LEGAL IMMIGRANTS ALARMED OVER GROWING "ANTI-IMMIGRANT" SENTIMENT

by Jim Lobe

(IPS) WASHINGTON -- Large majorities of legal immigrants in the United States strongly oppose Congressional legislation that would criminalize and deport undocumented immigrants and authorize the construction of walls and other barriers along the border with Mexico, according to an unprecedented survey released here Tuesday.

The survey, based on interviews with a broadly representative sample of 800 of the 26 million residents who have passed through the U.S. immigration process, also found alarm among all immigrant communities about what most respondents described as a growing "anti-immigrant" sentiment in the United States.

"The immigrant community is alarmed by the tone and substance of the (immigration) debate," said Sergio Bendixen, president of Bendixen & Associates, the polling firm that conducted the survey for the California-based New America Media (NAM), an association of more than 700 ethnic newspapers and broadcast media in the U.S.

"The poll results remind me of similar findings in California in 1994 when immigrants from Latin America complained about racism, discrimination and disrespect against them and their families because of the xenophobic message of the supporters of Proposition 187," he added.

Proposition 187, a ballot initiative that was strongly supported by California's Republican governor at the time, Pete Wilson, banned state agencies from providing certain kinds of assistance to undocumented immigrants. His identification with the harsh measure is widely thought to have doomed his presidential hopes by alienating Hispanic voters, in particular, from him and his party.

"What was a swing state became a deep blue (Democratic) state," said Bendixen about the political impact of the initiative.

The new survey comes at an arguably similar moment in the increasingly dramatic debate over new immigration legislation.

Driven by reports that the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants believed to be in the United States are depressing working-class wages and adding costs to the already-fraying social safety nets of state and local governments, public opinion appears to have become increasingly hostile to illegal immigration.

That hostility has been compounded by fears since 9/11 that terrorists can easily infiltrate the United States without much tighter border enforcement, including substantially increasing the number of Border Patrols and constructing much more formidable physical barriers along the Mexican border, in particular.

These considerations have pushed immigration close to the top of the U.S. political agenda -- in recent national polls, more than 80 percent of respondents said they believe immigration has become a "serious" or "very serious" problem -- just seven months before the November mid-term Congressional elections.

Democrats, who have traditionally supported immigrant rights, have maintained a relative low profile in the current political climate. Republicans have split between their pro-business wing, which generally opposes measures that threaten the supply of cheap labor provides by undocumented workers, and the populist wing, which favors much stronger enforcement measures to keep the undocumented out and to punish and deport those who are already here.

The latter approach is currently embodied in a bill pushed through the House of Representatives by its Republican leadership last December. In doing so, House Republicans defied Bush, who has called for any new immigration enforcement measures to be balanced by a generous temporary-worker program that would ensure an orderly and legal supply of immigrant workers to key industries.

Some Republicans have strongly denounced the House bill not only as bad public policy, but also as potentially disastrous to Republican hopes of wooing Latino voters, in particular.

In his 2004 re-election campaign, Bush himself made unprecedented inroads in the Latino community, claiming some 40 percent of its votes. Political analysts believe that final approval of some version of the punitive House bill would not only reverse those gains, but also risk far more enduring damage, much as Proposition 1987 did in California.

Their warnings have taken on increasing urgency in recent weeks amid outspoken opposition to the legislation by senior clergy in the Catholic Church and, in just the past week, unprecedented protest demonstrations by tens of thousands of Latinos in major cities across the country.

As a result, some Republicans have lined up behind proposed legislation sponsored by Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy. The bill, which was approved by the Judiciary Committee Monday night, would grant legal status to currently undocumented immigrants if they satisfy certain conditions, including paying back taxes and learning English.

It would also offer a guest-worker program that each year could permit the legal entry of as many as 400,000 immigrants who could also eventually obtain citizenship.

Full Senate debate is expected to begin Tuesday and run for two weeks. If the Senate bill passes, however, it will still have to be reconciled with the House version before it can become law.

In arguing in favor of the House bill, its proponents, particularly Colorado Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo, have consistently said that permitting undocumented immigrants to legalize their status would constitute a "slap in the face" to those immigrants who entered the U.S. legally.

The Bendixen survey, which was co-sponsored by the Center for American Progress (CAP) and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund (LCCREF), was designed in major part to test that proposition.

Of the 800 respondents, who were born in 43 different countries, 55 percent were from Latin America; 30 percent from Asia; and the remainder from Africa and Europe. Six in 10 were citizens; legal residents made up the rest. Of those who were citizens, nearly 80 percent were registered to vote.

Two-thirds of all respondents said anti-immigrant sentiment was growing in the U.S. That perception was especially pronounced among Latin American immigrants, more than three-quarters of whom expressed that belief. More than half (55 percent) said the anti-immigrant sentiment had directly affected them or someone in their family; 62 percent of Latin American immigrants said so.

The survey found overwhelming opposition to the main provisions of the House bill. Nearly three quarters said they opposed arresting illegal immigrants and charging them with a crime, and denying U.S. citizenship to children of illegal immigrants born in the U.S.; 69 percent opposed deporting all illegal immigrants to their country of origin; and two-thirds said they opposed building a wall along the Mexican border.

At the same time, the survey found strong support for the provisions of the McCain-Kennedy bill: 80 percent favored a temporary-work program that would permit undocumented immigrants to earn legal status after six years.

Asked who is doing a "good job" in dealing with immigration issues, only 22 percent of respondents identified the Republican Party, while Bush received a favorable rating from 32 percent. The Democratic Party did only slightly better at 38 percent.

"There are no clear winners," said Bendixen who also noted that less than one third of respondents said the current immigration debate was "fair and rational," while 54 percent said it was "unfair and based on misinformation."