Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto

Immigration Touches Everyone

Phyllis Cassel
June 29, 2008
Palo Alto, CA

I saw John Butcher on Thursday night at the Palo Alto Players, He said to say hello to all of you. For those of you who don’t know John, he is actually Rev John, an Episcopal minister and a member of this congregation who occasionally has given sermons and reflections here. John had some advice for me about my sermon this morning. Throw away my prepared text. Speak from my heart and don’t worry about time limits. I promise you that Richard will turn off the mike if I forget the time and Florence will announce the final hymn while I sputter to myself. But then like all people do when I start talking about immigration, he started to give me his opinion. He said we needed Reagan back, so that Reagan could say over and over again, “Tear Down That Wall!”

Migration is a universal phenomenon. We all know this. The history of the human race as far back as the archeologist can determine is a story of the movement of peoples from one part of the world to another. People move to improve their living conditions, to flee persecution and some times to satisfy their curiosity. There are circumstances that push people from their place of origin such as drought and war. There are situations that pull people to an area such as the offer of fertile ground to farm and employment. Some people were forced into slavery and marched away. The new arrivals speak another language. They look different. They caused the drought. They will change the way we live. The presence of the strangers touches everyone. Today we move around the world with relative ease, accelerating change.

This country has had a schizophrenic response to immigration from its earliest days. The early settlers wanted people who would work in the fields, start specialized businesses, i.e. be the blacksmith, and bring human capital to the growing nation. Still the colonists were apprehensive about people who spoke other languages. They were concerned that new comers would not hold the Calvinist protestant ethic. They feared that the Catholics would give the land over to the control of the pope. (At times this was not a totally an unfounded fear.) They were also concerned about people coming with illnesses and insanity. And they were most concerned that if too many immigrants came at once, the newcomers would not absorb the new political ethic, the concept that the individual was in control of their life and had a responsibility to the community, the concept that each person had a say in the decisions that ruled the community. The king did not own you. Even those who supported the King were steeped in the concept that individuals could make decisions about what was best for the local community.

Early restrictions were attempts to keep out paupers, the criminals and the insane. You have heard that the King of England dumped his thugs and paupers in Australia. But Australia was a long way off. The colonies were much closer. He loaded the ships and sent them to the colonies until laws on this side of the ocean made it too difficult. Then he sent the ships to the Northern Colonies i.e. the Canadian Provinces and those who wished, walked south. The Colonist did accept indentured servants. A person could sign before boarding ship or find a contractor upon arrival in port. One of my ancestors was an indentured servant with the Pilgrims. He fell off the ship and had to be rescued. Indentured servants were abused often enough that indenturing a person was eventually made illegal; by that time it was cheaper to buy slaves, and with slaves there was no need to continually retrain people as when the terms of indenturing ended.

So migration is universal and people migrated. People were pulled to this country for job opportunities, were pushed here to flee persecution and famine or were forced to come as slaves. Let us skip the stories of wonder and opportunity and our not so nice history of restrictive behavior and racism. Let us recognize that this history of immigration nearly wiped out the native population. This country is filled with stories of opportunity and horror. Let’s bring ourselves into the 21st century.

Today the issues and problems we face are not as different as in the past. What are the issues that we hear discussed so much? We hear complaints such as:

Those who are new don’t speak English.
There are signs everywhere that I don’t understand.
The children of immigrants are impacting our schools.
The new people bring a new culture, one that may obliterate the political ethic.
There is more crime.
We are being asked to pay for health care and our emergency rooms are overburdened with people who can’t pay for their own care.
Our incomes are reduced because employers can pay less for an immigrant.
We can’t find jobs because immigrants are taking them.
Undocumented workers are flooding the job market, causing crime, and some of them are terrorists.

Let’s start with the easiest one, Culture. Who really wants to follow the old Puritan, Calvinist beliefs and ethics? Public stocks might be cheaper than jails. But do you really want this sermon to go on for 4 hours, have Thanksgiving be your only holiday and spend all day in Church on Christmas? And who here seeks out kidney pie when you take your friends out for dinner. I prefer eating with my fingers and that delicious bread in an Ethiopian restaurant in Berkley. What fun, what color, what stimulating ideas I receive from my new friends and neighbors!

And speaking of culture let’s talk a little bit about this county. Santa Clara County is one of the three most diverse counties in the world. The other US County is Orange County. I do not know where the third one is located. Look to the person on your right; now look to the person on your left. Most likely one of you was born in another country, and one of the three of you has a resident parent born in another country. One of three CEOs in the major corporations of Silicon Valley was born outside the United States. There is no dominant race in Santa Clara County.

I went to see my granddaughter’s middle school play a few weeks ago in Orange County. Sara was in the chorus, and at one point one third of the chorus came forward to demonstrate its own special little dance and song, then blended back and the second line came forward, and then the third. About half way through I realized that there were only two girls with blue eyes and blond pony tails. The whole gamut of skin and natural hair color and shapes of faces were on that stage. Sara is growing up in a truly racially diverse school and she is totally unaware that it could be any other way! Immigration has changed my granddaughter’s perception of the world. Neat isn’t?

The issues around culture and language are actually issues around assimilation. How long does it take to accept the concepts around democracy? Each person has a responsibility to the community and the emperor doesn’t rule. It takes a vote of the community and for the most part the majority rules. Should people live here 2 years or ten years before they become citizens? Do they need to know the language before understanding these concepts? Is there a danger that if too many people come at once the concept of democracy will change? These concerns may have been true in the 1700’s. Today there is a different danger. I am more concerned that our native population will forget these basic concepts.

As I see it, the really major immigration issues revolve around Employment and Family. One can get a resident Visa based upon obtaining a job, being a student or being a refugee or one can get a visa based upon a family relationship. Two thirds of resident visas are granted based upon a priority system around family membership. Up until 1924 a healthy immigrant who could support him or herself was sought after by the business community. An immigrant who did well would send for a family member, pay for the passage and support that person while he or she settled in and then send for another person. Legislation in the 1920’s defined family for immigration purposes as spouse and underage children. Quotas were established defining how many people could come from any particular country except for the America’s. There were the usual restrictions for the American Continent, but not a quota. Severely restricted quotas were placed on African and Asian countries. The number of immigrants dropped from 650,000 Europeans in 1921 to 160,000 in 1929 according the Zolberg in his book A Nation by Design. Our immigration policies were clearly and deliberately both restrictive and discriminatory.

In 1965 the rules changed again. This time a citizen or permanent resident could sponsor a spouse, children, parents and siblings as of right. Along with other antidiscrimination legislation of the 1960’s era, the rules about how many people could come from a given country changed. The quota’s were more balanced and depended more on the size of the country. The countries located in the Americas were added to the quota limits. Now there was a limit on the total number of people who could be admitted world wide. Unused visas were added to a general pool. No matter what, no country could have more than 7% of the total number of visas allocated for a given year. These three changes:

1. Expanding the definition of family;
2. Including the America’s in the quota system; and,
3. Admitting diverse residents from all over the world,

changed the immigration dynamic. The increase in the size of the definition of family membership increased the number of people who could come as of right. A priority system was set up defining what family members have priority over other family members. Once the new immigrants became permanent residents they were eligible to sponsor their extended families causing an exponential growth of family related immigration. Today 2/3 of the people who immigrate with visas are sponsored by family members. The change was a deliberate change in emphasis from employment based immigration and random applications to encouraging family centered immigration. This was a safe technique to favor immigration for the people we already knew and the already established mostly white communities. Not so many people, from northern Europe, however, were feeling the pressure to migrate. For the rest of the world the doors to the US had finally been opened, with the caveat that there is a quota for any given year. In most countries there is now a waiting list. In Mexico and the Philippines the wait for a spouse to immigrate to the US is 10 years and more, due to the high demand for people who wish to move to the US and that pesky 7% cap on admissions from any one country.

Another major issue is how many people should be granted visas. The question is, Are we admitting too many people? Can our economic system sustain our immigration rate? Most of the economists that I have read or heard talk, say that we have been admitting 1.5 – 1.8 million people per year for many years including the undocumented, and the economic growth rate continues to rise. The unemployment rate between 2001 and 2006 stayed at historic lows despite immigration. Immigration numbers have gone down in poor economic times and up when the American economy is doing well.

Are wages depressed because of the increase in labor supply? The demographics for employment of immigrants are an inverse bell curve. Our industries and universities are seeking the best minds in the world. Our college graduates are indeed competing for those jobs. Immigrants also fill the lowest skilled jobs. Some economists believe that those citizens who do not complete high school may have reduced wages due to the large labor pool at the lower paying jobs. Undocumented workers are filling the lowest skilled jobs, and/or are self-employed. Undocumented workers and temporary workers have the highest employment rate. They do not qualify for welfare or unemployment benefits, nor do people with temporary visas. Relatively small umbers of immigrants come to the fill middle income jobs., presumably because there are ample numbers of citizens to fill those jobs.

When I say I have been studying immigration issues, people start talking immediately about undocumented persons. I have hardly mentioned undocumented immigrants up to this point. Most issues that surround immigration are universal issues. As far as I can see what undocumented people add is a lack of control to the equation. They are responding to supply side economics. The undocumented come from everywhere. It is estimated each year 1/2 a million undocumented persons arrive or become undocumented. Forty percent of undocumented persons came with the accepted papers, and then overstay their visas. Think students, businessmen, think visitors. It is well known that the Irish have significant numbers of undocumented persons in this country.

We make assumptions that the undocumented are Mexicans working the fields. Most South Americans who come undocumented are not working in the fields. And most people working in the fields are documented or US citizens, although there are a significant enough percentage of farm workers that are undocumented to cause major economic and food supply problems if we sent everyone home. The most serious problem with immigration is in the area of undocumented persons, not because the people themselves are a problem but because we set policies that are punitive yet at the same time we demand the services. There is the pull of jobs and the push of poor economies back home. We have many jobs and few visas to meet the economic demand. We allow an extended family of citizens and permanent residents the right to come and don’t have enough visas to meet the demand. We grant resident visas to 1.0 to 1.3 million persons and 32 million visitors each year but we do not have an effective system to track if they leave when they are supposed to leave. And note immigrants including the undocumented have a lower crime rate than US citizens. The rate does not equalize until the third generation.

As part of a group of League of Women Voters from Santa Clara County, I had an opportunity to interview Zoe Lofgran, Congress Women from San Jose and Chair of the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Boarder Security. Congresswoman Lofgran had a number of suggestions to resolve some of the immigration issues. These next ideas are based on my understanding of her comments. But please understand that I take responsibility for any misinterpretation. They are a good place to start.

First is an administrative change. Reduce the number and type of Visas from 90 plus to 3, temporary, provisional and permanent, with a total combination of 25 sub types:

1. Temporary Visa’s for Visitors, students, business visits and other very short term stays.

2. Provisional Visa’s which would be a residency visa for those here with temporary positions like H 1B Visa’s. The provisional Visa would be issued for three years and renewable for another three years. It would be presumed that a person on a provisional Visa would either return to the home country after 6 years or apply for a permanent visa.

3. Permanent visas are what we call a green card. Although people could enter at any level they could move up the ladder to citizenship providing they meet certain characteristics, such as having no criminal record, having learned English etc.

Actually this is what happens to today. Most people who are naturalized into citizenship did not start out as permanent residents. They came as students, employees or undocumented and moved then from one stage to another.

Next form a Commission which reviews the number of Visa’s issued each year depending on the economic demand. This number should include a rational number of workers to meet our low income job market. New allocations could be issued every two years. Currently the numbers have not had a significant change for about 15 years. In my opinion it is especially urgent that we have a more realistic approach to the temporary worker.

Then change the definition of family back to immediate family members. This means that a family will be a couple and their children. The change will allow more people to come to satisfy employment needs.

Grant visas, to the immediate family of all persons who are granted provisional or permanent visas. Let the immediate family members automatically come with the person granted a work visa. We do this for some visas but not all. There is no time here to discuss why this would help the undocumented issue but it would.

Allow the spouses and children of citizens and current permanent residents to join their families now. They are going to come eventually anyway.

It is my personnel belief that all of this should be done before we try to resolve the issues surrounding the undocumented who are already here. I have no illusion that we will totally solve the problem of undocumented workers. As long as we have better economic conditions in this country than in third world countries, people will come. They will come undocumented if that’s what it takes to eat. But we can be more rational. Historically the numbers of people coming, goes down when there is no demand for workers. A continually evaluated rational number of Visas with a more rapid and logical administrative system would go a long way to help every one.

There are issues surrounding employers that I have not mentioned such as developing effective and rapid processing of identification documents, which we do not yet have. Actually I have hardly touched the issues that surround immigration. But this sermon must come to an end.

If we believe in the dignity and worth of every individual, if we believe in justice for all we must push for a more rational and compassionate immigration system and a foreign policy that promotes a healthy economic environment for all. Every one should be able to house and feed themselves and their family. Everyone should be free of crime and war. Everyone should have health care. Let us dedicate ourselves to a more compassionate world and take some part to see that justice for all happens.

 

Reflection: We Are All on the Move by Florence Haas