Posted on 02/20/2002 11:51:10 PM PST by sarcasm
Immigration advocates were nearly silent for months following Sept. 11, but now they are renewing their efforts to gain legal status for millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States.
Already, they are conducting a postcard drive to lobby President Bush before his meeting with Mexican President Vicente Fox next month, and some are arguing that legalization would help keep America safe.
"There is a lot of momentum beginning to build up again," said Eliseo Medina, executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union, a vocal advocate of legalization and a Mexican immigrant himself.
"In the next couple months, you're going to see a whole new burst of activity."
The idea of granting legal status to undocumented immigrants was at the forefront of United States-Mexico negotiations and the national debate on immigration before the terrorist attacks. The focus was on Mexicans, though advocates say legalization should extend to other groups, too.
Also on the table was the expansion of a temporary worker program that allows Mexicans to legally cross the border into the United States.
A coalition of labor unions, immigration advocates, businesses and religious groups support legalization. They say that granting legal status would allow longtime residents to come out of the shadows, address labor shortages and help protect workers.
Groups that want to limit immigration and some legislators have opposed granting legal status, saying it would wrongly reward those who are in the country illegally. It also would be unfair to immigrants who try to come to this nation through legal channels, they say.
After Sept. 11, fear of terrorists operating within the United States largely silenced the legalization debate. Plans for thousands of undocumented immigrants to travel to Washington to lobby for legal status were canceled. But now some advocates are adding national security to their pro-legalization arguments.
Requiring undocumented immigrants to register for legal status would allow the government to identify them and conduct background checks, making it harder for potential terrorists to hide, said Angela Kelley, deputy director of the National Immigration Forum.
And an expanded temporary worker program could make it easier for the United States to keep track of those crossing its borders, said Cecilia Munoz, a vice president at the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy group.
"We don't have the resources to track down every undocumented immigrant in the country. So how do we know where the people are and who they are? Legalization is one way," said Kevin Appleby, director of migration and refugee policy for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
But Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, said granting legal status to illegal Mexicans would not improve safety because Mexicans are not considered a security threat in the first place.
"The number of radical Islamic terrorists hiding among the Mexican-American population is, shall we say, small," he said.
Arlington, Va.-based NumbersUSA.com, which wants to limit immigration, has been asking people to call and fax legislators, urging them to oppose guest worker programs.
However this latest flurry of activity works out, the legalization issue "is beginning to come back around because the country's kind of getting back to its business," Kelley said.
Last month, the service employees union began collecting signatures on postcards that urge Bush to allow working, taxpaying undocumented immigrants to earn legal status.
It hired a staffer in Houston to devote her full-time attention to legalization efforts, and plans to hire another in Washington to coordinate the push. It also is helping to plan a March 23 concert in Los Angeles combining entertainment by popular Hispanic musicians with a call for legalization.
"The brewing at the grass-roots level is being felt again," said Susan Alva, director of the immigration and citizenship project at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. "Immigrants intend to - and are going to - have a voice in whatever policy reforms develop."
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On the Net:
National Immigration Forum: http://www.immigrationforum.org/
Center for Immigration Studies: http://www.cis.org/
Interesting stat. I wonder if it includes highway fatalities.
It would appear that you and your cohorts are doing the shoving.
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