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Is The Political Climate on Immigration Finally Changing In America?

December 15, 2011 | Posted by: Admin under Uncategorized

Based on recent social and political events is it possible that the political climate in America on immigration reform is finally changing?  After the obvious injustice and economically devistating consequences of the Arizona and Alabama tough immigraiton laws, I believe that Americans are starting to see that a tough national policy on undocumented aliens will cause not only social injustice, but also economic termoil.   Because of the strict enforecement laws in Alabama, undocumented workers and even their legalized family members have left Alabama out of fear.  As a result, business owners and farmers in Alabama have lost employees which has caused serious economic losses to Alabama’s economy.   Business people visiting Alabama in an effort to possibly relocate factories in Alabama, which by the way would create good paying jobs, have been harrassed and arrested by police.   Just today, the Justice Department  announced it has suspended its cooperation agreement (under section 287(g)) with Arizona’s Maricopa County Sherriff’s Office access to immigration databases through the Secure Communities program because it had found a pattern and practice of civil rights abuses, including extreme cases of racial profiling.  The most suprising political developement is that none other then Newt Gingerich is advocating for some kind of immigration reform to legallize the upwards of 11 million people who are in the United States illegally.  Based on Gingerich’s long history of anti immigration and strict enforcement, I am convinced that he sees a political advantage at comming out infront of the immigration reform issue early in his run for the Republican nomination.  It seems obvious to me that to maintain a strong politcal stance against immigration reform would not be feasible for a successful presidential campaign.  We can rest assured that Newt still wants to sound tough on immigration through stiff enforcement and unconstiutional schemes to cut federal funding to so called sanctuary cities, but the writing is on the wall;  We can talk as tough as we want about enforcment but we need the millions of undocumented workers in our economy.  Moreover, it is simply wrong to destroy families and uproot lives in the name of tough enforcement while happily allowing our economy to exploit low wage labor of undocumented workers so we can enjoy affordable produce and other consumer goods.

Hoyt S. Minkoff, Esq.