More than sixty reporters participated Jan. 8 in a briefing via conference call – titled “A Movement for Reform, Making Immigration Reform Happen with the new President and Congress” -- sponsored by the National Immigration Forum. The featured presenters were Cardinal Roger Mahoney of Los Angeles, Janet Murguia, president of National Council of La Raza; Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, and John Wilhelm, president of Unite Here.
If we are to believe the directors of the National Immigration Forum, America’s Voice, and National Council of La Raza, CIR is around the corner in the Obama administration. However, the past political and analytical failures of this same circle of immigrant-rights groups – to say nothing of any more measured evaluation of the country’s economic and political realities -- leave plenty of room for skepticism.
Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, told reporters that “2009 will be the year for immigration reform.” According to Noorani:
“At this moment we are on the cusp of a sea change in the United States of America, and I think it is fair to say that this sea change that we’re about to see is due in large part to the power and the vitality of the immigrant and Hispanic votes.
“The immigrant and Hispanic votes on November 4th, 2008, literally changed the face of America. But looking carefully at the news that has transpired since the election and all the meetings and conversations that are happening both in D.C. and, excuse me, across the country, it is increasingly clear that immigration reform is a priority for both political parties.”
NCLR’s Murguia asserted, “Reform is not only possible, we as a nation are ready to do it.”
When asked, though, by a reporter if there were any promises by the transition team, she said:
“I believe that they are in strategic discussions on this and are trying to look at a timeframe but I have not gotten any commitments from them but I do know that they want to make this happen and that they are aware of the promises the President-elect has made on this.”
Frank Sharry, the longtime director of the National Immigration Forum and the chief of a newly created immigrant-rights organization called America’s Voice, is once again the top cheerleader for CIR.
Sharry exuded optimism about the prospects for the approval of a new CIR bill. “We believe that there is likely to be a great window of opportunity probably between September of 2009 and maybe the end of March 2010,” he said, “in which President Obama and the new Congress are likely going to work together to fashion a historic overhaul of our broken immigration system.”
But immigrant-rights groups like the National Immigration Forum and America’s Voice are not known for having their feet planted firmly on the ground – or even for being particularly close to immigrant communities. Rather than taking a hard look at the realities of American politics, society, and economy or reflecting on their repeated failures, they persist with the same program, same message, and same small circle of like-minded groups.
Moving forward, the immigration reform movement is rebuilding, says the Carnegie Reporter in its recent rose-colored overview of the immigrant-rights campaign for CIR. But there are few signs that this movement is reassessing its position. Instead, it seems besotted with its own righteousness – which is handsomely rewarded with continued foundation funding.
The future is bright, according to Sharry. “We’re very confident and very optimistic that the pieces of the puzzle are coming together and that we’re poised for success,” he told reporters during the conference call.
What you say?
From 2005, when it was first introduced, the CIR bill in play has moved steadily to the right, and still failed to gain solid bipartisan support. CCIR, the coalition created by the immigrant-rights organizations and heavily funded by liberal foundations, flailed helplessly in Washington as the restrictionist lobby set the policy agenda.
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And they are optimistic that now – with the increasing sense of economic vulnerability – the Obama administration and Congress will stand behind a CIR that legalizes 12 million illegal immigrants?
The economy is collapsing, unemployment is headed for post-Depression highs, state legislatures continue to introduce a flood of anti-immigrant bills, new Democrats in Congress are more centrist than liberal, and the Obama team has said nary a word about immigration reform. Yet Sharry and others of the National Immigration Forum circle are “confident” that CIR will pass in the first or second year of the new administration!
Wishes and beliefs, however well-intentioned, don’t add up to good politics.
The presenters came up short on specifics that might allow others to share the optimism and confidence they are attempting to propagate.
There have been no promises by the Obama team, no mention of a bill that will soon be introduced, no comprehensible reason offered about why the CIR window will open next autumn, and just working-class solidarity gibberish about why legalization would be good for legal workers.
Clearly, there are solid humanitarian and social justice arguments for legalization. While the other speakers attempted to interpret the country’s political and economic reality to favor their positions in favor of CIR, Cardinal Mahoney stressed that the immigration crisis was a “grave moral issue.”
“The issue of Immigration is an economic and social issue for sure,” he said, “But ultimately it is a humanitarian, moral, and ethical issue as well.”
While the leading immigrant-rights groups remain tied to CIR – instead of getting behind an incremental strategy – they have adjusted their immigrant-rights arguments to include two new positions, as set forth by Sharry.
“The signposts that give us this optimism and confidence: Number one, the election created a very new understanding of how immigration plays in our political arena, he said. This is the “Latino vote equals mandate for immigration reform” case that immigrant-rights groups are attempting to make – but which is based largely on hyped-up accounts of Latino vote numbers and mere assertions that immigration reform is a priority Latino issue.
The second signpost, according to Sharry, is another belief rather than an actual signpost. “We believe,” said Sharry, “that even in this economic climate that immigration reform is going to be rightly viewed as good for American workers.”
That is an argument that the National Immigration Forum and other immigrant-rights groups failed to make persuasively, emphasizing instead that immigration reform was essential for immigrants and business, not U.S. workers. The economy is forcing the National Immigration Forum and America’s Voice to address the plight of the U.S. worker in their CIR pitches, but it may be a case of too little, much too late.
Certainly the country needs a sensible and sustainable immigration reform. But these DC groups seem more interested in appealing to their own circumscribed constituencies than reaching out to America with a persuasive pro-immigration message and political strategy.
Tom Barry is a senior analyst with the Americas Program of the Center for International Policy |
About ProjectThe TransBorder Project, directed by Tom Barry, is project of the Americas Policy Program in Mexico City and the Center for International Policy in Washington, DC.
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