Herbert A. Weiss Immigration Law Blog on Lawyers.com

Many readers have undoubtedly either read or heard by now of President Obama’s plan to provide relief to deportable aliens by having their deportation proceedings administratively closed and even granting employment authorization to some of these deportable persons.  Some estimate that up to 300,000 undocumented persons could be helped under this plan that calls for U.S. Immigration to exercise prosecutorial discretion as to whom they will actively seek to deport and whom they will not.  While the President’s plan is a major noteworthy policy shift, a more detailed discussion of what it entails will have to await a future article.  Instead, I would like to comment on a recent article I read by a distinguished former government servant who believes that she has a helpful recommendation -- involving U.S. immigration policy -- to mitigate our current economic difficulties.

In an OpEd piece that appeared in the August 27, 2011 New York Post, Linda Chavez, a former staff director at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and a nominee for Secretary  of Labor, offers a proposal that she believes will create jobs and stimulate our economy.  Her idea is to create a new immigration lottery that would let in up to a million newcomers provided they purchase a home with cash.  She believes that this will help to boost significantly the depressed U.S. housing market which is a major factor stalling the economic recovery.  Since the wealth of many Americans is tied up in the value of their homes, the population at large has become understandably alarmed at the drop, sometimes precipitous, in the value of their homes.  There remains a huge inventory of unsold houses, and many of these houses are foreclosures.  Chavez realizes that her proposal might infuriate some, but we need innovative solutions to our economic doldrums.

There is something to be said for Ms. Chavez’s approach.  It is not easy to quarrel with encouraging the immigration of foreigners with lots of cash to cure an ailing housing market.  Since it is a matter of national urgency that we get our economy up and running as soon as possible,  Chavez’s approach is worthy of serious consideration.  But it does have a downside.

Unless it is carefully controlled and its numbers reduced, perhaps significantly, the danger in Chavez’s plan is that it puts America up for sale, a situation that many legislators who admire American egalitarianism and democratic values have sought to avoid in other times of national difficulty.  America is different.  Our values are exceptional, one of which is that since The Immigration Act of 1965 we have welcomed newcomers no matter what their economic circumstance or their place of origin, provided that they comply with our laws, seek to fit into the American way of life and our love of liberty, and embrace the American experiment in democracy and republican government.  I believe in our diversity lottery precisely because it offers people around the world the hope of participating in the American dream.  We should not ignore how powerfully this dream resonates with those wishing to come here.  Our historic embrace of immigration without regard to economic class is a source of moral strength and dignity for our country and way of life.  So while Chavez’s plan ought to be tried perhaps at some level – and closely monitored – we have to be careful that we do not sacrifice some of the core values that have made America great in our understandable desire to cure some serious economic ills.

When it comes to our economy and immigration, there are no easy fixes.  We just have to keep trying to come up with creative and sensible plans to make things better.  I am confident we will.

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