Rivals agree on reform

Huntington Beach Mayor Debbie Cook, who is running in the fall for the congressional seat held by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, says the question of illegal immigration is really a question of sustainability.

Right now, more immigrants are coming into the United States than the country can handle, according to Cook. To stop the flow of illegal immigrants, she said, government needs to hold businesses accountable.

“We always talk about the illegal immigrants but we never talk about the illegal employers and the illegal consumers,” Cook said.

On those points, she and the congressman basically agree, but beyond that they have drastic differences in philosophy on the subject of immigration.

Cook said that a uniform, easy-to-use system for verifying the status of employees should be used by companies during the hiring process and those companies should be punished if they hire workers who aren’t here legally.

This type of a method is much more effective and comes with less unwanted side effects than other proposals that have been put forward for constructing barriers along the border with Mexico and implementing more aggressive police tactics, according to Cook.

In her opinion, those types of proposals are often cost prohibitive and can end up counterproductive.

“If I want to put people to work I would rather have them rebuilding American infrastructure. A wall doesn’t stop people who come in on visas and overstay them,” Cook said.

Rohrabacher agrees that employers should be held accountable, but thinks a barrier and increased enforcement measures are also important parts of a solution.

“We basically have most of the laws on the books that we need and if they were enforced we could have had the situation solved a long time ago,” Rohrabacher said.

UCI professor and immigration specialist Louis DeSipio says that the complex nature of immigration into the United States makes proposals like police enforcement and border barriers ineffective.

“We have been increasing enforcement since the 1990s and in that time we’ve had a huge surge in illegal immigration so it would suggest that that strategy is not working,” DeSipio said.

About half of all illegal immigrants into the country come in legally on visas and then stay past their welcome, and a wall would not catch any of those immigrants according to DeSipio. Also, the border between the United States and Mexico is 1,900 miles long and there will always be places that people can cross undetected, he said.

“I think enforcement is possible, but the enforcement that has to be done has to be done at the level of the workplace,” DeSipio said.

Despite widespread acknowledgment of this point, including from Cook and Rohrabacher, DeSipio said it has been politically untenable because of pressures from business interests who would lose an important source of cheap labor if they couldn’t hire immigrants.

Politicians hear fewer complaints from business when they talk about a barrier, he said.

The bottom line, though, is that the United States policy governing immigration needs to change so that the supply of immigrants to the country meets the demand, DeSipio said.

“If we change the flow of authorized migrants, it lessens the demand for illegal immigration,” DeSipio said.

Rohrabacher does not think that a wholesale restructuring of immigration policy is necessary, but does think a few laws should be changed.

For instance, babies born in the United States should not automatically be granted citizenship, and cities that have “sanctuary policies” for illegal immigrants, like San Francisco, should be denied federal money, according to the congressman.

He lauded Costa Mesa for hosting an immigration enforcement officer in its jail who checks the status of everyone who is arrested.

“Costa Mesa should be commended and supported because they have decided to fully cooperate with federal authorities to enforce our immigration law,” Rohrabacher said.

“Costa Mesa has done it right. If you arrest some guy for drunk driving and it appears he’s not a citizen they should check if he’s a citizen.”

ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at alan.blank@latimes.com.