Editor’s note: Jon Margolis is VTDigger’s political columnist.
The lesson from the hearing held by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday was that only two organized forces offer an immediate threat to the changes committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (and President Obama) want to make to the country’s immigration laws. One is a faction of the political far right; the other is the cops who enforce those laws.
The conservative opponents of the Obama-Leahy “comprehensive” approach, which would include a “path to citizenship” for some who are now in the country illegally, could be a minority even on the right side of the political spectrum.
They were represented at the hearing only by Jessica Vaughanâ¨, the director of Policy Studies for the â¨Center for Immigration Studies, a group with connections many conservatives find troubling.
“Now is not the time” for comprehensive changes to the law, Vaughan said, urging the senators to “look for more narrow agreements.”
At least potentially, opposition from the Homeland Security Department’s own immigration law enforcement union, the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council 118, could prove more troubling.
It’s certainly more interesting, if not at all surprising. The union and the department have been at odds for months, with several Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, including president Chris Crane, suing Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and ICE director John Morton over their policy of not arresting or deporting some young immigrants who had been brought to the country illegally before they were 16.
Testifying at the hearing, Crane told the senators that “ICE is crumbling from within (and) morale is at an all time low.”
If the reaction of the senators was any indication, though, neither of the opponents made much of an impact. With the exception of Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Republican who opposes the “path to citizenship,” which he calls “amnesty,” the committee members all but ignored Crane and Vaughan. Instead, the majority Democrats posed some friendly questions to the other three panel members, all of whom support the Obama-Leahy immigration policy.
In fact, even before the five members of the panel made their five-minute statements, most of the senators had left the committee room. Leahy stayed, but only to hear their opening statements. Then he, too, left, explaining that as committee chair he had to lead the debate on the vote to confirm a nominee for an appeals court judgeship.
But what else is new? This was a U.S. Senate Committee public hearing, which is and always has been show business at least as much as part of the legislative process. The committee members were there to question the morning’s first witness – Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano – and perhaps to get on television by so doing.
“Our borders have, in fact, never been stronger,” Napolitano said, arguing that the country could now move on to a more comprehensive reworking of immigration laws. To those insisting on even tighter border controls, she said, “too often the border security refrain simply serves as an excuse” for avoiding other steps.
Not all the Republicans agreed. “You really mean that we’re not going to have enforcement, but we’ve got to have amnesty first,” said Sessions.
But the secretary was not without Republican support. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina peppered her with friendly questions.
“Have you ever seen a better opportunity than the moment that exists today to pass comprehensive immigration reform?” Graham asked.
“No, this is the moment,” Napolitano replied.
“Do you agree with me that the payoffs for the nation are enormous?” Graham asked, citing improving the economy and national security.
“I couldn’t say it better than you just did,” Napolitano said.
Graham is one of four Republican and four Democratic senators working on a compromise, comprehensive immigration bill. He is obviously also one of the Republicans who understands that unless Republicans agree to such a bill they can never hope to improve their paltry showing – about 30 percent in November’s election – among Hispanic voters.
Considering that the Hispanic share of the electorate is likely to keep growing for the foreseeable future, the political incentive for Republicans to agree on a comprehensive bill is strong. Still, the party remains divided on the issue, both in Congress and among its most rock-solid supporters. Especially in the West and South, many rank-and-file Republicans regard any plan to create a mechanism by which illegal immigrants could become legal as a form of amnesty.
As a Vermonter, Leahy has no such political pressures, and he made clear in his opening statement that he favors an immigration bill with that “path to citizenship” that some find troubling.
“I am troubled by any proposal that contains false promises in which citizenship is always over the next mountain,” he said. “I want the pathway to be clear and the goal of citizenship attainable. It cannot be rigged by some illusive precondition. We should treat people fairly, and not have their fate determined by matters beyond their control, nor by the judgments of those who have been among the most resistant to enacting rational legislation.”
There’s little mystery about why the senators paid little heed to the Center for Immigration Studies. According to reports by both the Southern Policy Law Center and the Wall Street Journal, the center was founded in the 1980s by a Michigan doctor associated with white nationalist and Holocaust-denying sentiments.
The indifference to the ICE union is a bit more mysterious. But Council 18 seems to lack support even from its parent union – the â¨American Federation of Government Employees – and its lawsuit against its own department has been condemned by the AFL-CIO.
