 About the Series:
Immigration: Whether it’s the fresh fruit you bought at the grocery store or that new software you just downloaded for your computer, immigrants probably had something to do with it. Immigrants are one of the major engines that keep the United States running, with physical labor and brain power. And unless the system is reformed, affordable food and new technology are just a few of the things that could be in jeopardy. In our continuing election series, “Looking Back to Look Forward,” KPLU’s Jennifer Wing examines some of the surprising twists and turns of immigration reform in the United States and what John McCain and Barack Obama promise to do if they’re elected.
Mehdi Nakhjiri (Meth-ee Noc-jeer-ee) is from Iran. He arrived in the United States in 1973 to pursue an education...the best in the world he says. But as the bloody revolution unfolded back home and Iran fought a war with Iraq, Noc-jeer-ee decided to stay and start a new life here.He's 53, has two kids who are almost grown, and is an engineer for Boeing. He's a fine example of a foreigner capturing the American Dream. He says he going to vote for Barack Obama. But when you ask him what he thinks about the promises Obama and John McCain are making to reform the immigration system, he shakes his head.
Medhi Nakhjiri: On Immigration issues, I'd rather not vote for either one of them on immigration issues. On immigration issues they are not giving me anything I can hang my hat on.
On paper, Barack Obama and John McCain are proposing almost the exact same plans. But before we get into the details, let's look at how things use to be.First, there was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
Immigrants came from China to build our railroads and work in the Gold mines. But with a sagging economy after the Civil War, and gold becoming hard to find Chinese Immigrants were no longer welcome. They were called "coolies" for cooling off, or lowering wages for already scarce jobs. Then, 40 years later, Eugenics hit the mainstream. It's a theory that Northern Europeans are a superior race. Back in the 1920's many elected officials supported that theory- which characterized immigrants from Eastern Europe, or any other place considered "exotic" as stupid and dirty, more like Neanderthals than northern European white people. This led to Johnson-Reed Act, signed into law by president Calvin Coolidge in 1924.
It set up a quota system that heavily favored northern Europeans.
This stayed on the books for decades and was defended well into the 1960's by senators such as Strom Thurmond of North Carolina.
Strom Thurmond: This system protects American interests against being flooded by people who are not akin to the majority of our population in racial, cultural and political heritage.
In other words if you’re not white and don’t speak English, we don’t want you. This went for Mexicans too.In the mid 1950’s under President Eisenhower, it was official policy for about a year to round up illegal Mexican immigrants and send them back deep into the heart of Mexico using trains and boats. The name for this endeavor: Operation wet-back. President John F. Kennedy had different ideas.
He wanted to reshape the entire U.S. Immigration system.
A film of him accepting an award in Washington D.C. from the Anti Defamation League in January 1963 that captures some of the spirit of what he was working towards, in particular reuniting families who were separated by strict quotas.
President Kennedy: We are the decedents of 40-million people who left other countries, other familiar scenes, to come here to the United States to build a new life. To make a new opportunity for themselves and their children.
Kennedy's vision lived on after his assassination and eventually became law in 1965 under President Lyndon Johnson.
It was called The Immigration and Nationality Services Act..
One of the reasons why the bill was approved was because its supporters promised it wouldn't result in an opening of the floodgates.
President Johnson restated this assurance when he signed the bill into law, under the shadow of the Statue of Liberty on May 11th 1965.
President Johnson: This Bill that we will sign today is not a revolutionary Bill. It does not affect the lives of millions. It will not reshape the structure of our daily lives or really add importantly to either our wealth or our power.
Since its passage, more than 18-million immigrants have come to the United States, legally. It's what allowed (Meth-ee Noc-jeer-ee) to immigrate from Iran, and this is the same law that governs our system today.But as Noc-jeer-ee points out, today, the system is choked.
Mehdi Nakhjiri: I have applied for my brother, who is an orthopedic surgeon in Sweden in 1989, to get his perminant residency, to come to the united states. He still hasn't heard. That's 19 years. That's just one case.
This is why Noc-Jeer-ee is uninspired by Barack Obama and John McCain. He says they aren't talking about what to do about the people, like his brother..a surgeon... who have been patiently waiting OUTSIDE to come into the US..not to mention how to satisfy the demand companies like Google and Microsoft have for for tech workers. No, when it comes to immigration, McCain and Obama are focused on the 12 million illegal immigrants who are ALREADY here.
Both Obama and McCain are zeroing in on three things: Securing America's Boarders. A guest worker program, and and creating a path to citizenship for undocumented people living inside our boarders. Here's Obama speaking to a crowd in Washington D.C. last June. He makes it clear this deal would come with several strings attached.
Barack Obama: We should say, you have to register, you have to pay a fine, learn English, you should go to the back of the line. You shouldn't get citizenship before someone who applied legally. But you can over time, earn your citizenship, and not be fearful of a knock on the door in the middle of the night.
This is also a part of John McCain's plan. But when McCain talks about reforming the system as he did here in Washington D.C. earlier this year, he makes his headline all about boarder security, with an added dose of compassion.
John McCain: The people who have come here illegally have none of the protections that individuals have who are citizens. And so that is a compelling reason for us to move forward with our boarder security, and then address this issue in a humane and compassionate fashion.
The person who could probably offer McCain and Obama a few bits of advice is President George W. Bush. He has been trying pass an Immigration reform bill for years,and has talked about the issue in several state of the Union Speeches, including this one last January.
We will never fully secure our boarder until we create a lawful way for foreign workers to come here and support our economy!
The closest Bush got was an ambitious bill that went before Congress in June 2007. It included a guest worker program.
It laid out a path for citizenship and would have boosted boarder security. Obama and McCain voted yes, but the bill failed.
Public opinion polls last year showed a vast majority of Americans wanting illegal immigrants to be prosecuted and deported. They saw the bill as amnesty in disguise, an official pardon from the government. We spoke to some voters about this. 59 year old Kim Verde of Seattle is a retired substitute teacher, and a McCain supporter. She says the last thing she wants is for illegal immigrants to get an easy break.
It doesn't fit for our time right now, because there are just too many immigrants running into the country.
Basically the failed immigration legislation of 2007 and the desires of many U.S. voters were totally out of step, and it's not clear if they'll line up any time soon. We're sort of in the same place we were back in 1882.. a shaky economy, a tough job market, and people from all over the world hungry for work. Will we see the likes of another Chinese Exclusion Act? Or is the fabric of the U.S. so tightly intertwined and dependent on the skills of men and women from other countries, that the next president and congress will be forced to make changes to the system...regardless what the opinion polls say.
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