Activists Push for Fox-Bush Deal on Immigration Amnesty

Union activists and others advocating amnesty for illegal immigrants gathered outside a Los Angeles supermarket Thursday as part of a swelling public relations campaign aimed at influencing upcoming immigration talks between President Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox.

Participants, armed with a new study from UCLA lauding the economic benefits of illegal-immigrant labor, called on the Bush administration to back the sweeping amnesty that Fox is seeking. The two leaders are to meet in Washington next week in an effort to craft a bilateral immigration policy.

“These people have been working here, paying taxes, and they deserve to be legal,” said Francisco Mendoza, a welder from East Los Angeles who himself gained legal status through the 1980s amnesty. “They don’t look for handouts.”

Meanwhile, a Washington-based group that wants the nation to reduce immigration levels released a new poll showing scant support for a new amnesty. More than 60% of respondents labeled illegal immigration a net economic drain and said amnesty will encourage more people to migrate illegally.

“Our reading of these poll results finds that a serious effort to control illegal immigration is overwhelmingly popular,” said Dan Stein, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which commissioned the poll.

Both camps in the contentious debate are determined to get their points across in the days before Fox’s state visit to Washington. Since word of a possible U.S.-Mexico amnesty deal surfaced earlier this summer, supporters and opponents have engaged in a mounting clash of dueling poll results, studies, media appearances and public forums.

Bush and Fox will be trying to reach agreement on some form of amnesty, which the two sides now call “regularization.” Talks are expected to center on whether to allow a portion of the estimated 3-million-plus illegal Mexican immigrants already in the U.S. to gain lawful status. Also at issue is a new guest-worker program for Mexicans to fill agricultural and other jobs in the U.S.

Counterattacks in the propaganda war are swift. The National Immigration Forum, a major immigration-advocacy organization, reacted to Thursday’s poll results by issuing a news release citing “a spate of recent polls” favoring amnesty and immigration in general. Experts have found that poll responses on immigration questions can vary enormously, depending how questions are shaded.

One of the upbeat surveys mentioned by the pro-immigrant group was conducted by the Service Employees International Union, which boasts that it is the nation’s largest union of immigrant workers and has staked out a strong pro-amnesty position. The poll found that 59% of respondents approved a plan to “legalize a limited number of undocumented immigrants.” Approval dropped only slightly, to 56%, when the politically charged word “amnesty” was used in the question.

The union also organized Thursday’s news conference at the Walgreens store on the corner of Vermont Avenue and 6th Street in a heavily immigrant neighborhood west of downtown Los Angeles. Organizers said they chose that site to show how immigrants--both lawful and illegal--benefit the economy by spurring commerce.

“Immigrants have changed this community for the good,” said Father David O’Connell, pastor of two nearby Roman Catholic parishes with large undocumented populations.

Speeches by the priest, union leaders, business owners and workers were intended to demonstrate a broad range of support for amnesty. On Monday, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, who backs amnesty and has been a champion of immigrant workers, is scheduled to be among those in attendance at Cardinal Roger Mahony’s Labor Day Mass at St. Vincent Church in L.A.’s West Adams district. The prospective amnesty is likely to be a major topic among more than 1,000 workers, labor leaders and public officials expected to attend the service, including Gov. Gray Davis.

The UCLA study championed at Thursday’s rally was conducted by the university’s North American Integration and Development Center. The study, which fully backed the Mexican government’s proposals for an amnesty and other changes in U.S. immigration policies, found through computer modeling that illegal immigrants contribute at least $300 billion annually to the nation’s economy. Conflicting studies on the question of whether immigrants harm or supplement the economy have long been part of the immigration debate.

“Immigrants give far more than they take,” said the author, Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda, a professor of urban planning in the School for Public Policy and Social Research. In a telephone interview, Hinojosa acknowledged that the report was timed to come out before next week’s summit.

Critics called the study biased and said it ignored the costs of absorbing an illegal immigrant population that lags in education levels.

“It’s difficult to make a case that mass unskilled immigration is good for the United States,” said Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington group that favors diminished immigration.

Last month, Camarota’s center released its own report challenging the benefits of Mexican immigration. That release date too, Camarota acknowledged, was designed to influence discussions as the Bush-Fox summit approached.

“You have to make hay when the sun is shining,” he said.