Articles

Immigration ought to be a quick fix

Opinion by Cynthia Tucker
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
November 8, 2006

Every morning on my way to work, I pass John Hope Elementary School. I see children crossing the street with the help of a school crossing guard. I see mothers and older siblings cautiously guiding the younger ones through traffic and into the schoolyard.

I've used the same route to work for nearly a decade, and over that time I've been able to observe the changing demographics just by watching the kids in the school yard. Most mornings lately, I've seen lots of Latina mothers walking briskly down the sidewalk, accompanying their youngsters to school. Atlanta, like so many other Southeastern cities, has experienced dramatic growth in its immigrant population.

I have no idea whether the mothers I see are in the United States legally, whether they have papers, whether they have jobs procured with fake documents. I do know they care enough about educating their children to see to it that they get to school every morning, fresh scrubbed and carrying their book packs. That alone suggests those parents believe in a fundamental part of the American dream: Education is the way up.

There are no doubt substantial costs associated with teaching young children who start school without any knowledge of English. But they do learn, and quickly; children generally master new languages much more easily than adults do.

The debate over illegal immigration has been disheartening and dishonest, heavily reliant on stereotypes and prejudices rather than facts and logic. A frequently repeated untruth is this: Illegal immigrants make no effort to learn English.

Like so many ugly stereotypes, it's just not so. According to a study published in the September issue of Population and Development Review, Latino immigrants - like previous generations of immigrants from Poland, Germany or Italy - do assimilate linguistically. According to the study, by the second generation, English is the language used most often at home. By the third generation, only 17 percent of Mexican immigrants still speak Spanish well; by the fourth generation, only 5 percent are fluent in Spanish.

Now that the midterm elections are over, perhaps the scapegoating and demagoguery will dissipate (at least until the next election season) and Congress can get about the business of sensible immigration reform. An estimated 11 million illegal immigrants live in this country.

There is simply no feasible way to round them all up and send them back. The only rational course of action is to incorporate those already here into the nation's mainstream, while tightening the loopholes that have allowed so many to get here and stay.

The Senate had made a reasonable start toward a plan for allowing law-abiding illegal immigrants to get on the path to citizenship. That plan - tossed aside by a surly House looking for a wedge issue - ought to be resurrected. This nation needs those workers for any number of low-skilled jobs, from tending to small children to caring for the infirm elderly. The United States also needs their relative youth; without them, we'd be facing the sort of demographic crisis that Japan and parts of Europe are confronting - too many retirees and too few workers.

President Bush and Congress ought to dump their ridiculous proposal for a 700-mile fence, an idea that has already been exposed as more ballyhoo than barrier. While such a fence, if built, would eventually cost as much as $6 billion, Congress only appropriated $1.2 billion to get started. And the legislation left room to use some of those funds on "virtual fencing," such as high-tech cameras and other surveillance equipment. What sense does it make to erect a 700-mile fence along a 2,000-mile border, anyway?

For a fraction of the billions a fence would cost, Congress could purchase a mechanism that would actually curb illegal immigration: an instant verification system for Social Security numbers, a network that would eliminate the fraud of fake documents. If all employers were required to check Social Security numbers through the system, they'd know immediately whether prospective workers were in the country legally.

Of course, the requirement wouldn't mean much unless it was backed up with criminal penalties for employers who hire illegally. If employers faced the prospect of jail for illegal hiring, they'd stop the practice. And if illegal immigrants learned they could no longer count on certain employment across the border, they'd stop coming.

Compared to other critical matters - Iraq, national debt, nuclear proliferation - the issue of illegal immigration is relatively easy to solve. Is it too much to hope that a new Congress might get down to it?

Cynthia Tucker is the editorial page editor. Her column appears Wednesdays and Sundays.

Copyright 2006 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. More information: www.ajc.com.

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