Guest columnist Keith Peterson: Political grandstanding probably dooms sensible immigration deal
When Democrat-turned-Independent Sen. Krysten Sinema was not complicating Democratic Party plans for the 2024 Arizona Senate race, she was striking a deal with Republican Sen. Thom Tillis on an immigration bill.
In the frantic final days of the current lame-duck session, when numerous bills are looking for a vehicle that will carry them past the finish line, the Sinema-Tillis bill deserves serious consideration.
The basic outline of the bill covers familiar ground in the immigration debate:
The two million undocumented individuals brought to the United States as children, known as "Dreamers," would be given a 10-year path to citizenship.
The Title 42 health provision, that has allowed the U.S. to quickly expel immigrants at the border, would be extended for a year while new processing centers are built and staffed.
Between $25 billion and $40 billion would be devoted to new border security measures and would provide increased pay for Border Patrol Agents.
There would be an overhaul of the current asylum system that currently leaves asylum applicants in legal limbo for years.
Why won't it pass? Most Republicans hate anything that smacks of amnesty, and immigration has been a useful club to beat Democrats with. Presumptive Speaker Kevin McCarthy has vowed there will be no immigration legislation coming out of the House in the next Congress.
Democrats hate Title 42 and want to see it repealed immediately. They fear that any attempt to speed up the asylum process would deny due process to asylum-seekers, who have every legal right to seek protection.
All these issues require urgent attention, but the Dreamers' situation is becoming more tenuous by the day. They have been allowed to remain in the U.S. under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA established through an executive order by President Obama. President Donald Trump repealed that order. The courts have kept it alive. Currently, Dreamers have to reapply every two years to maintain their status, but a federal judge could soon end the program.
Many have pushed legislation to regularize their status, including Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, but the reality is that there will have to be a quid pro quo in the form of increased border security for a deal to get done, even though more than 80% of Americans say that Dreamers should have a path to citizenship.
Jim Slusher, Daily Herald managing editor for opinion, recently wrote a column noting how news outlets cover stories so differently. On immigration, MSNBC and CNN will run stories sympathetic to the Dreamers, but acknowledge the problem at the Southern border. On Fox, viewers are inundated with images of immigrants running from border agents, talking heads braying about an "invasion" and the failures of President Biden. Such disparate views of the same set of facts do not create an environment conducive to compromise.
McCarthy, desperate to find the votes to become speaker, has already shown that he is willing to cater to the most extreme members of his caucus and has threatened to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. (Spoiler alert: The Democratic-controlled Senate will not vote to impeach.)
None of this political grandstanding does anything to deal with the reality that two-thirds of the undocumented have lived in the U.S. for more than a decade and have established lives here, work and pay taxes. They commit crimes at a lower rate than the native born. An increasing number of the undocumented come from Asia, Europe and Canada overstaying valid visas. There are 1.7 available jobs for every unemployed American. We need the labor. It should not matter that the majority are not white, though xenophobia is certainly an ingredient in this stew.
Sinema-Tillis is not perfect, but it tries to solve pressing problems and that should be enough to treat it seriously and get something done.
• Keith Peterson, of Lake Barrington, served 29 years as a press and cultural officer for the United States Information Agency and Department of State.