American Friends Service Committee

President’s New Approach To Immigration Policy Filled With Sweeping Generalities And Little Details

A Truly Comprehensive Approach is Needed

PHILADELPHIA, PA — When President Bush outlined the administration’s new approach to U.S. immigration policy on Wednesday, January 7, he spoke mostly in sweeping generalities, and offered few details about any specific new legislation, which must be passed by Congress before any meaningful changes are enacted.

“The few specific proposals outlined in the balance of his announcement fall well short of the the evolving demands of international law and the ethics of global justice,” states Camilo Perez-Bustillo, migration and mobility goal director for Project Voice — the American Friends Service Committee’s immigrant rights program.

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) has long promoted respect for the basic human rights and dignity of immigrants and refugees in the U.S. and around the world. The AFSC’s efforts in this regard were recognized by the decision to award the organization the Nobel Peace Prize for such activities, along with the British Friends Service Council, in 1947 on behalf of all Quakers.

The first part of the President’s speech includes an impassioned recognition of the plight of millions of immigrant workers “condemned to fear and insecurity…in the shadows of American life…often abused and exploited.” This includes a devastating indictment of U.S. immigration law as a system that “is not working” and that is inconsistent with the President’s understanding of U.S. values and ideals.

AFSC agrees the immigration system is deeply flawed, but believes that a truly comprehensive approach to needed immigration reform must provide a safe and sure path to permanent legal status, and ultimately citizenship, for all of the 8-12 million undocumented immigrants who reside in the U.S., and must include full respect for their civil, political, economic, and social rights both within and beyond the workplace.

“President Bush’s new proposal may result in the passage of legislation to create a new guest worker program that provides temporary legal status to some of the nation’s undocumented workers,” Perez-Bustillo emphasizes.

The likely result of the administration’s new initiative, if adopted by Congress, would be to formalize the status of most undocumented immigrants as a permanent underclass, and as economic pawns deprived of any meaningful voice in the decisions and processes that determine their destiny.

“The President’s speech seems timed to enhance U.S. credibility on the eve of his visit to Mexico as part of the next round of negotiations intended to culminate in the expansion of the North American Free Trade Agreement into a Free Trade Area of the Americas,” Perez-Bustillo adds. “But NAFTA, the FTAA, and their equivalents elsewhere, are important causes of upheaval and cruelty. These initiatives have helped drive millions of people to migrate and abandon their homes in search of a better life — making themselves vulnerable to the ‘dangerous desert crossings,’ and ‘brutal rings of heartless human smugglers’ that the President so strongly decried.”

The Bush Administration’s approach is also troubling, Perez-Bustillo says, because of its emphasis on toughening current standards on citizenship tests, seeking to measure not only the applicant’s grasp of basic facts about U.S. history and civic life, but also his or her knowledge and “assimilation” of a selective list of the country’s “ideals.” The tenor of this ideological litmus test for citizenship treads dangerously on the freedoms of expression, conscience, and belief that are so vital to the Quaker ideals that led to the founding of the AFSC.

The American Friends Service Committee carries out service, development, social justice, and peace programs throughout the world. Founded by Quakers in 1917 to provide conscientious objectors with an opportunity to aid civilian war victims, AFSC's mission and achievements won worldwide recognition in 1947 when it accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, along with the British Friends Service Council on behalf of all Quakers. AFSC’s new initiative, Project Voice, combines local and national work to strengthen the voices of immigrant-led organizations in setting the national agenda for immigration policy and immigrants’ rights.