US Senate passes Democratic-backed version of anti-immigrant legislation

The bill provides billions for a 370-mile-long fence along the US-Mexico border, for hiring new Border Patrol agents, and for new technology that would be used to prevent undocumented workers from obtaining jobs in the US, except as part of an officially sanctioned guest-worker program.

While depicted by the media as “moderate” and even humane, this is only by comparison to the bill which passed the House of Representatives last November, which defines every undocumented worker as a criminal felon, and also criminalizes all those who provide assistance to such immigrants, including charitable groups that operate soup kitchens, medical clinics, legal services and schools.

The major provisions of the Senate bill were drafted by leading Senate Democrats, headed by Edward Kennedy, longtime leader of the congressional liberals, and the principal advocate of a “compromise” bill that would have the support of a sizeable number of Republicans. Kennedy’s efforts were rewarded as 21 Republicans joined 41 Democrats and one pro-Democratic independent to pass the bill. Republican Senator John McCain was the principal co-sponsor of the bill, and the Bush White House gave its tacit support.

The result, however, is a reactionary abomination, in some aspects even more antidemocratic than the House bill. Both bills are animated by the spirit of repression, treating undocumented workers as criminals who must be punished, with the main difference being how far it is practical to go in mass roundups, jailings and deportations.

The House bill was drafted to satisfy the anti-immigrant bigotry of the ultra-conservative wing of the Republican Party, where right-wing populism (including efforts to scapegoat immigrants for the increasingly difficult conditions facing American workers) combines with tacit or overt ethnic and racial bigotry. The Senate bill, on the other hand, is crafted to the specifications of American big business, which wants to retain access to a supply of super-exploited labor, particularly in agriculture, construction and food processing.

Unlike the House, the Senate bill provides for a guest-worker program, capped at 200,000 workers a year, to serve the needs of agribusiness, and it offers long-term illegal immigrants a chance at legalization, if they take English classes and pay back taxes and a substantial fine. The House bill would not legalize a single undocumented worker, requiring for its enforcement the deportation of an estimated 12 million people, which would represent one of the largest forced transfers of population in world history.

The Senate majority rejected the House “enforcement-only” plan as impractical, citing the difficulties of carrying such mass deportations, but it proposes a convoluted system of limited legalization that would be equally impossible to carry into practice. “Only” 2 million undocumented workers would be forcibly deported under the Senate plan—all those who have entered the country in the last two years.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/may2006/immi-m27.shtml