For years, immigration law in the United States has given an edge to families.
Those who can show that they have family members in this country have a better shot at getting a student visa, a work permit and even the ultimate prize: citizenship.
That’s still true, but if immigration laws ever get a serious overhaul — something that Congress has been putting off for years — any advantage for families divided by borders could very well disappear, experts say.
In recent months, policy makers and public officials have talked seriously about scrapping the long-standing system that gives green cards, or permanent legal status, first to immigrants who show they have close relatives in the United States or employers who want to sponsor them. They suggest a new system that would award points to foreigners who speak English, are educated and have professional work experience.
A bill that would have ushered in just such a system stalled in the U.S. Senate last summer, in part because of opposition from employers who prefer the existing method under which they can directly sponsor immigrants who meet specific labor needs.
Still, those on both sides of the immigration issue say the debate is far from over.
“I don’t think it’s a dead concept” said Bryan Griffith, a spokesman for the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that advocates for less immigration. “Many other countries have switched over recently, Australia being the best example.”
Griffith said most people recognize the need for some family-based immigration, but the current emphasis on family ties can lead to illegal immigration. Family members who are accepted into the country often send for relatives back home, who come — often illegally, he said.
“It’s a very emotional issue, so it may be very difficult to (change the system),” Griffith said. “But I certainly don’t think (the idea) is dead.”
Michael Wilson, the Canadian ambassador to the United States, said he has received numerous calls from U.S. legislators interested in how the Canadian system works. Canada was the first country to go to a point or merit system, adopting it in 1967.  Prospective immigrants are awarded points in such areas as language, education, occupation and work experience, and those with the most points are accepted. Family ties are not considered.
At first Canada’s system limited immigration to an “elite” subset of applicants, Wilson said, but the criteria were revised to allow a wider variety of workers and the system The system has “worked in Canada pretty darn well,” he said.
Carlos Vélez-Ibáñez Vélez-Ibáñez, chair of ASU’s Transborder Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies Department, said that the United States already has a de facto point system because employers can sponsor people with certain skills, such as engineers or computer programmers. But he said more innovative ways are needed to deal with immigration than simply a point system.
“We should have a rationalized way for people to cross the border to see family and work occasionally,” he said.
Vélez-Ibáñez pointed to a Canadian agricultural-worker program as an example. Immigrants “spend three months in Canada and then they leave,” he said. “They go back to Mexico and till their own farms.”
While in Canada, the workers are given housing and medical care and are protected under Canadian law. “It has worked beautifully,” he said. “Why? Because the Canadians took a highly rationalized approach. I think this country can learn a hell of a lot from Canada’s experience.”
President Bush and some Arizona legislators are supporting guest worker programs that would essentially do the same thing — bring in temporary workers to fill gaps in the labor force. The Arizona proposal would allow Arizona employers to recruit temporary workers, from Mexico only, after demonstrating that there is a shortage of local labor to fill jobs.
Any immigration policy has to take into account the economic realities of two countries that share such close proximity, Mexican President Felipe Calderón said in a speech last September.
“Migration is a natural phenomenon socially, economically inevitable and, I would say, also economically convenient for the economy of North America as a region,” Calderón told the 25th Border Governors Conference Conference, held in Puerto Peñasco, Sonora. “There probably aren’t in the world two neighboring economies that are so clearly complementary as the United States’ and the Mexican economies.”
Vélez-Ibáñez agreed that the two economies function as one. “It’s not an American economy. It’s not a Mexican economy,” he said. “It’s a transborder economy.”
He said Mexican citizens have labored throughout the southwestern region of North America for hundreds of years, and without Mexican labor, “most of the infrastructure of what we see in southern Arizona and in New Mexico and in southern California from the 19th century on couldn’t have happened — period.”
“Prior to this whole stuff on immigration, people were going back and forth,” he added. “What needed to be done an awful long time ago was border passes to work if jobs are available. The European Union has been doing this for 40 years.”
Immigration reform will only be successful if it takes into account the far-reaching economic implications of immigrant labor, Vélez-Ibáñez added.
“You cannot have an immigration system unless you fundamentally understand the political economy,” he said. “If you’re not willing to take that on, the rest falls apart. They’re all bandages.”
Immigration policy also needs to take into account the effect on families, Calderon said.
“We are not gladdened by immigration because we know that our families are divided, that our towns are divided, that our communities are divided,” he said.?