Nancy Foner, a professor of sociology at the City University of New York, met recently with the Gotham Gazette Reading NYC Book Club to discuss her book, In A New Land: A Comparative View of Immigration -- and the distinctive experience of immigrants in New York. The following is an edited transcript:
GOTHAM GAZETTE: Let's start with the national debate, which at times has been quite nasty. In New York though, it seems to have been less nasty. Everyone from the mayor on down seems to be on the same side of the fence. Is that your view, and if so, why is that?
NANCY FONER: It is my view. I don't want to paint a picture of New York as an immigrant's paradise, because I think that's too strong. However, compared to other places in the nation it is a very immigrant friendly place.
Obviously one reason is New York's immigrant history. Almost everybody in New York is close to their immigrant roots. If someone is not an immigrant, they're the child of an immigrant, or a grandchild of an immigrant – like myself – or a great-grandchild of an immigrant.
Something else that is distinctive about New York in comparison to places where there is a lot of anti-immigrant feeling is that New York has a very diverse mix of immigrants, and every single racial group in New York has a significant proportion of immigrants.
New York is amazing. There must be at least one person from every country in the world. If you look at the top three groups in 2000 – Dominicans, Chinese, and Jamaicans – together they were a little under 30 percent of immigrants. No other group was over five percent. That's pretty amazing – it's so diverse.
A third of immigrants in New York are from Latin America, including Dominicans. A quarter of the immigrants in New York are West Indians or Africans. A fifth are Asians. We also have large numbers of Europeans in the top groups. If you put together all the people from the former Soviet Union, they are one of the very top groups, but it's not done that way any more. Still, Russians, Ukrainians, and Poles, all three of those groups are in the top fifteen. So we have huge numbers from Europe, Asia, Latin America, and the West Indies. It is what makes New York really stand out.
New York also gets a pretty good skill mix. There is about an equal mix of high skilled and low skilled immigrants. About a quarter of adult immigrants in New York have a college degree or more.
Then we get to the issue of the undocumented, which is in the news everywhere now. A widely quoted figure is that there are half a million undocumented immigrants in New York City. Well, that is an estimate; we don't really know. That is one out of six. Five out of six are not undocumented, which means that the vast majority of immigrants in New York are legal. [The rate of undocumented immigrants] is much higher in California and the Southwest.
If you look at the political leaders in New York, there is a closeness to their immigrant roots, and a sensitivity to immigrants. Also there's a political calculus involved. I think it would be political suicide for any aspiring political candidate in New York to take a stand that would be antagonistic to immigrants. Thirty-six percent of the city's population is foreign-born. If you put together the children of immigrants and immigrants, we're talking about over fifty percent of the population. Not all of these immigrants are citizens and can vote, but their American-born children are citizens, and increasing numbers of immigrants are naturalizing.
There is now dispersal to places that haven't seen immigrants for over 100 or 150 years. All of a sudden these places are getting an inflow of largely Mexican immigrants, and that has been a jolt.
Just to mention one other factor that is making illegal immigration such a big issue right now. Over the past decade there has been a dispersal of immigrants away from gateway cities. New York still has nine percent of the country's immigrants. A fifth of the nation's immigrants live in Los Angeles County and New York City; if you look at the metro areas, New York and Los Angeles have a third of the country's immigrants. We're still getting large numbers of immigrants moving to the major gateways. But what is also happening is dispersal to places that haven't seen immigrants for over 100 or 150 years: small towns in the Midwest, and many places in the South. All of a sudden these places are getting an inflow of largely Mexican immigrants, and that has been a jolt.
GOTHAM GAZETTE: How would what’s being discussed on the national scale affect New Yorkers?
NANCY FONER: It will affect New York’s undocumented immigrants in terms of the enforcement measures and of course if pathways are opened to legalization, although we don’t really know yet, since the law hasn’t been passed. The other issue is whether all of this enforcement is going to really stop the flow of undocumented immigrants?
PAUL COGLEY: I was amazed by the amount of people who were marching down Broadway in support of immigrants. It was truly an incredible showing. What do you think of that, and what do you think they were trying to tell New York by getting together in such numbers?
NANCY FONER: I don't know how much they were trying to tell New York. I think they were trying to tell the US government – the Senate and the House – that they wanted legislation that would help undocumented immigrants and provide a pathway to legalization. There was a national movement to get everybody out, and to make it clear to Congress to vote a certain way.
GOTHAM GAZETTE: One of the things you mentioned about New York in your book is that while it is an exception in many ways – and people who live in New York obviously like to think of themselves as an exception to everything else that happens in the country – there are other ways in which it’s not. What does New York have in common with other places in the country?
NANCY FONER: The issue of race and the legacy of slavery is one. I have studied Jamaicans in England and I studied Jamaicans in New York. And of course Jamaicans are predominantly people of African ancestry. And they certainly point out that New York is not a racial paradise or a paradise for immigrants. Coming to New York for West Indians of African ancestry is really very difficult in terms of issues of race. They experience a kind of prejudice here that they did not experience in their home country.
Coming to New York for West Indians of African ancestry is really very difficult in terms of issues of race. They experience a kind of prejudice here that they did not experience in their home country.
And I think a fact that many New Yorkers are really not so aware of is the remarkably high rates of residential segregation between whites and blacks. Sociologists who do studies [use an index where] the least residential segregation [between two groups] is zero and total segregation is 100. The figure for West Indians and non-Hispanic whites is 82. That is the same as for African Americans and whites. You only have to go to neighborhoods that are heavily West Indian in New York to see this.
BOOK CLUB MEMBER: Isn’t part of the segregation a process of how difficult the real estate market is in the city? Most people, no matter what their color, find that it’s very difficult to find a place to live if you don’t have a contact. And I think because of that, a lot of new immigrants move in with somebody they already know and often live often illegally initially.
NANCY FONER: I think there are two things going on in terms of where people live. One is choice, and you’re right. When immigrants come here, they want to live in a neighborhood with people they know, where there are familiar institutions, with the food they like, with the church they want to go to, where they feel comfortable. So yes, choice is involved, and that’s partly why you get these ethnic communities developing.
But there are also two constraints. One is money. Many immigrants would like to live on Park Avenue if they could, but they can’t obviously. They don’t have the money so that limits them to certain neighborhoods.
The other is race. We see this in terms of West Indians. You know they move into a neighborhood, East Flatbush is a prime example, or Canarsie. As soon as a neighborhood begins to have a substantial number of blacks, whites begin to leave, no new whites move in, and other blacks, both African American and West Indian, find the neighborhood more comfortable, so more of them move in. West Indians, interestingly, have been among the pioneers in moving into white neighborhoods. But they quickly find that the neighborhood begins to turn and become blacker.
JOAN DECAMP: But when immigrants become Americans – maybe the second generation – they're out of Brooklyn, they're out of Queens. They move to an American kind of suburb.
NANCY FONER: For many that will be true.
One of the interesting things we have now is that many immigrants are going straight to the suburbs. This includes many who are poor, and the reception is often not so friendly.
BOOK CLUB MEMBER II: There’s a myth of white racism. Everything you're talking about is more the result of socio-economic factors; people always feel more comfortable within their own culture. It has nothing to do with race, but it always gets blamed on white racism. There's no reality to it in this day and age, especially in New York. Yet white scholars seem to perpetuate this myth of white racism as an explanation of all the problems that these different groups have.
GABRIEL THOMPSON: You must be lucky to not ever meet any racists.
BOOK CLUB MEMBER II: Well, I don't. Especially in this day and age in New York it's such a rare thing.
GABRIEL THOMPSON: You can't call it a myth. It exists.
BOOK CLUB MEMBER: There will always be incidents, but the institutionalization of it is a myth.
NANCY FONER: It would be nice if it was a myth, but unfortunately it is not a myth. Obviously there are various factors going into residential patterns, but the fact is that we do live in a society where if people who are black seek to live in neighborhoods that are white, they're often not even shown homes there.
JOAN DECAMP: Or the other way around. If you're a white person and you want to live in St. Albans, you're not welcome.
NANCY FONER: One of the interesting things that is emerging from this discussion is that there's more tension and conflict being engendered by immigrants moving into New York neighborhoods than is often thought, and that there is a resentment of immigrants moving into some neighborhoods.
BOB ZANE: You mentioned the strong prejudice in certain areas against the Jamaicans and West Indians. Do you find more people against them than against the Latinos, or the Jews who came to the Lower East Side, the Chinese people in Chinatown, the Irish people in Hell's Kitchen, the black people in Harlem?
It seems to me that the people coming today have it better because there are all these laws passed for more equality, and the people who are coming are more educated – the Jamaicans, many of them are educated in an English type system. Wouldn't they have it easier than the people who came before and couldn't speak English?
NANCY FONER: The migration 100 years ago to New York was Jewish and Italian, and there was tremendous prejudice against them. They were thought of as racially inferior -- as belonging to inferior white races. There was tremendous open discrimination against them.
Eventually those groups did become fully part of the mainstream and thought of as unquestionably white, and not as inferior white races or what some historians call "in-between peoples."
Today many of the groups that come in are thought of as not white, and the question often raised is will they too over time become accepted the same way that Jews and Italians were. And the question is, will this happen and how will this happen? Intermarriage, we know, is one of the engines of change. There’s a lot of intermarriage, particularly between Latinos and whites, and Asians and whites. Much less between African Americans (and people of African ancestry) and whites; those rates are still very low.
One scenario that is presented is that the category "white" will expand the way it did in the past in order to encompass Jews and Italians
So one scenario that is presented is that the category "white" will expand the way it did in the past in order to encompass Jews and Italians so that you’ll have people who are considered non-Hispanic whites now, along with many successful Asians, light skinned Latinos, and multiracial, light skinned children.
Another scenario, and I’d say many social scientists feel this may happen, is a shift to a black/not black division. You’ll have Asians, Latinos, whites in one category and people of African ancestry in another. Those predictions are based on realities of black-white residential segregation, which we know is very high, and the relatively low rates of intermarriage between blacks and whites.
Yet a third scenario foresees a kind of Latin American system developing where what matters most is class, not color. It won’t matter so much what you look like in terms of physical features; it will be more important what your economic status is.
Which one will emerge we don’t know, but I think one of the things that is exciting about New York right now, or actually the United States, is that we are living through a period of change. Nobody could have imagined if you had said to people in 1900 that Jews would be members of the New York Yacht Club and all the fancy clubs and attend all the elite schools, and that they would be among the privileged. People wouldn’t have imagined that that could ever have happened. So who knows what the future will bring?
GOTHAM GAZETTE: You mentioned that when Jews and Italians came in the early 20th century, they were thought of as inferior. Then there was a period over which they “became white”. How did that happen?
NANCY FONER: Partly it was assimilation – the children being born in America and speaking English and learning American ways and doing better economically. That wasn’t inevitable: the Japanese on the West Coast did better economically, but they weren’t considered white. I think intermarriage was certainly another factor. Also, with the Holocaust, anti-Semitism certainly became less respectable. There was a change of views of race in the scientific world, too.
Another factor was the struggles by the groups themselves to eliminate barriers that excluded them. Jews in particular fought hard to get anti-discrimination laws passed.
Then there was a huge African American migration from the South. When the Jews and Italians were coming, say, in 1910, only two percent of New Yorkers were African American. But after World War I there began a large migration of Southern blacks. And so by the 1930s and 1940s when the children of the immigrants were climbing the economic ladder, the racial order of New York was also changing to one more focused on color. One dynamic of establishing themselves as fully white, and historians have written about this, was distancing themselves from African Americans.
GOTHAM GAZETTE: Do barriers exist for today’s nonwhite immigrants that did not exist then? Or are they in a better position?
NANCY FONER: Some are in a better position. Many immigrants who are coming today are very highly educated, and many of them come speaking English. So, actually many of them are moving ahead faster than happened in the past. Some are even moving right into elite institutions.
Of course Asians are the prime example. They have a higher proportion of college graduates than non-Hispanic whites in this country. Many Asian immigrants are very highly educated and it’s not surprising that their children are doing astoundingly well. And so that’s moving them ahead faster, I think.
Also, there was enormous prejudice in this country in the past against Asians. There were specific laws to keep them out, starting with the Chinese Exclusion Law in 1882. They were aliens ineligible for citizenship. Of course during World War II, the Japanese were rounded up and put in internment camps. There was huge prejudice against Asians in New York. I grew up in Queens in the 1950s. When a Chinese family tried to move in around the corner from me, there were petitions to keep them out.
That would not have happened today. Asians have become a model minority: “almost white.” They’re not white, but successful Asians I think generally move fairly easily in a white world. And we’ve seen that from intermarriages, which are common. It doesn’t mean that there still isn’t prejudice against Asians, because there is, but they really have made enormous strides. And that is very different from 100 years ago.
GOTHAM GAZETTE: This is something it seems you now hear three times a day: that the last big wave of immigrants came legally, assimilated easily, quickly got jobs and became “Respectable Americans.” How much of that is overstated nostalgia?
NANCY FONER: I get this all the time: “Oh, but then they all spoke English and today they don’t speak English.” Well, immigrants in the past -- and here we’re talking about immigrants, not their American-born children -- didn’t always learn English so well. It was their children who did, just as children today are learning English.
There is study after study that shows that virtually all of the children of immigrants born in the US know English. That doesn’t mean they don’t also know their home-country language, particularly the children of Latino and Hispanic immigrants. Many of them are bilingual. But by the third generation, more than 75 percent of Mexicans are English dominant. So there is a move to English just as there was in the past.
In terms of assimilation, the children are American. They are becoming a different type of American than the second generation in the past, partly because America is different. One difference from the past, and this is raised a lot, is that in the mid-1920s, after restrictive legislation, immigration from eastern and southern Europe was severely curtailed, so you didn’t have new immigrants coming into the community. Today that’s quite different. You have constant inflows of new immigrants moving into existing communities. First of all, that gives these communities a different flavor. It also may mean that people hold onto aspects of home country cultures for longer than in the past.
JOAN DECAMP: My understanding though is that in past immigrations, as much as 50 percent of the population returned, and didn't make it here.
NANCY FONER: In New York 100 years ago, we're mostly talking about Jews and Italians. The Jews pretty much came to stay. They were fleeing oppression, pogroms, anti-Semitism in Europe, and they came here, and they weren't going back.
Italians were birds of passage. For every ten Italians who came, five returned. Some came back again, but some didn't. Among all immigrant groups in the US, there was a much higher rate of return than there is today. In fact, that return rate inflamed public opinion. There was concern that immigrants were looting America, that they weren't setting their roots here. They were sending their money back, they were going back, and they weren't becoming American.
Illegal immigration was not an issue 100 years ago for European immigrants, and that's simply because there were no immigration quotas [and] no visas needed.
Let me say one thing about the undocumented. Illegal immigration was not an issue 100 years ago for European immigrants, and that's simply because there were no immigration quotas, no visas needed, and really no such thing as illegal immigration among Europeans. After legislation passed at the turn of the century, if you didn't get through Ellis Island, the steam ship companies had to pay your passage back. They had a big interest in making sure that those who got on the boat were healthy and would pass inspection. Most people got through Ellis Island. That is something people often say: well, my relatives came and they weren't illegal. There wasn't such thing; it's a non-comparison.
GABRIEL THOMPSON: I was wondering how kids of immigrants are faring today in the city, as opposed to kids of immigrants a generation ago.
NANCY FONER: It's a good question, and a hard question to answer in a way, because there are a number of myths. Most of them pertain to the Jews: they came here, and their kids went to Harvard. Well, it took a little longer than that. It didn't happen right away.
Partly it's the nature of the education system. When Jews and Italians came here 100 years ago, going to high school was very unusual; graduating was even more unusual. There were two city colleges that were free, and a tiny number of students went there. You didn't really need a lot of education to get ahead, and there were very high dropout rates, particularly among Italians.
The second generation did a little better, and the third generation did even better. It took a while.
Today, how are the children of immigrants doing in the schools? Well, it varies by group. The children who have parents who come from middle class backgrounds, not surprisingly, do better than those whose parents have less than a high school education. Social scientists are just beginning to study how children of immigrants are doing. Studies are showing that children of immigrants generally do better than their parents in terms of education and occupation.
GABRIEL THOMPSON: The Mexicans I work with, a lot of their kids that grew up here, almost all of them dropped out of high school. There's a lot of tension among parents that went from third grade right into the fields that think their kids are lazy for not going to school. But their schools are awful.
NANCY FONER: Nationally, the children of Mexican immigrants have a very high dropout rate from high school. First let me say that a significant minority is going to college, even though their college completion rate is low. So a substantial fraction is prepared to go into white-collar jobs. They do have a higher high school dropout rate than native blacks or whites. What's interesting, and this is nationally, is that second-generation Mexican high school dropouts have lower incarceration rates than native blacks, and higher labor force participation rates.
For the Mexicans in New York, it's a little early to tell how their children are doing, because they've just started coming in large numbers in the 1990s.
JERRY SILVER: What are you thinking of for your next book?
NANCY FONER: My next project -- the project that I’m actually working on -- is comparing immigration in the U.S. and Europe. It’s interesting how until recently, immigration wasn’t such a contentious topic in this country. And when it is a topic of debate here it’s focused very much on undocumented immigration. This discussion hasn’t been about cutting back the number of legal immigrants. In Europe, immigration is a tremendously contentious topic and the issue is focused around integration and around Muslims. And of course one thing about the United States …is that most immigrants who come to the United States are Christian. Religion is not as much an issue here when it comes to immigrants whereas in Europe, the issue, the really hot button issue, is the fact that immigrants coming in are heavily Muslim and there’s a tremendous amount of antipathy to their religion and their cultural practices.
When immigration is a topic of debate in the United States it’s focused very much on undocumented immigration. This discussion hasn’t been about cutting back the number of legal immigrants.
Among the second generation, given the nature of European economies, which are more highly regulated than the American economy, there is a problem of jobs. There is high unemployment among the second generation as you all read about in stories about the riots in France. And, a big problem for the second generation in Europe is the inability to get work. In the United States, the second generation has high levels of participating in the labor force. They’re working. Unfortunately, unlike in Europe, they don’t get national health care insurance, they don’t get generous government housing assistance, the welfare state is pretty minimal here.
So there are a whole set of different issues that I'm beginning to look at.
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Good evening. I have asked for a few minutes of your time to discuss a matter of national importance -- the reform of America's immigration system.
The issue of immigration stirs intense emotions -- and in recent weeks, Americans have seen those emotions on display. On the streets of major cities, crowds have rallied in support of those in our country illegally. At our southern border, others have organized to stop illegal immigrants from coming in. Across the country, Americans are trying to reconcile these contrasting images. And in Washington, the debate over immigration reform has reached a time of decision. Tonight, I will make it clear where I stand, and where I want to lead our country on this vital issue.
We must begin by recognizing the problems with our immigration system.
For decades, the United States has not been in complete control of its borders. As a result, many who want to work in our economy have been able to sneak across our border -- and millions have stayed.
Once here, illegal immigrants live in the shadows of our society. Many use forged documents to get jobs, and that makes it difficult for employers to verify that the workers they hire are legal. Illegal immigration puts pressure on public schools and hospitals...strains state and local budgets...and brings crime to our communities. These are real problems, yet we must remember that the vast majority of illegal immigrants are decent people who work hard, support their families, practice their faith, and lead responsible lives. They are a part of American life -- but they are beyond the reach and protection of American law.
We are a Nation of laws, and we must enforce our laws. We are also a Nation of immigrants, and we must uphold that tradition, which has strengthened our country in so many ways. These are not contradictory goals -- America can be a lawful society and a welcoming society at the same time. We will fix the problems created by illegal immigration, and we will deliver a system that is secure, orderly, and fair. So I support comprehensive immigration reform that will accomplish five clear objectives.
First, the United States must secure its borders. This is a basic responsibility of a sovereign Nation. It is also an urgent requirement of our national security. Our objective is straightforward: The border should be open to trade and lawful immigration -- and shut to illegal immigrants, as well as criminals, drug dealers, and terrorists.
I was the governor of a state that has a twelve-hundred mile border with Mexico. So I know how difficult it is to enforce the border, and how important it is. Since I became President, we have increased funding for border security by 66 percent, and expanded the Border Patrol from about 9,000 to 12,000 agents. The men and women of our Border Patrol are doing a fine job in difficult circumstances - and over the past five years, we have apprehended and sent home about six million people entering America illegally.
Despite this progress, we do not yet have full control of the border, and I am determined to change that. Tonight I am calling on Congress to provide funding for dramatic improvements in manpower and technology at the border. By the end of 2008, we will increase the number of Border Patrol officers by an additional 6,000. When these new agents are deployed, we will have more than doubled the size of the Border Patrol during my Presidency.
At the same time, we are launching the most technologically advanced border security initiative in American history. We will construct high-tech fences in urban corridors, and build new patrol roads and barriers in rural areas. We will employ motion sensors...infrared cameras...and unmanned aerial vehicles to prevent illegal crossings.
America has the best technology in the world -- and we will ensure that the Border Patrol has the technology they need to do their job and secure our border.
Training thousands of new Border Patrol agents and bringing the most advanced technology to the border will take time. Yet the need to secure our border is urgent. So I am announcing several immediate steps to strengthen border enforcement during this period of transition:
One way to help during this transition is to use the National Guard. So in coordination with governors, up to 6,000 Guard members will be deployed to our southern border. The Border Patrol will remain in the lead. The Guard will assist the Border Patrol by operating surveillance systems ... analyzing intelligence ... installing fences and vehicle barriers ... building patrol roads ... and providing training. Guard units will not be involved in direct law enforcement activities -- that duty will be done by the Border Patrol. This initial commitment of Guard members would last for a period of one year. After that, the number of Guard forces will be reduced as new Border Patrol agents and new technologies come online. It is important for Americans to know that we have enough Guard forces to win the war on terror, respond to natural disasters, and help secure our border.
The United States is not going to militarize the southern border. Mexico is our neighbor, and our friend. We will continue to work cooperatively to improve security on both sides of the border ... to confront common problems like drug trafficking and crime ... and to reduce illegal immigration.
Another way to help during this period of transition is through state and local law enforcement in our border communities. So we will increase federal funding for state and local authorities assisting the Border Patrol on targeted enforcement missions. And we will give state and local authorities the specialized training they need to help federal officers apprehend and detain illegal immigrants. State and local law enforcement officials are an important resource - and they are part of our strategy to secure our border communities.
The steps I have outlined will improve our ability to catch people entering our country illegally. At the same time, we must ensure that every illegal immigrant we catch crossing our southern border is returned home. More than 85 percent of the illegal immigrants we catch crossing the southern border are Mexicans, and most are sent back home within 24 hours. But when we catch illegal immigrants from other countries, it is not as easy to send them home. For many years, the government did not have enough space in our detention facilities to hold them while the legal process unfolded. So most were released back into our society and asked to return for a court date. When the date arrived, the vast majority did not show up. This practice, called "catch and release," is unacceptable -- and we will end it.
We are taking several important steps to meet this goal. We have expanded the number of beds in our detention facilities, and we will continue to add more. We have expedited the legal process to cut the average deportation time. And we are making it clear to foreign governments that they must accept back their citizens who violate our immigration laws. As a result of these actions, we have ended "catch and release" for illegal immigrants from some countries. And I will ask Congress for additional funding and legal authority, so we can end "catch and release" at the southern border once and for all. When people know that they will be caught and sent home if they enter our country illegally, they will be less likely to try to sneak in.
Second, to secure our border, we must create a temporary worker program. The reality is that there are many people on the other side of our border who will do anything to come to America to work and build a better life. They walk across miles of desert in the summer heat, or hide in the back of 18-wheelers to reach our country. This creates enormous pressure on our border that walls and patrols alone will not stop. To secure the border effectively, we must reduce the numbers of people trying to sneak across.
Therefore, I support a temporary worker program that would create a legal path for foreign workers to enter our country in an orderly way, for a limited period of time. This program would match willing foreign workers with willing American employers for jobs Americans are not doing. Every worker who applies for the program would be required to pass criminal background checks. And temporary workers must return to their home country at the conclusion of their stay.
A temporary worker program would meet the needs of our economy, and it would give honest immigrants a way to provide for their families while respecting the law. A temporary worker program would reduce the appeal of human smugglers -- and make it less likely that people would risk their lives to cross the border. It would ease the financial burden on state and local governments, by replacing illegal workers with lawful taxpayers. And above all, a temporary worker program would add to our security by making certain we know who is in our country and why they are here.
Third, we need to hold employers to account for the workers they hire. It is against the law to hire someone who is in this country illegally.
Yet businesses often cannot verify the legal status of their employees, because of the widespread problem of document fraud. Therefore, comprehensive immigration reform must include a better system for verifying documents and work eligibility. A key part of that system should be a new identification card for every legal foreign worker.
This card should use biometric technology, such as digital fingerprints, to make it tamper-proof. A tamper-proof card would help us enforce the law - and leave employers with no excuse for violating it. And by making it harder for illegal immigrants to find work in our country, we would discourage people from crossing the border illegally in the first place.
Fourth, we must face the reality that millions of illegal immigrants are already here. They should not be given an automatic path to citizenship. This is amnesty, and I oppose it. Amnesty would be unfair to those who are here lawfully -- and it would invite further waves of illegal immigration.
Some in this country argue that the solution is to deport every illegal immigrant -- and that any proposal short of this amounts to amnesty. I disagree. It is neither wise nor realistic to round up millions of people, many with deep roots in the United States, and send them across the border. There is a rational middle ground between granting an automatic path to citizenship for every illegal immigrant, and a program of mass deportation. That middle ground recognizes that there are differences between an illegal immigrant who crossed the border recently -- and someone who has worked here for many years, and has a home, a family, and an otherwise clean record. I believe that illegal immigrants who have roots in our country and want to stay should have to pay a meaningful penalty for breaking the law...to pay their taxes...to learn English...and to work in a job for a number of years. People who meet these conditions should be able to apply for citizenship -- but approval would not be automatic, and they will have to wait in line behind those who played by the rules and followed the law. What I have just described is not amnesty -- it is a way for those who have broken the law to pay their debt to society, and demonstrate the character that makes a good citizen.
Fifth, we must honor the great American tradition of the melting pot, which has made us one Nation out of many peoples. The success of our country depends upon helping newcomers assimilate into our society, and embrace our common identity as Americans. Americans are bound together by our shared ideals, an appreciation of our history, respect for the flag we fly, and an ability to speak and write the English language. English is also the key to unlocking the opportunity of America.
English allows newcomers to go from picking crops to opening a grocery...from cleaning offices to running offices ... from a life of low-paying jobs to a diploma, a career, and a home of their own. When immigrants assimilate and advance in our society, they realize their dreams...they renew our spirit...and they add to the unity of America.
Tonight, I want to speak directly to Members of the House and the Senate: An immigration reform bill needs to be comprehensive, because all elements of this problem must be addressed together - or none of them will be solved at all. The House has passed an immigration bill.
The Senate should act by the end of this month -- so we can work out the differences between the two bills, and Congress can pass a comprehensive bill for me to sign into law.
America needs to conduct this debate on immigration in a reasoned and respectful tone. Feelings run deep on this issue -- and as we work it out, all of us need to keep some things in mind. We cannot build a unified country by inciting people to anger, or playing on anyone's fears, or exploiting the issue of immigration for political gain. We must always remember that real lives will be affected by our debates and decisions, and that every human being has dignity and value no matter what their citizenship papers say.
I know many of you listening tonight have a parent or a grandparent who came here from another country with dreams of a better life. You know what freedom meant to them, and you know that America is a more hopeful country because of their hard work and sacrifice. As President, I have had the opportunity to meet people of many backgrounds, and hear what America means to them. On a visit to Bethesda Naval Hospital, Laura and I met a wounded Marine named Guadalupe Denogean. Master Gunnery Sergeant Denogean came to the United States from Mexico when he was a boy. He spent his summers picking crops with his family, and then he volunteered for the United States Marine Corps as soon as he was able.
During the liberation of Iraq, Master Gunnery Sergeant Denogean was seriously injured. When asked if he had any requests, he made two -- a promotion for the corporal who helped rescue him...and the chance to become an American citizen. And when this brave Marine raised his right hand, and swore an oath to become a citizen of the country he had defended for more than 26 years, I was honored to stand at his side.
We will always be proud to welcome people like Guadalupe Denogean as fellow Americans. Our new immigrants are just what they have always been -- people willing to risk everything for the dream of freedom. And America remains what she has always been -- the great hope on the horizon...an open door to the future...a blessed and promised land. We honor the heritage of all who come here, no matter where they are from, because we trust in our country's genius for making us all Americans -- one Nation under God. Thank you, and good night.
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Immigrants in New York City and across the nation took to the streets, probably for the first time in history, to voice their demand for reform of immigration policy. What started as a protest against a bill -- that would make felons out of those who are illegally living or working in the country -- turned out to be a series of massive marches for immigrant rights.
“The issue of immigration stirs intense emotions and in recent weeks, Americans have seen those emotions on display, “ President George W. Bush said in his speech to the nation last week. “On the streets of major cities, crowds have rallied in support of those in our country illegally. At our southern border, others have organized to stop illegal immigrants from coming in. Across the country, Americans are trying to reconcile these contrasting images.”
In New York City, there may be more images of immigrants than anywhere else in the nation. Check out some of them, and the stories they tell, in our slide show on New York City's immigrants.
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