Re-Igniting Debate Over Immigration Policy Risky, Duke Expert Says
Friday, April 10, 2009
Renewing the push for immigration reform during an economic recession may be an uphill, but not impossible, battle for President Obama, says a Duke University immigration expert.
“It's been clear for some time that the president was not going to neglect this topic,” says Noah Pickus, director of the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke. “It's nonetheless surprising that he wants to launch the conversation now, given everything else on his plate and given the current economic conditions.
“The problem he'll run into is that he'll be trying to sell some form of legalization --keeping illegal immigrants here and in their jobs -- at a time when American citizens are losing their own jobs.”
Pickus co-directs the Immigration Policy Roundtable, a joint project of the Kenan Institute for Ethics and the Brookings Institution. The roundtable will issue a comprehensive immigration report later this year. He is also author of “True Faith and Allegiance: Immigration and American Civic Nationalism,” which examines nationalism and the politics of immigration.
Pickus says having the debate in the middle of an economic crisis emphasizes the value of family unity, because current conditions are making it more difficult for families to stay together. “But it pits that value against those of the rule of law and of taking care of your own citizens first,” both of which are key points in the immigration debate.
Despite the risk, “the administration has the opportunity to avoid hard ideological stances, to take seriously the competing concerns and to craft an approach that faces up to the difficult choices that any reform proposal must entail,” he says.