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Reform Series: Future Immigration Flows

Posted November 25, 2009 by Martin Cantor
Categories: Federal Immigration Policy

This is Part Six of a series on comprehensive immigration reform. Here’s an index of all of the entries in the series:

Introduction To Comprehensive Immigration Reform
An Earned Path To Citizenship
The Role of Law Enforcement
Undocumented Youth: The DREAM Act
Family Reunification
Border Security
Future Immigration Flows

At the beginning of each installment, we summarize Long Island Wins’ position on the issue at hand. Here’s why we think our country’s system of immigration flows needs to be updated:

Today’s broken immigration system needs to be replaced by one that makes smart and practical assumptions about the labor market, and about the future levels of immigration that will maximize immigrants’ contributions and make us better off. We believe that, working with elected officials and honest businesses, we can come to a fair-minded consensus on future immigration levels that foster economic growth and keeps Long Island and America a land of opportunity.

Martin R. Cantor, director of the Long Island Economic and Social Policy Institute at Dowling College and a former Suffolk County economic development commissioner, explains why improved future immigration flows will help Long Island’s economy, and why his own grandparents would agree:

All of my grandparents came from Russia. Of my grandfathers, both settled in Brooklyn. One became a mason, building homes in Crown Heights, and the other worked a push-cart selling sundries and clothes on Pitkin Avenue during the Great Depression.

The generations that followed them, including me, have become educated and are making contributions to their communities. My father was the first in his family to graduate college after ten years, and my uncle became a dentist. Both were World War II veterans.

Our family’s story isn’t unique, though. You’ll hear other ones just like it across Long Island, and across America.

The caveat that often accompanies these stories is that things were different when our grandparents came to the U.S. “My family came here legally, through Ellis Island, those people should do the same,” the argument goes. The implication is that if immigrants came to the U.S. the right way (i.e., on a trans-Atlantic boat, 125 years ago), then everything would be OK.

But what few people know is that our nation’s immigration channels are insufficient and severely outdated, making it impossible for many people to migrate legally. As a nation built around immigration, we’re in desperate need of a new policy that takes into account our current economic needs, and those of the future. Today’s immigration issues can’t be resolved by century-old thinking.

What kinds of policies might help out future immigration flows? Providing work permits through a guest worker program that can lead to citizenship makes sense. On the other hand, policies that lead to mass deportation - separating the primary wage earner from his family - are counter-productive. Men are often deported, leaving their American citizen children under the care of the government and taxpayers. Deportations can also mean that women are left behind to head up the household, which isn’t good for local economies, since women earn less than men, and uneducated immigrant women of color earn even less.

So when we as a nation turn a deaf ear to immigrants and base our reasons for exclusion on outdated statutes, we are inhibiting our nation’s growth and turning away future citizens who could make a contribution to the country and our communities.

How outdated and unsuitable are American immigration policies? Here’s a quick history lesson:

If you look at the history of immigration in the United States, you’ll see that immigration policy has been crafted around two separate-but-related principles: there are exclusionary policies, based on racism and classism, and policies protecting American labor. Here are some examples of policies based on exclusion and labor needs, which may remind you of our current immigration morass:

Policies in the second half of the 1800s tacitly allowed Mexican workers - who were cheap and plentiful - to cross the boarder to fill agricultural labor needs from Texas to California. While Mexican immigrants, legal or not, were welcome whenever a labor shortage existed, like today, they were not welcomed as permanent residents seeking citizenship.

Between 1890 and 1900 French Canadian immigrants came, supplying cheap and industrious labor to factories and industrial plants in the Northeast. However, fueled by Protestant Yankee antagonisms, French Canadians were portrayed as “the Chinese of the Eastern States,” and regarded as poor, ignorant, degraded, and resistant to Americanization. Despite this, French Canadians continued to come, providing a much-needed workforce for sustaining the Northeast economy.

Then came the modern-era free trade agreements, which changed the whole immigration landscape. The North American and Canadian free trade agreements sent factory jobs and other low-skill employment abroad, which meant that the skill set of the American worker needed to change. Instead of blue collar jobs, Americans had to compete for positions that required better communication and critical thinking skills.

As a result of the free trade agreements and relaxed border security, Latin American workers found that they couldn’t earn enough in their home countries, and more workers migrated to the U.S. in search of jobs, which takes us to our present day problems with the immigration system.

Contrary to what some anti-immigrant groups say, immigrant workers filling vacant American jobs have a positive impact of the regional and national economy. These new Americans, whether documented or not, have made an investment in their future in places like Long Island, often providing spin-off economic activity from the services that they provide. The argument that immigrant workers take away jobs from Long Islanders is specious, since the higher levels of education attainment of Long Island’s children provides skills enabling them to access higher paying jobs in the local economy that immigrants can’t fill.

While it’s important that we as Long Islanders have an open and honest debate about immigration, we need to address the issue without the racial overtones that often seep into the discussion. As I say in my book, “Long Island, The Global Economy and Race: The Aging of America’s First Suburb,” it’s time for Long Island to embrace its immigrant past, present, and future.

For Long Island to grow, the federal government will need to address immigration flows, and devise new policies that are suited to our economic needs. That doesn’t mean open borders, or unchecked immigration. It means giving people who want to work the chance to do so, in communities that will benefit from the added labor pool. With immigration reform, we’ll be one step closer to bridging the divide between our newer and older immigrant communities, and Long Island’s economy will be stronger for it.

I think my grandparents would agree.

(Image courtesy of wordle.net)

Tags : future flows, immigration reform, immigration reform series

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