Out of the shadows

alvinwoolf

May 21st 2007 | NEW YORK
From Economist.com

AMERICA’s census bureau last week released an intriguing statistic: for the first time, there are now more than 100m people, nearly a third of the total population, from a minority (or non-white) background. The black population tops 40m, comprising about 13% of the population. The largest minority group, Hispanics, now represents nearly 15% of the total. Were America’s black and brown people to set up a country alone, it would be the world’s 12th biggest, after Mexico.

All this is cause for little more than chin-stroking, for many people. But some mutter that English is under threat from Spanish, and that Americans are under siege from foreigners, largely because “the border is broken”. Around 12m of the country’s residents are illegal immigrants, mainly from Mexico and Central America.

Co-incidentally, on the same day of the Census Bureau’s announcement, a bipartisan group in the Senate announced an apparent breakthrough on immigration reform. The deal would allow many existing illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, though not an easy one. Illegals would have to go back home, pay a fine, and then would be expected to re-apply in a “touch-back” manoeuvre. Few who have children born in the United States (who are anyway, by that fact, Americans) would be inclined to do that. The bill’s supporters are keen not to give the impression of being soft on illegals: those who sneaked in, they say, can join the citizenship queue only at the back. Such a stance may be politically necessary, but it is likely to mean that relatively few illegal residents will co-operate.

The bill would also create a new points-based system, in which education, skills and ability in English would help an applicant’s case. This would mirror efforts by some other rich countries (like Germany) and would have the advantage of drawing in middle-class, skilled, workers who may prove more acceptable to native-born Americans. Such cherry-picking may prove especially helpful for the economy, but it would do little to persuade the many poor and unskilled who already cross the border, who are pulled in to fill jobs picking fruit, building houses, caring for babies and the like, to seek legal entry. The low-skilled, who grease America’s economic machine by doing the unattractive jobs for lowish wages, would have every incentive to remain illegal.

Nor is the bill a done deal. The full Senate is expected to discuss it in the next few days, and alterations are possible even in the upper house, although the Republican leader there is warily in favour. It may see more substantial changes once reconciled with the wishes of the House of Representatives. The lower house is also controlled by the more immigrant-friendly Democrats, but it is more populist than the Senate. Nativist Republicans, among others, are already howling against the “amnesty”. Immigrants-rights groups grumble that the leg up is given to more educated and skilled workers, rather than relatives of those already in America. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker, says the bill could be “improved”.

Yet George Bush is keen to get a bill through. For years he has made it clear that he wants to clear up America’s immigration mess. Doing more to modernise America’s wretched immigration system is something that the president and Congress should be able to agree on. The deal produced will not make all migration legal, but it may bring a few more people out of the shadows.

FROM: http://www.economist.com/world/n ... fm?story_id=9210031