Experts weigh in on illegal immigration, citizenship laws

Wednesday’s E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues was just what University of Nebraska-Lincoln Chancellor Harvey Perlman introduced it as: multiple views from different perspectives.

Dr. Michael Olivas, William B. Bates Distinguished Chair of Law at the University of Huston, and Dr. Vernon Briggs, emeritus professor in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University in Ithaca, brought different perspectives to the topic of illegal immigration and a path to citizenship.

The discussion was filled with statistics and emotions about the fate of the nation’s 12 million illegal immigrants. Both sides received applause from the audience.

Kayla Moore, a UNL sophomore business administration major said, “They did a good job saying what stance they took. It was somewhat over my head.”

Olivas believes illegal immigration happens because  “we make it so impossible to come into the U.S.”

He explained that a Mexican immigrant in the U.S. must wait 12 years to bring a spouse into the country, 17 years for a brother.

“No wonder we have so many undocumented workers here,” Olivas said.

Olivas pointed out inequalities in admittance of immigrant family members depending on where they are from, noting that entry from Mexico and five other targeted countries takes longer than from elsewhere. He called U.S. policy “anti-Mexican,” and often brought up race, citing cases of an illegal Canadian immigrant passing the border without issue.

Briggs countered that he is against all illegal immigration, no matter where it stems from. Mexico is not the only problem, he said. Chinese illegal immigrants are finding low-income work and sometimes slave-like lives here.

Briggs feels that amnesty encourages illegal immigration. He did support the U.S.’s first amnesty in the hopes that it would stop illegal immigration, but he said that it failed.

Since then there have been eight more amnesties given. 

He decried plans to grant citizenship to illegal immigrants through fines, background checks and English lessons, calling them flawed. He takes issues with bearing the cost of background checks, fine wavers for the impoverished, perceived tax loopholes and language lessons which would only have to be taken, not passed.

Briggs said that allowing citizenship could result in a “coat-tail effect,” where 12 million people will use the opportunity to bring their relatives into the country.

He called such a result a “human tsunami of unskilled workers,” potentially devastating  the working class and presented a breakdown of how many illegal immigrants hold high school diplomas and how many do not. Most work low-income jobs here, he said.

Olivas argued that because entry to the U.S. is difficult, it has thrown off migratory work patterns and illegal immigrants simply stay here once in.

Olivas said immigrants made this country and will do so again. He also said illegal immigrants take the low-income jobs because Americans don’t want them.

“I don’t want my kids doing that kind of work,” Olivas said. “These jobs are not being competed for.”

One thing the two speakers agreed on was that the economic problems in the U.S. will impact the future of immigration policies.

“The high unemployment rate is the only thing stopping the citizenships and amnesties,” Briggs said.

Olivas said he and Briggs are like an astronomical eclipse on this view, it being their only real meeting point.

Elizabeth Porath, a sophomore accounting major, said that both speakers were passionate about their difference of opinion. Porath said she is more on Briggs’s side of better enforcement of current laws, but sees now that many circumstances in play make that difficult.

“It gave me more information about it,” she said. “I wasn’t very informed on the issue before. They presented views I hadn’t thought about before.”

nateruleaux@dailynebraskan.com