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Latino-Native American Cultural Center newspaper clippings, 1970-2001

San Jose Mercury news, Sunday morning, October 26, 1986 
Section P


Perspective
Analysis - Commentary

Immigration bill takes the wrong way out
By Linda Wong

With the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, Congress has saddled employers with more bureaucracy, slapped consumers with higher prices and sentenced Hispanic Americans to the potential for unbridled employment discrimination. lawmakers, most of whom admitted the flaws in the legislation, still hailed its passage.
The prevailing rationale in Washington, thousands of miles from the Rio Grande, the South Florida shores and other porous borders, was that some action was better than none. At risk of being labeled indecisive or ineffective in an election year, senators and representatives patched together a slew of ill-conceived provisions called it a victory and went home to campaign, leaving the bureaucrats to work out the details. The American public meanwhile wonders if anything has been accomplished.
A precise analysis of the bill may not be forthcoming until the regulations for implementation are worked out, six months from now. Nonetheless, the broad impact of the law on the economy, employers and Hispanic Americans and other foreign-looking persons can be predicted.
proponents of this law have long argued that undocumented aliens are a burden on the economy. They take jobs away from Americans, deplete our social service resources and contribute little to the society. To plug this drain on our economy, employers who knowingly hire these workers will be penalized with fines of $250 to $10,000 for each undocumented alien. Repeat offenders could be sentenced to six months in jail.
With no jobs to be had, the reasoning goes, the undocumented will stop flocking to our country and all our social ills will be alleviated: Traffic jams will ease up, the quality of education will improve, and so on.
However, research findings from reputable, non-artisan organizations (the Rand corp. and the Washington-based Urban Institute) disprove these assertions. Undocumented aliens actually benefit the economy; employer sanctions could reduce the profitability of American business. With the unavailability of cheap labor for seasonal or labor-intensive industries such as agriculture, furniture manufacture, fishing, construction, hotel and restaurant work, the cost of consumer goods could skyrocket. And with the increased paper work required to verify legal status, employers either will have to avoid Hispanics altogether or fill out papers at the expense of profits. Experts such as Clark Reynolds from Stanford University and Jose Bracamonte from UCLA admit that the economy, especially in the Southwest, will suffer. In the end,this law contradicts its goal of protecting American workers, business and the consumer.
According to the employer-sanction provision of the law, all employers -- a parent looking for a babysitter or a construction foreman hiring an army of laborers -- must request verification of status as well as identity. It could be a Social Security card, a birth certificate or a green card. Employers must keep records and have the option of verifying the authenticity of these documents with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Failure to comply will result in penalties.
Given all the complication en route, employer sanctions translate into unemployment for many Hispanic legal residents and citizens. And while
See IMMIGRATION, Page 5P

Linda Wong is associate counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund in Los Angeles. She wrote this article for Perspective.

Doug Griswold -- Mercury News

Immigration politics
IMMIGRATION, from Page 1P

weak anti-discrimination provisions allow the victims to file complaints, the law also provides for the elimination of these remedy procedures should they prove unnecessarily burdensome to the employer.
In essence, this immigration law deprives Hispanics of all the employment equal opportunity rights afforded to other Americans under the Constitution.
In an unprecedented step back to pre-civil rights times, Hispanic Americans will now be subjected to unwarranted scrutiny by employers and denied effective means of appeal for discrimination. Evidence of unlawful exclusion of jobs may be difficult to obtain and courts -- mandated to ignore an employer's preference of citizens over non-citizens in hiring as grounds for discrimination -- may grant release in a few cases.
As a hollow gesture of concern over such gross civil rights violations, the law will require the General Accounting Office to conduct a survey in 1989 to ascertain the discriminatory impact of employer sanctions. In theory, should the study find that discrimination has occurred, congress may consider remedial action, prehaps even the termination of sanctions. This is unlikely, in view of the rigors of proving discrimination. Furthermore, the law fails to precisely define what constitutes significant discrimination. And the point may be altogether muted by the sunset provision to remove all remedies for discrimination if employers are burdened by the process.
The controversial amnesty program -- a misnomer since only a fraction of undocumented aliens will be eligible for legalization -- also falls short of the mark. Estimates on the number of undocumented range from 3 million to 12 million. The law stipulates that only those who can prove they entered the country before Jan. 1, 1982 are eligible for temporary resident status, initially, permanent residency 18 months later and perhaps citizenship five years down the road.
No one knows how many will be excluded by this cut-ff date. They could be the object of a mass deportation effort of enormous human and financial consequence. But just as disturbing is that many will meet this deadline, and millions who have spent a lifetime in country may not have the documentation necessary for legalization.
Undocumented aliens, fearful of being caught and deported, avoid evidence of their whereabouts and work history. Requiring them to show pay stubs and W-2s may automatically disqualify thousands. other documentation (rent checks, telephone bills, school transcripts) may be accepted at the Attorney General's discretion, but their authenticity will have to be corroborated by an independent source. In short, the bureaucratic maze will obstruct and often exclude eligible applicants from obtaining legal status.
Supporters of the immigration bill argue that by including employer sanctions as well as legalization in the law, they struck a fair balance between stringent enforcement and compassion. The former will safeguard the country from the alarming and purportedly destabilizing rate of undocumented immigration. The latter will generously accept the poor, the victims of political instability in Central America, the most recent wave of immigrants seeking the refuge and opportunity afforded others in early periods in our history.
Those are hollow promises. As predicted by many studies, employer sanctions will prove to be unenforceable even with the increased allocations to the INS. it will be impossible to police hundreds of thousands of businesses and individuals.
Hispanic Americans will bear the brunt of employer sanctions by becoming employment untouchables -- a suspect class of workers who by accident of birth, race or accent represent nothing but trouble to the prospective employer. Tragically, many hard-working hopeful immigrants, even some who under the law should qualify for legalization, will fail to realize their dream. This law denies Hispanic Americans their rights and their hopes and, in so doing, denigrates this country.

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San Jose Mercury news, Sunday morning, October 26, 1986 Section P Perspective Analysis - Commentary Immigration bill takes the wrong way out By Linda Wong With the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, Congress has saddled employers with more bureaucracy, slapped consumers with higher prices and sentenced Hispanic Americans to the potential for unbridled employment discrimination. lawmakers, most of whom admitted the flaws in the legislation, still hailed its passage. The prevailing rationale in Washington, thousands of miles from the Rio Grande, the South Florida shores and other porous borders, was that some action was better than none. At risk of being labeled indecisive or ineffective in an election year, senators and representatives patched together a slew of ill-conceived provisions called it a victory and went home to campaign, leaving the bureaucrats to work out the details. The American public meanwhile wonders if anything has been accomplished. A precise analysis of the bill may not be forthcoming until the regulations for implementation are worked out, six months from now. Nonetheless, the broad impact of the law on the economy, employers and Hispanic Americans and other foreign-looking persons can be predicted. proponents of this law have long argued that undocumented aliens are a burden on the economy. They take jobs away from Americans, deplete our social service resources and contribute little to the society. To plug this drain on our economy, employers who knowingly hire these workers will be penalized with fines of $250 to $10,000 for each undocumented alien. Repeat offenders could be sentenced to six months in jail. With no jobs to be had, the reasoning goes, the undocumented will stop flocking to our country and all our social ills will be alleviated: Traffic jams will ease up, the quality of education will improve, and so on. However, research findings from reputable, non-artisan organizations (the Rand corp. and the Washington-based Urban Institute) disprove these assertions. Undocumented aliens actually benefit the economy; employer sanctions could reduce the profitability of American business. With the unavailability of cheap labor for seasonal or labor-intensive industries such as agriculture, furniture manufacture, fishing, construction, hotel and restaurant work, the cost of consumer goods could skyrocket. And with the increased paper work required to verify legal status, employers either will have to avoid Hispanics altogether or fill out papers at the expense of profits. Experts such as Clark Reynolds from Stanford University and Jose Bracamonte from UCLA admit that the economy, especially in the Southwest, will suffer. In the end,this law contradicts its goal of protecting American workers, business and the consumer. According to the employer-sanction provision of the law, all employers -- a parent looking for a babysitter or a construction foreman hiring an army of laborers -- must request verification of status as well as identity. It could be a Social Security card, a birth certificate or a green card. Employers must keep records and have the option of verifying the authenticity of these documents with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Failure to comply will result in penalties. Given all the complication en route, employer sanctions translate into unemployment for many Hispanic legal residents and citizens. And while See IMMIGRATION, Page 5P Linda Wong is associate counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund in Los Angeles. She wrote this article for Perspective. Doug Griswold -- Mercury News Immigration politics IMMIGRATION, from Page 1P weak anti-discrimination provisions allow the victims to file complaints, the law also provides for the elimination of these remedy procedures should they prove unnecessarily burdensome to the employer. In essence, this immigration law deprives Hispanics of all the employment equal opportunity rights afforded to other Americans under the Constitution. In an unprecedented step back to pre-civil rights times, Hispanic Americans will now be subjected to unwarranted scrutiny by employers and denied effective means of appeal for discrimination. Evidence of unlawful exclusion of jobs may be difficult to obtain and courts -- mandated to ignore an employer's preference of citizens over non-citizens in hiring as grounds for discrimination -- may grant release in a few cases. As a hollow gesture of concern over such gross civil rights violations, the law will require the General Accounting Office to conduct a survey in 1989 to ascertain the discriminatory impact of employer sanctions. In theory, should the study find that discrimination has occurred, congress may consider remedial action, prehaps even the termination of sanctions. This is unlikely, in view of the rigors of proving discrimination. Furthermore, the law fails to precisely define what constitutes significant discrimination. And the point may be altogether muted by the sunset provision to remove all remedies for discrimination if employers are burdened by the process. The controversial amnesty program -- a misnomer since only a fraction of undocumented aliens will be eligible for legalization -- also falls short of the mark. Estimates on the number of undocumented range from 3 million to 12 million. The law stipulates that only those who can prove they entered the country before Jan. 1, 1982 are eligible for temporary resident status, initially, permanent residency 18 months later and perhaps citizenship five years down the road. No one knows how many will be excluded by this cut-ff date. They could be the object of a mass deportation effort of enormous human and financial consequence. But just as disturbing is that many will meet this deadline, and millions who have spent a lifetime in country may not have the documentation necessary for legalization. Undocumented aliens, fearful of being caught and deported, avoid evidence of their whereabouts and work history. Requiring them to show pay stubs and W-2s may automatically disqualify thousands. other documentation (rent checks, telephone bills, school transcripts) may be accepted at the Attorney General's discretion, but their authenticity will have to be corroborated by an independent source. In short, the bureaucratic maze will obstruct and often exclude eligible applicants from obtaining legal status. Supporters of the immigration bill argue that by including employer sanctions as well as legalization in the law, they struck a fair balance between stringent enforcement and compassion. The former will safeguard the country from the alarming and purportedly destabilizing rate of undocumented immigration. The latter will generously accept the poor, the victims of political instability in Central America, the most recent wave of immigrants seeking the refuge and opportunity afforded others in early periods in our history. Those are hollow promises. As predicted by many studies, employer sanctions will prove to be unenforceable even with the increased allocations to the INS. it will be impossible to police hundreds of thousands of businesses and individuals. Hispanic Americans will bear the brunt of employer sanctions by becoming employment untouchables -- a suspect class of workers who by accident of birth, race or accent represent nothing but trouble to the prospective employer. Tragically, many hard-working hopeful immigrants, even some who under the law should qualify for legalization, will fail to realize their dream. This law denies Hispanic Americans their rights and their hopes and, in so doing, denigrates this country.