Whose America is it, anyhow?
March 21, 1996
Web posted at: 11:35 p.m. ESTBy Senior Washington Correspondent Charles Bierbauer
ELLIS ISLAND, New York (CNN) -- Like many Americans, I'm a descendant of 19th century immigrants. My ancestors actually arrived before Ellis Island opened in 1892 and became the gateway to America for 12 million immigrants.
Great-grandfather on my father's side was a German brewer who settled in upstate New York. The Bierbauer brewery still stands -- and prospers -- in Utica, though the name has changed. Alas, great-grandmother sold it. That's another story.
Mother's family came from Cornwall to work in the slate quarries of eastern Pennsylvania. The quarries are vacant these days.
The great hall at Ellis Island was restored a few years ago for its centennial. The immigration wave that funneled as many as 5,000 a day through its admissions process waned early in this century as the United States closed the door to mass immigration and we, as a nation, became more selective about whom we let join us.
On the neighboring island a few hundred yards across the water of New York's harbor the Statue of Liberty now beckons tourists more than she welcomes fresh new faces.
"Give me your tired, your weary huddled masses, yearning to breathe free..." The words from Emma Lazarus' poem are still inscribed at Liberty's feet, but it is more of a remembrance than an invitation. The tourists come away with those funny green foam tiaras like Miss Liberty's, but not with an immigrant's treasured green card.
"That's not a hotel register she's got in her left hand. That's a book of law," says Daniel Stein of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which lobbies for limited immigration. "That's not a door lamp that she's got in the other."
Congress is in the process of writing its first major immigration law in a decade. It proposes to turn down the lamp a bit.
Here amid the lingering faces of those earlier immigrants, with piles of their trunks and suitcases on display, I wondered where I might be had the rules contemplated today been in effect when my great-grandparents set out for America.
Brewing skills are much in demand with the current popularity of micro-breweries and brew pubs. Someone with the knowledge of fine Bavarian hops and the German "reinheitsgebot" (purity laws) could impart that right touch to a fine lager or a heftier stout. Great-grandfather could be admitted under provisions allowing skilled technicians to take up residence.
But, hold on. We've got perfectly good brewers here in America. Why should a German take that job away from an American? Visa denied.
It's a debate more prevalent today in the high tech industries employing engineers and computer whizzes than in the brewing business. Current law permits some 140,000 visas a year for business-related migration. That would have been cut to 90,000 if proposed changes had made it through the legislative process. The cut was erased from the bill being considered by the Senate Finance Committee and dropped from the House bill in a floor vote Thursday.
Immigration subcommittee chairman Sen. Alan Simpson, a Wyoming Republican, says he withdrew the provisions after the business lobby deluged members of Congress complaining about the proposed cuts in visas. Microsoft's Bill Gates is one high-powered, high-tech business chief who raised the prospect of moving some operations out of the U.S. if he was no longer able to hire some of the foreign experts in computer software.
Do immigrants take jobs from Americans?
"The evidence is mixed," says Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Doris Meissner. She notes immigrants tend to be concentrated at either the very high end of the labor market -- jobs Americans might like to have -- or the very low end of the labor market -- jobs Americans might not be anxious to take.
"There is a very elite, highly qualified labor market that transcends national boundaries," the INS commissioner notes. "We do, as a nation, want to have some access to that market."
"We're not talking about putting up the gates. That would be irresponsible," says Labor Secretary Robert Reich. "We're just talking about being fair to American workers who are struggling to get ahead."
What about the miners on mother's side? Miners? Not much call for them. Lot of unemployed coal miners in places like West Virginia and Pennsylvania if they aren't long gone onto other things.
From Cornwall, you say? That's in England, right?
Not exactly. It's part of Great Britain, but we think of the English as next-door neighbors.
Well, they might get in under European quotas. They're not oversubscribed. Be tougher if they were from Vietnam or Mexico.
It would be a lot tougher and could get even more difficult. Currently about 800,000 immigrate legally. The proposed changes would have dropped that to 560,000 a year. The immigration reform bill also called for limiting families to spouses and minor children, eliminating the possibility for bringing siblings and older parents into this country.
"What we fear is that the hot button issue of illegal immigration is being used as a pretext to cut legal immigration," Frank Sharry of National Immigration Forum worried a few days before the House began its debate. His organization supports broad opportunities for legal immigration.
But that has not happened. The bills are now splitting. Illegal immigration is the priority. Political rhetoric has fanned the anger over the illegals. Pat Buchanan suggested using the Great Wall of China as a model for closing the U.S. border with Mexico.
"I'll build that security fence and we'll close it and say, 'Listen, Jose, you're not coming in,'" Buchanan said on the campaign trail.
The legislation now being considered would add 5,000 border patrol agents over the next five years.
The INS says it is having increased success in plugging the borders and more agents in the field would help. Critics say the success rate is overly dramatized. One Mexican now in California told us he was caught five times in one week before evading the border patrol on the sixth try. The record shows five out of six caught, but it's all the same single illegal, and by persevering he got in.
The crackdown would also extend to those who hire illegals. The 1986 Immigration Reform Act sought to do that but proved toothless. Massive falsification of documents made it difficult for employers to be sure they were hiring legal workers, if the employers cared enough to check in the first place.
The new bill would set up an "800" number for employers to call to check on Social Security numbers. And this time, the bill is supposed to be tough on an employer who exploits and profits from hiring illegals.
"If he does, and he is knowingly doing it under this bill, he is going to be ready to close up shop," says Sen. Simpson.
That still does not solve the problem of some 4 million illegal residents in the U.S., even after many others gained legal status through the amnesty in the 1986 bill.
Nor does it stop the desire of many to come to what is still an economic Eden compared to what is being left behind.
Some of us are, perhaps, just fortunate that our great- grandfathers beat the rush.
"Whose America?" --a CNN report on the perspectives of today's immigrants -- airs Sunday, March 24, at 10:30 p.m. Eastern.
Related stories:
- House overwhelmingly passes immigration bill
- What's America got that keeps immigrants coming?
- U.S. Border Patrol under the gun to stop illegal immigrants
- The long road to the American dream
- Coming to America: Melting pot starts to boil
- Immigration reform bill faces opposition
- Open arms, outstretched hands
- Rush is on for U.S. citizenship
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