A panel of immigration experts, a businessman and a DREAM Act Coalition representative discussed Wednesday at the Downtown campus the immigration reform bill that was officially filed on the Senate floor Wednesday morning.
The Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013, which would allow undocumented immigrants to receive a legal status that would turn them into a Registered Provision Immigrant, was created by the Gang of Eight, a bipartisan group that includes Arizona Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake. There are 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country.
The "U.S. Citizenship: The Economic Pathway" discussion, organized by the ASU Morrison Institute for Public Policy, the Real Arizona Coalition and the O’Connor House featured an opening statement by former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
O’Connor said the bill is promising and has a serious possibility of becoming law.
“I hope that’s the case, and I look forward very much to seeing what Congress will introduce and how it will be received,” she said. “I think it has a very good chance of progressing and forming into legislation on which both sides of the aisle can agree.”
Science, technology and society freshman Maria Castro, the treasurer for the Arizona DREAM Act Coalition, said the discussion should not focus on money or numbers, but on the human aspect.
“We need to remember that immigration policy is about human beings,” she said. “Although economics is important, we need to remember that we are all humans, and we need to respect each other in that sense.”
Castro said the coalition believes the bill will pass before the Senate recesses in August.
The RPI status will not stop people from going through the naturalization process, she said.
“This is the best version of the DREAM Act since the original,” she said.
Immigration is a serious issue, and every day more than a thousand people are detained, Castro said.
Her mother was deported when Castro was 12 years old. She has been active in the community ever since.
“Families are being separated,” she said. “This is why we need an immigration reform passed; not today, not tomorrow, but yesterday.”
Alex Nowrasteh, immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, said a large, robust and market-driven guest-worker program is necessary.
“That is the only way that we’re going to draw would-be unauthorized immigrants from out of the shadows … into the legal market so that we can have an actual path to citizenship,” he said.
The bill as it is written does not offer enough guest-worker visas to meet current standards in a timely manner, Nowrasteh said.
The economy is not fixed in size, and when immigrants work, they only increase the size of the possibilities for production, he said.
“What legalization really does is level the playing field between unauthorized immigrant workers and legal American workers,” he said.
Arizona businessman Marion Magruder, a frequent delegate to the Republican National Conventions, said immigration reform was essential to the country's economic health.
“For too many years, there’s been a divide, and it is high time we step past the rhetoric and get to the solutions,” he said. “It is un-American to continue with the status quo.”
Magruder said he too supports a guest-worker visa program that would allow undocumented immigrants to join the labor force.
The program would be the best way to regulate who enters the country, he said.
“This people from Mexico are the hardest-working I’ve ever been associated with,” he said. “They absolutely are not here for a free ride.”
Joseph Garcia, director of the Morrison Institute Latino Public Policy Center, said that there will be a labor shortage in the future and that would leave a space for guest workers.
“There has to be a way for people to become U.S. citizen,” he said. “It seems obvious to me we can start with the people that are already here.”
ASU alumna Gloria Galeno, who attended the event, said the narrative has changed throughout the years and now everyone should agree that immigration reform is necessary.
Galeno said she has always been interested in the subject because her mother did not become a permanent resident until two years ago.
"I’ve seen my family struggle, but they’ve always had a desire to do better,” she said. “That’s what’s driven me to try to do my best and to try to uphold my values.”
Reach the reporter at dpbaltaz@asu.edu or follow her @dpalomabp
