With the memories of the disappointment, frustration and anger after the U.S. Congress failed to enact any kind of immigration reform in 2007 still fresh, it stands to reason why West Indians are eager to find out where they would stand with Senators Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or John McCain in White House come January.
After the massive demonstrations for a pathway to citizenship, the pleas for an accelerated program of family reunification and the high level of interest in a guest worker program that would open the door to employment opportunity – if only to a limited period of time – the positions adopted by Obama, Clinton and McCain on immigration must be of considerable importance, not only to Jamaicans, Guyanese, Dominicans, Haitians, Trinidadians, you name them, but to the 11 to 12 million other undocumented immigrants now living and working in the country.
What Caribbean immigrants and others who are following the presidential campaign are finding out about the three presidential candidates is a cause for both worry and hope. Obama, McCain and Clinton have, at different times, backed a legalization program for immigrants already in the country. That’s the positive side of the story. The bad news is that they seem to dance away from the essential issue, depending on the audience or people’s reaction.
Take the case of McCain, who joined with Senator Ted Kennedy in sponsoring last year’s immigration reform plan, which was vigorously opposed by conservatives but backed by liberals and immigration advocates. The hard part for McCain is his effort to court conservative voters who are adamantly opposed to anything that appears to be an amnesty program. His backing of a pathway to citizenship last year sticks in the throat of opponents of the measure, who can’t forget the amnesty scheme of the 1980s, which was signed into law by former President Ronald Reagan. They see that scheme as a failure when it came to halting the flow of illegal immigrants into the country and they worry, quite unreasonably, that a pathway to citizenship is another amnesty scheme.
So after backing it in 2007, McCain is talking more and more about a security fence along the U.S.-Mexican border to keep people out without dealing with those who are in this country, albeit illegally.
“Make them earn citizenship because they have broken our laws,” is the Republican’s latest campaign position. But he has done more than that. Unethically, he gave his word on immigration reform in an appearance on “Meet the Press” in January, pledging he would sign a plan approved by Congress if he became the next President; but within days, he repudiated his position, insisting he would not do such a thing.
The message the Republican sends to immigrants is that he is prepared to play fast and loose with immigration rights and that his word isn’t worth a row pf pins. That’s important to the millions of Hispanic immigrants whose votes he wants in order to win the White House. He is mindful that President George Bush received 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004 helping to give him a second four-year term.
The Democrats seem to offer immigrants a better deal.
Like McCain and indeed Clinton, Obama backed the security fence when it came up in the Senate, but he too has sought to finesse the issue when he said “the key” to the border fence with Mexico “is to consult with local communities (when) creating any kind of barrier.”
The border fence is a bad idea and shouldn’t be erected, with or without talks with the border community. However, we welcome his strong backing for a plan that would allow immigrants to change their status. As he put it, “give the 12 million people who are here illegally, many of whom have U.S. citizens for children, a pathway to citizenship.”
That’s not very much different from Clinton’s sensible stance. She insists any plan to deport all illegal immigrants “is absolutely unrealistic and it is not in keeping with American values.”
We aren’t enthusiastic about immigrants paying penalties for being in the country illegally as Clinton wants to do, but if that’s what takes to get the measure through Congress then it would simply be a matter of deciding the size of the penalty. The bottom line is that both Democrats have waffled on the immigration issue – Clinton, for instance, backed a plan in New York last October to give illegal immigrants driver’s licenses, but then walked away from it, joining the opposition when it became clear that it was an unpopular approach.
On balance, though, the Democrats seem committed to immigration reform. The big question is who will put up the immigration reform, Obama or Clinton?
Obviously, McCain is transparently insincere and his rhetorical shift from the center to the right shouldn’t be ignored by Hispanic and Caribbean voters. The GOP’s approach to immigration is nativist to say the least. The Democrats are far more reasonable and accommodating.
