@) AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE AEIFORUMS

Should U.S. Immigration Policy Be Changed?

John Charles Daly, moderator Lawrence H. Fuchs Michael Novak J. F. Otero Harrison Schmitt The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, established in 1943, is a publicly supported, nonpartisan, research and educational organization. Its purpose is to assist policy makers, scholars, businessmen, the press, and the public by providing objective analysis of national and international issues. Views expressed in the institute's publications are those of the authors and do not neces­ sarily reflect the views of the staff, advisory panels, officers, or trustees of AEI.

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Held on June 2, 1980 and sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research Washington, D. C. This pamphlet contains the edited transcript of one of a series of AEI forums. These forums offer a medium for informal exchanges of ideas on current policy problems of national and international import. As part of AEI' s program of providing opportunities for the presentation of competing views, they serve to enhance the prospect that decisions within our democracy will be based on a more informed public opinion. AEI forums are also available on audio and color-video cassettes.

AEI Forum 41

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ISBN 0-8447-2186-7 Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 80-68835 Printed in the United States of America JOHN CHARLES DALY, former ABC News chief, and forum mod­ erator: This public policy forum, part of a series presented by the American Enterprise Institute, is concernedwith a major social prob­ lem that has been brought anew to confrontation by the cataclysms in Southeast Asia, by the tides of immigration crisscrossing the Mex­ ican-American border, by the upheavals in the Caribbean in the 1960s and the 1970s, and by the tragic immigrations from Cuba and Haiti in the early months of the 1980s. Our subject: "Should U.S. Immi­ gration Policy Be Changed?" Our nation's record is spotty on welcoming the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, but it is still very proud. It was a century after the Declaration of Independence, in 1875, that the United States first restricted immigrants by barring entry to con­ victs and prostitutes. In 1881, 1908, and 1917, the Congress refused entry to Chinese,Japanese, and Asian Indians, in that order. In 1921, Congress established immigration quotas based on national origin, a system locked in by the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 and trans­ parently biased to keep a lid on immigration and to give overwhelm­ ing priority to those of Anglo-Saxon and Nordic origins. Several bills watered down the McCarran-Walter Act during the 1950s and the early 1960s. In 1965, after long and biting debate, U.S. immigration policy underwent some basic reforms. Bench marks in the legislation included abolishing the national origins quota system and exclusion of Asians and instituting preference based on unifi­ cation of families and on occupational skills, with protection of the job market for Americans. The new legislation also placed a ceiling of 170,000 immigrant visas per year from the Eastern Hemisphere and an overall ceiling of 120,000 for the Western Hemisphere, with a maximum of 20,000 per country. Refugees were allowed 17,000 places. Signing that new lesiglation in 1965 at the base of the Statue of Liberty, President Lyndon Johnson said, "It repairs a deep and pain-

1 ful flaw in the fabric of American justice. The days of unlimited immigration are passed, but those who come will come because of what they are, not because of the land fromwhich they sprung." The reforms begun in 1965 were virtually completed in 1978. Legislation combined the two hemisphere ceilings into a single, worldwide total of 290,000 and established a uniform preference system. The 1970s, however, produced new and agonizing problems that a patchwork of parole power and special legislation did little to solve. Under the hammer blows of that turbulent decade, it became clear that reserving 17,000 places for refugees was unrealistic. In the past quarter of a century, in fact, attorney generals alone have used the discretion and parolee power of that office to admit more than a million refugees from Hungary, Cuba, the Soviet Union, and other countries. And the Refugee Act of 1980 gives the president complete discretion in the admission of political exiles. In the fall of 1978, the Congress established a Select Commission on Immigration and Ref­ ugee Policy. Father Theodore Hesburgh, president of Notre Dame, is chairman of this commission, and its report is expected in March 1981. To begin, gentlemen, I will pose the same question to each of you in turn. What would constitute a humane and proper policy for im­ migration into the United States? As executive director of the Hes­ burgh Commission, examining present policy, will you start, Dr. Fuchs?

LAWRENCE H. FUCHS, executive director, Select Commission on Im­ migration and Refugee Policy: A humane policy would be one that would add to the sum of humanity and decency in the world and in this country, particularly. We, in the United States of America, are responsible for 40 percent of the world's gross national product (GNP). Yet, it is probably un­ realistic for us to take in, over a short period of time, 40 percent of the world's population. We know that there have to be some limits and that the number of places available will be smaller than the demand is. The question then is, How do we determine how to allocate those scarce visas to the United States? If we have confidence in this country, and I do, we can 'think of a humane policy as one that meets our goals. I believe that if the fundamental values of the nation, as set forth in our great documents and the historic utterances by Jefferson, Lincoln, and Franklin Roo­ sevelt, among others, are to be fulfilled through immigration policy, we ought to look carefully at the goals that manifest our national interest. That means shifting away from the kind of hodgepodge development we have had in the past toward a clear articulation of

2 national interest goals. That is the course the commission has set for itself. HARRISON ScHMITI, U.S. senator (Republican, New Mexico): More and more, we have begun to separate political immigration from economic migration, a very important distinction that any new hu­ mane or workable policy must make. The policy that we develop, and that the commission recommends, and that the Congress eventually codifies, should recognize that po­ litical immigration has been the basis of a great deal of what this country is. We should not do anything that eliminates that rejuven­ ation process in our own country and in our own heritage. In the case of economic migration, particularly from Mexico and maybe from other parts of Latin America, we must recognize that it is largely a migration. Most individuals who come to this country for economic betterment are temporary in their migration and desire to remain Mexicans or other nationalities and not to become Americans. If our policies recognize this distinction between political immigra­ tion and economic migration, and, in the latter case, develop a tem­ porary-worker visa program or some other way for economic migrants to work legally, we will have a humane and workable policy. MICHAELNov AK, resident scholar, American Enterprise Institute: We are likely to see, in the future, an increase in the number of people who seek to come to countries like the United States, and we had better be ready for that. Human beings everywhere hunger for free­ dom, and freedom is in short supply in the world. In the future, the number of societies that will permit liberty-economicliberty as well as politicalliberty-is likely to shrink. Over the years, we can expect · more and more people to migrate toward the few remaining centers of freedom. Freedom does not mean just seeking opportunity by which to better oneself-that is very important, of course-but other things being equal, there is sheer satisfaction in living in a society that allows one to keep what one earns, to spend it as one wishes, and to enjoy all the other freedoms we have. Some population specialists have suggested that 10 percent of all the people who have ever lived are alive now-that may not be the exact figure, but it is very close. This, too, suggests that we are going to have a very special problem in the United States. Our history on immigration indicates that we will have to have limits, but that in order to have a humane policy, we should err on the side of gener­ osity. J. F. OTERO, international vice president, Brotherhood of Railway, Airline and Steamship Clerks: I support a policy for the United States

3 that is consistent with our nation's tradition of being humane and compassionate people. As an immigrant, myself, and a very proud American citizen, I sincerely hope that America will remain the land of the free and the home of the brave and that we will continue to remain a nation of immigrants. A humane immigration policy should foster family reunification, above all. It should also provide a haven for those who seek refuge from political persecution. This policy also should take into consid­ eration the interests and the needs of American workers. Any policy that is developed should deal fairly with the problems of both legal and illegal immigration into the country.

MR. DALY: So the immigration issue is now really two issues: what to do about the admission of legal immigrants in the future and what to do about the so-called illegals, here in uncertain numbers of mil­ lions and still coming. Let us look at the legal issue first. In Father Hesburgh's words, the Hesburgh Commission's goal is to design a policy that will be generous, humane, nonracist, rational, and work­ able. Does present policy fail substantially in these areas?

DR. FUCHS: It is not workable. It is out of control, and there is a very strong sense running in public opinion right now that it is out of control. That is partly the result of illegal immigration. The law is not enforceable, and a substantial number of people enter without in­ spection, without documents, and live to some extent in an under­ ground economy. To some degree, they become an underclass. They are not only exploited at the work place, in some cases at the margin, but criminals also prey upon them. Some do not report their health problems or even send their children to school, which is a very bad thing for the United States of America. The present policy is also not working in another respect: the back­ logs of potential legal immigrants we have accrued over a period of time are really quite enormous. Brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens now have fifth preference. That backlog has such explosive growth that it can double every year; in fact, it did double between 1978 and 1979, from 230,000 to more than half a million. Those are just the people who have been awarded visa numbers but cannot get into the country because the backlogs are so great. The present system is not necessarily humane or equitable, either, because it is a rigid system. A spouse or a small child of a resident alien has to wait sometimes three to five or more years, depending upon what country the petition comes from; a specialty cook from another country might get a visa immediately. This is because of the country ceiling system, which is a rigid system. It puts the same

4 country ceiling on a small country like Liechtenstein as on a large country like India. So the law is neither workable nor equitable. Father Hesburgh also mentioned other qualities such as generosity. It all depends on what generosity means. During the decade 1900 to 1910, for example, we averaged about 900,000 immigrants a year. They represented more than 40 percent of the population growth of the United States at a time when our population was growing at more than 2 percent a year, overall. In the decade of the 1970s, we were the most generous receiving country in the world; perhaps not on a per capita basis in recent years-Canada would outdo us there-but overall, we averaged about 400,000 a year in that decade, less than 20 percent of our present population growth at a time when we are growing at less than 1 percent a year. Compared with most countries of the world, that is quite generous; compared with the decade 1900 to 1910 in the United States of America, it is not particularly generous. On the issue of humanity, the commissioners have fairly well de­ cided at this point that there are three clear immigration goals. One is the reunification of families. We need, however, to clarify what we mean by the reunification of families. Then we need to make the system work so that when we say we favor the immediate access to this country of the wives, the husbands, and the small children of persons who are here, other people cannot leap ahead of them. The commission clearly accepts the view that the United States will remain a refuge for persons who have a well-founded fear of per­ secution in the countries they are leaving. The question is how to deal with expellees like those from Cuba. They do not necessarily qualify under the definition of refugee. We want to be generous, but we want to be equitable and to have a law that is enforceable. As Father Hesburgh said, we want to balance all of these things, but there is a wild card in the system. Emergency refugee flows are unpredictable, and we have to look at how to deal with that potential problem on an international basis, not just a national one. A third goal the commission seems determined to meet is providing opportunity for people who seek both freedom and economic op­ portunity. Senator Schmitt's distinction between the political immi­ grant and the economic migrant is interesting, but historically the distinction is not that clear.

SENATOR SCHMITT: It has become clearer in recent years, but you are correct, historically. In our relationships with Mexico, however, the distinction has been fairly sharp through the decades.

DR. FUCHS: The commission is actively considering whether the op­ portunity for economic well-being, which so many people in the

5 world seek-and many come to the United States to seek it-would not be better provided by having them enter into the legal migration stream, in a third category that meets U.S. goals for economic and cultural development, rather than on a temporary-worker or guest­ worker basis.

SENATOR SCHMITT: The immigration process, for all intents and pur­ poses, certainly is out of control in the political immigration area, but the marketplace is controlling the migration of those we call the il­ legals, the migrants. New Mexico sees a great deal of the migrant flow. It does not get all of the workers, but a great deal of the flow passes through, and there is no question that these people are moving in response to the job market in this country. A small percentage of them are, in fact, competing with U.S. workers, but recent research-both in Mexico and in this country-indicates very strongly that the level of com­ petition is not nearly as high as it has been pictured. Most of the workers are moving across the border for the spring, summer, or fall to take seasonal jobs that Americans are not seeking. About 85 per­ cent, plus or minus 5 percent, of migrants are in that category.

DR. FUCHS: The research is so imperfect in this business that one can use research findings on either side of the argument. Many commis­ sioners take the view that the United States should look into the possibilities of a guest-worker program, which would be quite dif­ ferent from the old bracero program, but other commissioners take the opposite view. Each side can marshall economists and research findings. Generally speaking, the statement is correct that severe economic competition or severe and widespread displacement has not been proven. But neither has the opposite of that been proven.

SENATOR SCHMITT: What appears to be well-grounded academic re­ search, both in Mexico and here, tends to support strongly the po­ sition that migrants are not an economic threat. Documentation of strong competition from migrants is clearly lacking. For one thing, most migrants are incapable, in terms of skill levels, of competing with American labor. In addition, American labor does not have to fall below the safety net of benefits provided by society that enable it to shun the lower-paying jobs that migrants take.

DR. FUCHS: The staff of the commission has almost concluded that the economics debate is fruitless because the evidence on both sides of that debate is incomplete, and none of it is terribly persuasive in the aggregate.

6 SENATOR SCHMITT: I hope that the commissioners have not made up their minds, because according to my research the evidence seems to weigh very heavily toward minimal competition. Otherwise, I would not have introduced a bill fundamentally consistent with those findings.

DR. NovAK: Senator, is your proposed bill pretty much designed for Mexico? That is, perhaps we should think of Mexico as a very special case.

SENATOR SCHMITT: It is very specifically designed for Mexico for a number of reasons. One is that although it is a large problem, it is also a separable problem with a clear and obvious solution. The Mex­ ican problem clearly has certain unique characteristics, a 2,000-mile common border, which is impossibleto police at any reasonable cost. The attempts to stop the flow, at least so far, have been inhuman in nature. Although this bill pertains to Mexico, it is conceivable that, mod­ ified, it could become a model for other efforts. There are now about twelve cosponsors of the bill, including Senator Barry Goldwater and Senator S.I. Hayakawa. Congressman Daniel Lungren has also in­ troduced it in the House.

MR. DALY: What do you propose in the bill?

SENATOR SCHMITT: Basically, the bill recognizes that the vast majority of these migrants are coming north in response to an economic crisis in theirown lives. They come and stay only for the six to eight months that are normal working seasons for the semiskilled or unskilled worker in this country, and then they returnto Mexico. The evidence of this is very persuasive. The number of Mexican migrants is on the order of 1.5 million, plus or minus 500,000. That sounds like a very big plus or minus, but because such entry is illegal, we cannot ac­ curately find out how great it is. One proviso of the bill recognizes the significant, but still small, percentage of migrant workers that compete with American skilled labor. If, under certain guidelines, it can be demonstrated that at a particular work site American labor is available and willing to work, then that site can be declared off-limits to the visa holder. There are some things yet to be worked out on that. Some people at the Uni­ versity of Mexico rightly have asked what would happen if the wage scale were adjusted downward to prevent American labor from com­ peting. We have to look at that, and we are working now on a way to do that.

7 MR. OTERO: I am one of those commissioners on the Select Commis­ sion on Immigration and Refugee Policy who has made up his mind regarding the question of any attempt, under any description, to institute another bracero program in the United States. Organized labor will oppose any such program with everything it has. A bracero program, by any other name, remains a bracero program.

MR. DALY: Would you describe a bracero program for our audience?

MR. OTERO: The bracero program was instituted in this country dur­ ing the war days and brought about the importation of 400,000 foreign nationals primarily to work in agriculturein the United States. It was discontinued in 1964, and there has not been a similar program since. We now have something called the H-2 program, which is under more control. Senator, could you furnish the commission the research that sup­ ports your statements?

SENATOR SCHMITT: I have. I testifiedat the commission's firsthearing.

MR. OTERO: I was in Baltimore when you testified, but you have said a number of other things that are not substantiated by fact-for ex­ ample, that this migration does not affect American workers. It does affectAmerican workers because migrant workers in this country are exploitable. In this nation today, by all estimates, approximately 6 to 8 million migrants are unemployed. They do not go back. They remain here because they have no reason to go back; they are escaping from real economic difficulty at home. They come to the United States looking for job opportunities, and many American employers benefit from this particular human tragedy by using these people in the lowest levels of employment and exploiting them as much as possible. Go to New York City or to Los Angeles and you will find these people working in sweat shops like those not seen in this country since the 1920s. They are not working in the fields anymore. These 6 to 8 million people are competing today across the spectrum of skills. They are in railroads, they are in the hotels, they are in res­ taurants, they are in the garment industry, but very few are in ag­ riculture.

SENATOR SCHMITT:The facts do not support those statements. Clearly illegal migrants from Mexico are in those jobs, but the vast majority of them, according to modem research, are in agriculture and in small businesses that otherwise would not be employing anybody. The

8 basic problem for employers no longer is finding a person at a low wage but is finding anyone at all to do the job. That is why a way of protecting the skilled labor in America is built into this proposed legislation. The unskilled and semiskilled migrant workers are findingjobs that Americans are not taking. We also have to recognize that, as long as they are illegal, their exploitation will continue. Exploitation will cease only when they have legal status and are not afraid to come forward and say, "I'm being exploited."

DR. FUCHS: Why not go all the way and give them a green card?

SENATOR SCHMITT: Because they do not want a green card.

DR. FUCHS: Why not?

SENATOR SCHMITT: They want to move back and forth across their border-they are Mexicans.

DR. FUCHS: Most immigrants who come to the United States, histor­ ically, come to look around. Among some groups, of course, the return migration, the repatriation, is very significant. The rates of emigration from this country for Mexican immigrants, not just illegal immigrants, probably are very high, perhaps higher than for any other group, except for French Canadians. We kept statistics on emigration until 1958. The select commission is working on that for recent times. We know about emigration, even those who come in the regular legal immigration stream, because data for persons who came in 1971 have been matched against data eight years later to see who is still around. Historically, about 30 percent of the people who immigrated to the United States went back to their home countries. Among some groups, southern Italians, for example, the rate was even higher.

SENATOR SCHMITT: That rate appears to be about 90 percent in the case of Mexicans moving across the border.

DR. FUCHS: Not for legal immigrants.

SENATOR SCHMITT: All the evidence shows that that is the number, and I am not aware of any contradictory evidence.

MR. OTERO: Senator Schmitt, the facts do not support the belief that 90 percent go back. The relevant fact is that, at a time when more than 10 million Americans are unemployed, we must adopt a policy

9 consistent with the interests of American citizens and, at the same time, keep our borders open.

SENATOR SCHMITT: That is exactly the policy we are proposing.

MR. OTERO: I understand what you are trying to do, but the reality makes it almost impossible for American workers to have bargaining power when confronted with a large influx of low-wage, exploitable people. In the state of Virginia, for example, the tobacco growers get together and set the rate for picking tobacco at $3.10 an hour. Because they are the only ones that set the rate, the Labor Department is unable to say there should be any other rate. So, American workers who want to pick tobacco have to pick it for $3.10 an hour. Workers have no bargaining power with the growers. Even if a worker lives far away from where the picking is to be done and needs another $0.40 to pay for the high cost of gas, the Labor Department cannot certify that wage.

SENATOR SCHMITT:That is exactly what we are trying to protect against in this bill. Where willing American labor is available, the work site will be off-limits to migrants. Right now, there is no means of de­ claring that work site off-limits.

MR. OTERO: There is, but the problem is that we have to change the immigration laws to provide for a genuine availability test of Amer­ ican workers. That does not exist today, and naturally a grower, or an employer, prefers to hire people who are not wise about their rights in the United States. It is impossible for American workers to compete.

SENATOR SCHMITT: That is exactly what we are trying to change. We are trying to change the situation in which these workers can be exploited and also to protect the Americanworker in those situations.

MR. OTERO: But first things should come first. What we ought to do first is to grant across-the-board amnesty to all the people who.are illegally in this country. Allow time to regularize their status.

SENATOR SCHMITT: What does "amnesty" mean? Does it mean we will defer their deportation for fiveyears?

MR. OTERO: It depends. I am against mass deportation, because this country cannot tolerate mass deportation.

10 The commission must decide whether to recommend to Congress a deferralperiod of one year, two years, or three years. Then it would be up to the Congress.

MR. DALY: But we need some hard numbers on how many illegals there are in order to make any reasoned judgment on policy. There may be any number from a few million to 12 million.

SENATOR SCHMITT: We cannot get hard numbers until we legalize migration.

MR. DALY: Mr. Otero used the figure "about 9 million."

MR. OTERO: No, I said 6 to 8 million. The commission received the most logical and the most acceptable report from the Census Bureau, and it pegged the number of illegal immigrants at 3.5 to 6 million.

DR. FUCHS: At any one time.

MR. OTERO: That number is in the ball park, but some people say 12 million and others say 2 million.

DR. FUCHS: That is way out of line, but the problem is that if we could count illegal immigrants, we could deport them. We cannot count them with the accuracy and precision we would like. A great many studies have tried to count them. These studies all depend on heroic assumptions, and their methodologies can be quite naive. The Census Bureau reviewed the best of these studies, the most credible ones, for the Select Commission. The three authors of that analysis determined that, at any one time in 1979, there were no fewer than 3.5 million and no more than 6 million illegal immigrants in this country.

SENATOR SCHMITT: That lower estimate jibes with the estimates of 1 to 2 million Mexicans, but that, again, relies upon the heroic as­ sumption that we know the percentage of Mexicans.

DR. FuCHs: The other Census finding is that probably no more than half of the undocumented aliens in this country now are Mexican nationals.

SENATOR SCHMITT: Dr. Wayne Cornelius, of the University of Cali­ fornia, and others would say 60 percent.

11 DR. NovAK: As a theologian, I find I do not have to worry too much about numbers beyond three persons in God, seven sacraments, and a few basic little numbers that make life a lot easier for me. Irrespective of our special historical relationship with Mexico and the Mexican people-a knotty problem but one that is soluble with good will and intelligence-we will be facing a tide of refugeescoming suddenly, en masse, from different parts of the world. In the 1980s we will see one wave after another coming from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and other places because the world is so turbulent. We will have to gear up as a society in a way we have not done for a long time, to think of ourselves again as a society of immigrants. We will have to mobilize our private sector-the churches, the universities, the business communities, the unions, and so forth-to be ready to receive these migrants.

SENATOR SCHMITT: At the same time we gear ourselves for that influx, which will come at unpredicted times, we must also, through a co­ herent foreign policy, do things that promote freedom and economic development in the rest of the world in order to reduce the push factors that cause such migrations. This will not make the migration, or immigration, disappear, but we still have to do both things. They are both eminently justifiableon moral grounds.

MR. OTERO: I do not disagree with your bill in its entirety. But we need to attack the problem at hand in a combined effort. We need to do various things to attack the problem, not just one thing, like making sure that people are not in the country illegally and providing them with job opportunities. We need to provide amnesty. We need to curb the flow of illegal immigration to this country, and to do that we need to put the problem in its proper perspective; that is, people come here because of the push factor and the pull factor, that is, if they do not have jobs at home, they will come here looking for jobs. We need to provide economic assistance to other nations, such as Mexico and other countries in Latin America, to help them develop their own economies. We also should have better enforcement at the border. We need to have sanctions on employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens; these should be criminalsanctions with injunctive relief. We also should enforce existing statutes, such as child labor laws and the Fair Labor Standards Act. We need to develop a number of other areas to curb this problem and to bring it to manageable proportions. We will never be able to stop illegal immigration into the United States. That is impossible if we are to remain a nation that is a democratic bastion throughout the world. We cannot conceivably mobilize the army or the air force or

12 any other service to seal the border. But we can, if we put our minds to it, use measures that allow us to remain a nation that admits people legally. I am in favor of increasing the number of people who enter the United States legally. We should have legal, controlled migration, and admit more refugees. But we should also take into consideration that there are 14 million political refugees in the world today and that it would seem impossible for America to take them all at the same time. This is something that should be internationalized. Other na­ tions of the world share the same responsibility with us. Australia, Western Europe, and others should also participate in accepting the refugees. In doing all this, we must always keep in mind that we have a responsibility to our own people, especially at a time when our eco­ nomic situation is not the best, when we have large numbers of people unemployed, and the prospects for unemployment continue to grow. Those are the issues that should be taken into consideration in developing a humane immigration policy.

MR. DALY: With regard to one idea you raised, in the early 1970s, Representative Peter Rodino proposed making it a crime for employ­ ers knowingly to hire illegals. I recall that the House reacted favorably, but the Senate did not; the Senate actively opposed the idea. In 1977, President Carter renewed the Rodino plan and coupled it with am­ nesty for illegals here before 1970 and temporary status for those who arrived between 1970 and 1977. The Congress has not been enthu­ siastic, although the President has renewed the proposal. What do you think of that plan?

SENATOR SCHMITT: The reason I got involved in this-other than the interests that New Mexico, being very close to the border and cul­ turally allied with Mexico, has in immigration-was the condemna­ tion of the President's renewal of this proposal for sanctions by the Hispanic community as well as by everybody else. Sanctions mean discrimination. Every employer would have to be concerned whether the person approaching him for a job is an illegal alien or a New Mexican that happens to look a little bit like a Mexican, as I do sometimes after a little bit of sun. Enforcement at the border is impossible unless we are willing to put billions of dollars into policing 2,000 miles. You cannot even walk along portions of the New Mexico border; it is impossible. As for amnesty, there ought to be a clear set of criteria by which permanent residence would be granted to those people in this country. But the amnesty the President proposed-some vague five-year plan-was,

13 again, deservedly widely criticized. That is when I started to seek some way to take the real world into account and build legislation that is consistent with the real world and that recognizes the benefits both to Mexico and to the United States of having some form of legal migration across our borders. Why is Canada different from Mexico? It really is not, except in the cultural heritage that the two have.

DR. NOVAK: In general, I worry about trying to solve a human problem of this type with a law. It seems impossible to block migration. It seems better to change the illegality of it; that is, to change the status of people. Short of this change, it would be interesting to find out how many of those who are now here illegally actually would seek to become permanent residents. How many would seek to maintain their citi­ zenship elsewhere but be free to come and go? Just that simple fact would shed a great deal of light on the problem.

SENATOR SCHMITT: Modern research by Gustemonte and Cornelius and others has produced some evidence that many of the so-called permanent illegals in this country are permanent because of the dif­ ficultyin moving back and forth across a border that is illegal to cross.

DR. FUCHS: That argument is not so far off, except on one point, and it is a critical point. Mr. Otero is worried about the potential for exploitation in any kind of guest-worker or temporary-worker pro­ gram. I hear many of the commissioners asking whether there is a way to meet two objectives: to accommodate the desire of many employers in this country to find hard-working persons, who will do an honest day's labor, so they can meet the goals of their establish­ ments; and to accommodate the desire of a great many people-not just from Mexico but also from many countries in South America, Central America, and other parts of the world-to come to the United States to improve their lot, economically, with the notion that they will not necessarily plant roots or raise their families in the United States. What the commissioners are trying to do right now is to recognize that a large-scale temporary-worker program will not necessarily be enforceable; that there will be leakage out of that system; that human beings stay here because they fall in love, get married, and have children, or because they find they like the place; and that in the nature of human activity people do not really think in terms of going back or of staying. That is not the way most of our ancestors thought about it when they came. Some of them had very little choice. Some

14 were on the margin of starvation in Ireland, some were Jews from Eastern Europe, and so on. The whole thrust of our history has been away from indentured servants, away from bonded labor, away from slavery, and toward treating every individual who works in the United States as a potential citizen, as potentially having all the entitlements and all the rights protected by the Constitution. Our resident aliens have that. Now, we are looking very hard at ways to meet economic development needs for the United States, to meet our productivity goals, and to provide a generous immigration policy by allocating a substantially larger number of visas to independent immigrants, or seed immi­ grants, who do not necessarily come here because they are related to somebody in the United States. At present, only 6 percent of our immigrants come to this country independently. All the rest come because they have relatives who are either citizens or resident aliens of the United States. Our present third and sixth preferences really only account for 6 percent of all of our immigration, apart from the undocumented immigration. The fear is that a temporary-worker program, no matter how well de­ signed, might not meet the high standards Americans have set for the protection of the workers.

SENATOR SCHMITT: One of the problems is that we still remember the word ''bracero," which was a program that everybody would like to fqrget. It was a program that required a contract to exist between the worker and the employer, and that is often forgotten in the descrip­ tions of the bracero program. We are proposing to do everything Dr. Fuchs has just described, except we are going to put a limit on the time the immigrants can spend here-it is a temporary-worker visa program. Otherwise, the ropes are off and all U.S. laws apply to the protection of these workers, to their salary levels, to the benefits they receive, and to everything else. That is the difference from the bracero program. Some leakage will occur, of course.

MR. DALY: In other words, they could come in for six to eight months and then go back again.

SENATOR SCHMITT: They could come for six to eight months, which then could be renewed. But, again, modernresearch in Mexico in the areas where most of these migrants are from shows that they come to the United States only three or four times in a lifetime.

MR. OTERO: Senator, as an American of Hispanic descent and very proud to be, I am very active in the Hispanic community. The His-

15 panic community is not against or even concerned exclusively with the question of employer sanctions. The Hispanic community would be greatly concerned with sanctions against employers if that were only intended to discriminate against Hispanics. But the proposal before the commission, which I have advanced, is for criminal sanc­ tions against employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens. The employer would be responsible for seeking an identification fromthat person, and this would be an identificationfor work reasons only. It would be issued to all Americans, not only to people at the border and not only to people who look Mexican or Cuban. It would be an upgrading of the social security card. All the employer will have to do, very simply-otherwise he is looking for a cop-out-is to ask for a social security card when he presents the W-4 form to every employee to sign. And the workers would just show their cards as they would show their driver's licenses to policemen. Employers could require an applicant to provide a work permit and a social security card upon seeking employment. If the employer certifies on the W-4 form that he has seen a worker's card and sends that form to the Department of Labor at a centrally located verification point, that is all it will take. This procedure would not discriminate against Fuchs because he looks German or against me because I look Cuban. It is a simple verification to see that everybody seeking a job is entitled to have a job. Of course, a lot of people who are in this country illegally did not just come across the border. There are many students and visitors and tourists who have overstayed their visas. If we combine all of these factors into one, we could control this problem of exploitation of people.

SENATOR SCHMITT: That is an interesting proposal you and others have made. A great number of questions remain to be answered, not the least of which is the philosophical question about Americans carrying an identity card-that is a great hump to get over. But even if we could get over that hump right now, there is a perception, particularly in New Mexico where the problem is primarily a Hispanic problem, that such a program would mainly discriminate against New Mexicans and Mexicans. That is what the New Mexicans who are of Hispanic descent are concerned about. I may not be Hispanic, but I represent a large population of Hispanics, and they let me know about this concern.

MR. DALY: Mr. Otero raised a point that would be useful to define further before we get to the question and answer session. Mr. Otero believes we should have the help of other nations in resolving this

16 immigration problem. The refugee problem is a large part of the immigration problem, and it will be with us as far as we can see into the future. What kind of help can we expect, or should we expect, fromthe United Nations, for instance, or from any other international body in this immigration crisis?

DR. Furns: What we expect and what we will get are two different things, of course. We should expect a great deal of help from many potentially large receiving countries, but we have received very little help. I am not sure how effective our efforts in this line have been. Migration is one of the great world issues, but we now have very weak international structures to deal with this international problem. With regard to refugee migration, particularly sudden refugee mi­ gration, we followed up on the great Cambodian crisis with a mar­ velously dramatic episode. Vice President Mondale made a wonderful speech-talked about the turning away of the Jews in the 1930s and so on-and we were able to extract some cooperation from other receiving countries. In the Cuban episode, our efforts on the diplo­ matic side-to the extent that we made them-do not seem to have borne much fruit. So, the answer to what kind of help should we expect is that we should expect a great deal. The commission now has under study ways in which we might be able to build regional structures on an international scale that could help to plan for and deal with emergency refugee flows when they take place. Such structures do not exist right now, and that is really the answer to the question.

MR. OTERO: I just came back from Thailand, where I had an oppor­ tunity to visit one of the refugee camps. People there are having tremendous problems. The fact that many of the people in this refugee camp have better food and better working conditions than a lot of Thais have is creating an additional problem for Thailand. The United States should take the initiative to promote a conference on a worldwide basis to develop ways and means for handling the type of crisis we are witnessing today. The nations of the free world that have a concern and that are with us in military and economic alliances should try to develop an international statute and work together in resettling these refugees all over the world. The United States should take that initiative because everyone in the world wants to come to this country. We should be proud of that. The people do not want to go to Russia or Red China; they want to come here.

DR. NovAK: One point we have to remember is where these people are coming from. One of the great causes of these migrations is to-

17 talitarianism. So long as we let totalitarianism spread, which it has done in Cambodia, in Cuba, and in other places, that is where the tide of refugees will come from. Until the free-world nations are willing to face that problem, there will be a great shortage of liberty, and many people will come here.

SENATOR SCHMITT: Amen.

MR. DALY: I have read and heard charges that we have a racist policy toward the Cubans and the Haitians now coming into Florida. Does anyone agree?

SENATOR SCHMITT: We definitely have to review the law, but at least there is a law to define the areas from which political refugees are acceptable. These areas do not include Haiti or even Latin America, by definition.

DR. FUCHS: That is no longer the case, though. Senator Schmitt points to something quite significant, because until very recently "refugee" was defined geographically and ideologically. A refugee had to be somebody who came either from the Middle East or from a country under Communist domination. Now, under the Refugee Act of 1980, recently passed, UN protocol has been accepted in defining"refugee." The term includes all people who have a well-founded fear of persecution should they return to their homeland. There is some time lag in people's thinking about how to move into that. There are several problems with the Haitians. Apart fromthe racist factor, which I have no personal knowledge of at all, there is the fact that people who flee from persecution in Haiti-to the extent that there is real persecution, and there is no question there is some-are fleeing froma family despotism, not an ideological despotism. They are not fleeing religious persecution. It is not like the case of the Soviet Jews. Jewish children in the Soviet Union today do not have as good a chance as other Soviet children to go to schools or to fill certain occupations, so there is endemic, systematic persecution. But the Haitians are not persecuted if they go along with the Duvalier family. Another problem is that sometime back, when we had the old law, the State Department sent a team to Haiti to look the situation over. The team reported that the people live in terribleeconomic conditions but that widespread policital persecution does not exist. So the legacy of that report, and the legacy of the old law and its definition of refugee, and perhaps the fact that Haitians are black may explain

18 some of the thinking that has gone into the reluctance of our gov­ ernment to define the Haitians as refugees or even to grant work authorizationsto those who are petitioning for asylum. The Cubans who have recently come to the United States are largely seeking opportunity, as the Haitians are. Some have a well-founded fear of persecution, particularly now that they have left Cuba, just as some of the Haitians have a well-founded fear of persecution now that they have left Haiti. But most human beings leave their countries for a mixture of motives, and it is very hard to decide which pre­ dominates. Why did the Irish leave Ireland? They were starving. But did they like the political system? Did they have reason to fear that system? Sure they did. In the last analysis, a refugee policy anywhere in the world will be a function of foreign politics and domestic politics, as well as some generalized standard of equity, which we have tried to embody in the law. We cannot accept all 14 million, so we make decisions on an ad hoc basis.

DR. NovAK: The problem in the case of Haiti is the jump fromdefining a refugee as someone who flees from totalitarianism to defining a refugee as someone who flees from authoritarianism. Authoritari­ anism covers virtually the whole world, except a dozen or twenty nations at most, and that yields an enormous number of potential refugees. The difference between a totalitarian and an authoritarian regime is a considerable one. The first is able to cover the totality of human life; the second can be cruel and repressive without anything like the syncronization of controls in the first. That is a step we will have to face.

DR. FUCHS: But if you are tortured, the difference doesn't matter.

DR. NovAK: If you are the individual, that's right.

MR. OrERo: The technicality that is applied to the Haitian refugees does not convince me in any way, because Haiti has one of the most repressive, one of the most brutal dictatorships that this earth has ever known. When Papa Doc became your enemy and you did some­ thing against him, not only would he kill you, he would kill every member of your family. His people would eradicate your roots in Haiti. Batista and Marcos used to kill a lot of people in Cuba, and Castro is still killingand imprisoning people. So people who say the Haitians are merely economic refugees ought to have their heads examined,

19 because they do not know what is really happening in Haiti. Haiti has as much political persecution as Cuba or as Guatemala or as any other country that has a dictatorship.

MR. DALY: The definition problem is difficult. We will have to work on it. Now, it is time for the question and answer session. ROGER CONNOR, executive director, Federation for American Immi­ gration Reform: Each of the panelists in turn has advocated an in­ crease in immigration of one kind or another. In 1977, the distin­ guished Roper polling organization found that 75 percent of the Americanpeople believe that a level of immigration of 400,000 a year is excessive, but today legal immigration is more than 600,000 a year. So my question to each of the panelists-and I regret that all the panelists agree on this score, without a dissenting view-is, Why do you believe the American people are wrong on this score? SENATOR SOIMITT: I do not know what the number is, but I am an elected representative of those people, and you may not have been listening carefully enough. In my opening remarks, I said we have to come to some decisions, some goals, some limits, if you will, that are consistent with the traditional role political immigration has played in our country. I do not know what those limits should be. I do not know whether they should be 200,000, or 400,000, or a million. But it is impossible, with out tradition, to close our doors completely to political immigration. I think you will find the survey results are very different with respect to economic migration, at least in the areas that are most significantly affected by economic migration like that from Mexico. The idea of temporary-worker visa programs has a .fair amount of support. There is a very valid distinction between political and eco­ nomic immigrations, and we have to continue to draw this distinction. DR. FUCHS: The most important distinction is the one between legal immigration, on the one hand, and illegal immigration and sudden refugee emergencies or flows, particularly when they are expellees, on the other. At our public hearings and in our effort to fine-tune the analysis of public opinion, we found growing anxiety, even outrage, over an immigration policy that is out of control. The hostility is directed toward illegal immigration and also, to some considerable and grow­ ing extent, toward the acceptance of large numbers of refugees who have very sudden impacts on a particular locality. Though the polls never ask these questions or make the distinction, the outrage and

20 the hostility are not directed toward immigration goals of family re­ unification or of providing opportunity for persons who seek it and who would make a contribution to the United States. Most people still seem to feel rather strongly that this is a country whose strength, to a very large degree, comes from valid immigration, legal immigration. But they are very angry about illegal immigration and about sudden impacts from refugees, particularly if they are expellees as in the case of recent Cuban migrations.

DR. NovAK: Public opinion is not always right, and it is not always to be followed, because public opinion itself changes. It changes when the economic climate changes. It changes when leaders figure out a rational and intelligent policy and persuade people to follow it. With public opinion, a lot depends on how you ask the question. If you ask people if they would like to tum refugees back in the sea or if, by their choice of reducing a 400,000 limit to 200,000, they would like to condemn such people to live in prison, the American people might very well suggest alternatives to that. In any case, the function of leadership is to determine what is a rational policy and then to try to persuade people democratically that it is, indeed, a rational policy that they are asked to support.

MR. OTERO: Mr. Connor, your figure of 400,000 is inaccurate. When you consider the number of legal immigrants coming into the United States through the regular route plus the number of refugees from Cambodia and so on, there are more than 600,000 people. I am very cognizant of the so-called backlash today throughout the country and particularly among my own membership in the labor unions. My advocacy for a larger number of legal migrants is sub­ ordinate to the need to do something about the legal immigration in the United States. We must curb the problem of illegal immigration. Then, we can afford the luxury of bringing people in on a controlled migratory basis. But so long as we continue to have no policy, or, as Dr. Fuchs classifies it, a policy totally out of control, it is impossible for anyone of sane mind to talk about 700,000 or a million more people coming legally into the United States. The two things go hand in hand. We firstcontrol, or try to control, illegal immigration, and then we worry about setting limits for legal migrants into the United States.

TED AGRES, Washington bureau chief, New York News World: You have been talking �bout the philosophical or the policy implications of immigration, migration,and refugee policy. My question concerns the implementation of these policies. There have been a number of allegations of violence by border patrol agents on the border between

21 Mexico and the United States-allegations of beatings, rape, robbery, and occasional murder. There also have been allegations that consular officials issuing visas in overseas offices occasionally have been known to take bribes. What is the real situation concerning the im­ plementation of immigration policies, and what might be done to correct a possibly abusive system?

SENATOR ScHMITI: That is the reason I have proposed a visa program that prevents the opportunity for abuses to occur, at least with respect to the border with Mexico. The majority of the border patrol people are overworked by trying to do something that is impossible to do. They apprehended and returnedto Mexico almost a million people in the last couple of years. It is phenomenal. Many of those million are repeaters, and the actual number may be more like 500,000. Unless we develop a policy that is legal, both on its face and in fact, abuses will continue to occur, and the inhuman smugglers that are charging outrageous prices to get people across the border will profit even more. That is another problem with increased border enforcement. It just means that the smugglers can charge higher and higher prices for their activities. That fact plus everything else I have discussed here tonight have .convinced me we need to get control of that particular problem by developing a legal program that has some semblance of organization to it.

MR. OTERO: There are 2,200 Border Patrol officials, but at no time do more than 300 Border Patrol officialswith three helicopters patrol the 1,900 miles of border. The Border Patrol people get abused a lot, and whenever an incident occurs, it is magnified out of proportion. Sure, there has been some violence, but I have seen violence on both sides. I have seen Border Patrol people stoned severely in Chula Vista, California. It looked like a war. We need to improve the border policing service, not only from the standpoint of enforcement, but also from that of relations with our friends and neighbors in Mexico. We need to train a police force attuned to the realities of the situation. We also need to weed out corruption, and there is corruption on both sides of the fence. When a coyote can smuggle 300 aliens into the United States at one time, it is not simply because he was very artful; it is because there was collusion with Mexican authorities and obviously with those on this side, as well. Also, when 100 social security cards can be bought for five dollars in El Paso, Texas, there is some corruption on our side; these are social security cards of people who have been dead for ten or fifteen years, and the cards can be bought for practically nothing.

22 So better enforcement must begin at home. This will require beefing up our programs here and, first of all, trying to enforce the laws that already exist on the books.

SENATOR SCHMITI: We will have to beef up the court system, too, because when we catch any coyotes, within a week or two they are back doing what they were doing.

MR. DALY: What is a coyote?

MR. OTERO: A coyote is a man who smuggles in aliens for a price. What is really distressing is that the coyote goes free immediately upon being arrested, because he posts bail or somebody posts bail for him, but the poor alien who is trying to come across often is held as a material witness for 75 to 100 days because he cannot post bail. That situation needs redressing.

SENATOR SCHMITI: Good argument for giving them legal status. [Laughter.]

DR. NovAK: The more I hear, the more I am for that bill. [Laughter.] To quote a famous president, we would that the government that implements policy were as good and decent and loving as the Amer­ ican people, and, alas, it is. As long as we try to forbid a natural flow, a natural seeking of liberty and opportunity, we are going to introduce opportunities for coercion and for corruption. The sooner we legalize this process, and track it and monitor it and set limitsto it, the better off we will be.

DR. FUCHS: That is perfectly true, but if we want a more equitable law plus effective enforcement by a much more professional enforce­ ment agency, we must expect to pay for it. It is not just the Border Patrol that needs improvement; enforcement of many aspects of our immigration law is difficult. There is fraud, not necessarily partici­ pated in by U.S. government officials-in fact, it is highly unlikely that that is the case-but there is fraud on the part of applicants in the visa issuance process, in the status adjustment process, and in entry without inspections. But equity, better enforcement, and more humane as well as efficient enforcement cost money. So far the Con­ gress has been reluctant to appropriate funds to do that. Partly, it lacks confidence that the job can be done well, and partly it is am­ bivalent about our immigration policy. I hope the Select Commission will address this whole question of the Immigration and Naturali-

23 zation Service-its responsibilities, its professionalization, its stand­ ards, and so on. The main thing is not to blame the people; the main thing is to pin the responsibility where it lies-onthe law. As everyone here agrees, including those in the audience who spoke, the law seems to result in tremendous premiums for illegal behavior.

ROY MORGAN, executive director, Zero Population Growth: Given that the U.S. population is about 5 percent of the world's population, and given that we consume about 35 percent of the world's nonre­ newable resources, it seems to make sense that U.S. immigration policy should be a part of a national U.S. population policy. Would you comment on that, please?

DR. NOVAK: First of all, I would like to call attention to something tricky about those figures. Many of the things we now call nonre­ newable resources were not known to be resources 50 years ago, for some of them, 100 years ago for others. That is a very important fact. This same population of the United States, because of its liberty, because of its inventiveness, because of the character of the people who come here, is also the source of the discovery of a quite consid­ erably larger share than 35 percent of those resources. My own view is that our preoccupation with zero population growth, alone, is not the only way to go about setting a policy either for population or for immigration.

SENATOR SCHMITT: Further, it is impossible to estimate what the re­ source base of the earth is. We have been wrong every time we have tried to do it for any specific commodity. The use rates may be valid for any one point in time, but clearly they will change. A great con­ troversy is raging today about the size of the resource base in crude oil in this world. The administration and the CIA, supporting the administration, would like us to believe, apparently, that it is very small. As a former economic geologist, I can tell you it is, in fact, very large; we do not know how large. What will happen to our resource base is a question of price, of demand, and of scientific understanding of new technologies. In my lifetime, believe it or not, the cutoff grade for the mining of copper in this country-and copper has the most efficient mining-hasgone from more than 1 percent down to about 0.3 percent because of new technologies. That has happened despite an extremely unstable price situation for copper. It is very difficult to use resources as a way of evaluating immi­ gration policy. That does not mean we should not work in various

24 other ways to make sure that the rest of the countries in the world begin to understand how better to use their resource bases, partic­ ularly to provide for the well-being of their populations and of those migrant populations that are trying to move here for economic rea­ sons. Mexico is probably one of the most aggressive countries in trying to provide well for its population, but look at what it faces. Mexico is shooting for a 10 percent per annum economic growth rate. It does not want to go much higher than that-but almost 50 percent of its population is fifteen years old or younger. A 10 percent growth rate will not begin for decades to match the needs of that population. Those are the kinds of factors that the underdeveloped or unde­ veloped world faces. That is why immigration policy must be tied to a foreign policy that fosters the transfer of know-how to these coun­ tries so they can move into the twentieth century as rapidly as is humanly and economically possible. Then they can start to compete with us for these resources.

DR. FUCHS: On this question of linking immigration policy to popu­ lation policy and resource-use policy, as many people are worrying about a shortfall in population in this country as are worrying on the other side. The argument is that, given our present fertility rate of 1.8, we will have a serious shortage of working-age people compared with those who are over sixty-five or over seventy and dependent on those in the work force. This worry applies, of course, to the social security system.

SENATOR ScHMI'IT:God help us if we do not change that social security system.

DR. FUCHS: But this concern also applies to general levels of produc­ tivity and to American economic vitality in 1990 and in the year 2000. Also in this terribly unstable world in which we live, with as many totalitarian societies as exist, it applies in the area of manpower or personpower capability for making flexible and strong responses to threats in international politics. If the fertility rate remains at 1.8-and nobody knows whether it will go up or down-we could have a net immigration. Although our immigration now is probably much higher than most people would like it to be, we could have a net immigration of 750,000 persons every year until the year 2030, when we would reach population stability. At this point, we would virtually reach zero population growth with slightly less than 300 million people in the United States, and that would be fifty years from now.

25 We have heard arguments so far on both sides about resource use. People say every time another person immigrates to the United States, the world's resources are somehow depleted more. Other people say this is not true. The commission is going to have a conference and try to bring the best minds together on this question, because we have not found any empirical justification, or even a good theoretical model, which shows us the relationship of immigration to the United States and world resource utilization, and it is planetary resource utilization that we are all concerned about. The staff of the commission has been quite mindful of the fact that population stability should be considered a goal, although a great many of our commissioners do not seem terribly interested in that. Perhaps they think more along the lines of Dr. Novak.

MICHAEL SIMLAR, staff attorney, Migrant Legal Action Program: The Migrant Legal Action Program represents migrant and seasonal farm­ workers on legal issues. We are directly concerned about the pro­ posals to expand the temporary labor programs. These increased numbers of workers from Mexico would compete directly with the clientele we represent. Some further consideration should be given now to the existing temporary labor program. Senator Schmitt would not like us to refer back to the bracero program, but it is wise to examine what exists now, and that is the H-2 program. There are lots of problems with the way it is structured. Basically, it allows foreign workers to dominate certain industries such as the apple harvest, the sugar cane harvest, and the tobacco harvest in Virginia. But there is something to be said for the certifi­ cation process, itself, by which the secretaryof labor can admit work­ ers only if he finds that no U.S. workers are available. That process has not worked well in those industries I mentioned, but it has worked in other areas of the country where, in most cases, employers apply for foreign workers, and the secretary of labor finds domestic workers to fill those jobs, and the U.S. work force is protected. What I am concerned about is a comment Senator Schmitt made earlier that the proposed bill would provide the same protections. The way I read it, it does not because it lacks a certificationprocedure. In fact, it weakens the protection for U.S. workers in comparison with what we have now. Is that not the case?

SENATOR SCHMITI: I did not say it would provide the same protections as the H-2 program. The H-2 program is basically a legal worker visa program based on employer demand in particular industries. We see it being used to a great degree out west in the sheepherding area, which has been severely hurt by cutbacks in the H-2 program. There

26 just are no sheepherders. Indigenous Americans are not sheep­ herders anymore, and we have to go outside the country in order to find that skill. The so-called Good Neighbor Act-referred to by Senator Haya­ kawa as Los Compafteros program-is geared to the existing illegal migration of Mexican workers across the border. These migrants are filling jobs that clearly are there, or most would not migrate. I am not aware that a large group of unemployed illegal Mexican aliens are in this country. All those I run into have jobs, and there are few that do not. That is the protection of the new program. The pull factor is a real pull factor,representing a deficiencyin the U.S. labor pool that is not being filled by American labor. Clearly there will be problems at the margins. I do not deny that. At an individual work site that is at the margin, particularly where skilled labor is at issue, the program would provide a mechanism by which that work site would be off-limits to visa holders. I am not sure we have worked out fully what that mechanism ought to be-but some mechanism should exist.

MR. OTERO: With all due respect to the senator and his assertions, I do not agree with them. A number of American workers cannot find jobs because the market is geared to keep them from finding those jobs. The apple growers in Virginia obviously would like to have foreign workers come and pick the apples rather than bring in unemployed American blacks, for example, who are available in large numbers in the city of Richmond, Virginia. They have made no bones about it. They prefer to have people from Jamaica or some other Caribbean island, because they are more docile. They will come, pick, and go, whereas the Americans bring with them all the problems of knowing a great deal about their rights. As for labor certification, the H-2 program, contrary to what most people believe, is not strictly an agricultural program. In 1979, about 18,000 people were admitted to this country under the H-2 program to do agricultural work, but 16,000 were brought in to do work other than in agriculture. So it is almost a 50-50 proposition. The H-2 program has a number of deficiencies, but if there is a need to fill genuine vacuums of employment for foreign workers, we are in favor of that, provided that the labor certification process re­ mains in there. Some people say labor certification does not work. I disagree, although there may be some mechanical problems to be corrected. The model Dr. Fuchs has referred to as a so-called independent group is a model the commission is considering now to increase the number of legal immigrants to the United States to about 750,000. It

27 has a category, labeled as number three, for independents. This could be construed as another guest-worker program if no labor certification is required for that group of independents. Unless the Department of Labor certifies that there are no American workers available, we will just have a bracero program by another name-call it what you will, it would be another bracero program.

SENATOR ScHMIIT:As long as bracero is not defined in the appropriate terms, you are correct. But the bracero program was a contract labor program. Nothing that is being proposed here today is a contract labor program. The new program would recognize the existing market for labor that is not being filled by American workers. It is as simple as that.

DR. FUCHS: Let me see if I can structure this a little bit. It is the professor in me coming out, but it seems to me we have three ques­ tions on the table, and we have gone full circle on this. Apart from humanitarian considerations for other people, would the United States benefitby providing legal access to immigrants who come here in substantial numbers primarilyto work? The answer you are giving, Senator Schmitt, is yes, we would.

SENATOR SCHMIIT: The economic information is very persuasive for both countries.

DR. FUCHS: Yes. Apart fromthe argument about whether or not there is much displacement, over time and in the aggregate, immigrants will constitute an economic gain for the United States of America. In the aggregate and over time, there is not much argument on that issue among any of the world class economists from whatever ide­ ological persuasion they originate, whether it is John Kenneth Gal­ braith or Milton Friedman.

DR. NOVAK: It will not take that much time, either.

DR. FUCHS: No, not that much time. It will take remarkably little time because of the chemistry of acculturation that takes place with im­ migrants. Immigrants who move are self-selected people who work one job or two jobs and move as rapidly as they can up the economic ladder. At any rate, in the aggregate, over time, immigrants do benefit the United States. The second question is what their status should be, taking into consideration resource use, population, and economics. You say a large number of migrants ought to come in on some kind of temporary

28 status, not under a contract with one employer, with certain protec­ tions in their movement. What the commission is considering before it looks at that issue is whether or not their status should be that of the typical, traditional, legal immigrant to the United States.

SENATOR SCHMITT: But you are not taking into account, by using that phraseology, the fact that they do not want to stay here. The majority of them do not want to stay here.

DR. FUCHS: They would not come if they did not want to stay and to work here.

SENATOR SCHMITT: They want to work, but they consider themselves nationals of their own countries.

DR. FUCHS: Under our present sixth preference, an employer has to petition for a worker. One of the possible ways of choosing such immigrants is to have employers petition for workers, and valid job offers would be checked against an excluded list of occupations. As for the third question in this structuring-what their status should be-onepossibility is that some of them should be immigrants, and others perhaps should have H-2 status. You are suggesting a third possibility, that still others ought to be in this temporary-worker program. The next question becomes, How do we protect domestic labor in the most efficient way? Again, this has to be humane as well as efficient, because some of what goes on now is neither. One com­ missioner, Representative Rodino, has suggested that the total num­ ber of immigrants could be linked to and adjusted to the unemploy­ ment index projected by the Council of Economic Advisers for each fiscal year. So the number could go up or down on the basis of five­ year totals, five-year targets or ceilings. Some commissioners argue for a ceiling, which would include refugees, by the way, and others are against that. Some would like to see the refugees in the ceiling so that when a determination is made to accept a sudden influx of refugees within the overall ceiling, an immigration council or board would have to apply pressure to reduce the numbers for other legal migration streams. How do we protect labor? Representative Rodino has one idea. Before 1965, we had another. We had a list of excluded occupations for which the Labor Department had made a determination that such an occupation was one in which willing, able, qualified Americans were seeking employment. An employer could not seek an employee overseas for such an occupation.

29 Something the Rodino proposal has in its favor is that it has the market working, but with one big difference. That is, the market is working in the sense that an employer is seeking, in Bogota or Sri Lanka or somewhere else, an employee whose occupation is not excluded from the list of occupations. The total number fluctuates with the unemployment rate, so that there is some built-in protection for the domestic labor market. The one big difference would be that the person who comes with a green card knows that he has the full entitlements and rights of a resident alien in the United States. Sure, he may want to go back in three months or five months.

SENATOR SCHMITT: There are some major problems in dealing with excluding certain occupations. We did not see any workable way to do it. Representative Rodino's proposals ignore the safety net we put under our population, so we went the other way. We said we would limit legal immigration by an estimate of demand, and that estimate would improve with time, as the program goes on.

MR. DALY: I am reluctant to announce that we have run out of time. This concludes another public policy forum presented by the Amer­ ican EnterpriseInstitute for Public Policy Research. On behalf of AEI, our hearty thanks to the distinguished and expert panelists, Dr. Mi­ chael Novak, Dr. Lawrence Fuchs, Senator Harrison Schmitt, and Mr. J. F. Otero, and also to our guests and experts in the audience for their participation.

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