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Republicans split on immigration bill { March 29 2006 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/29/national/29policy.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/29/national/29policy.html
March 29, 2006
News Analysis
Republican Split on Immigration Reflects Nation's Struggle
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
WASHINGTON, March 28 — It is almost as if they are looking at two different Americas.
The Senate Republicans who voted on Monday to legalize the nation's illegal immigrants look at the waves of immigration reshaping this country and see a powerful work force, millions of potential voters and future Americans.
The House Republicans who backed tough border security legislation in December look at the same group of people and see a flood of invaders and lawbreakers who threaten national security and American jobs and culture.
But both wings of the deeply divided Republican Party are responding to the same phenomenon: the demographic shift driven by immigration in recent decades, a wave that is quietly transforming small towns and cities across the country and underscoring pressures on many parts of the economy.
The United States has always been a nation of immigrants, but today the country has more than 33 million foreign-born residents, the largest number since the Census started keeping such statistics in 1850. In 2003, foreign-born residents made up 11.7 percent of the population, the highest percentage since 1910. And over the past 16 years, the newcomers, many of them illegal, have poured into places in the South and Midwest that have not seen sizeable numbers of new immigrants in generations.
The question of how to cope with the 11 million illegal immigrants believed to be living here — whether to integrate them, ignore them or try to send them home somehow — is a question gripping many ordinary citizens, religious leaders, state legislators and policy makers in the White House. And in their bitter, fractious debate, Republicans in Congress are reflecting what some describe as the nation's struggle to define itself and, to some degree, politically align itself, during a period of social change.
The Senate Republicans on the Judiciary Committee who emerged victorious on Monday with help from Democrats argue that those illegal immigrants who work, pay taxes and learn English should be fully incorporated into American society as citizens. The House Republicans who passed a far different bill in December are pushing to criminalize their presence in the United States. (The full Senate is expected to vote on immigration legislation next week. Any bill that passes the Senate will have to be reconciled with the House legislation.)
As the party struggles to reconcile these competing visions, frustrations over the stalemate are spilling onto the airwaves and into the streets as some conservatives on talk radio call for a wall to be built along the Mexican border and tens of thousands immigrants and their supporters march in favor of citizenship.
"Right now, we're seeing to some extent the political response to the demography," said Roberto Suro, executive director of the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group in Washington. "And even though the legislative proposals are seemingly technical and narrow, they touch these nerves about how we think of ourselves as a people."
"You end up, after a point, trying to balance our fundamental traditions, the need for order, law and security with a need for openness," he said. "Immigration policy, writ large, has always been partly a matter of national identity. It becomes a values-laden debate. Congress has a hard time with it."
That difficulty reflects, in part, the swiftness and the enormousness of the demographic shift.
In 1970, there were 9.6 million foreign-born residents in the country, census data show. By 1980, that figure had surged to 14.1 million. Between 1990 and 2000, the number of foreign-born residents jumped to 31.1 million from 19.8 million.
Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, who voted for the legalization of illegal immigrants on Monday, says he has seen and felt the shift in his own state.
"Huge increase," he said of the number of new immigrants. "It's a big issue, and it's one where communities that have adapted to it are more accepting and others are more questioning about the scale of what's taking place."
But when he wrestled with the issue, Mr. Brownback decided that he could not join the ranks of those who wanted simply to push out illegal immigrants. "This is also about the hallmark of a compassionate society, what you do with the widows, the orphans and the foreigners among you," he said.
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, echoed those thoughts in his defense of the legalization program, which would ultimately grant immigrants citizenship.
"Where is home?" Mr. Graham asked his colleagues Monday. "Their home is where they've raised their children. Their home is where they've lived their married lives."
"Whatever we do," he added, "we have to recognize that for several generations people have made America their home."
But to Representative Tom Tancredo, the Colorado Republican who helped spearhead the border security bill in the House, illegal immigrants are far from welcome or essential to this country.
He was not moved when he saw the tens of thousands of immigrants, some illegal, and their supporters rallying against his bill. He said he was outraged that people he viewed as lawbreakers felt comfortable enough to stand without fear in front of the television cameras.
"For years, the government has turned a blind eye to illegal immigrants who break into this country," Mr. Tancredo said. "It isn't any wonder that illegal aliens now act as if they are entitled to the rights and privileges of citizenship."
Mr. Tancredo's view of the illegal immigrant as an unwanted outsider, an encroacher, is far from uncommon.
The National Conference of State Legislatures has reported a surge in recent years in legislation intended to crack down on illegal immigrants. As of Feb. 28, state legislators in 42 states had introduced 368 bills related to immigration or immigrants, and many of those bills were intended to limit or restrict illegal immigrants.
But some Republicans are warning now that tough anti-immigrant legislation may fuel a backlash and threaten the party's hard-won gains with Hispanics, whose numbers have surged in recent years.
Foreign-born Hispanics voted for President Bush in 2004 at a 40 percent greater rate than Hispanics born in the United States. Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and a strategist close to the White House, warned that Republicans could squander what the party had gained if lawmakers did not embrace a more welcoming vision of America.
"There is a danger that if the face of the Republican Party is Tancredo that we could be weaker with Hispanics for generations," Mr. Norquist said. "If the face of the Republican Party is George Bush or Ronald Reagan, we win. This is up for grabs."
Copyright 2006
The New York Times Company
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