The stereotype of the rugged, self-reliant frontiersmen and women who tamed the inhospitable Wild West, thanks in large part to their own ingenuity and the hard work of migrant laborers, is being replaced. The old-fashioned, tough guys have saddled up and ridden their horses off into the sunset, only to be replaced by a new breed of fearful Arizonans who, afraid of change, and anxious about the future, feel the need for protection by hard-nosed lawmen and aggressive posses. A can-do attitude and a spirit of individualism have been supplanted by helplessness and a need for authority.

On other political and social matters–health care, policing of private industry, environmental issues, regulation of financial institutions, to name a few–conservatives generally adhere to the maxim that “the government that governs least governs best.” Conservatives who regard the mighty power of the state to be intrusive and overreaching in other realms, are now desperate to have Big Government insert itself into the immigration issue, which, at its heart is a social and economic matter–driven in large part by the desire of people to better themselves.

Despite protestations, supposedly core political articles of faith have been abandoned in favor of visceral reactions that pit “us” against “them.” How else to explain the rage and the often hateful outpourings of emotion? Supporters of get tough-immigration enforcement generally deny that their views may be inspired by racism or hatred. The immigration issue, they say, is all about the rule of law. There’s a border. Step over it without permission and you pay the legal penalty–arrest, prosecution, deportation. Work without authorization and face the consequences. “What about ‘illegal’ don’t you understand?” I am often asked.

If only it were that simple: an immutable and sacred law which, in its wisdom speaks to eternal values of justice, fairness, and economic prosperity. In fact, legislation is situational, subject to reinterpretation and change. “The law in its majestic equality,” wrote Anatole France, “forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” Laws may try to address political and economic ills, but don’t always resolve them. In particular, immigration laws have changed over the centuries in response to prevailing political sentiment and economic conditions.

With his autograph on 1986 legislation, the iconic conservative Republican President Ronald Reagan granted amnesty to some three million migrants, changing their legal status with the stroke of a pen. (Yes. Conservative Ronald Reagan). The act followed a long tradition of historical ambivalence about immigration issues. The United States once welcomed Chinese laborers, only to later pass laws excluding them. Mexicans have been alternately embraced and rejected, depending on whim, labor needs, and the influence of the employer lobby. Europeans likewise, depending on their ethnic backgrounds were sometimes needed by the United States, and other times shunned. Across the Atlantic, European nations followed the same pattern. They once recruited Muslim workers, and are now trying to restrict them.

Even though we may true to reduce the immigration issue to a strictly legal matter, that just isn’t the case. Yesterday, I interviewed a high-ranking U.S. immigration official whose job it is to deport illegal immigrants. He sounded like an immigrants’ rights activist, telling me that he and the people he works with know that the main reason people come to the U.S. illegally (and legally) is to improve their lives. He’s right. Some people walk across the street to find work; others cross city boundaries or state lines. Others cross national borders. Immigration can’t be reduced to a legal matter, and the issues that surround it are not simply resolved by pulling out the six guns, saddling up the Broncos, and rounding up the “bad guys.”

Arizona’s Barry Goldwater, the quintessential conservative, knew that. His family had employed illegal immigrants on a citrus farm. Goldwater opposed employer sanctions, knowing they are “inevitably discriminatory.” He was also against amnesty and favored a temporary worker program. But significantly, Goldwater realized that at the root, the U.S. needed “increased cooperation with the countries that are sending illegal aliens.” He believed that U.S. businesses should work with those abroad to “[h]elp providing economic incentives to encourage residents to remain in their native lands.”

In wanting to get at the causes for immigration, Goldwater had it right. At the very least, today’s conservatives would do well to learn that lesson from the old Arizona firebrand. And there are others: Big Government won’t resolve the issue. Immigration is governed more by the laws of supply and demand than government statutes.

Even conservative die-hards have told me time and again, that if the shoe were on the other foot, they would also cross borders and do what was necessary for the welfare of their families. Family values. And, while we’re on the subject, for religious conservatives who respect Judeo-Christian principles above all, here’s another maxim to keep in mind: “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”

On Tuesday, Arizona’s House of Representatives approved a bill requiring police to investigate anyone they have “reasonable suspicion” may be in the country illegally. On Thursday, in a massive show of force, more than 800 federal agents and local police arrested 49 people in raids that targeted shuttle van operations allegedly involved in human smuggling.

“The situation for our communities, of course, is really acute,” lawyer Isabel Garcia, co-chair of the Tucson-based Coalicion de Derechos Humanos (“The Human Rights Coalition”) said on Democracy Now! on Friday, the day after the arrests. “People yesterday were scrambling, didn’t send people to school, didn’t go to work.”

Arizona has become an epicenter for tough immigration law enforcement. To understand why, trace a straight line from the Clinton administration through well-meaning advocacy groups whose political strategy seems to have backfired.

In reaction to mounting political pressure, President Clinton presided over an unprecedented immigration crackdown, launching Operation Blockade and Operation Hold the Line (1993) in Texas. In 1994, as illegal immigration increased in California, Republicans hammered the Clinton administration and Democrats in general for being too soft on immigration. In response, Democrats made every effort to show they were just tough as Republicans, and the Clinton administration intensified the militarization of the border with Operation Gatekeeper (1994) in San Diego, followed by Operation Safeguard (1994) in southern Arizona.

“We have increased spending on the states to deal with the immigration problems by 32 percent since I’ve been President,” boasted Clinton in 1994. “We’ve increased border guards by 30 percent. We put 1,000 more border guards on. We have doubled the border guards in San Diego.”

Despite the buildup, since no effort was made to address the root causes of immigration, the main effect of the military-style operations was simply to shift the crossing routes. Arizona, with its more hazardous terrain, became the passageway of choice.

“Arizona is, in fact, the doorway. Over 50 percent of all crossings occur through Arizona,” said attorney Garcia. “As a result, we have created Arizona to be the place where traffickers come, smugglers come.”

Pushed out by trade policies which put Mexican farmers at a disadvantage, and lured by jobs, migrants funneled into Arizona. The immigrant population increased, making for a toxic political brew in the conservative Grand Canyon state, and immigration became a hot political football.

Similarly, in Washington, D.C., lawmakers came under growing pressure to address immigration–as illegal immigrants spread throughout the country. With a growing population of people living in the shadows, proponents of reform repeatedly proposed package deals (hence the world “comprehensive”), that included forms of legalization, provisions for temporary worker programs, and, to satisfy critics, stringent enforcement measures.

Thwarted time and again, reformers took on the get-tough rhetoric of their opponents in the hopes that they could sell legalization if tough enforcement were included in the deal. The Democratic Party adopted a stern immigration policy as part of its platform: “We need to secure our borders, and support additional personnel, infrastructure, and technology on the border and at our ports of entry. We need additional Customs and Border Protection agents equipped with better technology and real-time intelligence.”

“As the immigration debate has shifted to the right, liberal groups like the National Immigration Forum, America’s Voice, Center for American Progress, NDN [a progressive think tank], and National Council of La Raza have also been calling for an immigration reform that ‘secures the border’ and ‘restores the rule of law,’” Tom Barry of the Center for International Policy wrote last year in an excellent analysis of the trend. Barry showed how polling apparently influenced positions taken by Democrats, immigration activists, the Obama campaign, and eventually, the Obama administration.

“Improved interior and worksite enforcement is a critical part of comprehensive immigration reform,” said Janet Napolitano, the former Arizona governor, now Homeland Security secretary, in November. “We’ve demonstrated that when it comes to that issue, this Administration is committed to action.” More recently, Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, echoed the same theme: “I think we have to make sure the border is secure, the interior is secure, and we have a functioning immigration system,” he told PBS NewsHour correspondent Ray Suarez.

Supporters of comprehensive immigration reform support the “three-legged stool” strategy articulated by Napolitano–a pathway to legalization, temporary worker programs, and stepped up enforcement. But with the long-running Washington stalemate over this comprehensive approach, the default immigration policy rests on just one of those legs, enforcement. With the implicit blessing of advocates, Democrats, with something to prove, are showing they can out-toughen Republicans, at least at the federal level.

Back in Arizona, Democrats have also gone along with immigrant crackdowns, although legislators opposed the latest and nastiest bill, SB 1070, which would give police unprecedented powers to stop and question people if they suspect “the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States.” Proponents deny the law would lead to racial profiling, but it is doubtful that cops will spend any time looking for Canadians on expired visas. In the case of SB 1070, enough was enough. Perhaps it’s time for Democrats and their allies to re-think their national strategy as well.

In the nation’s capital, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) appeared to backpedal on a promise made over the weekend when he declared at a campaign rally, “We’re going to have immigration reform now.” On Tuesday, he appeared to stretch the definition of “now” by telling reporters, “We won’t get to immigration reform this work period.” At the same time, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the leading Republican advocate of immigration reform also seemed to bury prospects for a comprehensive bill. “Immigration is going nowhere this year,” Lindsey told Politico–even as the Arizona legislature was in full throttle devising its own immigration strategy.

And that’s the way the nation’s immigration policy, generally labeled “broken” by all sides of the political spectrum, gets made. As a result of Congressional inaction, Arizona, like states and municipalities around the country, is filling the vacuum by fashioning its own immigration policy, one that in the case of the Grand Canyon state is more redolent of the values of the Old West frontier days than the sensibilities of civil liberties advocates.

Emotions about the bill were particularly inflamed after the murder last month of rancher Robert Krentz not far from the border. Even though police have not named a suspect, the Krentz family has blamed “a suspected illegal alien” and the lack of border security for the killing. In Phoenix on Tuesday, as they voted in favor of the state’s latest immigrant crackdown, one legislator after another in the Arizona state capitol invoked the murder as they rose to denounce Washington for its inability to keep migrants out. “The federal government has failed in helping this state seal its borders,” said Republican David Gowan.

In a party-line, 35-21 vote, the legislators passed a Republican-supported bill expanding the power of police officers to go after illegal immigrants. In the language of the measure, “where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person.” The measure provides no instruction on what might constitute a “reasonable suspicion.” And even though the bill does contain a caveat warning that a law enforcement official “may not solely consider race, color or national origin,” the use of the word “solely” clearly does allow police officials to use race or color.

Alessandra Soler Meetze, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Arizona, described the measure as “a green light to harass anyone who looks or sounds foreign.” Tucson representative Daniel Patterson, a Democrat, described the proposed law as the “symbol of heavy handed government intrusion.”

“We have many families in Arizona who are legal American citizens, who may speak Spanish, who may not look American to some people in Arizona,” he said. “This could lead to profiling.”

Civil libertarians believe that should the bill become law, the courts will eventually declare it unconstitutional. Another Arizona measure penalizing employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants is currently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court on the challenge that states cannot pre-empt federal authority on immigration matters. That 2007 law was signed by then Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, now Secretary of Homeland Security. At the time, Napolitano said the bill was necessary “because it is now abundantly clear that Congress finds itself incapable of coping with the comprehensive immigration reforms our country needs.”

But now, as part of the Washington Establishment, Napolitano has faced criticism herself as part of an administration that has not more forcefully pushed to secure the comprehensive immigration reform she advocated as governor.

That failure has had a cascading effect. In the absence of humane reform policies, the default federal immigration policy has enforcement as its centerpiece, as it has been since the Reagan administration. Successive presidents, including the current one, have built an increasingly hefty immigration enforcement bureaucracy, but it has proved a poor match for the addiction of America’s employers to migrant labor. Even as they met the need, millions of people who became part of the fabric of American society labor were, by turns welcomed, and–increasingly in this economy–reviled. Hence, the rise in the number of local and state governments that took immigration policy into their own hands. In 2009, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, state governments considered and enacted record levels of immigrant-related legislation, with 222 laws enacted and 131 resolutions adopted in 48 states. Arizona adopted nine immigration laws.

The big national immigration-related headline may be the Washington stalemate, with states such as Arizona featured occasionally for their curiosity value. But the absence of a coherent, comprehensive immigration strategy has led to inexorable policy trajectories on both the national and local scenes that have emphasized enforcement first. And immigrants are taking it on the chin.

In California, Republican candidates for governor are battling over who’s tougher on immigration. In Britain where national elections will take place on May 6, Conservatives are bashing the Labour Party for what it falsely describes as an “open-door immigration policy.” The French government has set deportation quotas and is seeking to toughen its immigration rules. In Italy, Hungary, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Greece and Switzerland, right wing parties and politicians are chalking up political gains by pandering to anti-immigrant sentiment. Even in developing countries such as India, Pakistan, Yemen and Sri Lanka, governments have stepped up deportations and toughed the rules on foreign workers.

In some countries, migrants are loudly speaking out. A March 21 demonstration in Washington, D.C. drew tens of thousands of immigrants and their supporters. In Italy, thousands of people in different cities rallied for migrants rights on March 1. But more quietly, and often behind the scenes, a potent force–businesses that rely on a mobile workforce are also making the case for migrant labor. So, even as fear, anxiety, resentment, xenophobia, and racism fuel waves of anti-immigrant populism around the globe, countervailing pressures come not only from migrants themselves but from corporate sponsors dependent on immigrant labor.

“Restricting the number of foreign nationals in individual companies would hamper activities,” Som Mittal, president of India’s major IT trade group told the country’s Economic Times after the country instituted visa restrictions. The migrant crackdowns in India may come as a surprise, since the nation is better known for exporting workers. But recent prosperity has led India in some ways to act more like an industrial than a developing country. As India attracted capital from abroad, the number of foreigners living in India rose considerably, leading to resentment and social friction. India’s Ministry of Home Affairs reported that in 2008, the number of registered foreigners totaled 398,836, a more than threefold increase in two years.

Things came to a head last May after a riot in which Indian villagers reportedly attacked workers brought in from China by a Chinese company to work on construction of a steel plant. In November, after examining the issue, India’s Outlook magazine reported that “hordes of unskilled/semi-skilled imports from China are taking jobs from the unemployed Indian. One estimate put their total number–skilled and unskilled together–at around 25,000.” By the end of the year, the estimated number of Chinese workers had risen to 40,000, and, in reaction, the Indian government instituted a new policy to clamp down on foreigners. Under recently-adopted regulations, Indian will issue employment visas to only one percent of the total number of workers in a particular project. It also imposed an upper limit of 20 workers for projects.

Not surprisingly, businesses don’t like the new rules and are appealing to the Indian government to change them. The drive is led by India’s $60 billion IT industry, which, like other businesses, prefers to act as if nation states and political boundaries did not exist.

“We need to get expats to help us understand the complexity of businesses,” said TV Mohandas Pai head of human resources at Bangalore-based Infosys Technologies, one of the largest IT companies in the world. “But instead of helping, the [Indian] government has tightened the visa rules.”

Loosening visa and immigration rules is a cause that transnational firms have long championed, and one that Pai has articulated for many years. His company, Infosys, has 16 offices throughout the United States, and is one of America’s major employers of high tech, temporary workers with H-1B visas. Last year, even as the U.S. economy was tanking and out-of-work American programmers were looking for jobs, Infosys received authorization from the U.S. Department of Labor to import 10,069 H-1B workers. To Pai, as with other business executives in firms that depend on migrant labor, the state of the economy is irrelevant. The goal is worker mobility, since ease of movement provides transnational companies with flexibility. Pai makes the same case in the United States as he makes in India. “I think the H-1B program has made America more competitive because it has gotten the best of class people to come to America to work,” Pai told a television interviewer this week. “H1-B will bring jobs to America and H-1B will not take away jobs from America,” he said. “This program needs to be expanded.”

The pro-migrant stance is hardly limited to Indian firms. Industry coalitions in the United States such as ImmigrationWorks USA and EWIC, the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, which is run out of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are also hard at work lobbying for business-friendly immigration rules. It’s an old and familiar story. Just as European industrialists during the industrial revolution lobbied to free serfs from the land so peasants could move from the countryside to cities to work in factories, modern day businesses also thrive on a workforce that is portable, ready, and replaceable. That’s why the fixation on the legal status of immigrants is misplaced. Truly comprehensive immigration reform needs to be international and needs to account for the driving forces behind immigration.

Consider, for example, the case of Daniel Boone– long regarded as an iconic eighteenth century “frontiersman.” Boone might also be described as an “illegal immigrant” and a coyote, a human smuggler.

Boone was a soldier, hunter, and fur trader whose exploits and role in the western expansion by colonists made him not only an enemy of Native Americans but also, according to British law, an immigrant outlaw. In the early 1760s, the growing population of colonists saw a need to go farther and farther afield in search of game and territory. Their migrations did not please King George III, since expansion meant loss of political and economic control. Wanting to license fur traders, control land speculation, and avoid costly wars with native Americans, in 1763, the monarch ordered that American settlers not move west beyond the Appalachian Mountains. To enforce the policy, the British government created what, in effect, was the first North American border patrol agency, stationing 10,000 troops along the colonial frontier.

“We do hereby strictly forbid, on Pain of our Displeasure, all our loving Subjects from making any Purchases or Settlements whatever” of land outside the influence of the British government, the king decreed in his proclamation.

The king’s “loving Subjects” did not return the affection, and illegal immigrants, ignoring the proclamation, blazed and followed trails across the frontier into what became Kentucky and Tennessee. A famous painting by George Caleb Bingham depicts Daniel Boone in a role that today might be described as a human smuggler escorting “pioneers” through the Cumberland Gap between east Kentucky and Tennessee.

Despite protests by land speculators, traders, and settlers, the British government slightly modified but didn’t back away from the proclamation. As a result, angry colonists made freedom of movement one of their justifications for self-government.

They recorded their displeasure with the king in one of the grievances enumerated in the Declaration of Independence: “He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither.”

So, the colonists were a pro-immigrants rights bunch who not only disobeyed the laws of the land and advocated their change, but connected migrants’ rights with their own well-being and that of the states. Sound familiar?

Yes, I know it’s an imperfect analogy. Today, there’s no tyrannical king ruling from afar. Migrants aren’t at war with native Americans. Nor is there a rebellion of foreign colonists who view migration in terms of economic and territorial expansion. But some of the underlying fundamentals have distinct parallels. Yesterday’s fur traders, as well as frontiersmen and women, would recognize themselves among today’s migrant advocates. Many businesses regard the importation of foreign workers as key to their economic development. And, for their part, many migrants cross political boundaries to escape hardship and to find opportunity.

What are the policy implications of this? For one thing, using history as our collective memory allows us to break down walls between “us” and “them.” The more we understand our commonalities, the less able we are to demonize the other.

For another, coming at immigration by enacting policies that take account of why people migrate is without question a better strategy than acting like a monarch and erecting higher fences and mobilizing more border guards. That plan didn’t work out too well for George III. It didn’t stop Daniel Boone, and for many of the same reasons, it’s unlikely to prevent today’s frontiersmen and women from crossing borders in pursuit of their own settlements and goals.

In fiscal year 2009, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported 387,790 people, a 5% increase in “removals” (in the parlance of immigration officials) over the previous year.

President Obama may have made immigrant-friendly promises during the campaign, but viewed in the context of history, the deportations were practically inevitable. Anti-immigrant sentiment and immigration crackdowns have always paralleled America’s economic fortunes. Immigrants have been welcomed during good times, only to find themselves vilified when times get tough.

In the latter part of the 19th century, nearly 250,000 migrants from China — many recruited by U.S. companies — crossed the Pacific Ocean to work in America’s fields and mines and on the railroads. About 15,000 Chinese miners joined the California Gold Rush.

But after the boom went bust and an economic depression took hold, virulent anti-Chinese hatred — motivated by a combination of racism and the fear that Chinese workers were depressing wages — started in the West and rippled through national politics. Mobs attacked Chinese businesses and homes in San Francisco. The California Workingmen’s Party adopted the slogan “The Chinese Must Go!” and rallies decrying the “Chinese curse” were held around California.

In an effort to bring a halt to most legal immigration from China, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. It was the first time that federal law had been used to control and limit migration to the United States by a particular nationality.

During World War I, agribusiness, worried about a labor shortage, prevailed on Herbert Hoover, then head of the U.S. Food Administration, to pressure Washington to open the migration valve and allow in more Mexican farmworkers.

But with the onset of the Depression at the end of the 1920s, Americans showed little tolerance for the migrants it had so recently courted. Hoover, now president, initiated a mass deportation program that continued into the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Immigration agents were ruthless in their raids, chasing down Latinos, ignoring due process and failing to distinguish between legal and nonlegal residents of the United States. Authorities deported as many as 1 million people.

The prosperous 1940s and 1950s gave birth to the Bracero Agreement, a “temporary” worker program to address World War II labor needs that ended up lasting 22 years.

But then an economic downturn at the end of the Korean War brought yet another crackdown. In 1954, President Eisenhower’s immigration chief, retired Gen. Joseph “Jumpin’ Joe” Swing, launched Operation Wetback. Government personnel rounded up migrants in border communities and deported them by bus, truck, train and ship, transporting them to the Mexican interior. By the time the deportations ended a few months after they began, the Immigration and Naturalization Service claimed to have forcibly removed 1.1 million Mexicans.

During the 1970s and early 1980s, migration from Mexico accelerated, pushed by economic conditions south of the border and fueled by relatively higher wages in the United States.

In 1981, as U.S. unemployment climbed, Atty. Gen. William French Smith sounded the alarm: “We have lost control of our borders.” As the country headed into a 16-month-long recession, the Reagan administration unveiled an immigration reform plan to combine increased enforcement with legalization. It took five years for President Reagan’s Immigration Reform and Control Act to become law. During that time, the INS budget (measured in constant dollars) jumped by 28%.

The Reagan reforms did little if anything to stop illegal immigration, which ticked sharply upward in the early 1990s as a rise in the U.S. service economy created a need for low-skilled workers. The combination of continued migration and economic uncertainty made for a volatile political brew. In 1994, anti-immigration activists campaigned for a California ballot initiative designed to eliminate public social services for illegal migrants. Politicians seized on an emotional issue.

“They keep on coming!” an announcer ominously intoned over black-and-white video of Mexicans rushing across the border near San Diego, a campaign commercial for Republican California Gov. Pete Wilson, then running for reelection.

Stepped-up immigration enforcement was hardly a partisan issue. With initiatives such as Operation Blockade in El Paso, followed by Operation Gatekeeper in San Diego, President Clinton continued the militarization of the border, a pattern that continued under President Bush. In eight years, Bush more than doubled the staff of the Border Patrol, raising the total from about 9,000 to 20,000 agents, even as he unsuccessfully pushed for comprehensive immigration reform.

In the face of declining congressional prospects for his own reform package, Obama is using executive powers to follow through on his other immigration-related pledge to step up enforcement. In doing so, he is following a long bipartisan tradition: Namely, as goes the economy, so goes immigration policy.

(This article appeared as an Op-Ed piece in the Los Angeles Times).

The two senators have outlined a four-point plan that, while vague on details, attempts to resurrect immigration reform proposals that were put forth but rejected in 2007. Schumer and Graham’s plan has “four pillars: requiring biometric Social Security cards to ensure that illegal workers cannot get jobs; fulfilling and strengthening our commitments on border security and interior enforcement; creating a process for admitting temporary workers; and implementing a tough but fair path to legalization for those already here.”

As was the case in 2007, the blueprint attempts to offer something for all sides—a carrot and stick approach that might appease immigration reform advocates but is unlikely to win over critics, particularly in the current economic climate. Restrictionist groups such as NumbersUSA will simply not go along with any “path to legalization,” no matter how “tough and fair” it might be. Ditto for plans to cater to the business community by setting up a system for “future flows” of low- and high-skilled workers. Biometric social security cards are likely to raise the ire of civil liberties advocates, as they have in the past. And, both immigrant rights and business groups have justifiably complained that a worker identification system is on the one hand unreliable, and, on the other could lead to racial discrimination in hiring.

But, even with its compromises and weaknesses, a plan for comprehensive immigration reform is long overdue. It is unconscionable that 11 million or more people live in the shadows—most of them welcomed during economic good times when we needed their labor, but now, with the economic downturn, considered expendable commodities.

The real problem, however, is that as long as the legislative stalemate over comprehensive immigration reform continues, a humane legalization program, such as the one that President Reagan signed in 1986, is impossible. As a result, the default executive policy embraced by the administration is a continuation of President Bush’s stern enforcement strategy. With the growing assault from the right, a focus on immigration enforcement might appear to be a politically pragmatic way of appeasing critics, but it does a disservice to the millions of voters who had a right to expect more from this President and this Congress. It’s encouraging that President Obama is urging Schumer and Graham “to translate their framework into a legislative proposal” and asking “Congress to act at the earliest possible opportunity.” But if he is sincere, he needs to join in spirit with the demonstrators on the Washington Mall on Sunday and put on the pressure.

At issue is the contentious matter of “future flow,” the desire by business for legal temporary worker programs. Unions and business interests are at loggerheads over how to regulate the flow of foreign workers. Organized labor has proposed a government commission to set numbers in order to protect American jobs. Organized business prefers a more market-oriented system. Talks aimed resolving differences have broken down, a dispute that has gone public with the release of opposing statements issued by the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The groups issued dueling press releases following meetings last Thursday between President Obama and immigration reform advocates.

“A new temporary worker program in today’s economy would be political suicide,” declared AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka in a strongly-worded broadside aimed at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “American workers are facing a prolonged jobs crisis and nearly 10 percent unemployment, with no sign of recovery in sight. If immigration reform is to have any chance of passing this year, the Chamber of Commerce is going to have to abandon its insistence on the creation of a new temporary worker program and embrace a solution based on real employment needs,” said Trumka on Friday.

On Saturday, the Chamber’s Randel K. Johnson struck back. “The AFL-CIO tells the Chamber to ‘abandon its insistence’ on a new temporary worker program when they know that this is a pivotal area that must be discussed and negotiated. By taking this position, the AFL-CIO ends any realistic chance of legislation this year,” said Johnson in his statement. “The new program must also give the U.S. labor market, not a commission, the primary say in how many workers enter the country annually through workable legal programs.”

The White House meetings and the public disputes come just ahead of a planned rally for Sunday, March 21 on the national mall in Washington, D.C. Organizers hope that their “March for America” will bring pressure to bear on wavering politicians and will remind them of pledges to reform the immigration system. A chief focus of the Washington demonstration, according to planners, will be a system of legalization that seeks to end deportations and prevent families from being torn apart. For much of the American public, the battle over “amnesty” proposals represent the most controversial aspects of immigration reform. But for business, keeping the immigration valve open so as to allow a supply of foreign labor flowing in has always been a key requirement for immigration policy.

“From the business perspective the most important element of immigration reform is a program to supply the U.S. economy with the workers it needs to recover from the downturn and grow in years ahead, replacing the current unlawful influx with a legal flow,” said the Chamber of Commerce’s Johnson.

Keeping workers mobile and available to stoke the fires of industry has been a perennial requirement of organized business. After all, imported slaves and indentured servants helped build the United States. I’m not suggesting that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce proposes a pernicious return to bondage; I’m just pointing out the self-interest of business groups which promote immigration reform. A more pertinent analogy might compare modern day immigration advocates from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to factory owners during the times of the Industrial Revolution in Germany. Nineteenth century urban industrialists actively campaigned to have serfs freed from agrarian estates so they would be able move to cities. That way, peasants would be available for industrial labor and not tied to farms.

Organized labor’s advocacy on behalf of immigrant workers in the U.S. and its qualified support for temporary worker programs represents a sea change, made haltingly over the past decade. Taken at face value, the AFL-CIO’s support of a plan that, as Trumka puts it, “ties the number of new foreign workers coming into the US labor market to established labor shortages” would have old-time labor leaders turning over in their union-dug graves. The AFL-CIO’s goal of first protecting U.S. workers while seeking protections for migrants is a logical step for a labor movement that has only gradually and recently come to terms with the reality of migrant workers. But it is no surprise that its position on “future flow” puts it at odds with business interests.

Although any immigration reform legislation will have a hard slog this year, to the extent that a bill will have any viability may be determined by the capacity of labor and business to work out their differences. Immigration reform is going nowhere without Republican support in the Senate, and the chief GOP advocate on the issue is Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina). After meeting with President Obama, Graham who with Sen. Charles Schumer (D-New York) is hashing out the details of the bill, made clear where he stands on the issue of temporary workers. “I … encouraged the Administration to become engaged with the unions on the creation of a temporary worker program which meets the needs of business community,” said Graham.

Forcing concessions from labor is only one part of Graham’s strategy around immigration reform. Another arrow in his quiver is the seemingly unconnected issue of health care. “I expressed [to President Obama], in no uncertain terms, my belief that immigration reform could come to a halt for the year if health care reconciliation goes forward,” said Graham. “For more than a year, health care has sucked most of the energy out of the room. Using reconciliation to push health care through will make it much harder for Congress to come together on a topic as important as immigration.”

Will Republicans really tie an immigration bill to an up or down vote on health care? Will labor withhold support for immigration reform if business prevails on a temporary worker program? Might opponents of immigration reform watch its prospects implode without lifting a finger? Stay tuned.

Each year, the DHS’ Office of Immigration Statistics gamely puts out “Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population Residing in the United States.” Even the government statisticians acknowledge the limitations of their data collection: keeping an accurate count of immigrants, particularly those here illegally, is far from an exact science. The experts assume that their estimate of illegal immigrants may be 10 percent lower than the actual numbers. Nonetheless, using the same methodology from year to year provides at the very least a good indication of trends. They show that between 2007 and 2009, the U.S. illegal immigrant population dropped by 8.5 percent–from 11.8 million to 10.8 million.

In short, the numbers show what anyone who is basically sentient could guess. American jobs started drying up in 2007 when the housing bubble burst and the construction industry fell apart. As the Great Recession hit and employment prospects plunged, the population of illegal immigrants, most of whom come here to work, naturally shrank. The contraction reversed a trend. Between 2000 and 2007, the number of illegal immigrants had climbed by nearly 39 percent, virtually tracking the growth rate of the U.S. economy, and defying the massive buildup of the nation’s immigration and border enforcement.

What’s all that got to do with the Jewish experience? Most American Jews are Ashkenazi descendants of Eastern Europeans who immigrated between 1881 and 1914, the beginning of World War I. Jews in the Russian Empire had been forced to live inside the Pale of Settlement, which included parts of present-day Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine. They were forbidden from living in certain cities within the Pale and from holding certain occupations. Pogroms, anti-Jewish riots that occurred during the period, raged in hundreds of towns. Mobs killed more than 2,000 people, destroyed homes, and injured scores. The three decades saw a mass departure of Russian Jews. Two million of them–nearly one in two residents of the Pale–went abroad, 1.5 million to the United States.

And that’s where, in the minds of many Jews, the modern day exodus story often ends. The common wisdom engrained in popular Jewish consciousness is that Eastern European Jews immigrated because of persecution. This Twitter version of history is summarized, for instance, in the online Beginner’s Guide to Jewish Genealogy: “The majority of these Jewish immigrants were from Russia and Russian-held portions of Poland, escaping discrimination and pogroms (extreme persecutions).”

The reality is more complicated. As the late Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg put it in The Jews in America, “In fact, pogroms (physical attacks on Jews) played a minor role as a cause of the emigration of Jews from Eastern Europe. The dominant cause of mass migration was poverty.” Hertzberg suggested that the widely accepted persecution explanation is a sort of mythologized vision of the past. “[I]t is much better to imagine that one’s grandparents were already the ‘better people’ in Russia and that America was the haven of refuge from anti-Semitism,” he wrote. “The truth is starker and more heroic. The Jews from Russia arrived in the United States penniless and largely uneducated…”

In a 2007 book chapter, “Were Jews Political Refugees or Economic Migrants?,” UCLA economics professor Leah Platt Boustan provides a painstakingly thorough debunking of the “common belief that the exodus from Russia was a uniquely Jewish event and thus cannot be incorporated into a general model of migration.” Boustan compares migration flows of Russian Jews and of Austro-Hungarians and Italians during the same period, showing that the “timing of Jewish migration, like that of other migrations to the New World, responded to economic conditions.” Boustan doesn’t discount the push of anti-Semitism and political hardship, but does make the case that persecution along with the combination of economic adversity in Russia and promise in the United States spurred the move to what the predominantly Yiddish-speaking immigrants called die goldene medina, the “golden land.”

That view directly contradicts the perspective of Stephen Steinlight, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) in Washington, D.C., who has emerged as a leading Jewish voice in favor of more restrictionist immigration policies. “Jews during the Great Wave fled pogroms, oppression, and discrimination,” he wrote recently. “There’s no commonality between the Jewish refugees of that era and today’s economic migrants.” He concluded, “[A] growing majority of American Jews opposes illegal immigration because a confident American identity makes them empathize with fellow Americans first, not immigrants.”

It’s a potent argument, one that essentially calls on assimilated American Jews, blinded by the fog of historical memory, to disregard their own ancestral experiences and draw an artificial line between us and them. Steinlight rightly assumes that identity breeds empathy. If we can somehow disassociate our own experiences from those of more recent border crossers, we can try to convince ourselves that those people are not like us. Empathy does loom large in the Jewish experience, and public opinion surveys show that Jews tend to be comparatively tolerant of illegal immigrants. But attitudes may be changing. A 2007 poll by the American Jewish Committee showed that 67 percent of Jews backed some form of legalization program for illegal immigrants. By December 2009, according to a CIS survey, the percentage of Jews supporting a path to legalization was down to 60 percent.

In this regard, the changing Jewish opinion is in line with historic patterns of attitudes towards immigration. Namely, depressed economies are often accompanied by anti-immigrant sentiment and legislation. But Jews would do well to draw a lesson from our own history and resist the temptation to scapegoat and demonize those whose crimes consist mainly of crossing political boundaries in search of better lives. Immigrants from eastern and southern Europe were viewed not only as “hereditary defectives,” they were considered dirty, depraved, disease ridden, crime prone, a burden on society, and incapable of assimilation. If anything, the Jewish experience points to the need to address root causes of immigration, and to avoid the folly of treating immigrants as occupying invaders. And if the lessons of the last century aren’t sufficient, in dealing with illegal immigrants, Jews of conscience can benefit from the guidance of Hillel some 2,000 years ago: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.”

Rep. Xavier Becerra. Photo by Jeffrey Kaye.

The rally was called “2010: The Year of Immigration Reform Town Hall.” Sponsored by community and labor advocates of immigration reform, the meeting was held at the offices of the Long Term Care Workers Union, a branch of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which represents more immigrant workers than any other union in the United States.

As the gathering got underway, the multi-ethnic crowd was pumped. Organizers distributed special headsets so that audience members could hear interpreters providing simultaneous translations into Spanish, English, Armenian, and Chinese. Close to where I was sitting, students, mostly girls, from the Social Justice Academy at Hollywood High School wearing “Legalize L.A.” t-shirts, applauded as speakers were introduced.

But, from the beginning, calls to action, announcements about forthcoming rallies and marches, and passionate pleas about the pressing need for immigration reform seemed tempered by reality. The town hall’s moderator, Angelica Salas of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), announced that two of the invited guests whose pictures had graced the event poster – Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles) – had scheduling conflicts and so would not be appearing (Waxman has a safe seat, but Boxer may face a serious challenge from whoever wins the GOP primary). And before Becerra showed up, Salas, clearly anticipating that the Congressman might deliver a somber caution, coached the packed room on how to respond if Becerra demonstrated any inclination to extend the battle for immigration reform beyond 2010.

“I want to hear from you guys: ‘The time is now!’” The audience chanted responsively. Salas repeated the instruction. “What are you going to say? ‘The time is now!’” And again, for emphasis: “If someone says, ‘We have to wait,’ what are you going to say?” The students near me along with the rest of the crowd got the point: “The time is now!” they yelled.

Becerra took the stage after other speakers pressed the point. A tearful 15 year old named Beatríz told of her suicide attempt after immigration agents came to deport her mother. UCLA’s Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda summarized a report he recently released arguing that the United States could gain from legalizing illegal immigrants. “We are on the side, not only of justice, but economic benefit,” he declared. CHIRLA organizer Rey Barrera enthusiastically described the work of Reform Immigration for America in generating support for an immigration reform bill.

By contrast, Becerra seemed ready to downplay expectations. The son of immigrants (“every day my father helped build America,” he said) and the vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus, spoke forthrightly about the chances for immigration reform. “We don’t yet have the momentum,” he explained. As if on cue, the girls from Hollywood High chanted almost in a stage whisper, “The time is now!”

Becerra continued his theme, comparing the quest for immigration reform to the civil rights movement. “It didn’t happen overnight,” he explained, providing his view of what he called “the naked truth.”

“It will not be easy, but it will come,” he said. “In the House of Representatives, I firmly believe that we will have the votes to pass comprehensive immigration reform,” he continued. As the crowd applauded, Becerra described a more complete picture of reality. “But there’s always a ‘but,’” he said. “In the Senate, I can’t guarantee you that there are the votes. And principally I can’t guarantee you that there are the votes because in the Senate, a dysfunctional Senate, we need a super-majority to get anything done…The Republicans in the Senate have decided to make every vote in the Senate a supermajority vote. You can’t sneeze in the Senate without asking for 60 votes. That’s why health care reform hasn’t become law.”

Becerra, a co-sponsor of the immigration reform bill recently introduced in the House, explained that while some members of Congress are receptive to the idea of immigration reform, “they don’t feel it in Washington, D.C. the way you feel it. They don’t feel this in some parts of this country the way you and Beatríz feel this,” he repeated, referring to the teenager who had preceded him at the podium.

Frustrated questioners asked him about the delays and about whether the President’s election promise to bring illegal immigrants in from the shadows was still in play. Becerra cited other domestic priorities – health care reform and jobs.
“He hears a lot from people who say we need immigration reform,” Becerra said, “but I don’t believe –” At that point, I couldn’t hear the rest of his sentence. It was interrupted as the girls of Hollywood High started a chorus that, as it was picked up by others throughout the room, drowned out Becerra’s words: “The time is now! The time is now!” It lasted for 50 seconds, and Becerra stood quietly.

“I agree,” he finally said as the chanting ended with applause. “I agree. Now, we just have to convince a majority of the House and Senate that the time is now. That’s the problem. We have to convince a majority.”

As he cautioned patience, Becerra asked the crowd to encourage friends and co-workers elsewhere in the country to contact their legislators, saying lawmakers need to know that support for immigration reform exists in places “where they’re not expecting it.”

After he finished, one of the students behind me, Leslie, explained her own frustration. Although she is a citizen, her sister and brother are in the country illegally. Brought here by their parents, her sibling and many of her friends can’t attend college, and so they perform menial jobs for cash. Feeling vulnerable, they can’t complain, she said, so they get paid less than other workers. Her aunt was arrested by immigration authorities and is under house arrest as her case moves through the immigration court. Leslie’s family typifies the precarious existence faced by millions of people living in the shadows who also feel, “The time is now!”