Navigating the Immigration Debate
A Guide for State & Local Policymakers and Advocates
D.Ray Mantle, February 20, 2008
The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) has released an electronic guide on navigating the immigration debate. Although immigration law is a federal issue, more and more states and communities are trying to implement their own solutions, resulting in conflicting requirements for individuals and employers. Policymakers, advocates, and individuals interested in learning more can download the guide from the AILA website. An excerpt from the guide's Introduction is included below:
Introduction
Fed by a daily drumbeat of inflammatory rhetoric on cable television and talk radio, public frustration with our broken immigration system and federal inaction is now hyper-charged. It has transformed immigration policy from an inside-the-beltway debate into a political flashpoint jolting state houses and town halls across the country.
State and local legislators feeling heat from angry constituents have introduced a dizzying array of bills and ordinances. However, in most localities, it cannot legitimately be claimed that the influx of immigrants has created a true crisis. Case in point: A small, declining Maryland farm town profiled in the Washington Post recently debated restrictive immigration legislation even though there are less than two dozen foreign-born residents living there.
To be sure, the arrival of newcomers has triggered cultural tensions and has stressed certain public services in some communities, particularly near the border. The legislative backlash, however, has been disproportionate to any actual public policy problems. At their best, these measures are a legitimate expression of local frustration targeting specific policy concerns resulting from an influx of migrants; at worst, they are cheap political haymakers that divide communities and wreak havoc on local economies.
Many of the measures that have passed are of dubious constitutionality and have been subjected to legal challenge. Many other proposals have died on the vine once the litigation and implementation costs were exposed. None of these measures, individually or in aggregate, represents a practical solution to the nation’s immigration challenges. To the contrary, a patchwork of state and local efforts to address a uniquely federal policy concern harkens back to the nation’s disastrous preconstitutional experiment with the Articles of Confederation.
The federal government has allowed the failures of our immigration system to fester in communities across the country. And the federal government alone has the constitutional authority, institutional orientation, and national perspective to address them. Until it does, however, the country will continue to be engulfed in these localized skirmishes that are spreading like prairie fires across the land.
Navigating the Immigration Debate—A Guide for State & Local Policymakers and Advocates provides a roadmap for steering through the policy minefields created by this proliferating legislation. Organized around the following seven hot-button issues, the guide is designed to provide a basic orientation to the issues and an introduction to critical resources:
• Restricting immigrants’ access to public benefits and services
• Mandating verification of employment eligibility
• Restricting congregations of day laborers
• Establishing “English-only” policies
• Imposing restrictive housing policies
• Requiring state and local police to serve as immigration agents
• Restricting immigrants’ access to driver’s licenses
Each of these issue sections contains: (1) a background summary that distills the central arguments, problems, and state of play; (2) a factual rebuttal of the most commonly propounded myths; (3) a synthesis of current legislative activity around the country; (4) a description of relevant litigation; and (5) a broad compilation of additional resources from individuals and organizations with issue expertise.
This guide should be viewed as a launching point for individuals concerned about immigration-related policy developments at the state and local level. We hope that the array of materials and organizations referenced herein help provide a roadmap for tapping in to the expertise of a growing network of national and local organizations committed to sustainable immigration solutions. We further hope that as the futility of pursuing localized responses to a national problem becomes manifest, state and local governments will channel their efforts into pressuring the federal government to act.