Editorial in Immigration Reform from the Forward and Ha'aretz

Haaretz
31/01/2010

U.S. Jews and Latinos form unlikely bond over immigration policy
By Nathan Guttman, The Forward


Even as health care reform twists in the wind, immigration policy looms as the next big political debate, and Hispanics and Jews are moving to the forefront in a burgeoning political alliance.

The next three months are seen as critical in the fight for immigration reform, but the weakening of the Democrats, grip on Congress with the recent loss of a key Massachusetts Senate seat does not bode well for the passage of reform legislation.

The Jewish-Latino alliance on immigration issues builds on the heritage and experience of the Jewish community and on the enthusiasm and urgent needs of the Hispanic community, which has a strong interest in issues of family unification and the status of the some 12 million illegal immigrants, most of them from Latin America.

But Jewish activists also see the joint work as an opening for cooperation with the Hispanic community on other issues, such as Israel.

"If we want to engage with the Latino community on issues that are of concern for us, including Israel, we need to engage on issues that bother their community," said Gideon Aronoff, president and CEO of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. "We want to create growing bonds with the Latino community, and we cannot create these bonds if we are indifferent to the issues that are of concern to them."

Alliance: Luis Gutierrez (left) and Charles Schumer are trying to drive reform through Congress. Some advocates view the ethnic backgrounds of the two key lawmakers leading the drive for immigration reform as symbolic of the growing alliance on the issue. In the House, the main immigration reform bill was presented Rep. Luis Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat, and in the Senate it is expected that New York's Senator Charles Schumer will soon present his version of immigration reform legislation.

The Gutierrez bill has been praised by advocates for immigrants as providing answers to most of the concerns of the Hispanic community, but so far it has failed to gain any Republican support.

Schumer's bill, now in the making, is expected to have more bipartisan appeal, by taking a nuanced approach to the thorny issue of providing a path to legalization for millions of illegal immigrants.

While Democratic-backed health care reform legislation was uniformly opposed by Republicans and now seems to be stuck in Congress, advocates agree that immigration reform stands no chance of passage without bipartisan support.

But immigration advocates believe that the blow suffered by health care reform supporters following the Massachusetts Senate election does not necessarily dictate the same fate for immigration reform. Indeed, said HIAS’s Aronoff, it might even help the cause, due to increased pressure on lawmakers to show progress on key issues. "All Americans have seen the gridlock in Washington and are very frustrated with it” he said. “Now the president and Congress need to show that they can solve problems for Americans."

But with the political clock ticking, supporters of reform fear that major legislation is becoming harder to pass, and so they set the first half of 2010 as a desired deadline for passing legislation. "Every day we get closer to the elections, the harder it becomes," said Richard Foltin, director of national and legislative affairs at the American Jewish Committee, referring to upcoming congressional elections.

Jewish communal support for immigration reform is organized around several principles, including the need for a path to legalization for illegal immigrants; a mechanism for dealing with future immigration waves; speeding up work on family unification; integrating new immigrants into American society; and finding, as Jewish immigration advocates put it, an "effective and humane" way of enforcing immigration laws and border control.

This last point seems to be a growing concern within the Jewish community, said Jane Ramsey, executive director of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs based in Chicago. Ramsey, whose organization has been working closely with Hispanic groups, stressed that while both communities strongly support immigration reform, there is still a need to instill in members of the Jewish community the importance of the issue, which for most Jews carries a symbolic, not personal, importance.

"Our community is one step removed," she said, "and therefore it is very important to make it real for people by interacting with the Latino community."

While the Jewish organizational world is essentially united on this issue, some have argued that the Jewish rank-and-file is not on entirely the same page as communal leaders.

The supposed divide between religious leaders of various stripes and their rank-and-file was the focus of a recent survey, sponsored by the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based group that opposes granting illegal immigrants a path to legalization and instead argues that many will return to their home countries if immigration laws are better enforced. That poll, which was conducted online by Zogby International in December, found that Jews were roughly equally divided between those who prefer a stepped-up enforcement approach and those who prefer granting legal status with a path to citizenship.

Jewish immigration advocates have questioned the survey's methodology, but they agree that there are diverse opinions within the community. Yet the CIS poll also found that Jews were still considerably more likely than members of other religious groups to support granting legal status to illegal immigrants, a finding that immigration advocates say rings true.

The organized Jewish community is more committed than ever to immigration reform. A letter supporting immigration reform, which will be sent out to all Senate offices in early February, was signed by dozens of national Jewish organizations.

Joining forces with the Hispanic community has been a longstanding goal for Jewish groups. But what seems to be a rare chance to reform immigration laws has helped galvanize the relationship.

At a January 10 roundtable in Durham, N.C., Jewish and Latino activists shared their immigration experiences and looked for ways to work together in support of the legislation. "We broke into groups and spoke about the similarity between our grandparents' immigration and their experience nowadays," said Stephanie Grosser, who has been coordinating outreach efforts for HIAS.

One of the issues activists from both sides discussed was hate and hostility directed at immigrants, both past and present-day, whether they were Jewish newcomers at the turn of the 20th century or Latinos in recent decades. "After we talked about why the Jewish community cares about immigration, two Latino women from the crowd came up and hugged me," Grosser recalled.

Cooperation between the two communities goes beyond the issue of immigration reform and includes many joint programs on the local level. On the national level, Jewish and Latino groups are part of broader coalitions organizing a Washington rally in March in favor of immigration reform, which will be preceded by advocacy work in congressional districts during the February congressional recess.

Jewish groups bring to the table their experience and well-established network of political contacts, a contribution highly appreciated by Hispanic organizers.

"For us, as newcomers to the society, this experience is extraordinary," said Gutavo Torres, president of Casa Maryland, a Hispanic group active in the metropolitan Washington area. "They know how to work through the system, how to lobby, how to advocate. The Jewish community has a lot of experience and a lot of power."

Jewish organizations have been increasing their efforts to reach out to the Hispanic community for several years, and most national groups have established joint programs and sponsored Jewish-Hispanic events. With the rapid growth of the Hispanic community and with its rising political clout, Jewish groups see added value in building bridges to the community.

"We are working on immigration, because it is the right thing to do, because it is part of our values," said the AJC's Foltin. "But the dialogue also creates better understanding for the needs of our community."

Breaking News on Immigration Reform

latimes.com

Latinos seek more support for immigration reform

Illinois congressman tells L.A. protesters that he needs more votes for a reform bill.

By Teresa Watanabe

11:06 PM PST, February 1, 2010

A leading Latino lawmaker asserted Monday that Latinos, angered at President Obama for his failure to push immigration reform legislation, could stay home from the polls this year.

"People are angry and disillusioned," U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) said in an interview.

Gutierrez criticized the Obama administration for not pushing harder for legislation that would provide an opportunity for legalization for some immigrants. But he conceded that he lacks the votes in the House to pass the bill he backs.

Aiming to revive the immigration reform effort, Gutierrez flew to Los Angeles to headline a town hall meeting Monday evening at Our Lady Queen of Angels Church, known as "La Placita," which has long declared itself a sanctuary for illegal immigrants.

With pro-reform banners and chants, hundreds of immigrants and their supporters turned out at the forum, which featured elected officials, labor leaders and Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck.

The diverse slate of speakers included the Rev. Eric Lee of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who said Latinos and African Americans share a common interest in fighting "slave wages."

One Korean illegal immigrant described his drive to excel as a graduate of UC Santa Barbara who dreams of contributing to the country as a professor.

And Beck drew cheers and a standing ovation when he declared, "A person's immigration status alone is not the business of the Los Angeles Police Department."

Earlier, Gutierrez told The Times that Obama's failure to push immigration reform was symbolized by his State of the Union address last Wednesday, when he devoted 38 of about 7,300 words to the issue.

The "throwaway line," Gutierrez said, was the final straw for many activists who have been perturbed by the continued deportations and other enforcement actions without real progress on reform legislation.

Removals of illegal immigrants have increased under the Obama administration. In fiscal 2009, they grew to 387,790 from 291,060 in 2007 under the Bush administration, government data show.

Asked to respond to Gutierrez's remarks, Department of Homeland Security spokesman Matt Chandler said in a written statement that the administration remained "committed to confronting this problem" through administrative and enforcement tools, along with working with Congress toward a solution.

Gutierrez said he was short at least 18 votes in the House to pass his legislation, which would legalize most of the nation's 12 million illegal migrants, provide more family visas, increase worker protections and offer other reforms.

He acknowledged that selling the bill to the American public at a time of double-digit unemployment would not be easy.

But he and Los Angeles labor leader Maria Elena Durazo argued that legalizing undocumented immigrants would help the nation's economic recovery by raising their wages and allowing them to spend more consumer dollars.

To revive the issue's visibility, immigrant rights supporters are organizing a national mobilization on March 21 to take 100,000 people to Washington, D.C.

Without progress, the congressman warned that many Latinos would stay home from the polls.

According to exit polls, Obama received 70% of the Latino vote in 2008, boosting him to victory in the swing states of Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Florida.

A poll last December by Latino Decisions, a research team specializing in the Latino vote, found that significant numbers of Latino voters would defect without passage of immigration reform.

"Democrats have to be very careful that they don't push Latinos from frustration to an active attitude of punishing them for inaction," said Antonio Gonzalez, president of the William C. Velasquez Institute, a nonpartisan public policy analysis organization.

Gonzalez said 1,000 Latino leaders from 15 states who recently met in Texas agreed to launch an "accountability campaign" to publicize whether House and Senate members support immigration reform and withhold votes from those who do not.

But Allan Hoffenblum, a Republican who publishes a nonpartisan analysis of California elections, questioned whether Latinos would defect from Democrats.

"What are they going to do, vote for Republicans who won't even bring up the topic?" he asked.

"The shrillness of Republican rhetoric on immigration reform has more of an impact on Latino voting behavior than the lack of a rapid response from the Obama White House."

teresa.watanabe

@latimes.com

Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times