27 Dec Immigration Politics: It’s Not About Citizenship
The print edition of yesterday’s NY Times had an above-the-fold story about the possibilities for immigration reform in the new Congress under the headline, “Bipartisan Group Drafting Bill for a New Path to Citizenship”. I still don’t quite get the framing of this latest round of immigration politics in citizenship terms. The question is who will get permanent legal residence status. Citizenship is mostly an afterthought here, a much less valuable commodity. (The online edition of the Times has the more accurate header, “Bipartisan Effort to Draft Immigration Bill.”) Mexican nationals would comprise by far the largest number of undocumented aliens whose status would be regularized, and yet they have naturalized at a much lower rate than immigrants from other countries (even more true of Mexicans who benefited from the last major legalization program in 1986).
So why the citizenship tag for a debate that’s really about the distinct issue of immigration? One possibility: that it will make an amnesty (a word that no politican will utter) look more palatable if the perception is that everyone who’s being legalized will become citizens as of course. It plays into old assimilationist tropes. We’ll be more likely to accept legalization if these people are going otherwise to play by the rules – namely, that once you qualify as a (legal) immigrant, you have to start thinking and acting and accepting the responsibilities that putatively come with being American (and then you actually become one).
If that’s what it takes to get reform, fine by me. But let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that many undocumented aliens really care that much about citizenship relative to residence; it’s the latter that counts, and for reasons that seem completely rational.
The Times also had this pretty limp editorial on the revised citizenship exam.
>>”But let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that many undocumented aliens really care that much about citizenship relative to residence; it’s the latter that counts, and for reasons that seem completely rational.”
The latter may certainly count more to current illegal aliens, but the U.S. government is duty bound to respond to the concerns and priorities of U.S. citizens first and foremost. So, U.S. citizens have every right to tell their government not to take into account illegals desires, motivations or recognize their self-generated problems in crafting immigration legislation. Now whether disregarding such matters is wise is another story, but there’s absolutely no obligation on the government’s part to pay any attention to what’s best for people who are now here illegally. And that’s what bothers many many people — that the U.S. government seems to be paying more attention to illegals’ concerns than those of U.S. citizens.
I think the reason citizenship keeps coming up is because it is one of the main points of disagreement. Just about everyone wants to close the border, and most people are also all right with allowing in a decent number of workers assuming that the border is brought under control. However, that leaves the question of what to do about people who are already here.
While it’s unrealistic to deport them all, it’s also not a very good option to simply give them citizenship – this rewards lawbreaking. But the alternative – allowing them to stay with no chance at citizenship – bothers human rights groups. Thus while there is probably a majority who support allowing them to stay, I doubt one exists for granting them all (or even a substantial number) citizenship. This was the problem with immigration reform last Congress; the two bills differed mainly in their treatment of workers already here illegally.