Rewriting immigration law won’t be any easier in 2016 or 2018, so the GOP should take the plunge now, according to the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
“There will never be a perfect time for reform,” Tom Donohue wrote in a Monday blog post, acknowledging opposition to industry’s high-immigration priorities.
“The political landscape isn’t going to be any more conducive to reform in two years or four years. … The fact remains that it is in our national interest to get it done,” he wrote.
Advocates for increased immigration say that a 2014 delay will push the issue into the 2016 presidential election, where it likely will face even greater political hurdles as both parties try to win more than 50 percent of the electorate.
GOP leaders seem to be backing away from Donohue’s goal. That’s partly because it is so unpopular, but also because the push could split the GOP and damage the party’s chances of winning the Senate in 2014 by enough seats to survive the expected Democratic Senate wins in 2016.
The leadership is also facing opposition from some GOP legislators who want the party to support a low-immigration, high-wage outreach to alienated and GOP-leaning voters. Many GOP legislators are reluctant to back the business agenda, which is support by progressives and wealthy voters.
President Barack Obama’s progressives and Donohue’s business executives have united behind bills that would double the annual intake of one million legal immigrants and roughly 650,000 guest workers.
Democratic and business advocacy pushed a rewrite bill through the Senate last June that would grant an amnesty to at least 10 million illegal immigrants.
Business leaders, including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, have offered to fund campaign ads for politicians who up the current inflow of workers. Some GOP legislators, such as North Carolina Rep. Renee Ellmers, are cautiously promoting the immigration increase, but are facing local opposition.
The public is strongly opposed to any new flow of workers, a February NumbersUSA poll finds, even as a large slice of the electorate seems willing to trade an amnesty in exchange for actual enforcement of immigration laws. NumbersUSA is a reform group that wants to reduce the number of immigrants and guest workers.
The new mid-February poll showed that only 10 percent of likely voters believe there’s a shortage of workers for constructions and service jobs, and that 73 percent think “there are plenty of less-educated Americans to do the jobs.”
If there is a shortage of ready workers, 74 percent said, “businesses should be required to recruit from American groups with high unemployment,” said the poll.
Only 13 percent said “businesses should be allowed to bring in new immigrant workers instead.”
Only 11 percent of Americans supported an increase in annual immigration to 2 million, while while 43 percent want the annual intake at 100,000 or zero.
The public also supported measure to exclude nearly all illegal immigrants, but indicated more sympathy for illegals who arrived as children.
Sixty-three percent strongly or somewhat support “proposals to encourage most illegal immigrants to go back home on their own by keeping them from getting jobs and public benefits here.” Only 28 percent strongly or somewhat opposed those measures.
Thirty-four percent said they support deporting “most [illegals] because it is the right thing to do under the law,” while only 20 percent said they “oppose most deportations as inhumane.” Thirty-seven percent favor some deportations.
The likely voters were far more sympathetic to people who were brought by their parents as children into the country. Twenty-eight percent were very sympathetic, 35 percent somewhat sympathetic.
The business community is also split, partly because they’re worried that immigrant voters will elect Democrats to office.
Seventy-five percent of GOP executives in a recent Midwest survey backed the Senate’s June 2013 immigration rewrite, but only 18 percent supported a provision that would allow roughly 12 million illegal immigrants to quickly get citizenship and to vote in elections.
However, Donohue is pushing hard to get the bill passed in 2014, and he has several months to persuade the House’s GOP leadership to schedules votes.
If Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner decides to schedule votes on bills to increase immigration and grant amnesty, they would likely pass with overwhelming support from the progressive Democratic legislators.
“Support for reform has never been stronger. … Most important, the public is overwhelmingly behind it,” Donohue wrote in his blog post.
“The case for immigration reform is clear. The need is undeniable. The time is now,” he concluded.
