Republicans against reform - opposition towards reducing legal immigration

National Review, April 8, 1996 by Roy Beck

AFTER sustained and massive lobbying by some of the biggest names in corporate America, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 6 to 4 on March 14 to split the omnibus immigration bill.

Hailed by the Washington Post as a "victory for the U.S. business community," the action separated the proposals of Sen. Alan Simpson (R., Wyo.) for controlling illegal immigration from his proposals to cut back legal admissions. Although the action theoretically did not prevent the Senate from later considering those reductions, statements of the Republicans who voted to split the bill made it clear to most analysts that the purpose was to kill all efforts to reduce the current unprecedented level of legal immigration.

Corporate lobbyists and their clients had much to celebrate. "By splitting the measures into two bills, lawmakers can now vote to crack down on illegal immigrants without restricting the highly skilled foreign workers who help create more jobs for all Americans," said Paul Huard of the National Association of Manufacturers. High-profile technology giants such as Bill Gates of Microsoft and Ken Alvarez of Sun Microsystems had made rather direct threats that they might move more of their operations out of the country if the alternative was relying on American workers.

The lobbyists already had persuaded a House committee to remove restraints on skilled immigration from the bill of Rep. Lamar Smith (R., Tex.). But the senators went further, also retreating from efforts to stop the family chain migration that is the primary reason why legal immigration has quintupled since 1965.

That was especially good news to the coalition of ethnic-rights organizations that form the National Immigration Forum. "A year ago, it looked like measures to cut legal immigration by about one-third were politically inevitable," said Frank Sharry, the executive director. "This vote shows there is tremendous and growing opposition to cutting legal immigration." In fact, though, the only growing opposition appears to be among Republican members of Congress.

No policy has more clearly exemplified the arrogance of Washington toward the American people than that of allowing legal immigration to rise continuously even though every poll since 1976 has shown that a majority of Americans desire to cut admissions. In fact, until three years ago, not a single member of Congress would even introduce legislation proposing cuts. But then the Republican takeover in 1994 brought two supporters of immigration reform, Sen. Simpson and Rep. Smith, into the chairmanships of key subcommittees. Both moved quickly to offer what the public thought it had voted for -- change.

But in the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 14, six Republican senators (with help from cheerleaders Jack Kemp and William Bennett) sent an unmistakable message that a Republican Congress will continue thwarting the people's will on immigration -- and will do so on behalf of special business interests. For the record, the six are Spencer Abraham of Michigan, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Orrin Hatch of Utah, Fred Thompson of Tennessee, Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

The cuts that the corporate lobbyists and their congressional acolytes have fumed against are scarcely draconian: they would have reduced legal immigration from more than 800,000 a year to a little less than 600,000, and that only after several years.

The Republicans opposing that modest trim are standing terribly alone in the court of public opinion. A recent Roper poll found that only 6 per cent of all Americans want more than 600,000 immigrants a year. (In sync with the public but on the losing side in the 12 to 6 Judiciary Committee vote were Republicans Simpson, Hank Brown of Colorado, Charles Grassley of Iowa, and Jon Kyl of Arizona, and Democrats Diane Feinstein of California and Howell Heflin of Alabama.)

Roper also found that 70 per cent of all Americans said they preferred immigration levels ranging from zero to 300,000 -- which is less than half the level causing such consternation among the corporationist Republicans. (For comparison's sake, America's long-term immigration tradition before Congress changed the law in 1965 was a little over 200,000 a year; the figure had been 178,000 a year during the forty years preceding 1965.)

The way so many of their colleagues have treated Simpson and Smith is even more inexplicable when one looks at the grassroots leaders of the Republican Party. By a margin of 5 to 1, they oppose current levels of immigration, according to a survey of 134,000 local Republican leaders conducted by the Republican National Committee. And the Roper survey found that among all Americans who identify themselves as Republicans, sentiment against the current immigration level runs 20 to 1.

The Republicans opposing immigration reform are not impressing even the wealthy Americans who Harvard economist George Borjas says benefit the most from high immigration. The Roper survey found that among the most affluent category of Americans, only 11 per cent favored immigration levels above 300,000.