “Operation Gatekeeper,” “Operation Hold the Line,” and “Operation Rio Grande” which resulted in thousands and thousands of deaths. So, this idea that immigration is an easy Democrat-Republican issue – it’s far from that. I think that President Bush, for example, was much more sensitive to the plight of undocumented immigrants when he said we have a shadow population living under the radar screen, and we have to bring them out of the shadows.

I think a lot of people in this country agree with that and agree with the President. Now, when it comes to immigration today in the Presidential elections, I do think you have some choices to make between the candidates, regardless of whether they are Democrat or Republican when it comes to border enforcement. You have Senator McCain who at one point in time supported comprehensive immigration reform, at one point in time appeared to be more flexible on the issue, now has basically said he can’t support his old positions. He has heard the American people and believes in securing the borders first before anything is done.

You see Hillary Clinton talking the same kind of “enforcement talk” that President Clinton talks about, and backing away very vigorously and quickly from her initial stance on drivers’ licenses for undocumented immigrants. She gets into debates saying she supports it, and then she flip flops and says she doesn’t support it anymore. If you look at Barack Obama’s immigration position, you see that he does emphasize “enforcement” as one of the prongs of his immigration policy, but he also has been unwavering in his support of drivers’ licenses for undocumented immigrants. He has also been the only candidate who has said in a debate on national TV that immigrants have often been scapegoated for the problems in our country, and that it is wrong. He also mentioned well before the Southern Poverty Law Center Report that anti immigrant debate had led to hate crimes against Latinos, and he said that was unacceptable. He’s the only candidate who is mentioning any of those things. And I think there could come some change in his administration. It is not going to be as far reaching as some people might like, but it moves in the right direction.

ALI: Let’s be honest – how much racism and prejudice is involved in this anti immigration hysteria? Do you believe the fever pitch would be this high and volatile if these were Italians and Germans crossing the border? Do you think there would be same the amount of outcry?

HING: Absolutely not. Now, I don’t want to call everyone who opposes immigrants as racists. Because, as we all know, different people are motivated by different reasons. But, I do think that those who are outspoken, like Lou Dobbs, Bill O’Reilly, The Tom Tancredo, those people have problems with race. There’s just no doubt about it in my mind. The big evidence of that is that about 20 years ago the largest undocumented population in Chicago was Polish nationals. 15 years ago a sizeable undocumented population in San Francisco were from Ireland. We didn’t see this uproar against Poles or Irish in SF or Chicago. For the very fact they were “White” and had European roots. We just didn’t see that uproar, and I think it’s because they are not people of color.

KJ: I think unfortunately race and racism influences significantly the debate on immigration. The fact that illegal aliens is a code word for Mexicans tells you a lot about what the terms of the debate are about. I think the fact that people South of the border are viewed as racially different and by many people as racially inferior leads in no small part to their dehumanization, to attacks on them. It would be impossible for me to say that some of the anti immigration measures aren’t discriminatory and intended to be so.

In California, with Proposition 187, it’s hard to say that campaign wasn’t anti Mexican or anti immigrant. You had nightly advertisements on television showing shadowy figures along the U.S.-Mexico border with a sort of crime scene narrator saying, “They keep coming.” When you talk about other initiatives like Proposition 227, which ended bilingual education in this state, you also see anti-Mexican, anti-immigrant twist. And it’s not just Mexicans although that is one of the groups. When there’s the talk of terrorists, you often see this anti-Muslim, anti-Arab sentiment rear its head, when people assume we have to have tough on Arab, tough on Muslim immigration laws because they are inclined to terrorism, even though there is no evidence that. The only evidence is that there is some small group of people who are terrorists, some of them who are Muslims or Arab.

I think unfortunately immigration is about race and racism and that is seen throughout American history. From the days of German immigration to Pennsylvania, where Ben Franklin complained about the Germans who were a different race and complexion. To the Irish later on, to the Japanese, to the Chinese, to the Southeastern Europeans, to Mexicans, to Arabs and Muslims today, it has consistently been about race and racism.

ALI: How will the White House and Congress deal with undocumented workers, without whom the economy, especially that of California and Texas, will most likely crash? How will the Democrats react? And the Republicans?

HING: I think it will be a sad day for our economy and our lifestyle, to be honest with you, if we got rid of all the undocumented immigrants in the United States. We really should be addressing this from the point of view of flexible Visas. In other words, let’s recognize this. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, the National Chamber of Commerce has recognized this. We actually need workers of all types of jobs because of the changing demographics. Also, the fact that my generation, the last of the Baby Boomers, we are going to be retiring, and we are not replacing ourselves with the numbers we are going to need. So, we actually need immigrants of all stripes, of all wage ranges, and we need to recognize that we should allow these folks to come in here and work.

Now, I’m not advocating for a guest worker program. I’m advocating for a flexible visa program. Where individuals are able to come here, be able to work, bring their family, and at some point the make a decision whether they will stay or leave: say at either a 5 year point or a 7 year point. At that point, they want to decide if they want to stay permanently or if they want to return, and then they make a decision.

I talk to people from Mexico and from Asia all the time from all different wage categories, and they all say the same thing. The wealthy ones say I wish there was a way I could come in and out of the country, because I actually like living in Hong Kong or Taipei, but I also like living in San Mateo. I talk to Mexicans who say the same thing. They want to be able to come and go, they want to work and they want to contribute. But, some of them want to stay permanently, and some of them don’t. So, we have to recognize the modern age in which we live, and let’s go with the flow and get on board here and understand that there are greater forces that are at play here that we ought to go with instead of resist.

ALI: Let’s talk about the Bush-McCain plan for immigration reform, which many say was more moderate and judicious, relatively, than Bush’s other domestic policies. Why the hostility to it by Republicans? Is that plan the best option than any other the country can possibly enforce right now?

HING: I believe that in the Summer of 2007 that plan was politically the most practical thing that could have passed even though I didn’t like one provision in it that would have stripped many of the family immigration categories; in particular, that was gratuitously thrown in to be evil. But on a practical matter, I was surprised it didn’t pass. There was a lot of political will from both the White House and a lot of Republicans and Democrats to pass it.

Why did it fail? Because there is this strong contingency in the Republicans party that is rabidly racist and against undocumented immigrants, and they don’t want to do anything that’s going to help them. Anything that smells like amnesty or legalization or makes them appear to be soft on illegal immigration – that issue has been equated with that rabid wing of the Republican party that doesn’t want to appear soft on crime or soft on illegal immigration. They are also very outspoken and they were able to control the Republican party last summer just the way the religious right has controlled the Republican party on many social issues - even though they are a small but vocal group.

ALI: Suppose you get to talk to Lou Dobbs one on one about immigration. What would you say to him?

KJ: I’d say I agree with you that we need to work on our immigration system. But, I fear the kind of attacks you engage on our system, generate racism, generate fear, play on racism and play on fear. Why are you doing that?

HING: I’d say to Lou Dobbs, “Get a grip!” Your advocacy is wasting the country’s time, money and efforts. We should be focusing on real issues. You should go back, Lou Dobbs, to focus on what you did best which was talk about the economy and the fact that NAFTA needed to be questioned and the fact that Wall Street needs to be investigated. And the fact that multinational corporations are the ones that benefit from trade agreements - not the working class. That’s what you should be focusing on, Lou Dobbs.

Wajahat Ali is Pakistani Muslim American who is neither a terrorist nor a saint. He is a playwright, essayist, humorist, and Attorney at Law, whose work, “The Domestic Crusaders,” (www.domesticcrusaders.com) is the first major play about Muslim Americans living in a post 9-11 America. His blog is at http://goatmilk.wordpress.com/. He can be reached at wajahatmali@gmail.com

Protecting National Security Through More Liberal Admission of Immigrants

http://www.nexusjournal.org/blog/2007/10/08/protecting-national-security-through-more-liberal-admission-of-immigrants/

Dean Kevin R. Johnson 

    As a response to the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001, the Bush administration employed harsh measures, including mass arrests, interrogations, and detentions of Arabs and Muslims. Outside the United States, in addition to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. government detained scores of people and, at times, abused prisoners. The President declared that persons that he designated as “enemy combatants” had precious few rights under the law; he further proclaimed that they could not even challenge their designation as “enemy combatants” in a court of law – a position later rejected by a conservative U.S. Supreme Court. In addition, in the name of national security, the U.S. government through, for example, electronic surveillance and monitoring the book borrowing records of public libraries, compromised the privacy rights of U.S. citizens as well as immigrants.

When it comes to immigration law and policy, the events of September 11, 2001 had particularly pernicious impacts. Fears of terrorism led to a variety of immigration restrictions, from stricter monitoring of foreign scholars and students seeking to enter the United States on nonmmigrant (temporary) visas to new immigration requirements and procedures. Many measures explicitly targeted Arab and Muslim immigrants, including “special” registration requirements, mass detentions, and deportation operations. See generally David Cole, Enemy Aliens, 54 STAN. L. REV. 953 (2002). Immigrants of all nationalities ultimately felt the sting of the strict enforcement of the immigration laws, with record numbers of deportations (with few of the deportees having anything to do with terrorism).

Claiming that the need to avoid another September 11 required greatly increased enforcement along the southern border with Mexico, a vocal group of law- and policy-makers deeply influenced the national debate over immigration reform in 2006-07. See Jennifer M. Chacón, Unsecured Borders: Immigration Restrictions, Crime Control and National Sovereignty, 39 CONN. L. REV. 1827 (2007) (analyzing these claims); Kevin R. Johnson & Bernard Trujillo, Immigration Reform, National Security After September 11, and the Future of North American Integration, 91 MINN. L. REV. 1369 (2007) (same). Such claims gained credence even though there was no evidence that any of the September 11 terrorists had entered the United States unlawfully from the South or that undocumented immigrants from Mexico had anything to do with terrorist acts in this country.

As one member of Congress aptly observed,

the necessary pursuit of national security should not have been used . . . to enact unrelated and radical changes in immigration laws under the guise of preventing terrorism. Unfortunately, members of Congress have abused arguments for national security to enact hundreds of radical changes in immigration laws. . . . Instead of enacting rational immigration reform that will indeed strengthen our national security, Congress has enacted immigration changes that have very little or nothing to do with national security. [Republican] revolutionaries “revolutionized” the American tradition of immigration but, unfortunately, did not bring revolutionary change to protecting America from terrorists.

U.S. Representative Zoe Lofgren, A Decade of Radical Change in Immigration Law: An Insider Perspective, 16 STAN. L. & POL’Y REV. 349, 377-78 (2005) (emphasis added).

A majority of the nation apparently found it acceptable to sacrifice civil rights, especially those of immigrants, to protect the security of the nation. But is the nation any safer today because of the various measures taken by the U.S. government since September 11? Polls show that a majority of Americans do not necessarily feel safer. Nonetheless, calls persist that the “war on terror” requires increased border enforcement and nothing less than monumental efforts to fence, bolster, and otherwise close the border with Mexico. Little can be gained in terms of security, however, by restrictionist laws and draconian enforcement policies that cannot effectively be enforced at the ground level and, to make matters worse, are arbitrary, overbroad, and unfair, thereby alienating the very communities whose assistance is essential in combating terrorism.

    Importantly, the United States’s immigration “problems” began long before September 11. Unrealistic immigration laws for decades have forced millions of migrants to evade the law to enter this country and, once here, live on the periphery of American social life. As President George W. Bush correctly observed in calling for immigration reform, “illegal immigrants live in the shadows of our society. . . . [T]he vast majority . . . are decent people who work hard, support their families, practice their faith, and lead responsible lives. They are part of American life, but they are beyond the reach and protection of American law.” Address to the Nation on Immigration Reform, PRESIDENTIAL PAPERS OF THE PRESIDENTS (May 22, 2006) (emphasis added).

Contrary to the prevailing wisdom, efforts to improve the security of the United States do not require monumental efforts to close the borders. Put differently, an open society need not be a country whose national security is more at risk than one with nominally closed borders. Instead, the U.S. government must comprehensively reform its laws to better manage a lawful, orderly, and regulated migration into its territory and to fulfill basic political, economic (including labor needs), and social goals, as well as to protect the national security.

A number of commentators have proposed more flexible immigration admission systems to better ensure national security. See, e.g., Bill Ong Hing, Misusing Immigration Policies in the Name of Homeland Security, 6 NEW CENTENNIAL REV. 195, 207-16 (2006); Jan Ting, Immigration Law Reform After 9/11: What Has Been and What Still Needs to Be, 17 TEMP. INT’L & COMP. L.J. 503, 512-15 (2003). To improve the security of the nation, as well as to pursue other important goals, the United States must dramatically revamp its immigration admissions system. A scheme that better matches the political, social, and economic factors contributing to the demand for immigration would minimize the incentive for undocumented immigration and thus limit the creation and maintenance of a shadow population of millions of people.

At a time that the United States engages in a “war on terror,” a proposal to liberalize admissions to protect national security may seem counter-intuitive, if not simply misguided. But, a carefully-crafted, liberal admissions scheme could allow for a more secure and safer United States.

Consider the status quo. The United States has millions of residents effectively living off the books. The nation requires an immigration system that ensures that the U.S. government has the basic information, such as name and address, about all of our residents. Such information is necessary for effective law enforcement that will allow the nation to better protect national security and ensure public safety.

The lack of official information on undocumented immigrants is no small gap. According to the best estimates, somewhere between 10.5 and 12 million undocumented immigrants live in the United States today. Rather than engaging in futile efforts to seal the border, the U.S. government needs to better respond to the modern political, economic, and social realities currently fueling immigration to the country and contributing to the ever-growing number of people who live and work in our communities in contravention of the current U.S. immigration laws. The fundamental truth is simple: migrants come to work; employers give them jobs. Generations of migration from Mexico to the United States have created deep and enduring family and social networks facilitating migration. Absent dramatic economic and social changes, immigrants will continue to come lawfully and unlawfully to the United States for jobs and to reunite with family members. Lacking legal means to come to the United States, migrants today literally risk life and limb to come to this land of freedom and opportunity in violation of the law. Because mass deportations of millions of immigrants are out of the question, a more realistic – and secure — immigration system would need to bestow lawful immigration status on most of the millions of undocumented immigrants who today live in the United States.

Besides creating a record-keeping system that includes undocumented immigrants, we need to greatly improve the current system of tracking lawful immigrants and temporary visitors to the United States. The technology unquestionably exists to accurately track noncitizens entering and exiting the country. There can be no excuse for the current haphazard state of the nation’s immigration record-keeping systems.

Ultimately, we need truly comprehensive immigration reform, not so-called reform that amounts to nothing more than tinkering at the margins and would require revisting – to address, among other matters, calls to “legalize” a new population of undocumented immigrants – in the not-too-distant future. My book OPENING THE FLOODGATES: WHY AMERICA NEEDS TO RETHINK ITS BORDERS AND IMMIGRATION LAWS (NYU Press, 2007) re-conceptualizes the nature and purpose of the U.S. borders and calls for the liberalization of the U.S. immigration laws. In essence, I advocate a system in which immigrants generally are admitted to the United States unless demonstrated to be a danger to national security or public safety. Today, the presumption is precisely the opposite – any noncitizen seeking to enter the country is presumed not to have any right to enter. More liberal admissions would be more consistent with the open society that we cherish. More liberal admissions also would be more consistent with the nation’s oft-stated immigration ideal, as articulated in Emma Lazurus’s poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty.

Another possible model for American consideration in fashioning meaningful immigration reform is the European Union (EU), which generally allows labor migration within the member nations. The EU’s success has led to nations seeking to join the union and its steady expansion. The economies of the different nations of Europe have boomed with the free movement of goods, services, capital, and labor. This labor migration has worked well and, despite initial fears of mass migration, did not result in large movements of people. A North American Union, allowing for the free movement of labor between Canada, Mexico, and the United States would fit comfortably with the free flow of goods and services between the North American nations required by the North American Free Trade Agreement. Such a union might cure many of the immigration problems that we see today. See T. Alexander Aleinikoff, Legal Immigration Reform: Toward Rationality and Equity, in BLUEPRINTS FOR AN IDEAL LEGAL IMMIGRATION POLICY 5 (Richard D. Lamm & Alan Simpson eds., 2001).

    In sum, the United States needs to greatly restructure its immigration laws. Regularizing the status of undocumented immigrants in the country would better integrate them into American social life, which would strengthen the social fabric. Liberalizing the admission of immigrants would inhibit the emergence of a future undocumented population. With the elimination of a shadow population of more than ten million people and better monitoring of who is or is not in the United States, the nation would be more secure as well as better off economically, politically, and socially.
____

Kevin R. Johnson is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of California, Davis School of Law and Mabie-Apallas Professor of Public Interest Law and Chicana/o Studies. He is co-editor of the ImmigrationProf blog, http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/.