Obama on Immigration

President Obama in many ways is an original in American politics, but yesterday – speaking on immigration reform at American University – he resorted to Emma Lazarus’ hypnotic but well-worn poem inscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty to punctuate his call for immigration reform.

The speech was a metaphor for the administration’s approach to the issue: cautious, balanced, responsible – and uninspired. The policy recommendations – as vague as they were – have been around for a decade; and as Obama indirectly acknowledged in his speech, they were originally discussed by the Bush administration. While the president’s engagement in the issue is welcome and can only help push it toward a more positive outcome, he’s relying on immigration clichés that don’t fit the times.

Increased border enforcement, holding employers accountable, and regularizing unauthorized immigrants have all long been part of the comprehensive immigration reform consensus. This package that address both enforcement and legalizing the nation’s 11 million unauthorized immigrants supposedly has something for everyone, but for a long time it’s been untranslatable into successful legislation.

One reason that comprehensive reform hasn’t become reality is due to the fact that – as Obama put it – Americans are “skeptical” about regularizing unauthorized immigrants. But “skeptical” is putting it politely. Although public polling can be contradictory, it’s clear a very large minority of Americans is not comfortable with a mass legalization of unauthorized immigrants. Some polling shows a majority of Americans are opponents of legalization. Nationwide support for the Arizona law demonstrates that Americans are fearful of and hostile to incorporating more immigrants into society.

The White House and congressional Republicans can blame each other endlessly for the broken immigration system (and they do), but until a larger share of Americans feel comfortable with legalization, it will be very difficult to implement any reform, let alone comprehensive reform. This is why education is so important.

The key could be illustrating the contributions of unauthorized immigrants and dispelling the myths that portray them as costly, dangerous, and different. Of course this is a monumentally difficult task. But with an unrivaled platform for national education and supreme communication skills, President Obama is in the right place to at least begin the process. And to do so he should abandon the immigration clichés and start to address the issue specifically and honestly in today’s terms.

Perhaps the images in the speech were already tested for audience impact, but Google entrepreneur and Russian immigrant Sergey Brin is irrelevant to the 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. And so is the Statue of Liberty. Although iconic, they have little to do with today’s unauthorized immigrants, and most Americans know it.

The large majority of unauthorized immigrants are members of poor working families. While fear of poor immigrants swamping public support systems is common throughout the developed world, analysts have found that the benefits balance out the costs of unauthorized immigration so that the overall fiscal impact is effectively zero. 

And although Americans fear the creation of a divided country with a growing Spanish-speaking Latino culture in competition with the mainstream, the difference between Latino Americans and other Americans is exaggerated. When asked how they identify themselves, most Latinos chose “working families” rather than a nationality-based designation such as Cuban or Mexican, or a pan-ethnic term like Latino or Hispanic.

Unauthorized immigrant men work more, are less disposed to criminality, and use public services less than U.S. citizens. With low levels of formal education and no access to public support, unauthorized immigrants’ only major economic asset is their unabashed willingness to work at occupations that are largely looked down upon and therefore left vacant by most Americans.

Perhaps part of the education effort is promoting more respect and value for the working poor in general. While immigrants are unlikely to start a new Google, they nonetheless add value to society, from harvesting the nation’s food, to caring for children, to building the offices and homes we work and live in.  

However the administration chooses to insert itself into the immigration reform debate, Obama’s legendary communication skills will be tested. Given the fact that his own existence is due to the temporary immigration of his father to the U.S., Obama’s apparent lack of passion for immigration is curious. 

In any case, a national discussion led by the president about who unauthorized immigrants are, where they come from, why they are here, and how they contribute to the country – without referring to outdated tropes – would at least update the discourse. If this happens, at the very least we might have a chance to think about the issue anew, unclouded by the fear and distortion that has led to the current stalemate.