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DeFazio
on Immigration Local Congressman Peter DeFazio has been taking heat for his vote for a harsh, anti-immigrant bill that would potentially make felons out of 12 million foreign workers and children in the U.S.
The vote by the progressive congressman on HR 4437, the Sensenbrenner bill, has many local liberal and blue state supporters seeing red. This month Portland State University students protested the choice of DeFazio as a commencement speaker over his vote on the bill. EW asked DeFazio what gives. DeFazio said he does not support the felony provision and would not vote for any legislation that contained it, which he said would never pass anyway. "There's no way there's ever going to be a law that creates 12 million new felons." But DeFazio admits his vote for HR 4437 that contained the felony provision "is very difficult to explain to people." He said he and some other Democrats voted for the bill as a maneuver to try and keep out a harsh provision that would create a new crime for people helping illegal immigrants. The provision could have applied to churches and other humanitarian groups. But DeFazio also said he agreed with a number of the other provisions in HR 4437 and disagrees with some immigrant rights advocates on many points. Here's a rundown of DeFazio's positions based on an interview and a floor speech on the bill: • Supports tougher employer sanctions for hiring illegal immigrants including doubling fines and requiring employers to verify immigrants legal status with federal officials. • Wants tougher enforcement of laws protecting both legal and undocumented workers from unsafe working conditions and exploitation. • Favors tighter border security, with more guards rather than an expensive fence, and says the current flow of illegal immigration is unacceptable and could allow in dangerous terrorists. • Has serious reservations about increasing the number of guest workers. • Is concerned that broad amnesty or other guest worker provisions would be unfair to those who have been waiting in line for years to immigrate legally or have worked and paid taxes here for years. DeFazio said "our nation has long been a beacon for the dispossessed and downtrodden" to pursue the "American dream" and immigrant "sweat and ingenuity" built this country. He notes that he himself is the product of earlier Italian and Irish immigrants. But he said the issue "is not simple." DeFazio, who has strong support and is closely allied with labor unions, says his main concern is about workers. Guest worker proposals "threaten to increase the low-wage labor pool in the U.S. by millions of workers, further eroding the pay rates and working conditions of tens of millions of Americans and legal immigrants," he said in a December floor speech on the bill. DeFazio says that business groups support increasing immigrant labor to drive down labor costs, break unions and weaken worker protections. He points to the continued exploitation and abuse of immigrants in the tree-planting industry and use of guest workers to break labor unions and gut worker safety provisions in the meatpacking industry. He points to studies showing how undocumented workers have driven down pay, including a Harvard professor's report showing a 5 to 9 percent decline in overall wages. But DeFazio admits that even among labor unions and their supporters "there's a fairly major split" on what to do about immigration. Focusing on employers and preventing them from exploiting illegal immigrant labor, "is the key to the long term solution to this problem," DeFazio said. "We need to stop the exploitation of those people to drive down wages," he said. "We need to stem the tide." DeFazio said he has gotten flak for his immigrant vote, but "a lot of people when I explain it to them, they kind of end up agreeing where I'm coming from." DeFazio won't offer a comprehensive solution of his own to the thorny illegal immigration quandary, and is surprised the Republicans thought it was a good issue for them. "I'll be stunned if there is a bill this year."
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