Legislators Sponsor Competing Immigration Bills
Arizona's two Republican senators, Jon Kyl and John McCain, propose new immigration reform legislation. NPRs Ted Robbins looks at the issues in Arizona and how they frame the national debate.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
One of the most pressing issues facing Congress and the country is what to do about illegal immigration. It's an issue that's been simmering for some time and in Arizona it's boiled over. Last year, that state had more illegal immigration arrests than all other states combined. Arizona's two Republican senators are sponsoring competing congressional solutions to the problem. NPR's Ted Robbins reports on how feelings in Arizona have come to frame the national debate on immigration.
TED ROBBINS reporting:
In Arizona, when it comes to illegal immigration, there is no consensus.
Unidentified Man #1: I think we should send them back. I think they need to come through legally.
Unidentified Man #2: We don't have enough Anglos to fulfill all the service business needs.
Unidentified Woman #1: What our government is doing is they're allowing legalized slavery.
ROBBINS: Nowhere is anger and frustration more evident than in places like Arivaca, Arizona, a small town about 20 miles from the border. Rancher Scott Brumanger(ph) is just plain fed up.
Mr. SCOTT BRUMANGER: I mean, I'm in the middle of the war zone here. This is what this is. This is a war zone.
ROBBINS: US border policy pushed illegal crossers out of California and out of urban areas like Nogales and Douglas, Arizona, and on to rural stretches of land like Scott Brumanger's ranch.
Mr. BRUMANGER: We've got to stop the border. They've got to stop. I don't know how they're going to do it. They've got to.
ROBBINS: Brumanger says closing the border should be the first priority, even if it means civilian border patrols like The Minuteman or putting federal troops here.
(Soundbite of truck riding down highway)
ROBBINS: But barely a couple of miles away, Daniel Strauss has a very different idea about what is needed along the border.
Mr. DANIEL STRAUSS (Volunteer, No More Deaths): An immigration reform policy that actually gives enough visas and demilitarizes the border so people stop dying here.
ROBBINS: Strauss is a volunteer for No More Deaths, one of a number of groups that drive the roads and hikes the desert washes looking for immigrants to help. But keep driving, 150 miles up the road to Phoenix. Kathy McKee is founder of Protect Arizona NOW, a citizens group that helped pass Proposition 200 last fall to deny certain state benefits to illegal immigrants. Now she wants all aid denied.
Ms. KATHY McKEE (Founder, Protect Arizona NOW): And I firmly believe that each and every one of them need to be deported.
ROBBINS: McKee and other staunch supporters of a closed border policy say the real culprits are employers who hire illegal immigrants.
Ms. McKEE: They're bringing them in, enticing them to come up here and our government is aiding and abetting this scheme.
ROBBINS: Keep driving some more to the north Phoenix office of 3G Construction, a housing contractor. The company's president, Larry McCrary, says he presumes some of his 500 workers are here illegally.
Mr. LARRY McCRARY (President, 3G Construction): Yeah. It's reality.
ROBBINS: McCrary sponsors workers who want to be here legally, but that's a long and expensive process and he says the reality is that without illegal immigrants, the US economy would be in trouble.
Mr. McCRARY: You wouldn't be able to get service at a restaurant you went out to. You wouldn't get your lawns mowed because, face it, these Hispanic people want to work.
ROBBINS: With this volatile stew of opinion, it's not surprising that both of Arizona's senators have pushed guest worker bills onto the Washington agenda. Republican Jon Kyl's bill is the more restrictive. Kyl's bill would force those here illegally to return to their home country and apply for legal entry there.
Senator JON KYL (Republican, Arizona): You cannot for very long sustain a society in which everybody knows that the big employers and the government are both winking at the law.
ROBBINS: Fellow Republican John McCain says people already here just won't pick up and leave. Instead, McCain's bill would allow people to stay while applying for legal status. His critics call it amnesty. McCain says it's far from that.
Senator JOHN McCAIN (Republican, Arizona): This is a $2,000 fine. This is six years of having to work before it becoming even eligible for green card status. It is no more amnesty than I am a martian.
ROBBINS: The debate has not yet reached Mars, but it has now stretched from the Southwest border of this country to Washington and it's expected to be just as heated there as in Arizona.
Ted Robbins, NPR News, Tucson.
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