Whether the United States has a problem with illegal immigration may be largely a matter of the way one defines the term.
"If the question of terrorism is removed from the equation, there really isn't one," says Assistant Professor Mark Bauer of the Chicago Kent College of Law. "We pass laws we don't enforce. We just go after the most egregious offenders. Up until Sept. 11 (2001), that was our policy with immigration. The INS was underfunded. We forced them to make choices over what should be done.
Baur said: "No one knows what immigration policy should be. You could build a fence but a fence just makes it a little harder. But come on. One of our closest allies is Mexico. Is it insulting to erect a giant fence? They've done that near San Diego and El Paso. It's hugely unpopular. When you're dealing with allies, you have to watch the implications of what you're doing."
The INS estimates there are 7 million illegal immigrants in the United States, their ranks swelling by 350,000 annually. The largest number live in California -- 2.2 million as of January 2000 -- and Texas is home to another million. Of all the illegals in the United States, 4.8 million are from Mexico, with El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia, Honduras, China and Ecuador contributing at least 100,000 each.
The reasons for illegal immigration are many and varied. Until just before World War II, there were very few limits on immigration and the current system was not adopted until 1954. Now, legal immigrants must overcome elaborate hurdles -- educational, familial connections and bureaucratic.
"In a largely rural country, people sometimes have to travel hundreds of miles to appeal at the U.S. embassy, maybe wait all day for an appointment and then be told to come back again. Even if it's only 10 miles, if they don't have transportation, it's an insurmountable hurdle," Bauer said. "It's just easier to make the trip surreptitiously."
Then there's the question of asylum and who qualifies. Though the United Nations defines who qualifies for asylum -- anyone who would be subject to persecution based on political or religious beliefs or membership in an ethnic or other group -- the definition is not as simple as it sounds on first blush.
"During the '70s and '80s, there were a tremendous number of refugees from Nicaragua, Chile, Argentina and Panama, complaining participation in political groups would subject them to persecution," Bauer said. "But a person who goes from Chile to the United States probably made at least one stop. Once you pass into a second country, it's no longer a matter of being persecuted. It's a matter of socio-economic choice."
The sheer size of the United States and the number of residents make it virtually impossible to track people once they arrive, despite regulations requiring them to report their whereabouts annually to immigration officials. The European Union has largely the same problem now that borders between member nations are open.
Bauer said in many ways our economy is dependent on illegal immigrants.
"On the one hand, as world gets smaller, we just can't stop it. As we grow richer and older, we can't live without it," he said. "At the same time, we cannot afford open borders and still provide a social safety net for our citizens. ...
"Some expectations are unrealistic. We have a 3,000-mile border with Canada. We don't have a military force large enough to patrol that -- nor would we want to. Part of our relationship is, 'Hey, they're our buds.'"
As it is, Bauer said, Canadians are becoming increasingly annoyed with border hassles.
"I drove from Seattle to Vancouver," Bauer recalled. "At the border, it was 'Hi! Have a nice stay.' Then I drove back from Vancouver to Seattle. It was almost a two-hour wait. They (the border guards) were fairly offensive. They started asking me about drugs. ... I'm fairly innocent looking. I can just imagine what would happen to anyone looking any rougher. They would have to spend four hours and this is a border crossing with our closest ally."
The Mexican border issue is even thornier.
"An area that has been incredibly beneficial has been NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) on the Mexican side. It helped stabilize the Mexican economy and increased the standard of living. Mexico now has the most democratically run government in its history. A stable Mexico is in our interests," he said.
"How can you close the border with Mexico? It's impractical. You can swim it. If we were to bottle that up, what would the implications be? What would happen to low-paid workers. Would it really benefit us in the end?"
To David Gorak, executive director, Midwest Coalition to Reduce Immigration, the answer is yes. Gorak blames unchecked immigration for such ills as urban sprawl, overcrowded classrooms and rising healthcare costs.
"They are criminals," he said. "It's a felony to cross the border. It's a felony to get a false ID. It's a felony to get a job using that false ID. Why would you want to make things easier for criminals. They're criminals. Most are not terrorists but they are thumbing their noses at our laws."
Mexico began handing out identification cards to its nationals living in the United States. The so-called "matricula consular" have become a subject of debate over whether their mere existence encourages illegal immigration. Danielle Sheahan, an INS spokeswoman in Washington, said the agency just doesn't know.
"There's no way of predicting what encourages illegal immigration," she said. "The card is used by people who are here to open bank accounts and prove they're citizens of Mexico." But, she said, she doesn't "know of anybody (who) would have any use for it other than people who are here illegally."
Mexican Consul Jose Cuevas in Omaha, Neb., said the matricula should be accepted as a valid form of identification for such things as opening bank accounts and for identification at the airport.
The card does not indicate whether the carrier is in the United States illegally and watchdog groups have criticized institutions accepting the cards, charging it encourages illegal immigration.
"We're not encouraging illegal immigration to the United States," Cuevas told the Omaha World-Herald recently.
The Federation for American Immigration Reform, a Washington lobbying group, said on its Web site criticism of the cards has not been nearly vocal enough and accuses local governments of turning a blind eye in hopes of gaining political advantage.
"The political establishment at the national as well as local level has become enamored with the idea that it can win Hispanic ethnic political support by catering to the illegal immigrant population," the group said. "That view is reinforced by spokespersons for organizations that style themselves as representing that population."
When the cards were handed out in Chicago, tens of thousands lined up.
The card, however, is not universally accepted. Several communities in Michigan and Arizona as well as several Northeast states have rejected it as a form of official identification. Additionally, citing security concerns, the General Services Administration has said it will not accept it.
Though when most Americans think of illegal immigrants, they think of people slipping across the U.S. border with Mexico, others are here illegally as well, many who came on a visitor's visa that has lapsed.
"If somebody extends their stay and we agree, they're not illegal," Sheahan said. "They're not allowed to work, ever. They would have to change their status entirely. They would have to apply for an immigration visa if you are married to a U.S. citizen or won the lottery -- the diversity lottery -- or (if) an employer will sponsor you."
The diversity lottery makes 50,000 green cards available to people from countries considered underrepresented in the United States. The program is administered by the State Department.
"The present level of immigration is significantly higher than the average historical level of immigration," according to the Center for Immigration Studies. "This flow may be attributed, in part, to the extraordinary broadening of U.S. immigration policy in 1965. Since 1970, more than 30 million legal and illegal immigrants have settled in the United States, representing more than one-third of all people ever to come to America's shores.
"At the peak of the Great Wave of immigration in 1910, the number of immigrants living in the United States was less than half of what it is today, though the percentage of the population was slightly higher. The annual arrival of 1.5 million legal and illegal immigrants, coupled with 750,000 annual births to immigrant women, is the determinate factor -- or three-fourths -- of all U.S. population growth."
(Second of a four-part series on immigration.)
