Given some of the other toxic lines of attack that have been used during the US election, perhaps it is a blessing of sorts that the immigration debate has barely featured in the campaign. If immigration had become the hot-button issue it looked like being twelve months ago, the campaign could have been even uglier than what we’ve seen. None the less, it looks clear to me that efforts have still been made to tap into that type of identity politics.
But however understandable it may be electorally, it is unfortunate that such an important issue has not been given some solid examination during this campaign. While immigration law and administration in Australia contain much that is discriminatory, unjust and inefficient, there is nothing like the inconsistencies and breadth of injustice that occurs in the USA. It is one of the many paradoxes of the USA that it can simultaneously portray a message of liberty towards migrants (e.g. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”) while deliberately subjecting so many of them to major deprivation.
Perhaps because of this, the USA – unlike Australia – has a range of strong community based organisations promoting the rights of migrants, including a vibrant internet presence. Not surprisingly, a wide range of virulent anti-migrant sites can also be found on the internet.
This lack of debate was not for want of trying on the part of a range of different pro-migrant and anti-migrant advocates. Amazingly for such a contentious issue, the word “immigration” was used just once in the three Presidential debates. Both Presidential candidates seemed to mostly avoid the topic, apart from narrowcast advertising aimed at Spanish speaking voters -
“The ads, running on Spanish-language television and radio in states such as Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico feature Democratic candidate Barack Obama and Republican nominee John McCain pointing fingers at each other for not having done enough on immigration.”
An online network of pro-migrant groups put together a detailed questionnaire on immigrations issues, which it asked both candidates to respond to. While Obama obviously chose not to make immigration a frontline issue in his campaign, to his credit he did not dodge this request, providing a detailed response which, while still leaving some wiggle room in some of the trickier areas, still contained answers of substance. By contrast, John McCain did not respond at all.
John McCain’s actions in 2007 when he tried to advance some type of migration reform was at one stage thought to have derailed his chances of obtaining the Republican nomination. In the end, it obviously wasn’t a barrier to his obtaining the nomination, but even though he tried to reframe his stance to one of ‘enforcement first’, he was certainly far more boxed in than most other Republicans would have been when it came to trying to attack Obama for being soft on ‘illegals’.
This analysis from the Immigration Daily website gives a fairly good summary of the stances on the two candidates and the platforms of their parties (which in some cases diverge from their candidates’ stated positions).
Republicans and Democrats take different approaches on the subject of immigration. The Republican Party Platform supports border security and employment enforcement, but not amnesty or legalization, while McCain himself supports a pathway to citizenship, which he carefully terms as “addressing the undocumented.” The Democratic Party Platform supports comprehensive immigration reform and a pathway to citizenship, but remained silent on the border fence, while Obama and Biden both initially supported the border fence and additional security, while remaining fairly quiet on the subject today. On these issues where the candidates adopt a stance different from their respective party’s stance, the candidates actually meet.
I thought their concluding comments about the politics and policy significance of immigration were particularly apt:
Immigration is such a hot-button issue that many have compared it to a downed power line, electrocuting anyone who touches it. One thing is for sure, the issue of immigration will not go away. Whether it gets addressed sooner or later, the immigration system remains desperately in need of reform, and so one hopes that no matter who is elected, it will gain the necessary attention it deserves.
Australia as a nation has a very different history to the USA – for better and worse – but there is much in this assessment from the pro-migrant blogosphere that has echoes we could draw on:
It’s obvious that Obama has tapped into a powerful vein of energy and emotion coursing just underneath our society’s skin. So many people want to believe that we can be better. The genius of the Obama campaign has been its ability to ignite and draw upon that widespread desire and idealism without getting caught up or pulled into the previous generation’s embittered battles and intractable stalemates. This isn’t a repudiation of what came before and what paved the way. It’s a fresh attempt to take previous high points and apply them to a new era. This doesn’t mean that I agree with all of Obama’s politics; it means that I understand, appreciate, and respect what he’s trying to do.
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