STATEMENT OF RALSTON H. DEFFENBAUGH, JR.
PRESIDENT, LUTHERAN IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE SERVICE, BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) was founded in 1939
to help resettle refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. Since then, LIRS has
resettled more than 280,000 refugees from all over the world. It
provides service and advocacy through its 41 Lutheran affiliate offices
and sub offices, its Washington, D.C. office and its headquarters in
Baltimore, Maryland. LIRS advocates for just, compassionate policies
for all newcomers to the United States and administers a fund from
Lutheran and Presbyterian churches that provides grants to independent
grass roots service programs to serve particularly vulnerable
newcomers. There is a strong tradition of Lutheran pastoral care and
ministry for migrant farm workers, both legal and undocumented. LIRS
has opposed employer sanctions since their inception and has spoken out
against workplace raids to the present day.
Our Nation's immigration policy with regard to economic migration
is unacceptable and must change. The results of this policy include
hundreds of deaths annually along the U.S.-Mexican border and
elsewhere, abuse of the undocumented here in the U.S. and an inadequate
match between the labor needs of our $10 trillion economy and the poor
and excluded who seek opportunity in it. As an alternative, we propose
the substantial legalization of economic migration. Specifically, we
call for ``independent worker visas'' that do not tie workers to any
particular employer or economic sector, provide for equal protection
under the law and allow those with substantial equities in this country
to adjust their status to that of permanent residence.

THE DEADLY BORDER IS AT THE CENTER OF A HISTORY OF POLICY FAILURE

INS border enforcement strategy has, in effect, diverted migration
flows to the most inhospitable desert and mountain regions causing
dramatic increases in deaths due to exposure to the elements.\1\
According to the GAO, ``although INS has realized its goal of shifting
illegal alien traffic away from urban areas, [the primary discernable
effect of the strategy,] this has been achieved at a cost to both
illegal aliens and INS.'' \2\ The number of bodies found by the INS on
the U.S. side of the border soared to 367 last year and that almost
certainly undercounts the total number of deaths. As of August 21 the
death toll in California's Imperial Valley topped last year's figure in
that region with six weeks left to go, despite a decline in
apprehensions.\3\ Enforcement strategy has also resulted in an increase
in the use of smugglers (and in their fees) and in the incidence of
violence in the border areas. It has spawned rancor between property
owners and migrants, including vigilante-style intimidation. Those who
survive the crossing end up living underground, without legal status,
sometimes in debt-peonage to criminal smuggling syndicates. They are
also prey to unscrupulous employers who would use threats of
deportation in order to squelch their rights.
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\1\ Karl Eschbach, Jaqueline Hagan and Nestor Rodriguez, ``Causes
and Trends in Migrant Deaths along the U.S.-Mexico Border,'' University
of Houston, Center for Immigration Research, March 2001.
\2\ General Accounting Office, ``INS' Southwest Border Strategy:
Resource and Impact Issues Remain After Seven Years,'' August 2000, pp.
2-3.
\3\ Ben Fox, ``Deaths near border rise at record pace. Imperial
Valley; Six more weeks of expected heat could increase the toll,
authorities say,'' The Press Enterprise (Riverside, Ca.), August 21,
2001.
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Mexican migration to and from the United States has been an
essentially cyclical phenomenon for more than 150 years. Modern efforts
to suppress this pattern originate from the termiNation of the 1942-64
Bracero program.\4\ At the time, opponents assumed that ending the
program would tighten the U.S. agricultural labor market, resulting in
increased wages and improved working conditions. Farmers, on the other
hand, believed that ending the program would result in crop loss,
business failure and higher prices. Both sides were wrong. The actual
result was the steady rise in undocumented economic migration.\5\
Between, 1965 and 1990, besides the 1.9 million Mexicans admitted as
legal permanent residents, there were an estimated 36 million
unauthorized entries from Mexico to the United States and 31 million
returns the other way.\6\
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\4\ Pia M. Orrenius, ``Illegal Immigration and Enforcement Along
the U.S.-Mexico Border: An Overview,'' Economic and Financial Review,
First Quarter 2001, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, p. 4; Gordon H.
Hanson, Kenneth F. Scheve, Matthew J. Slaughter and Antonio
Spilimbergo, ``Immigration and the U.S. Economy: Labor Market Impacts,
Illegal Entry, and Policy Choices,'' June 2001, pp. 10-11, 34.
\5\ Demetrios G. Papademetriou and Monica L. Heppel, ``Balancing
Acts: Toward a Fair Bargain on Seasonal Agricultural Workers,''
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1999, fn. 18, p. 18 and fn.
16, p. 17.
\6\ Douglas S. Massey and A. Singer, ``New Estimates of
Undocumented Mexican Migration and the Probability of Apprehension,''
Demography, 1995, Vol. 32, pp. 203-213.
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In 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) attempted to
`freeze' the cyclical migration pattern, attempting to apply a static
solution to a dynamic phenomenon. Amnesty was granted to those already
here and employer sanctions were imposed to deter those who might seek
to come in the future. Employer sanctions hurt migrants in that they
cause increased use of subcontractors to absorb risk of liability and
simple discrimiNation against those who merely appear foreign. In
effect, our immigration policies extract a ``risk premium'' from
migrants' wages that has been estimated to amount to an estimated 28%
cut.\7\
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\7\ Douglas S. Massey, ``March of Folly: U.S. Immigration Policy
After NAFTA,'' The American Prospect, no. 37, March-April, 1998. Massey
also found that, prior to the advent of employer sanctions under the
1986 IRCA law, the key determinants of migrant wage levels were
education, experience in the U.S. and English proficiency. After IRCA,
the key determinants were social contacts.
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Many present day economic migrants also seek U.S. employment only
on a temporary basis and would prefer to return to their families in
their own countries periodically but they dare not do so due to the
high risks associated with repeated entry. In other words, our very
immigration policy, in attempting to thwart the circular pattern,
perversely compels undocumented migrants to remain in the United
States, apart from their families and unemployed in off seasons.
Tragically, increasing numbers of women and children are dying at the
border as migrants respond by attempting to bring their entire families
over in order to avoid indefinite separation.
And yet, for all the lethality and hardship caused by our present
enforcement strategy, it has shown little effect in reducing illegal
immigration \8\ and less in shoring up wages of unskilled Americans.\9\
In the U.S. economy, the low-skilled immigration is absorbed by changes
in the production output mix through shifts to less skill-intensive
sectors and technological change in other sectors based on skill
increases among natives, moving them out of the low-skill labor
market.\10\ The downward pressure on low-skill wages that does exist is
virtually exclusive to American high school dropouts and influenced by
technological innovation more than immigration.\11\ While this is cause
for concern, such concern would be more effectively directed toward
substantial education reform and target other headwinds facing the
least among us. Scapegoating immigrants, on the other hand, neither
teaches functional illiterates to read, nor frees addicts from
substance abuse, nor reforms criminal sentencing anomalies, nor
addresses any significant obstacle to the upward mobility American
underclass.\12\
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\8\ Gordon H. Hanson and Antonio Spilimbergo, ``Does Border
Enforcement Protect U.S. Workers from Illegal Immigration?,'' NBER
Working Paper No. W7054, March 1999.
\9\ Gordon H. Hanson, Kenneth F. Scheve, Matthew J. Slaughter and
Antonio Spilimbergo, ``Immigration and the U. S. Economy: Labor Market
Impacts, Illegal Entry, and Policy Choices,'' June 2001, pp. 10-11.
\10\ Gordon H. Hanson, Kenneth F. Scheve, Matthew J. Slaughter and
Antonio Spilimbergo, ``Immigration and the U.S. Economy: Labor Market
Impacts, Illegal Entry, and Policy Choices,'' June 2001, pp. 14, 17-18,
21. In more rigid markets such as Europe, by contrast, such influxes
are absorbed more by increases in unemployment. Id. at 15.
\11\ Id. at p. 23.
\12\ Although LIRS does not develop positions on policies
addressing such domestic issues, Lutheran church bodies associated with
it do. See e.g., the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, http)://
www.elca.org/des/advocagy.hbul and the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod,
http://humancare.lcms.org
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INDEPENDENT WORKER VISAS

While we favor the option of permanent residence for those who have
established substantial equities in this country, we recognize that
temporary visas can alleviate much of the hardship occasioned by
present policies. Many economic migrants have no need or desire to
immigrate to this country and only seek work here on an occasional or
seasonal basis.\13\ This is an interest that can and should be
accommodated.
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\13\ Belinda Reyes, ``Dynamics of Immigration: Return Migration to
Western Mexico,'' Public Policy Institute of California, 1997.
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The key shortcoming in typical guest worker programs such as the
Bracero and H-2A programs is that they are employer-centered. The
employer is the sponsor/petitioner and the worker is more or less bound
to that employer. This is an anti-competitive restriction of workers'
bargaining power and inhibits their assertion of legal rights with fear
of immigration consequences. This also amounts to an inappropriate
privatization of our immigration policy. Making the legality of a
person's status in this country dependent upon her relationship with a
particular employer virtually invites abuse.
Economic migrants, documented and undocumented, are presently
working in virtually every sector of our economy, from manufacturing to
services, from construction to domestic work. Industry-wide rather than
employer-specific restrictions, such as a requirement to work in
agriculture, would not only still constrain workers' bargaining power
but would also be an unrealistic response to the defects of current
policy. Only 10% of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in the United States
work in agriculture, while 85% work in the service sector and many are
now entering the commercial sector.\14\ A policy that ignores economic
reality is bound to fail and perpetuate the same ills of the status
quo. Sectoral restrictions would also hinder economic development in
Mexico as they would limit the value of the human capital infusions
that take place when migrants return.
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\14\ Council on Hemispheric Affairs, ``Startling Statistics about
Mexican Immigration,'' August 16, 2001.
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Independent Worker Visas, on the other hand, would be migrant-
centered visas for which the workers themselves apply, with no
restrictions as to which employer or in which industry the bearer can
work. Labor standards should apply equally to all workers with no
discrimiNation on the basis of nationality or immigration status.
Furthermore, those who develop substantial equities in this country
should be allowed to adjust their status to that of permanent
residence. These principles of mobility across employers and sectors
and equal treatment under the law have been articulated by dozens of
humanitarian and faith-based organizations \15\ and we are gratified to
see them endorsed by the Democratic leadership of the U.S. Congress as
well.\16\ A recent study from UCLA has also recommended a renewable
``New Worker Visa'' initially for citizens of Mexico, Canada, the
Caribbean and Central America, based on historical levels of
undocumented entry that would ensure full portability across jobs,
allow multiple re-entry to restore circularity, provide a path to
earned residency after five years and include participation in payroll
tax-funded benefits, though not means-tested public assistance.\17\
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\15\ ``Religious Leaders Call for Change in Policies that Result in
Border Deaths,'' a June 4, 2001, http://www.firs.org/DonateServe/
advocate/EconMig ReligLdrs.pdf; ``End the War on Economic Migrants!''
February 14, 2001, http://www.lirs.org/DonateServe/advocate.htm.
\16\ Sen. Thomas A. Daschle and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt, Letter to
Presidents George W. Bush and Vicente Fox, August 2, 2001, p. 3.
\17\ Dr. Raul Hinojosa Ojeda et al., ``Comprehensive Migration
Policy Reform in North America: The Key to Sustainable and Equitable
Economic Integration,'' North American Integration and Development
Center, August 29, 2001, pp. 28, 32.
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Also, we recognize no fundamental moral distinction between
Mexicans dying on our southern border, Haitians drowning in the
Windward Passage and Chinese suffocating in cargo containers. While
there may be sound political reasons for beginning the reform of our
economic migration policies in a bilateral arrangement with Mexico, we
share the view of the Administration and the Democratic Congressional
Leadership that we should do so with a view to expanding it to equally
deserving people of other nationalities.\18\
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\18\ President George W. Bush, ``Remarks by the President and
Virginia Gubernatorial Candidate Mark Early in Photo Opportunity,'' The
White House, Office of the Press Secretary, July 26, 2001; Sen. Thomas
A. Daschle and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt, Letter to Presidents George W.
Bush and Vicente Fox, August 2, 2001, pp. 1-2.
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MIGRATION AND DEVELOPMENT

Migration to the United States has been one of the most effective
anti-poverty programs in the history of the world. This is not without
repercussions in the countries from which immigrants come. Unlike
refugees, economic migrants frequently return to their countries of
origin and bring much needed capital--both human and financial--and,
while they are here, provide an important source of income
diversification and economic risk insurance for their families
abroad.\19\
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\19\ Douglas S. Massey, ``March of Folly: U.S. Immigration Policy
After NAFTA,'' The American Prospect, no. 37, March-April, 1998. Massey
summarizes empirical studies indicating that Mexican migration into the
U.S. (and back to Mexico) is more closely correlated with variances in
interest and inflation rates between the two countries than it is to
wage levels or public benefits. Questioning the assumption that
migrants make decisions to enter or return based on simple entry-cost/
income-benefit analyses, Massey also rebuts the corollary notion that
increasing barriers at the border will significantly prevent economic
migration.
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The level of migrant remittances is staggering. The estimated $7
billion Mexican workers send to their families each year is more than
300 times our government's level of Official Development Assistance to
that country; Salvadoran remittances are nearly 7 times all Foreign
Direct Investment there; in Haiti, remittances constitute 17% of the
GDP.\20\ The cost of rich country restrictions on the economic
migration of the poor, on the other hand, is equally staggering. In
1992, the United Nations Development Programme estimated that rich
country immigration controls against poor country labor cost the
developing world $250 billion or 10% of their combined GNPs.\21\
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\20\ Inter-American Development Bank Multilateral Investment Fund,
``Remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean: Comparative
Statistics,'' May 2001, www.iadb.or.p/mif/eng/conferences/remit-en.htm.
\21\ United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report
1992, pp. 66-67.
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Aside from the financial capital transfer, economic migrants also
return to their home countries with broader political experience with
alternative standards of governance and higher expectations. These can
provide significant constructive impetus for much needed reform,
democratization and development in poorer countries.
While we do not oppose the admission of high-skilled workers, we
emphasize freedom of movement for the poorest of migrants for a number
of reasons. The humanitarian needs of the poor are especially
compelling and, without legal alternatives, they are consequently more
likely to take death-defying risks. Finally, the American economy is
increasing in its capital and highskill intensiveness. In 1940, 77% of
our labor force was without a high school diploma; in 1990, fully half
had attended college.\22\ This results in a growing disparity between
our economy's proportionate low-skill labor factor endowment with
respect to that of the rest of the world, particularly the developing
world. In other words, the economic pressure for the equalizing
immigration of low-skill workers is caused not only by the ``push''
from the developing world but also by the ``pull'' of our own economy.
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\22\ Gordon H. Hanson, Kenneth F. Scheve, Matthew J. Slaughter and
Antonio Spilimbergo, ``Immigration and the U.S. Economy: Labor Market
Impacts, Illegal Entry, and Policy Choices,'' June 2001, p. 23 Table
3.3.
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Bases in Lutheran Immigration Studies and Policy Statements
With specific reference to Mexico and its border with the U.S., the
Lutheran Message on Immigration (ELCA, 1998),\23\ states that
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\23\ The Message is grounded in the pan-Lutheran documents ``A
Statement on Immigration Policies: Moral Issues and National Interest'
'(Lutheran Council in the USA, 1969, Minutes Exhibit F) and
``Immigration Policies: Moral Issues and National Interest'' (National
Lutheran Council Annual Meeting, February 2-5, 1960, Minutes Exhibit
B).

We recognize the right of all countries to control their
borders and their duty to protect their citizens from the
illegal entry of drugs and criminals. But we have serious
doubts about the rightness and effectiveness of current policy
to erect imposing barriers between the United States and
Mexico. We support the search for alternatives to this policy
that would more appropriately reflect the relationship of two
friendly nations whose peoples and economies are increasingly
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interdependent. [p. 9]

Far from a call for ``open borders,'' the Message nonetheless
boldly suggests a highly constrained view of the substantive scope of
the appropriate use of force in keeping people apart: e.g., the
interdiction of drugs and criminals, not the separation of friendly,
economically interdependent peoples.
Under ``Advocating for F?;ir and Generous Laws,'' the Message lists
among objectives ``giv[ing] content to our understanding of fair and
generous immigration laws:

1. To admit to our permanent population a steady proportion of
newcomers:. . .
b. by facilitating the entry of persons possessing special
skills or other capacities needed by the American economy and
culture; `` [pp. 6-7].

Finally, the Message recognizes that ``The existence of a permanent
sub-group of people who live without recourse to effective legal
protection opens the door for their massive abuse and exploitation and
harms the common good'' and goes on to ``urge leaders and citizens to
seek feasible responses to this situation that offer flexible and
humane ways for undocumented persons who have been in this country for
a specified amount of time to be able to adjust their legal status''
(p. 8).
In Who is My Neighbor: A Statement of Concern (LIRS, 1994), we
acknowledge that ``persons may feel their jobs threatened by newcomers
into their communities'' ('II.3) but also recognize that ``To place one
person or one need over another builds once more the walls which Christ
came to remove'' ('II.1). We affirm that those ``fleeing desperate
situations in which grinding poverty threatens the life and health of
their families,'' no less than those fleeing persecution, are our
``brothers and sisters.'' We must weigh ``the needs of the very poor
who leave their homes to seek a better life in this country and the
needs of this Nation to provide for the welfare of its citizens . . . .
We can help to fashion a national immigration and refugee policy that
justly and compassionately weighs the rights and the legitimate needs
of both those who reside within our borders and those who seek to
enter'' ('1I.4).
Our Study Document of Principles on the Issue of Undocumented
Aliens (LIRS, 1979), among ``Recommended Current Criteria and
Principles,'' states that

it is imperative that . . . people in underdeveloped countries
are dealt with justly and are able to pursue an adequate and
satisfying way of life. Yet until such development is achieved,
there must be a broadening of definition and understanding of
those eligible for proper admission into the USA. Stewardship
compels acceptance of as many as possible of those who have
endured economic suffering. Acceptance should not be limited to
the victims ofpolitical persecution. Whatever this richly
endowed Nation can do it must do.
5. The advances that have been made in the field of civil
rights demand that no restrictions be placed on the employment
of the undocumented Employer sanctions for hiring the
undocumented could be an invitation under `color of law' for an
employer to reject the applicant who is not an English-speaking
Caucasian. Furthermore such sanctions would place the employer
in an enforcement role which is inimical to good order.
A viable option [preferable to national identification] might be .
. . enforcement of the labor practice laws already enacted, since one
of the charges against the undocumented is that they lower present
labor standards. This neither helps the U.S. worker nor the
undocumented. [p. 4, emphasis added].
Freed in Christ: Race, Ethnicity, and Culture (ELCA 1993) states
prophetically that we ``look forward to the time when people will come
from east and west, north and south to eat in the reign of God (Luke
13:29)'' p. 2. In that light, it sets forth a bold advocacy agenda for
equality that can inform the way we look at immigration:

This church will support legislation, ordinances, and
resolutions that guarantee to all persons equally: civil
rights, including full protection of the law and redress under
the law of discriminatory practices; . . . opportunity for
employment with fair compensation, and possibilities for job
training and education, apprenticeship, promotion, and union
membership; . . . We of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America will advocate for just immigration policies, including
fairness in visa regulations . . . [p. 7, emphasis added]

CONCLUSION

I thank Chairman Leahy, Senator Kennedy and the Senate Judiciary
Committee for the opportunity to present this written testimony. I
trust that you will bear it in mind in your quest for a just and
equitable solution to the problems our present immigration system poses
for economic migrants. We share President Fox's hope that an agreement
can be reached before the end of the year, even as nearly a hundred
more may die between now and then. We share Congressman Sensenbrenner's
hope that INS can be substantially restructured but do not feel that
reform of our economic migration policy can wait until then.
Independent worker visas could be implemented largely through the
Consular Affairs office of the State Department without adding any
substantial burdens to the INS.