Obama and Immigration Reform
To the Editor:
Re “In Border City Talk, Obama Urges G.O.P. to Help Overhaul Immigration Law” (news article, May 11):
Many of the reports of President Obama’s recent speech on immigration in El Paso have suggested that the president’s focus on immigration is an attempt to pacify Hispanic voters.
No doubt, the issue of immigration is of utmost importance for many Hispanics, but as the president said, it is also a crucial issue for all Americans because economic growth depends upon a rational immigration system.
Indeed, a recent Pew Research Center report found that fully 72 percent of the American public, including a majority of Republicans, support the principles of comprehensive immigration reform as advocated by President Obama in his speech on Tuesday and by President George W. Bush before him. Most Americans, of all political ideologies, ethnicities and religious traditions, realize that neither mass deportation nor amnesty is a good solution to our present predicament and that comprehensive immigration reform is the only reasonable solution.
MATTHEW SOERENS
Glen Ellyn, Ill., May 11, 2011
The writer is co-author of “Welcoming the Stranger: Justice, Compassion and Truth in the Immigration Debate.”
To the Editor:
President Obama’s statements about how his administration is carrying out immigration enforcement may well undermine the urgency he is hoping to generate to reform the system.
The president said that “we are focusing our limited resources on violent offenders and people convicted of crimes.” The reality on the ground, however, is that the majority of people being deported are people with no criminal record at all.
Later in his speech, the president said: “I don’t believe the United States of America should be in the business of separating families. That’s not right. That’s not who we are.” I agree, but the president should therefore acknowledge clearly that this is exactly what his administration is doing.
If more people understood that our government is very much in the business of separating families, they would feel greater urgency to reform the system.
JORGE L. BARÓN
Seattle, May 11, 2011
The writer is executive director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project.
To the Editor:
You were right to praise President Obama’s call for immigration reform, but your criticism of the administration’s expansion of the Secure Communities program is a wrongheaded attack on a valuable law enforcement program.
Secure Communities represents an important way for the federal government to focus its immigration enforcement resources on people whose illegal presence most represents a risk to public safety. This is a common-sense approach to take when the government has limited resources and is still obligated to carry out the laws passed by Congress.
The program has helped lead to important and unambiguous successes in public safety. In the last fiscal year, more than half of those removed from the country — around 195,000 — were convicted criminals. Despite the hesitancy in the few quarters that you mention, Secure Communities continues to be embraced by our nation’s police, who have rapidly expanded the number of jurisdictions that have adopted the program.
JON ADLER
National President, Federal Law
Enforcement Officers Association
Washington, May 11, 2011
To the Editor:
It’s not surprising that Secure Communities, a deeply flawed federal deportation program from the start, is finally facing growing criticism from states and immigrant rights advocates: it simply doesn’t work (“States Resisting Program Central to Obama’s Immigration Strategy,” news article, May 6).
As Cardozo School of Law found, the vast majority of people deported because of Secure Communities — 79 percent — were either noncriminals or picked up for low-level offenses, like traffic offenses. Rather than focusing on dangerous criminals, gang members or smugglers, Secure Communities is mostly deporting hard-working people.
By targeting the wrong immigrants and pushing them into the shadows, and distracting police from their real job, Secure Communities is a misuse of taxpayer dollars. Furthermore, rather than making us safer, Secure Communities undermines the trust-based police-community relationship our neighborhoods need.
This is just another example of the failed Bush-era enforcement-only measures that do nothing to secure our borders while worsening conditions across the country.
Rounding up the people who clean offices, take care of the sick, baby-sit and do a host of important jobs does not make us any more secure or help our struggling economy, and it runs counter to everything we aspire to as a community.
HECTOR FIGUEROA
New York, May 11, 2011
The writer is secretary-treasurer, Local 32BJ S.E.I.U., representing building service workers.
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