Pelosi attack is a reminder of a broken system
The attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, has generated waves of lies, conspiracy theories and fodder for internet trolls. But there’s one narrative that has been largely overlooked. The assault underscores the long-overdue need for immigration reform.
Paul Pelosi’s alleged attacker, David DePape, was in the country illegally, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Born in Canada, he came to the United States legally through a port of entry in California in 2008. He never left.
If you listen to our politicians, the issue of immigration is all about “border security,” a convenient catchphrase that often means wasting billions in taxpayer dollars to send troops to the border and generate photo ops for campaign ads.
From 2009 to 2019, people like DePape who come here legally and overstay their visas outnumber illegal border crossers by about 2 to 1.
While Mexicans account for the largest number of overstays, Canadians like DePape are the second biggest group. This may explain why visa overstays, despite being a large part of the immigration issue, get so little attention. Let’s face it, intransigent Canadians aren’t going to scare voters to the polls. Besides, politicians would rather not draw attention to the undocumented who are already here because they might have to explain why they haven’t done more to address the issue.
The difference between DePape and others who overstay their visas is that most of them aren’t accused of committing crimes, and certainly not of attempting to attack the third most powerful elected official in the country. In fact, U.S. citizens are twice as likely to be arrested for violent crimes as undocumented immigrants.
Most who overstay visas have been in the country for 10 years or more. Many contribute to society. They own homes and businesses — some even create jobs for native-born Americans.
In writing about and producing documentaries on immigration issues for the past six years, I’ve talked to quite a few undocumented immigrants. While they worry about running afoul of DHS, most try to comply with every other law and regulation to avoid drawing attention.
One undocumented business owner told me several years ago that he is careful to keep his company’s vehicles current on registration and insurance, and he personally makes sure that even his fishing license doesn’t expire.
He doesn’t want to do anything that would get him deported. He worried about what would happen to his family, including his American children, and his six legal employees if he did.
The last thing he would do is break into the home of a member of Congress intent on kidnapping her.
But it’s precisely because more of the undocumented are like him, and not DePape, that the biggest immigration challenge goes unaddressed. It’s not because our politicians don’t know about it, it’s because they prefer the system the way it is.
Many people who are undocumented come here for the economic opportunity to build a better life. The country, in turn, needs them. With unemployment at 3.7 percent, and nearly two job openings for every available worker, U.S. companies have a desperate need for labor.
The 11.5 million undocumented immigrants estimated to already be living here — many of whom have expired visas — would go a long way toward addressing that need, but we seem to prefer a system that’s been broken for decades. The only realistic way to fix it is to grant undocumented immigrants already in the country, and who have no criminal record, some sort of legal status. It wouldn’t have to be citizenship, but we need a system that tracks them yet allows them to live and work without fear of deportation.
That would enable employers to hire them legally and openly, provide them benefits and other perks of full employment and allow workers to demand fair wages. By not being forced to live in the shadows, those workers could fully participate in our economy — opening bank accounts, getting loans, buying big-ticket items such as new cars and homes.
These benefits would add an estimated $1.7 trillion to the U.S. economy over the next decade, according to an analysis by the Center for American Progress. No economic policy — tax cuts, spending cuts, stimulus programs — proposed by any elected official in recent years has come close to promising such an economic boost.
It would also make accused criminals like DePape easier to weed out, because it would be harder for them to hide in the shadows.
But our broken system persists because of political cowardice. Politicians, especially on the right, are terrified of addressing immigration ever since House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost his Virginia primary in 2014 after rightwing trolls turned immigration into a political brickbat. Since then, the cry on the right has been “no amnesty.” But we already have amnesty. Millions of undocumented immigrants, including David LaPape, are granted de facto amnesty every day by the lack of leadership from both parties on immigration reform.
Meaningful reform would involve diplomacy, compromise and understanding — currencies that no longer hold value in Washington. It’s easier to send troops to the border.
We all get stuck paying the bill for border troops, chartered bus rides and other political stunts. But if our politicians actually did their jobs on immigration, not only would we have fewer David DePapes, we would also be reaping the economic benefits at a time when the country needs all the economic help it can get.