| Immigration and U.S. public opinion after 9/11 Introductory news item from wire service: This week Congress is debating a proposal to split up the functions of the Justice Department’s Immigration and Naturalization Services. One new agency would deal with immigration, the other with visas and with border enforcement. Here tonight to discuss this proposal, and the broader environment of U.S. public opinion regarding immigrants and refugees after the 9/11 attacks, are:
Auderstein: (from clip) ...I mean, you a schizophrenic agency. You have an agency which has two functions, keeping out the bad guys and helping the good guys. Levan: Joanne Auderstein is the Head of Immigration Law Practice Group at Cross et al... based in New York City. It’s not front-page news that our immigration system is a mess. Foreign nationals have slopped across the border for years. Visitors who arrive in the U.S. often legitimately over-stay their legal welcome with impunity. But since September 11th officials learned that terrorist were shrudely, taking advantage of the weaknesses of the American immigration system. Auderstein: It’s inexcusable. So we have to reform the INS; we’ve got to push hard to do so. This is an interesting wake-up call for those who run the INS. Levan: President Bush was angry when he found out that the immigration officials sent out paper work approving student visas for Mohammed Atta and Mohan Alsayhe six months after they steered two hi-jack jets into the World Trade Center, killing and wounding thousands. Three out of the nineteen terrorists in the September 11th attack over-stayed their visas and they weren’t alone. According to INS statistics, right now, more than three million foreigners are living in the U.S. on expired visas. Joanne Auderstein says this is not the main problem. Auderstein: What’s happened here is an embarrassment but it isn’t the central problem. Our problem is not when the government sends people notices; our problem is who the government lets in. Visa problems are emblematic of the growing information gap the INS has to fill. Levan: Jan Ting is a Professor of The Beasley School of Law at Temple University and a former Assistant Commissioner at the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. Ting: Well having worked at the INS I think I have some understanding of its many problems. Many problems within the INS are from a lack of communications that often the enforcement side doesn’t communicate clearly enough with the benefit side. What we need is more communication within the INS, not less. Levan: According to Professor Ting, some of the INS’s problems derive from what he calls "mission overload" and he says some of the blame belongs somewhere else. Ting: What... the INS has experienced in the past few years is really Mission Overload, that it’s been asked to do many different things and it hasn’t really been given the funding or the personnel now that it needs to do all those different things. So that’s part of the problem, it’s not all of the INS’s fault. I think some of the fault belongs to the Congress that really hasn’t been paying attention to Immigration issues. Levan: But since last September, Congress has been paying more attention to Immigration, especially to issues connected with the countries security. A bi-partisan bill, which passed Congress, requires the Justice and the State Departments to issue travel documents, such as visas that are machine readable and tamper resistant and have biometric identifiers. Congressman James Sessenberger Jr., the House Judiciary Committee... Sensenbrenner: I did co-sponsor legislation which passed last December that provided for a visa tracking system. Levan: His bill went much further than a visa tracking system and addressed the government structure on administering Immigration. Sensenbrenner: So my bill proposes to abolish the INS, as we know it and then to restructure it with two separate agencies overseen by an associate attorney general. Levan: Infact, on April 10th, the House Judiciary Committee approved a bill that would dissolve the INS and replace it with two new agencies that would divide immigration, enforcement, and citizenship services. And on April 18th, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a bill to bolster security at the Nations’ borders and keep better track of foreign students and visitors. I’ll be back on Immigration in America after this. Levan: You’re listening to the new Dateline, heard 44 minutes past most odd UTC hours on VOA News Now. I am Neil Levan. On our next program, Carol Castilla reports on both sides of the Digital Divide, that’s next on Dateline. Immigration Attorney Joan Auderstein says the legacy of last September’s terrorist attack maybe together policies on immigration. Auderstein: The events of September 11 were a wake-up call in so many ways to the American people. What’s been upsetting me lately is the concern that I have that the United States is going to become more restrictive in who it allows into the United States. Levan: Joanne Auderstein’s concerns are shared by many U.S. Legislators, as well as the American public. Many of the ancestors of today’s Americans were greeted when they arrived by the Statue of Liberty, proudly standing in the harbor of New York. Well this symbol of liberty still embraces the huddles masses yearning to breathe free as its subscription says. Gregory Fossedal, Chairman of the Alexis De Tocqueville Institution in Washington, DC... Fossedal: I think you would see a general rise in America’s openness to immigrants since the 1920s, which has periodically been interrupted or paused: For example, during the late 1940s and early 1950s and again after September 11th. Still, I haven’t seen a large decline in people’s positive opinions about immigrants, and I’m talking about popular opinion now in the United States. Elites and policy makers that are trying to follow short-term trends or look for stories may give you a different impression. Levan: Patrick Buchanan, former presidential candidate, speech- writer, syndicated columnist, and television commentator, wrote a book on Immigration called The Death of the West; in it he maintains that Immigration as it is now will lead to the balkanization of America. Buchanan: What’s wrong today is first the melting pot has collapsed. Multiculturalism has become the dominant ethas; people are encouraged to maintain their own separate unique identities. And secondly, peoples are coming not from a Western European culture and civilization but from China, from Sub-Saharan Africa, from the Islamic world and from Latin America into the United States. Sot these two factors, I think, are leading to the balkanization of America. Levan: According to Mr. Buchanan, this phenomenon paired with what he calls "la reconquesta," the flood of Mexican immigrants, who refuse to assimilate into American culture may lead to a break-up of the United States. He proposes the following reforms: Buchanan: One, I would declare a moratorium for two years on all immigration into the United States. We have rising unemployment seven or eight million Americans, many of them working class folks that can’t find jobs and I don’t think it’s fair for Americans to bring in competition for jobs when they are losing theirs. Secondly, I would urge the President to repatriate the eight to eleven million illegal aliens in the United States right now. Levan: Some experts argue that deporting illegal aliens would have a devastating effect on the U.S. economy; certain industries rely on Immigration labor. According to Gregory Fossedal, some foreigners are actually creating jobs. Fossedal: Sometimes you will hear critics of immigration say, "immigrants are taking up jobs," because you know they go to a restaurant and the guy who brings them their food or the women whose cleaning the dishes is a foreigner. But when we look at the whole picture and consider how many jobs immigrants are creating in the computer industry, the transportation industry, and so on, it’s really inspiring. Levan: According to Mr. Fossedal, immigrants have a major impact on many aspects of the U.S. economy. Fossedal: A lot of our research we’ve done at Tocqueville has been aimed at quantifying and understanding what immigrants mean to the economy. Did you know for example, that all of the patents generated in the United States, immigrants are involved in about twenty-six to twenty-eight percent of all the patent approvals. Levan: Gregory Fossedal says each new wave of immigrants enriches the nation, not only culturally but also spiritually. Fossedal: I think that the cultural impact of immigrants and even the spiritual impact is terrifically important; it means life richer for everyone here on a cultural and in some sense spiritual way. Levan: Professor John Ting maintains that the American public wants an immigration policy which is neither restrictive nor permissive. Ting: Well I think Americans don’t think about immigration as much as they should and often don’t have a clear understanding of what immigration Policy choices are. Should we have an open door? Should everyone in the world be able to immigrate to the United States? Should we have a closed door? Should we prohibit Immigration to the United States? Most Americans want something in the middle, between an open door, which is open to the whole world and a closed door, which is closed to the whole world. And again, Americans want to strike the right balance between our tradition of being an immigration country and the practicality that we cannot admit to the United States, everyone in the entire world who would like to come over here. Levan: So the debate continues but with the event of September 11th fresh in the minds of Americans, the struggle to strike the right balance in Immigration will take on an urgency, not found before in past Immigration debates. *This edition of Dateline was written by Ania Zalewzki (This transcript is offered as a public service by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution. The transcript was compiled using webcast capturing and voice recognition software provided by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, WA, edited by Tocqueville staff.) |
