“People are so uneasy about their jobs, their economic situation,” said Neil Grungras, an immigration attorney who primarily serves Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union. “The anti-immigrant movement is an attempt to say, `A-ha. This is their fault. If it weren’t for them, I would have my job.'”
Added Grungras, a board member of the Bay Area Council for Jewish Rescue and Renewal in San Francisco: “I think any Jew who’s familiar with our history has to understand the direct connection between economic problems and trying to find a group of people to blame.”
Aimed mainly at stemming illegal immigration, the Immigration Reform Act — passed by an 84-15 Senate vote as part of the omnibus spending bill needed to keep the government running — will increase the number of border patrol agents, improve border infrastructure and add hundreds of new investigators to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
But the bill targets legal immigrants as well, including hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
For example, the bill requires that U.S. citizens wanting to legally bring a foreign spouse or child into the country earn at least 25 percent more than $13,000 per year, which is considered the poverty level.
The bill’s advocates say such provisions send a message that America will not tolerate those seeking merely to ride on this country’s economic coattails.
Critics, however, say the bill tries to cut legal immigration “through the back door” and establishes a dramatically different set of guidelines for legal immigrants than for American citizens.
“The feeling…is massive economic discrimination against immigrants and a stripping of rights that starts to look in part like the Nuremberg Laws,” Grungras said. “It creates a set of outsiders who aren’t entitled to the same benefits. It creates a `them and us’ mentality.”
Tracy Salkowitz, executive director of the regional American Jewish Congress, sees the bill in much the same light. She cites a provision by which legal immigrants who are denied jobs because of their status will have difficulty filing suits alleging discrimination.
The bill requires these immigrants to show that employers “intended” to discriminate, though lawyers say such intention is nearly impossible to prove.
“What it does is create a two-tiered society where all people of color are suspect,” Salkowitz said.
Attorney Robert Rubin said one provision with particular resonance for Jews would subject fleeing refugees to spontaneous interviews upon arrival at U.S. airports, without access to counsel or the benefit of judicial review.
“Jews obviously know that when people are fleeing persecution, they don’t have time to gather valid documents,” said the assistant director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights in San Francisco and vice president of the American Jewish Congress.
“Indeed, it is often the most [needy] refugee who has no documents or must initiate fraudulent documents.”
What’s more, Rubin said, subjecting refugees to interviews with questioners who may or may not be qualified to undertake the task makes little sense.
“Most refugees are so traumatized by [their experiences] that it’s ludicrous to think they will reveal the most painful details of their torture to a stranger in a uniform immediately upon arrival in this country,” Rubin said.
But even the most ardent critics of the bill say they are at the very least heartened by its new, milder stance.
Originally, the Immigration Reform Act included a provision that would have barred both legal and illegal immigrants with HIV and AIDS from federally financed treatment programs. That provision was dropped.
And while some provisions still exist in the welfare bill that would deny federal benefits to legal immigrants, Republican leaders also agreed to drop from the immigration bill a provision that would have deported legal immigrants who relied on certain public benefits for more than 12 months in their first seven years in the country.
“We’re pleased that the bill was softened,” said Felice Sheramy, associate director of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Relations Council. Together with the Council of Jewish Federations, the JCRC has lobbied to block the denial of benefits to legal immigrants.
“I wouldn’t say this would have been our first choice, but it certainly is mollified from the original proposal,” she said. “We knew that in this whole effort, compromise is necessary.”
The spending bill included $3 billion in foreign aid for early dispersal to Israel, $80 million for refugee resettlement and $50 million in anti-terrorism aid to Israel.
The bill also mandates that all relevant U.S. government publications refer to Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.