Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution (7 page)

At the same time, fighting the drug cartels at the border may present a threat of potentially epic proportions, calling for a strong response. The cartels are paramilitary organizations with dangerous and sophisticated weaponry. Our Border Patrol officers are neither trained nor equipped to blunt the cartels’ firepower if it comes to that. As a result, the president should be authorized to deploy military or National Guard forces if necessary to counter the cartels’ threat and secure the U.S. border.

Preferable to U.S. military deployment would be efforts to increase the effectiveness of Mexican authorities in dealing with the cartels on their side of the border. U.S. officials have worked closely with their Mexican counterparts, including the deployment of unmanned aerial surveillance vehicles and the opening of a compound to gather intelligence in northern Mexico.
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We should continue to work closely with Mexico to fight corruption in the police and military and to reduce the power of the drug cartels. Meanwhile, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) should continue to prioritize efforts against U.S. drug cartels, coordinating closely with local law enforcement agencies in communities where such cartels inflict devastating crime and violence.

In addition to the Mexican drug cartels, the fact that several of the 9/11 terrorists entered the country lawfully under a leaky
immigration system has heightened national security concerns—so much so that immigration enforcement has been placed under the Department of Homeland Security. We have argued earlier that immigration should be separated from yet coordinated with national security, so that while we protect our nation against terrorism we do not inadvertently thwart tourism and the entry of students and workers who are vital to our economic well-being.

Post-9/11 antiterrorism efforts led to massive backlogs of foreign visitors entering the United States and to controversial registration and detentions of Middle Eastern visitors. In an effort to harmonize the interests of security and commerce, in 2003 then–secretary of homeland security Tom Ridge implemented the US-VISIT program. The system relies on biometrics fingerprinting, which is used to identify everyone entering the United States except short-term visitors from Mexico or Canada, comparing them with a database that by 2008 contained 90 million set of prints.
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The system builds upon extensive intelligence and information sharing with foreign countries so that the border is the last rather than the first line of defense against terrorists.

Biometric identification can be a vitally important tool in enforcing immigration laws. Although fingerprints are the most common form of biometric identification, it also includes DNA,
iris scans, facial recognition, voice imprints, and other forms of unique identification.
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Police can use mobile fingerprint scanners to immediately check identification of criminal suspects.
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The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security (relying on biometric data obtained through the US-VISIT program) have the two largest biometric databases in the world, each with more than 100 million records.
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Through ICE’s Secure Communities Program, when state and local authorities arrest a criminal suspect, a check of FBI records also automatically scans the DHS database. Where no match is found with legal immigration status, the suspect is detained.
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The use of biometric systems in law enforcement inevitably raises issues of privacy and false identification, especially where the processes are physically invasive (such as DNA collection) or are less reliable and violate expectations of privacy (such as facial recognition). As a result, expanding such practices as a part of immigration enforcement requires measures protecting individual privacy, requiring immediate correction of false identifications, and setting forth procedures for obtaining and using biometric data. Fortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court in 2012 set narrow parameters for the use of high-technology surveillance in the context of GPS tracking without a warrant.
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The use of biometric identification must conform
to the protections of individual liberty that are sacrosanct in America.

Requiring visitors to provide biometric identification upon entry and exit—when combined with the identification of low-risk visitors and broader use of “trusted traveler” programs—will protect American security interests without imposing undue burdens upon foreign visitors. Biometric data can quickly be compared to the Department of Homeland Security database to detect security risks. Several countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom, and France use biometric data for foreign visitors. As the use becomes increasingly widespread, international databases will grow even more effective in minimizing risks.

We also recommend a biometric electronic verification system, featuring tamper-proof fingerprint identification cards, for all visa holders.
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Such requirements will allow us to determine for the first time who exactly is in our country and whether they have overstayed their visas. That process is reinforced by the interview system for people from foreign countries who wish to obtain U.S. visas. Biometric data thus serves the dual objectives of monitoring and enforcing both immigration and national security.

The tourism industry, which produces revenues and goodwill, has taken a beating since 9/11. We should make it as easy as possible
for visitors who are low security risks to enter the United States. Despite efforts to speed up the visa process for those entering the country for business, tourism, or study, the system remains overwhelmed, causing delays and uncertainty. Congress should appropriate adequate resources to make sure our visa system is efficient and effective. A more streamlined system will more than pay for itself, not only through user fees but also in increased economic activity by foreign visitors.

Immigration policy and national security should be complementary objectives. Understandably, we spent a great deal of time and resources emphasizing security after 9/11, sometimes to the severe detriment of our national immigration policy. Fortunately, that investment has paid off, allowing us to restore the proper balance between those two vital national objectives while no longer compromising immigration and tourism, upon which so much of our nation’s prosperity depends.

Debates over immigration have always been marked by concerns about assimilation. It may be that in the era of the Internet, Hollywood
movies, and popular television shows, assimilation into American culture may begin long before people even enter our country. But assimilation into the American identity—the values on which our nation is based and the constitutional mechanisms designed to perpetuate them—ultimately is far more important yet a much more difficult task.

In order to become citizens, immigrants must demonstrate fluency in English and pass an examination on basic American civics and history. There are one hundred possible questions, from which ten are asked of prospective citizens. Answering six out of ten questions constitutes a passing grade.
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We do not mean at all to minimize the tremendous efforts that immigrants go through in order to become citizens, including learning English if it is not their native language and taking classes in American civics and history. But we believe that it should not be enough to earn citizenship to be able to correctly answer six questions about names, dates, and basic American institutions. Instead, aspiring citizens should be able to demonstrate a fundamental understanding of our nation’s values and mechanisms of democracy. Thus we would expand the civic knowledge necessary for citizenship to include our nation’s founding documents, the crucial role
of a market economy in promoting freedom and prosperity, and the means and importance of civic participation. We are counting on immigrants not only to pursue and embody the American Dream, but also to recognize and embrace the values that make the dream possible.

Such essential knowledge should not be required of immigrants alone but of all Americans. Even though the citizenship examination is extremely basic, a survey by the Center for the Study of the American Dream found that one-third of existing Americans could not score a passing grade.
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Imagine that: many of our own children (and adults), who have inherited their citizenship and were educated in the American public education system, cannot pass the basic examination that new Americans must pass in order to become citizens. That is a sad commentary on the state of civics education in our nation today.

“Many people believe that in a highly-competitive global economy, civics education is no longer important,” observes Education Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. “If you want to succeed, the message is: Take advanced science and math courses. But don’t worry about those civics classes.”
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As a result, reports David Feith in the recent book
Teaching America,
American history
“is the only subject in which more than half of high school seniors can’t demonstrate even basic knowledge.”
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The lack of adequate civics education means that many Americans have little idea how their government works or how to effectively influence it. Indeed, nearly two-thirds of Americans cannot name all three branches of government and less than half can name a single Supreme Court justice—but three-quarters can correctly name all of the Three Stooges. The National Assessment of Educational Progress found that less than one-third of fourth-, eighth-, and twelfth-grade students are proficient in civics—with an even lower percentage of minority schoolchildren demonstrating proficiency.
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A report by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation called E Pluribus Unum (a Latin phrase whose meaning few Americans probably understand even though it is part of the Seal of the United States) reported that the majority of American eighth graders could not explain the purpose of the Declaration of Independence, and only 5 percent of high school seniors could explain how Congress and the Supreme Court can check presidential power. The Bradley report observes that “[k]nowing what America stands for is not a genetic inheritance. It must be learned, both by the next generation and by those who come to this country.”
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Even as we strengthen the immigration examination to ensure that newcomers understand American ideals and mechanisms for civic participation, we think it is a good idea to require a passing grade on that same examination as a condition of graduation for all American students. In recent years, our education policy increasingly has recognized the importance of mastering subjects like math, science, and English. And yet we treat civics as a distant relative. We can perpetuate our economy by having our children master core subjects; but can we perpetuate our democracy without students mastering civics education?

Experts and policymakers (and even we the authors ourselves) differ on the proper role of the federal government in education. But if there is one field of study that unquestionably is a proper matter of national policy, it is civics education. Such education already is an important feature of our naturalization policy, but the requirements need to be strengthened. Not just newcomers but we believe our entire population is in need of improved civics literacy. Just because we were lucky enough to be born here does not entitle us to ignorance about our founding values and their contemporary importance. And without a truly informed citizenry, we cannot expect American ideals to continue to flourish. We
should expect and demand much of those who wish to become part of the American family—but we also should expect and demand no less of ourselves.

Fixing our nation’s badly broken immigration system must be a top national priority. Getting immigration policy right will enable us to reclaim the prosperity that in recent years has eluded our grasp. It will improve our competitiveness and dominant economic position in the world. It will help us preserve the safety net and generous system of services and benefits that otherwise will be unsustainable. It will help us make good on our cherished ideals and remain a beacon of opportunity to people the world over. It will promote fidelity to the rule of law and help our nation become more secure.

By contrast, perpetuating our current tattered immigration system will detract from each and every one of those objectives. We cannot afford to wait. We cannot afford to delay the adoption of sound national immigration policy for the sake of perceived political expediency. We cannot sacrifice needed and overdue reform
on the altar of partisanship, especially when the solutions transcend the partisan divide.

The proposals presented here are merely an outline for a path forward. Many of them build upon good ideas that have been more fully developed elsewhere by others. We hope they will inform the debate and help break the legislative logjam that has prevented our nation from coming to grips with an enduring and divisive set of issues. But more important, we hope that our immigration policy once again will reflect essential core values, recognizing that immigration always will be a vital part of our nation’s identity and lifeblood, while conforming immigration policy to the rule of law that sustains our freedom.

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We have elected to use the term
Hispanic
to describe immigrants from Latin America. We recognize the tremendous diversity within that broad category. According to a survey by the Pew Hispanic Center, most Hispanics identify themselves by their country of origin, e.g. Mexican-American or Cuban-American. In terms of a more generic identification, most say they have no preference between Hispanic or Latin; but among those who do, Hispanic is preferred by a 31–14 percent majority. See Paul Taylor, Mark Hugo Lopez, Jessica Hamar Martinez, and Gabriel Velasco, “When Labels Don’t Fit: Hispanics and Their Views of Identity,” Pew Research Center, April 4, 2012, p. 3.