Police Departments & Ethnic Media Press for Immigration Reform
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Police departments around the US are calling for comprehensive immigration reform, saying fears over deportation and document status exacerbate security risks in major cities and hamper law enforcement. With police chiefs meeting in Miami to discuss issues relating to immigration reform, Miami police chief John Timoney said “Immigrant victims and witnesses of violent crimes will not come forward if they fear their local police will deport them”.
As Art Acevedo, chief of police for Austin, Texas, observed, “One of the greatest challenges facing American law enforcement is a community of 12 million potential victims and witnesses of crime who live in the shadows of fear and are hesitant to cooperate with law enforcement”. Local police departments have resisted calls by some in Washington to assign to them responsibility for ferreting out “illegal immigrants”, saying immigration is a federal law and local police need to work with the community.
Security politics in Washington has pushed many in Congress toward the added law-enforcement point of view, where police are used as a de facto expansion of the immigration authorities’ reach. But there has been criticism that efforts to identify and deport undocumented immigrants may be hampering police work. Police have consistently objected that such an expansion of their powers may create barriers to effective community involvement.
Momentum is now growing for comprehensive reform, as economic hardship and the desire to see careful attention to long intractable political problems are coalescing to create a climate where practical solutions may win the day. The “change” campaign of the 2008 presidential election, and a major shift in demographics, both for electoral politics and for the makeup and policy priorities of cities, are driving even some conservatives to see the need for a “humane” treatment of the immigration problem.
Over 250 media organizations with ethnically specific content and focus are banding together to urge the White House and Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform this year. They are planning to release a joint editorial urging politicians to “move quickly on enacting a just and humane immigration reform package”.
New America Media, which describes itself as “a national association of ethnic media”, has produced a joint editorial, urging:
The White House and members of Congress must move quickly on enacting a just and humane immigration reform package that will reunite families, reinvigorate the economy, and remove the term “illegal or undocumented immigrants” from the dialogue in this country. Ethnic media, which reaches over 60 million adults in the United States, calls on Congress to move decisively on immigration reform because there are few issues as important to the nation’s well-being as an overhaul of the inefficient, inhumane and economically debilitating immigration system. More importantly, we are also urging our readers and viewers to contact their Senators and Congressmen and let them know that immigration reform must be a national priority.
The immigration system is broken not just for 12 million undocumented immigrants, but also for specialized workers blocked from joining the American economy because of narrow quotas, and mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens who must wait for years before being reunited with their families.
The New America Media editorial also calls for “humane conditions” in the workplace to be part of any new shift in immigration policy. It calls on lawmakers to focus immigration policy on the nation’s “core values”, including the welcoming of new souls to the American dream and the promise of economic opportunity.
The media association also observes:
Since the repeal of the national origins quota system in 1965, which discriminated against certain immigrants, a consensus has been building towards an immigration system that respects the country’s core values. These include economic opportunity, equality under the law regardless of ethnic background, and an embrace of the world’s most innovative, energetic and ambitious workers.
The need to find a way to make sure the guarantees of the American system of democracy are afforded to all the people living within that democratic society is coming to the fore as part of the debate about a “humane” solution to the problem of “illegal” immigration. As police departments, media organizations, private activist groups and policy-makers come together, there will be added pressure to make sure the common humanity between citizens and immigrants is part of the language of the debate.
There has been criticism of the White House both for moving too slowly and for jumping into this issue too quickly. But Pres. Obama’s meeting calling on all those interested to come to participate in an ongoing debate seems to have started the discussion. The group Immigration Voice praised the effort, including Obama’s apparent attention to the details of procedural hurdles and fairness issues:
While we as future Americans wait for the comprehensive immigration reform to reach our doorsteps, we are also heartened by President Obama’s recognition of the need for improvement in the administrative procedures and the issue of backlogs…
It appears the angry cries about “blanket amnesty” are now less en vogue, even as cooler heads seek a practical way to “regularize” or document the undocumented. One study of the undocumented immigrant population in Utah suggests that crime rates among the undocumented are declining, even as overall population numbers are rising. Such information is helping to make for a more results-oriented public debate on the topic.
There is also interest in US immigration reform in Ireland, where many families hope their loved ones, who have lived for years in the US without legal documentation, will finally be able to enjoy the benefits of a regularized residency or work status. According to the Irish Times:
Irish American immigration groups have been long campaigning for changes to benefit the undocumented Irish who have been living in many cases in the US illegally for over two decades.
Currently the Irish Government and the US are working on a short-term immigration deal which would allow young Irish to work in the States for up to two years.
Such “guest worker” arrangements were a hallmark of the immigration debate that flared up amid massive nationwide demonstrations, in 2006. Then president George W. Bush sought to persuade moderates in his party that immigration reform and normalization for millions of undocumented workers were a necessary part of any security strategy, but the legislation failed. Many believe failure to implement immigration reform played a significant role in delivering control of Congress to the Democratic party in the 2006 election.
- Obama promueve reforma migratoria comprensiva para EE.UU.
- Obama Begins Push for Immigration Reform
- Obama en Trinidad Busca Nueva Colaboración Interamericana
- The Worldwide Empathy Deficit
- Ziggurat Century: Global Civilization as the New Babel, with Reason for Hope
- HIV Crisis Hits Migrants Returning to Rural Mexico from U.S.
- Thousands of Central American Migrants Risk Life & Limb on ‘Death Train’
- The Illusion of the Definite & Invasive ‘Other’
- Bush presenta 5 puntos a favor de la reforma migratoria
- El gran boicoteo por los derechos migratorios
- Porque somos una nación de inmigrantes
More from 2006 immigration reform debate:
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There can be no dialogue on immigration while our borders have not been completely secured. There can be no dialogue while 14 million American workers and legal immigrants are looking for jobs to feed and shelter their families. There can be no dialogue while nearly 8 million lawbreaking illegal aliens are holding American jobs and sending $billions out of our devastated economy to their homelands. The 1986 amnesty was a total failure! Never again!