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Discord on the Immigration Accord
Mexican workers line up outside the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey, Mexico, to wait for an interview for a working visa.
(By Guillermo Arias -- Associated Press)
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Citizens of the African nations of Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana speak English, as do some residents of India and Bangladesh. But Ethiopians, Somalis and Eritreans, who represent the greatest number of African immigrants in the Washington area, often do not.
John Trasviña, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, says the push against allowing new U.S. citizens to sponsor family members for green cards is an anti-immigrant drive to end cultural diversity.
"The number one way for Asian citizens to be reunited is through family reunification. Originally the brothers and sisters provision was for European immigrants. Now Asian Americans use it the most," he said. "There's a resentment. It was good enough for the country when other people used it, but now you see who's using it and suddenly it's the first thing to go. The opponents of illegal immigration say, 'We're okay with legal immigrants,' but now it suddenly goes away."
Eun Sook Lee, executive director of the National Korean American Service and Education Consortium, ticked off what she called a number of problems.
"If we take out the future family program" that allows sponsorship, she said, "we will be creating another problem. People will continue to come without documentation. People want to be with their family members. It's something you can't kill."
Lee joined Bhargava, Trasviña and Cecilia Muñoz of the National Council of La Raza in seeing room for more compromise. They vowed to lobby Democrats in the Senate and House to attach amendments that would create a more workable proposal.
"We see this as a draft . . . , something that can be improved and changed," Lee said. "But that depends on community pressure."
Muñoz said pressure would be applied this way: "You start with amendments on the Senate floor, then you proceed to the House, which may have an entirely different debate than you have in the Senate."
Advocates, however, do feel they have some momentum, Muñoz said. "There is a legalization path that benefits the people we've been talking about for all these years, so that's not a small thing. We have to measure the entirety of the proposal, but several things are clear: If this bill goes down now like this, then the debate is over. It's unworkable," she said.
