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Congress takes some of the teeth out of immigration
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bout the best that Jewish
activists in Washington
could say about the im-
migration bill passed by
the Senate last week is that it
could have been worse.
What started out as an all-out
assault on foreigners under the
guise of immigration reform was
narrowed to emphasize the prob-
lem of illegal immigration. But
tucked away in the legislation
are a number of provisions that
will batter both legal and illegal
immigrants and cause signifi-
cant hardship for some Jewish
newcomers.
More ominously, Jewish lead-
ers worry that the bill represents
one more step down the road to
a much more restrictive policy
toward immigrants and those
who have not fully assimilated
into the American mainstream.
"It was a mean-spirited bill,
in terms of its treatment of legal
immigrants," said Diana Aviv,
Washington director for the
Council of Jewish Federations.
"There's clearly no patience on
the part of members of either
party to provide even the barest
minimum of protections to peo-
ple who have.come to this coun-
try legally. The trend is a very
disturbing one."
From the outset, the immi-
gration battle was driven by
election-year politics.
In both Houses, legislators
tried to wrap legal and illegal
immigration into a single pack-
age. In 1996, many lawmakers
saw a golden opportunity to pig-
gyback two winning political is-
sues: the growing desire for
punitive policies toward illegal
aliens, and the unfocused de-
mand by voters to hack away at
the federal budget, as long as
legislators don't cut too close to
home.
"People in both parties are
looking for places to cut social
programs without producing a
backlash at the polls," said a
leading Jewish activist here.
"Immigrants make an inviting
target; they aren't a major vot-
ing block, and in today's envi-
ronment, nobody will weep if
they are cut off from the social
service network in the interests
of cutting costs."
Both the House and Senate
originally combined bills aimed
at legal and illegal immigration
for precisely that reason.
A long list of Jewish groups,
led by the Council of Jewish Fed-
erations and the American Jew-
ish Committee, worked with or-
ganizations representing other
immigrant communities to con-
vince legislators to split the bills
and blunt the worst elements of
the surviving legislation.
With the first goal, at least,
Jewish groups had some success;
the immigration bills were split,
and work on a legal immigration
reform package was deferred,
probably until after this year's
elections.
The bills approved by the
House and Senate now focus on
increasing law enforcement
along the Mexican border; both
contain provisions that will
make it harder for illegal immi-
grants to get jobs and easier for
the government to deport them,
although the harshest deporta-
tion language was removed from
the Senate bill.
"Those seeking to
live here by choice
will be denied any
kind of assistance."
—Jewish activist in Washington
But Jewish groups failed to kill
a number of provisions that re-
flect the kind of political expe-
diency that they regard as a
direct attack on American plu-
ralism.
Both versions severely limit
the access of both legal and ille-
gal immigrants to a wide range
of government social services by
mandating that the income of an
immigrant's sponsor be figured
into the eligibility calculations,
a change that could make life
harder for Jewish immigrants
— although most Jews from the
Soviet Union arrive here as
refugees, not immigrants.
According to some estimates,
the new rules would — in effect
— bar more than 90 percent of
legal immigrants from programs
such as Supplemental Security
Income, food stamps, Medicaid
and Aid to Families with De-
pendent Children.
Angry senators also rejected
amendments passed by the
House that would have exempt-
ed certain programs from these
restrictive rules, including
emergency Medicaid, immu-
nization programs and some ser-