Presidential politics blocks immigration reform

 Trump rejects GOP immigration plan

Gordon L. Weil

“It’s like déjà vu all over again.”

These memorable words, attributed to the great Yogi Berra, fit the attempts to come up with an immigration policy.

In 2013, a bipartisan group of senators developed a comprehensive package on immigration policy reforms. It could pass the Senate, but the House Republicans refused to consider it and it died. Congress did nothing, and the waves of uncontrolled immigration grew larger.

Another bipartisan group of senators has agreed on a package of proposals that could be a major first step toward dealing with immigration, but the House Republican leadership blocked it and most Republican senators then finished it off. Maine’s GOP Sen. Susan Collins voted for it.

Why oppose a useful first step on immigration policy? Because it might work. Republican leaders are loyal to Donald Trump, who is likely to be their presidential candidate. He does not want President Biden to get any credit for positive progress. Trump wants no action taken until he might assume office in January 2025.

It does not matter to Trump that uncontrolled immigration at the Mexican border would continue for many months. The situation should be allowed to grow worse so that he can garner the historical credit for making it better. He has taken a similar stance on economic policy. Let it get bad, so I can fix it, he implies.

Immigration is now a major issue. Some opposition to it may be based on racism, a flat rejection of people who look different. But probably more importantly, people who are comfortable with their way of life dislike the inevitable changes that result from the increased population of people with other cultures.

Beyond such direct concerns may be a sense that, if the federal government cannot control the borders, it is failing at its core job of governing. Attempts by Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott to control his state’s borders may be the tangible expression of the broader doubts created by a lack of effective federal action.

Historically, most early immigrants to the U.S. came from northern Europe. Then, successive waves of Irish, Italians, and Eastern Europeans, notably Poles and Jews, arrived as the result of an open-door policy. Each faced opposition and had to overcome discrimination. Asians were long excluded.

In 1924, Congress adopted an immigration policy that favored only European immigration. Quotas were established. This system encountered relatively few problems with uncontrolled immigration.

Though some immigrants would have merited asylum from persecution in their homelands, many came in search of the economic benefits of a free society and open frontier. That probably remains true today.

Prosperity in the U.S., Europe, Canada and a few other countries has made immigration attractive to people from Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. Though new and tougher policies may aim at limiting entry, they are ineffective in halting the flow of uncontrolled immigrants. Old laws are difficult to enforce, and they fail.

In the U.S. the number of unlawful and undocumented immigrants continues to grow. Because the current system cannot stop or process the flow, many are released into the national population while awaiting decisions on their asylum claims. This is what has turned immigration into a national policy concern.

Absurd proposals for a physical barrier between the U.S. and Canada result from an effort to nationalize concerns about immigration.

Neither Trump’s wall nor Biden’s token attempt to provide a more effective screening process has worked to halt uncontrolled entry. And the U.S. simply cannot create enough effective programs in their home countries to discourage immigrants’ desire for better lives in the northern countries.

The basis of any new policy needs to begin with a determination about the feasible flow of immigrants over a decade. Immigrants provide labor and pay taxes and are new customers in a consumer-oriented economy. Desirable growth can be planned and agreed by Congress.

Border patrol agents and immigration courts need to be increased. The entry permit system requiring application outside the U.S. before border processing should be strengthened. The wall can be expanded. A trigger mechanism should allow the border to be closed. These are all GOP demands, and the Democrats accepted them. But Trump and his loyal backers killed them.

The U.S. also must deal with Mexico, which serves as a freeway to America. It gains much from being America’s favored trade partner. It is now deriving export gains as the U.S. moves away from Chinese imports. But it should not openly undermine American society and interests just as China has sought to do.

Trump offered a simple solution – build a wall paid for by Mexico. Biden failed to respond to growing public distress over the current policies. For years, Congress has allowed immigration to become excessively entangled in politics.

And uncontrolled immigration continues.

America faces historic choice

Has liberal democracy run its course? 

Gordon L. Weil

The U.S. faces a particularly historic choice. It has always faced the need to balance the priority given to personal freedom with the responsibility for the community. This year, it is challenged to renew that balance.

Of the two priorities, personal freedom had greater weight in the years between the country’s founding and the Great Depression, beginning in 1929. Government’s role was limited and both the states and the private sector enjoyed great freedom of action. Individuals were expected to benefit from their actions or, if discontented, to move to the vast frontier.

But the end of the frontier coupled with the inability of traditional institutions to protect people from the heavy burden of unemployment and poverty imposed by the Depression, required broad change. In response, President Franklin D. Roosevelt led the federal government to take responsibility for the common good.

The government began to provide a social safety net, like Social Security, to ensure that all might be sustained, but it also acted directly to create temporary jobs. Its growth was greatly increased by the measures, from the military draft to industrial production, responding to the national danger caused by the Second World War.

In the decades since that war ended, the U.S. has operated under a liberal democratic system, which enhanced the rights of all Americans and continued a major role for government. American ideals, seeming to be fulfilled, and American economic and military power made the country the world’s leader.

Now, the great national debate, causing a divide almost as emotional as the differences that yielded the Civil War, is about whether to restore, so far as possible, the country as it was before Roosevelt or to develop further the system he launched.

The assumptions underlying the transformation under Roosevelt are now no longer universally accepted. Opponents claim that liberals reward dependency and do not encourage independence. They claim that people when challenged can succeed on their own, if given enough freedom. They ignore the degree to which common action through government has been woven into life.

At the same time, the post-war “peace dividend” seems no longer to exist. The ideals of liberal democracy, dependent on popular control, were widely accepted. Now, voters will support more warlike and less democratic leaders. The U.S. could back away from post-war alliances with other countries in favor of going it alone.

American relations with dictators like Putin and Xi and with autocrats in Hungary and Saudi Arabia might be conducted as purely business deals, more opportunistic than idealistic. Profit over principle.

Should the U.S. revert to traditional individualism and cede territory and influence to dictators? Are there truly American “values” that need to be protected and do people agree on them?

Our history can help in dealing with this choice. It can serve to both instruct and warn us. It should be the foundation for our actions, while not limiting our ability to respond to change with innovation.

Americans are particularly fortunate among all nations and at all times to be able to defend our values and influence the world in which we live. We have a rich land and a diverse and creative nation. We live in a country characterized by optimism and hope.

As I frequently note, in the warm 17-week Philadelphia summer of 1787, some 39 men devised the Constitution, producing the government that the 1776 Declaration of Independence had promised when it rejected the British King.

The real American Revolution was the Constitution. It ingeniously created a truly federal system with two forms of sovereignty and with a national government designed to prevent the growth of excessive power under a new kind of king.

This was something new in the world, a model for other countries. To the processes of the basic document was added a Bill of Rights, designed to protect individuals from excessive government power. Today, Americans might not fully appreciate that there may be no other country having a set of rights equal to those in the First Amendment.

When the drafters of the Constitution had just about finished their work, they realized they had not decided who was to adopt it as the supreme law of the land. Finally, one member proposed it should be the decision of “We, the People.” Constitutional conventions in each state would decide.

In the end, the government belongs to the people. The media inform and argue, but the people must make the ultimate decisions. A failure to pay attention, a willingness to make easy and ill-informed decisions, and, worst of all, not voting at all means that the government is forfeit and the Constitution turns to dust.

This year, more than selecting among candidates, the choice may well be made between the two great streams of American history.

Should courts have the last word?

Gordon L. Weil

“The ball’s in your court.”

This time-worn sentence meaning that you have the responsibility now has taken on a new and strong meaning these days.  Now, at widely separated places, the ball is in the court – of a court.

Most familiar are the cases based on charges made against former President Trump in criminal and civil case in federal and state courts.  Ultimately, many of them are likely to end up before one tribunal – the U.S. Supreme Court.

Aside from the merits of these cases against Trump is the effect of their proceedings and possible outcomes on his chances for nomination by the Republican Party and election as president.  The balls in these courts could not be more important, perhaps even less for Trump’s actions than for his political future.  By inference, the decisions could affect the country’s future.

Because these cases are so numerous, it is likely safe to say that any one of them could produce court action any day.   They provide the ongoing background for the race to the White House.

The Trump cases help place the court system itself on trial. The Supreme Court and some federal and state courts have become embroiled in current politics, which puts them in focus.  Once having begun to make rulings on political issues, the courts seem to be drawn ever more deeply into politics.   As this has happened, public confidence in the Supreme Court has fallen.

The American judicial system has made the Supreme Court the ultimate authority on the meaning of the Constitution, a document whose application to a situation unforeseen when it was written remains to be determined.  Neither Congress nor the president have the final say; the Court alone has the last word. 

The result is that, under the U.S. system, final decisions are made by unelected justices. And their views of just what is the last word may change as rulings on race and abortion have shown.

While this situation is unlikely to change, it raises the question of whether the politics of one generation can reach across decades to later generations.  Taking American political evolution into account might reduce concerns about the politicization of the Supreme Court.  This becomes increasingly an issue.

In other countries, the question of courts making the final decision is now at the center of political controversy.  In these countries – the United Kingdom and Israel – there is no written constitution.

In the U.K., the government seeks to be able to transfer asylum seekers after arrival in its jurisdiction to the country of Rwanda in Africa.  But its Supreme Court has ruled that the U.K. agreement with Rwanda would force Britain to violate international agreements that have been adopted by its Parliament.

The British system gives the final word to Parliament and not to the Supreme Court. In the absence of a constitution, the Supreme Court must accept acts of Parliament and cannot overturn them.

Now, the government has passed a new law to overrule the U.K.’s previous acceptance of some international human rights treaties.  That would prevent the Supreme Court from applying those treaties, and the Rwanda deal could proceed.  By overruling treaties,  the U.K. could damage its international credibility. 

A similar situation has arisen in Israel.  For many years, the Supreme Court has determined if laws meet a standard of “reasonableness” and, if not, they may be overturned.  Certain laws are deemed to be basic and, generally, they may not be overturned.

The Knesset or Israeli Parliament has passed a law stripping the Supreme Court of the ability to use “reasonableness” and emphasizing the authority of the Parliament to have the last word on the law.  The Supreme Court has overruled this basic law as not meeting the rule of reasonableness.  The issue is sure to continue to be contested.

The America, British and Israeli situations revealed that determining who has the last word on the law is a major, unresolved political issue.  In the U.S., some solutions aim at finding ways to promote changes in the Supreme Court’s composition, while respecting life tenure of judges and trying to reduce its direct political involvement.

A panel at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences has proposed that justices serve on the Supreme Court for 18 years and then, without losing their standing, serve only on federal courts of appeals.  Justice David Souter of New Hampshire has done almost exactly that.

I have proposed the appointment of temporary additional justices as have been used on other federal courts.  They temporarily increase the size of the court and then fill vacancies as hey occur, restoring the original number.  Meanwhile, they can help with the workload and the court’s balance.

Either of these changes can increase the chances that the Supreme Court can be more frequently renewed.