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IMMIGRATION
Shifting Borders
John McCain's immigration stance got him into trouble with his party's base. Now, while calling illegal immigrants "God's children," he's careful to say that border security comes first. Barack Obama has reached out to business as he woos Hispanic votes.
Special SeriesIssues & the Presidential Candidates
This is the fifth in a 10-part series examining the differences between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain on major issues in the presidential race. Next week: Ethics/Lobbying.
• Graphic: Where They Stand
• Read the Entire Series
A year ago today, the Senate voted down a high-profile immigration bill after weeks of acrimonious debate. At the time, presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama supported the package, which included legalizing the presence of 12 million immigrants who are in this country illegally, creating a new guest-worker program, and boosting enforcement of immigration laws.
Since then, McCain has survived a bruising Republican primary in which his moderate stance on immigration, assailed by conservative critics as "amnesty," nearly killed his campaign.
McCain now says that border security must come first. Presumptive Democratic nominee Obama is still committed to pursuing all immigration changes together.
Although they disagree on how to reshape the guest-worker program and the system for admitting immigrants, their overall differences are not drastic. But the distinctions highlight the core constituencies that McCain and Obama need to please if they hope to achieve reform on such a divisive issue and to deliver on their promises to change Washington.
The Evolution of John McCain
In 2005 and 2006, McCain partnered with liberal icon Edward Kennedy, the Democratic senator from Massachusetts, to write sweeping immigration legislation that provided the template for last year's bill. However, he spent far more time in 2007 on the campaign trail than in Washington for negotiations with the Bush administration that produced the "grand bargain" that finally went to the Senate floor. Although McCain endorsed the legislation, he never signed on as a co-sponsor.
The bill, which the Senate debated in May and June of 2007, contained provisions to tighten border security; step up enforcement of immigration laws; allow the nation's 12 million illegal immigrants to earn citizenship; change green-card allocations from a family-based system to one determined by future immigrants' education and skills; and require employers to use a government database to ensure that their workers are legal, or else face stiff sanctions. The bill also called for a large new temporary-worker program; updating the existing farmworker program; and raising the cap on visas for high-skilled foreign workers.
But the package fell victim to the firestorm of opposition it set off in the conservative blogosphere and among anti-immigration groups, who charged that the legislation granted amnesty to lawbreakers and failed to protect the nation's porous borders. McCain says he got the American people's message that they want border security to come first--and that is exactly what he is promising to do as president.
Since the legislation imploded, McCain has co-sponsored enforcement-only bills introduced by immigration hard-liners, and he has called for the immediate deportation of the estimated 2 million illegal immigrants who have committed crimes while in this country. McCain has also suggested that the remaining 10 million might have to leave before seeking citizenship.
"He's retreated to the most anti-working-family, anti-immigrant sentiment held by the most-conservative elements of his party," said Eliseo Medina, executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union, one of the few major unions that backed the 2007 bill.
Angela Kelley, director of the liberal-leaning Immigration Policy Center, cut McCain some slack. "I think his heart is in the right place in terms of the 12 million [illegal immigrants]. I think his head is in the right place in terms of finding practical solutions. The challenge is finding the sweet spot, and I'm not sure how anybody could hit the bull's-eye on this issue."
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain's top domestic policy adviser, said that the candidate's border-security position "does not mean you would secure the borders and stop there. He does believe it is important for America to ultimately come to terms with all the aspects of immigration reform. But you secure the border and then you get to do the rest."
McCain hasn't determined whether he would seek a stand-alone border-security bill first and turn to other reforms later, or push a single bill that addresses everything at once, Holtz-Eakin said.
Even as he has sharpened his rhetoric, McCain has remained careful to call illegal immigrants "God's children" and to reiterate his support for comprehensive reform. In a June 18 interview, he told the Spanish-language newspaper La Opinion, "We will address immigration reform, and the day after the inauguration I will urge Congress to consider it."
As president, McCain might want to act quickly, but a Democratic Congress, which is expected to increase its ranks in November, may not, according to veteran immigration reform advocates. That is particularly true, they add, if he leads off with border security and waits on other reforms, such as legalization--a top priority for Democratic allies of the unions and Hispanic-rights groups.
Moving beyond border security and compromising with Democratic leaders could provoke resistance from his own party, immigration lobbyists warn. But if McCain is willing to buck GOP hard-liners and back a single reform package, they think that he would have a chance at getting a bill across the finish line.
"A President McCain would have a hard time rallying Republican support, and the Democrats would block enforcement-only measures," said Frank Sharry, executive director of the liberal immigrant advocacy group America's Voice. "He's going to have to stand up to the Right and survive the conservative backlash," Sharry said. "Now, if there's any guy in the country who can do it, it's him."
But the SEIU's Medina was more pessimistic. "I don't think he's going to stand up to the conservative elements in his party," Medina said. "He has basically committed himself to enforcement-only strategy. I don't see him realistically being able to back away from that position."
Obama Walks a Line
Obama may not have McCain's track record on immigration reform, but his work on a major amendment to last year's bill earned him plaudits for taking a moderate approach to reconciling the competing concerns of the business community and worker-rights groups.
His embrace of the comprehensive reform strategy and his emphasis on protecting workers and preserving the family-based admission system put him within the Democratic mainstream--although he veered left in backing driver's licenses for illegal immigrants and swung right in voting for the 700-mile-long southern border fence.
Obama explained his vote on the fence, an unpopular move with Latinos, in a May 31 interview on the Univision Spanish-language television network: "What I voted for was authorization to start building fencing in certain areas on the border, and I think there may be areas where it makes sense and can actually save lives, if we prevent people from crossing desert areas that are very dangerous." He added that as president, he would revisit his position.
Despite backing last year's bill, Obama took issue with its point system, which would emphasize skills and education instead of family ties as the basis for admission. He said it "would radically change the way that we judge who is worthy of lawful entry into American society." But rather than kill the point system, Obama offered an amendment to sunset it after five years, and he co-sponsored another to make it more family-friendly.
He also shared the concern of many unions that the guest-worker program could drive down Americans' wages and spawn a permanent underclass of workers who cannot become citizens. Obama offered an amendment to strengthen the requirement that temporary jobs be offered at prevailing wages to U.S. workers first, and he supported another to slash the annual limit on guest workers from 400,000 to 200,000--a position that angered the business lobbies.
His biggest contribution was an amendment he co-authored with Sens. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, to make the mandatory employment verification system easier for businesses to use while strengthening its privacy and employment-discrimination protections. A lobbyist close to the negotiations between business groups and those representing labor and civil rights characterized Obama as an honest broker, albeit with pro-worker leanings, who tried to balance the opposing sides' agendas.
"I think Obama did get that you needed a program that was workable for employers," said Jenna Hamilton, a lobbyist for the National Association of Home Builders. However, most employer groups--including the Chamber of Commerce--stuck with the administration-backed version of the system.
Marshall Fitz, director of advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said that despite Obama's attempt to protect labor's interests, "I wouldn't say he was ideological about it. I think that he's more pragmatic than people give him credit for."
Like McCain, Obama intends to take up immigration reform early in his presidency. Unlike his GOP rival, however, he is firmly committed to moving a single legislative package.
According to a statement from Obama's campaign, his bill "will be comprehensive and crafted in cooperation with congressional leadership. Broadly, it will include enhanced border security; strengthened employer sanctions for those who hire workers here illegally; a new mandatory electronic system for employers to check the legal status of workers; streamlined visas to allow families to reunite; a program to allow employers to access more legal workers; and a requirement that those here illegally become legal, learn English, pay a fine, pay back taxes, and go to the back of the line for citizenship."
Immigration policy experts say that Obama just might pull this off, particularly if he gets an expanded Democratic majority in Congress and if he is elected with a mandate to break Washington gridlock.
Also smoothing the way is a rapprochement within labor, which split over the Senate bill. Some unions, including the AFL-CIO and the United Food and Commercial Workers, lobbied against it, arguing that it lacked sufficient worker protections. The SEIU and UNITE HERE threw their weight behind the bill as the best chance for getting legalization.
Although the unions may still differ on the particulars of immigration reform, they are pushing their shared agenda of electing a Democratic president and more Democrats to Congress, and fighting the Bush administration's recent wave of workplace raids, an AFL-CIO official said.
But Democratic leaders in both chambers may not be eager to revisit an emotional issue that divides their party. In the House, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus calls for comprehensive reform or nothing. House conservatives want an enforcement-only bill, but business-friendly members want to let seasonal industries as well as high-tech employers bring in more temporary workers. In the Senate, pro-labor populists such as Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Jim Webb, D-Va., were as instrumental in killing the bill as were GOP hard-liners.
Sharry said that Obama's chances of success would depend on how many Democrats he can rally and how many Republican votes he would need. "I think he could get up to 80 percent Democratic support," Sharry said. "If he can get 50 senators and 200 [House]members, he's within striking distance. Then it becomes a matter of what you have to give individual Republicans to get their votes."
Whoever wins in November will have to lead on this emotionally charged issue, said the Immigration Policy Center's Kelley. "America needs a new way forward, and that's what we need so much for a President Obama or a President McCain to do."
This is the fifth in a 10-part series examining the differences between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain on major issues in the presidential race. The series can also be found at www.national journal.com/njmagazine. Next week: Ethics/Lobbying.