For a few short weeks in mid-2006, exactly 20 years after the last major US immigration overhaul—the Simpson-Rodino bill formally known as the United States Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986—the neglected topic of immigration began gathering increasing force, eventually resulting in a perfect political storm. By the end of May 2006, millions of people—especially undocumented immigrants—had taken to the streets of major US cities clamoring for the right to stay in the United States. As always in the history of immigration to the United States, the passions were intense and the facts easily distorted or simply discarded. Night after night popular anchormen like CNN’s Lou Dobbs and the army of countless radio talk show hosts hyperventilated about “broken borders,” the “illegal alien invasion,” which many became fond of calling a “Mexican reconquista,” and the mass marches by undocumented immigrants. In the post-9/11 ethos, legitimate security considerations became confabulated in an improbable nexus between illegal immigration from the southern border and terrorism. Rationality was the first victim of unchecked emotions, political posturing, and the inevitable demagoguery immigration seems to invite.

In an atmosphere of growing anxiety shortly after the street marches, the largest in recent US history, President Bush addressed the nation on the topic of immigration: his first Oval Office speech on a topic other than national security. Concurrently, the US Senate, after an exhausting debate, voted on new immigration legislation. The Senate, contradicting a bill passed earlier by the US House of Representatives, voted on May 25, 2006, to further strengthen border controls, to put in place a new guest worker program, and to address the elephant in the immigration debate: the fate of the estimated 11.5 to 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States—the largest number in history, roughly a third of all immigrants, and surely the most important issue the United States faces as a nation of immigrants today.

The Senate bill, echoing President Bush’s proposal, would offer a mechanism to earn legalization for the estimated seven million undocumented immigrants who have been living in the United States continuously for at least five years. They would have to pay fines and any back taxes, pass security checks, and demonstrate English proficiency to eventual citizenship. Of the remaining five million undocumented immigrants, approximately 2.5 to 3 million—those who have been in the United States two to five years—would have to briefly leave the country to apply for a visa at a designated port of entry before reentering the country with proper documentation. The remaining one-plus million undocumented migrants who have been in the United States for less than two years would need to return to their countries of origin and apply for new visas without any guarantees.

The competing bill passed earlier in the House would tighten border controls, introduce various new draconian measures criminalizing the 11.5 to 12 million undocumented immigrants while harshly penalizing those who aide them, such as nuns and volunteers at soup kitchens, and, most significantly, block any future pathway for undocumented immigrants already in the United States to earn legalization. Apprehending and deporting the newly created 11.5 to 12 million “felons” would be an immensely challenging task sure to create unbearable human suffering, economic disruption, and political grief; President Bush allied himself with the bipartisan Senate bill declaring that the House measure was simply not realistic. Given the geologic distance between the two bills, it is doubtful that in conference the Senate bill and the House bill can ever be reconciled to produce any significant new immigrant legislation in this Congress. Indeed it is quite likely that conservative Republicans in the House will deliver President Bush a major domestic policy defeat by rejecting his proposal.

The Bigger Picture

Immigration to the United States is a recurring phenomenon. Many of the issues we witness today are in fact neither new nor unique. For example, the proportion of immigrants in the United States today—approximately 11.2 percent of the population—is significantly lower than it was a century ago when it oscillated between 13 and 15 percent of the US population. In addition, the rate of US immigration today is substantially lower than that of many advanced post-industrial societies: Australia’s rate of immigration is nearly 25 percent; both Switzerland’s and Canada’s are approximately 20 percent. Indeed the United States seems to have a unique edge as its immigrants are more highly educated, more likely to participate in the labor market, and less likely to commit crimes than immigrants in many other countries facing large-scale immigration such as Sweden, Germany, and France. They also compare more favorably on a host of demographic and socioeconomic indicators, including how quickly they are learning English, than previous waves of immigrants to the United States.