You Do Know That Immigration is Not a Civil Right, Don't You?

By Peggy Sands Orchowski

It's interesting to watch the rhetoric of immigration politics evolve. As a credentialed Congressional immigration correspondent the past ten years and author of two books on immigration, I've noticed that the rhetoric has changed radically.  It's gone from the right of anyone regardless of race, religion, creed or national origin to apply for permanent immigration status, to the rhetoric of rights, civil rights to become citizens, the rights of a new identity group – illegal immigrants.

Yesterday Congressional minority Leader Nancy Pelosi took over the House floor for a record breaking eight (8!) hours to argue for the right of between 700,000-4 million millenneals (ages 18-30+) illegal immigrants called DREAMERS, to be given green cards (Permanent Legal Resident permits) that can lead to citizenship.  DREAMERS by definition have been here at least five years and can prove they came in the country as minors before age 16 (or 18 depending on what definition you use).

In the spirit of civil rights, Minority Leader Pelosi called those who want to end deportation protections and enforce immigration laws against DREAMERS, "racists".

Democratic Congressman Joe Crowley from New York declared "immigration is the civil right issue of the day".

Immigration may be the biggest issue of today.  But immigration – and certainly not illegal immigration – is not a civil right.

Presidents John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and George W. Bush all stated at various times that immigration is one of our proudest traditions – we are a nation of immigrants.  But we are also a nation that honors the rule of law.  That includes immigration laws that clearly define what is legal immigration, what isn't and how that will be enforced.  No where is immigration included as a civil right.

In 1923 the U.S. Congress passed the first comprehensive immigration law.  It was called the "National Origins Quota Act".  It ruled that immigrants would be chosen on the basis of their nationality: those from Northern Europe had no quotas and could immigrate into the U.S. freely.  There were no quotas for Mexican nationals either; they were considered to be a fluid historic population in the southwest, not really immigrants.  But every other nationality had strict quotas, particularly Southern Italians and Eastern Europeans, many of them Jewish.  That "discrimination" was based on an aggressive effort to thwart the surge of members of the Sicilian Mafia and Eastern European communists in the 1900s.  Civil rights was not a big issue yet anywhere.

In 1965 the U.S. Congress passed the country's second comprehensive immigration law. It was the most liberal immigration law in the world. Its major driver was the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that forbade discrimination on the basis of race, creed, religion or national origin.  There was no question that the the 1923 National Origins Quota had to be changed.  The Congress of 1965 was the most liberal in history, elected in the midst of national agony over the assassination of President Kennedy.  President Lyndon B. Johnson was determined to honor Kennedy's legacy by aggressively passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and numerous Great Society legislation in 1965, including a new Immigration and Nationality Act.

The confounding civil rights issue in immigration was how to treat all nationalities equally, not to discriminate (nor prefer) any immigrants of any one nationality?  They came up with the "seven percent rule" – every nationality can only get up to seven percent of all the green cards  given out in one year.  In 1965 the total number to be granted was 250,000.  Today it is 1.2 million. The 7 percent rule still exists.

The 1965 law had many unintended consequences that I address in my book "The Law That Changed The Face of America", including the creation of long waiting lists for some countries,  millions of temporary non-immigration visa permits (including over one million foreign students) and millions of illegal immigrants, increasingly those who overstay temporary visas.  Enforcement has tightened. In 2005, after the 9/11 terrorist attack, an agency charged with interior immigration enforcement agency was created for the first time in our history: the Immigration Customs Enforcement agency (ICE).

The 1965 law successfully addressed the nationality discrimination problem forbidden in the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  But it did not make immigration a civil right.

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