The Utah Compact, One Year Later

Recently in Salt Lake City, Utah a diverse group of government and business leaders held a press conference to commemorate the one year anniversary of the Utah Compact.  The compact was the result of a collaboration of business, religious and elected leaders in Utah to articulate a broad statement of shared values designed to guide decision makers "as they address the complex challenges associated with a broken national immigration system".

What is significant about the Compact is that Utah has a legacy as one of the most conservative states in America and in recent years turned out incumbent Senator Bennett and Congressman Cannon for being "soft" on immigration.  Yet the Compact resonates with a pragmatic tone that sounds nostalgically Reganesque in its lofty aspirations of keeping families together and acknowledging the economic contributions of immigrants.  It acknowledges that immigration is a federal, not state, issue and that "local law enforcement resources should focus on criminal activities, not civil violations of federal code".  The Compact concludes with "[t]he way we treat immigrants will say more about us as a free society and less about our immigrant neighbors. Utah should always be a place that welcomes people of goodwill".   The full text of the Utah Compact is available at http://www.utahcompact.com.

One year after the Compact was written it is being credited for changing the tone of the immigration debate not only in Utah, but in the entire country.  At the press conference was recently elected Arizona State Senator Jerry Lewis, who ousted S.B. 1070 architect and restrictionist poster child, Russell Pearce.   Senator Lewis credited the Utah Compact with having an impact on Arizona politics, including his election over fellow conservative Republican Pearce, and cited an Arizona poll with 78% support comprehensive solutions of immigration laws, not just the "enforcement only" policies of S.B. 1070.  Utah's Attorney General, Mark Shurtleff, a self described conservative Republican, indicated that in past year the Compact has received the support of conservatives who want real solutions and not just harsh rhetoric.  He pointed to the election of Lewis as an example, and warned against pandering to the far right extremists.

So as we watch our current crop of presidential candidates talk about electrical fences and boots on the ground, and as Alabama's agricultural bounty spoils unpicked in the field, a new voice is being heard.  It appeals to all political views because its values are apolitical and universal.  It is a growing voice that speaks of moderation, and inclusion and reminds us of our heritage as a nation of immigrants.    It is a voice that is coming from, of all places, Utah.

New Report Shows Current U.S. Immigration Policy Hurts Our Economy

Today the Immigration Policy Center, a Washington D.C.-based think tank published a eye-opening report on how our failed immigration policy is adversely impacting our economy and global competitiveness.  I have been writing in previous blogs about my observations and personal experience on this topic, but here is some real empirical and unbiased data on how critical the situation is.  The full report is available here.

Among the key findings are that while the world has changed, our approach to immigration has not.  For example, changing demographics in the U.S. has created a demand in lesser skilled jobs in the construction hospitality industry but current quotas allow for only 5,000 visas annually for these workers.  The report concludes, "The inflexible and insufficient number of green cards available for these types of jobs is at the heart of the unauthorized immigration problem."  Similarly, for skilled workers, including advanced degree graduates of our institutions of higher learning and research, the confusing and conflicting maze of laws and regulations have meant that less than 10% of foreign students from India and China (ie our competition) are planning to stay in the U.S. and look for work after graduation.  More sobering than that is the idea that many of our chief global economic competitors are offering enticements to immigrate rather than creating barriers:

Some immigrant‐sending countries are implementing policies to persuade their own best and brightest to remain in the country while also attracting those from other nations.  In 2009, immigrants from India and China comprised 22% of Legal Permanent Residents (LPRs) who entered the U.S. through the employment‐based system.  But in the last 15 years, China has successfully encouraged more than 4,000 Chinese researchers to return to China. In January 2009, China launched the One‐Thousand‐Talents Program to attract Chinese and other “high caliber” researchers to China. India has developed similar programs to attract highly skilled scientists and researchers.  Even Japan, which has been resistant to immigration in the past, has announced plans to increase the number of foreign‐born students to 300,000 by 2020. They also plan to simplify the immigration process, hire more English‐language teachers, and help foreign students find jobs within the country.

Foreign entrepreneurs are also finding our antiquated immigration laws a barrier for their businesses.  A recent study from the Kaufman Foundation cited in the IPC report interviewed nearly 300 highly skilled and educated returnees to China and India and found that our immigration policies were part of the reason.  Recently a much publicized case illustrated this point.  A Israeli citizen and Stanford business school graduate who created CruiseWise.com, hired nine U.S. employees and then was denied a visa.  After the story broke and amid a flood of criticism, immigration reversed their position, but one has to wonder how many other entrepreneurs have been driven away by unwelcoming policies and overly restrictive adjudication.  It is worth noting that historically over one-half of the start up companies in Silicon Valley were created by immigrants, including Google, Intel, Yahoo and eBay!

The IPC report also makes another good point about the U.S. aging demographics.  As baby boomers retire and take their skills with them, immigrants will be able to fill the void and keep our social security system solvent into the future.  Citing a 2007 study from the Peterson Institute of International Economics, the report finds that "the skill levels of U.S. workers are stagnating relative to the rest of the world. As a result, “when American baby boomers retire, they will take as many skills with them as their children will bring into the U.S. workforce.”  In order to overcome these challenges, the United States will not only have to implement new educational policies to produce more high‐skilled Americans, but also “reform its high‐skilled immigration policies and procedures not only to welcome the best and the brightest but also to make it easier for them to stay.”

Much more could be said about the report: the role immigrants play in revitalizing some of our bleakest urban areas, the disproportionate amount of patents issued to innovative immigrants, immigrant homebuyers helping to end the housing crisis, etc. However, I have to get home and get ready for the Republican Presidential debate so I can hear about which candidate is promising to build the highest wall around fortress America and who will be the toughest on immigration.  That is if they even can talk past Herman Cain's rumored indiscretions.  Talk about Nero playing the violin as Rome burned.

DHS sinks CruiseWise.com and puts us all out to sea in a leaky ship.

Am I the only one outraged that our immigration laws and policies have become hostage to the restrictionist rabble such that any public discourse on immigration is a game of one upsmanship on how high the wall on the Mexican border should be, or whether or not little children should be allowed to go to school unless they can prove their legal status in America.  Lost in the hyperbole and grandstanding is a real (as opposed to imaginary) problem best illustrated by a true and unfortunately all-too-common story.

Amit Aharoni, a native and citizen of Israel graduated from the Stanford University School of Business, and rather than taking his prodigious education back to Israel, decided to stay in the U.S. and open up an online cruise booking business called CruiseWise.com. Investors were so confident in the prospects that he received $1.65 million dollars in start-up capital, the majority of the money coming from abroad.  With that money he was able to get up and running and he hired nine U.S. employees with plans to eventually expand to hundreds.  These are workers here in the U.S.—not India, or "Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan".  What's more, these are new jobs created at a time when America desperately needs them the most.

So recently, after Amit had filed the necessary paperwork to be able to stay and work in the U.S. he was stunned to learn that the agents of the Department of Homeland Security denied his request.  Amit, who was forced to leave the U.S. and presently is overseeing the start up operations from Vancouver, Canada is reportedly moving his company to one of any other countries whose environment is more hospitable for foreign entrepreneurs, maybe even Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan.

This past August, the Obama Administration announced initiatives to streamline business related visas and provide much needed help for start-up companies.  But as usual, the message so clearly enunciated at headquarters didn't even make it out of the building let alone the beltway.  Just like the well-intended prosecutorial discretion memo that pragmatically outlined DHS priorities on who should be removed from the country which was not only ignored, but prompted a wave of insubordination as ICE field officers, denied their red meat, howled in protest.

So let's step back and see where we are in all of this:  as our economy continues to languish we have people willing to invest money into our country and create U.S. jobs.  Yet despite instructions from the President, the functionaries empowered to adjudicate visa applications still have the mindset they grew up with in a post 9/11 world:  immigrants are bad and are coming here to do us harm.  We should all be so harmed to have Amit come here with a giant bag of money and hundreds of jobs.  And while this Kafkaesque circus rolls on, Mitt, Perry, Newt, Cain et al have this surreal discussion about how much fencing is enough to protect us.  Protect us?  From who?  Amit?  Schoolchildren in Alabama?  Tomato pickers? 

Clearly any adults left in the room need to stand up and stop this madness.  Fixing our broken immigration system can go a long way to fixing our broken economy.  But to pretend that the real issue is the swarms of illegals that are snapping up all the good paying jobs and our "generous" welfare benefits is an insult to our traditions as a nation of immigrants not to mention our collective intelligence and distracts us from seeing the self destructive folly of Amit's situation and the thousands of others just like him. 

Mr. President, you should learn from George Bush.

Dear Mr. President:

Sorry the title to this blog is a little provocative, but I needed to get your attention.  I come in peace with a few observations and suggestions.  I know your hands are full but this is a matter that can't really wait much longer.

You came into the White House in no small part due to your promise to fix our broken immigration system--the one that separates families, keeps our employers from hiring the foreign talent they need, thwarts the efforts of foreign investors and entrepreneurs, and in general keeps upwards of 15 million people operating in a shadow economy.  You brought the 15 million and their families HOPE and you promised CHANGE.

But right out of the box you got hit with the worst financial situation in almost a century and all talk of immigration reform went to the same place as my 401k. To your credit, you tried to be bipartisan and conciliatory to your political opponents, even as they pledged to limit your tenure in the White House their number one priority.  By 2010, the Republicans had done such a good job blaming you for Bush's ruinous policies that America took away your party's control over the House of Representatives and the 60 votes in the Senate, which by some strange reckoning is the new majority.  And yet you still tried to be the honest broker.  In the 2010 lame duck session you backed the extension of the Bush Tax cuts for the wealthy because in good faith you believed the Republicans would reciprocate in kind--with good will and honest intent.  And not unlike Charlie Brown letting Lucy tee up the football one more time you approached the DREAM Act.  But you failed to persuade Democrats Baucus, Nelson, Pryor, Hagan, Tester to vote for the bill and it lost.  You left it up to them to decide and in the end accepted their betrayal because they were in tough districts where "amnesty" was unpopular.  You also refused to tie the DREAM Act to the Bush Tax Extensions (i.e., you give me the DREAM Act, I'll give you the extensions).  So in the end you didn't get what you said you wanted on either.  To make matters worse, even your supporters like Congressman Luis Gutierrez commented:


"If you really want to bring Republicans to the table," he added, "so long as they are getting everything they want, every piece of enforcement, why, why would they come to the table?"

What Congressman Gutierrez was referring to was the Obama strategy on how to work with the Republicans on immigration reform.  Simply put, that policy was to show the Republicans that increased enforcement was the only way to buy credibility with Republicans and generate bipartisan support for an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws. To demonstrate how tough the administration was on enforcement, Obama's Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported almost 400,000 people in 2010, way more than the Bush administration ever did.  So how impressed were the Republicans with this "get tough" strategy?  The results of the vote on the DREAM act, where only three Republicans voted to shut down the filibuster.  One of those was Utah's Senator Bennett who had already been turned out in his reelection bid, in part because of his moderate views on immigration.

So what does any of this have to do with President Bush you ask?  Remember George Bush, the self-dubbed "decider"--the one who (correctly) pronounced that "elections have consequences"?  The one who appointed his crony to lead FEMA and in the middle of the Katrina disaster put his arm around him and told him "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job".  The one who put Monica Goodling in charge of cleansing the Department of Justice of political leftists and independents, and unapologetically appointed as immigration judges people with no immigration experience but plenty of political juice.  And he did it with his head held high, confident that he was right and ambivalent to those who didn't agree!  Why?  Because ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES. 

While I was disgusted at the time, I now have a grudging respect for Dubya.  Through either cunning devise or blithering idiocy (either way doesn't matter), he did what he wanted to do because he was the President of the United States of America.  He did it because he could.  Whether "it" was invading Iraq on a pretext or
feeling up the German President (seen here).  He didn't care about public opinion, and certainly not what his political opponents would say or do. 

So back to you President Obama.  If you really do believe in the DREAM Act, then stop deporting any and all DREAMers.  If you want immigration reform, then stop removing fathers and mothers from their families.  Tell your agents in the field that YOU and YOU ALONE are the President of the United States and have the authority to tell them what their priorities are, and most importantly MAKE THOSE PRIORITIES STICK.  You have the power to transfer a mutinous officer to watch the border along the upper Alaska/Canada border, don't you?  Or to investigate possible marriage fraud in Kazakhstan.  When Jeff Sessions of Alabama or any one of a number of deportaholics go on Faux News to decry you and criticize you for being soft on immigration, remember that they don't like you anyway and never will.  This liberating affirmation should be your mantra for the rest of your first term.  Do it and you will get reelected because apparently people like a President who is decisive, even if they don't like the outcome and will even reelect them.  So as counterintuitive as it may seem and while it may grate against your tendencies to be a consensus builder, look to Bush and learn from him.  I thank you, Mr. President.