The Democratic Party Presidential Platform of 1996 – On Immigration
What follows is from Today’s Democratic Party: Meeting America’s Challenges, Protecting America’s Values, a.k.a., the 1996 Democratic Party Platform. This is the section on immigration. I took the liberty of bolding pieces I found interesting.
Democrats remember that we are a nation of immigrants. We recognize the extraordinary contribution of immigrants to America throughout our history. We welcome legal immigrants to America. We support a legal immigration policy that is pro-family, pro-work, pro-responsibility, and pro-citizenship, and we deplore those who blame immigrants for economic and social problems.
We know that citizenship is the cornerstone of full participation in American life. We are proud that the President launched Citizenship USA to help eligible immigrants become United States citizens. The Immigration and Naturalization Service is streamlining procedures, cutting red tape, and using new technology to make it easier for legal immigrants to accept the responsibilities of citizenship and truly call America their home.
Today’s Democratic Party also believes we must remain a nation of laws. We cannot tolerate illegal immigration and we must stop it. For years before Bill Clinton became President, Washington talked tough but failed to act. In 1992, our borders might as well not have existed. The border was under-patrolled, and what patrols there were, were under-equipped. Drugs flowed freely. Illegal immigration was rampant. Criminal immigrants, deported after committing crimes in America, returned the very next day to commit crimes again.
President Clinton is making our border a place where the law is respected and drugs and illegal immigrants are turned away. We have increased the Border Patrol by over 40 percent; in El Paso, our Border Patrol agents are so close together they can see each other. Last year alone, the Clinton Administration removed thousands of illegal workers from jobs across the country. Just since January of 1995, we have arrested more than 1,700 criminal aliens and prosecuted them on federal felony charges because they returned to America after having been deported.
However, as we work to stop illegal immigration, we call on all Americans to avoid the temptation to use this issue to divide people from each other. We deplore those who use the need to stop illegal immigration as a pretext for discrimination. And we applaud the wisdom of Republicans like Mayor Giuliani and Senator Domenici who oppose the mean-spirited and short-sighted effort of Republicans in Congress to bar the children of illegal immigrants from schools — it is wrong, and forcing children onto the streets is an invitation for them to join gangs and turn to crime. Democrats want to protect American jobs by increasing criminal and civil sanctions against employers who hire illegal workers, but Republicans continue to favor inflammatory rhetoric over real action. We will continue to enforce labor standards to protect workers in vulnerable industries. We continue to firmly oppose welfare benefits for illegal immigrants. We believe family members who sponsor immigrants into this country should take financial responsibility for them, and be held legally responsible for supporting them.
Here’s what the 1996 Democratic Party Platform says to me:
1. We are a nation of immigrants, but we expect immigrants to be pro-work and pro-responsibility.
2. It is the responsibility of immigrants, and their sponsors, to make sure that immigrants do not impose financial costs on the taxpayer.
3. Immigration should be done legally.
4. Criminals are unwelcome.
5. Illegal immigration can cost other people their jobs, and these jobs should be protected.
6. Those who play by the rules, who are pro-work and pro-responsibility, are welcome and should face no discrimination.
7. The children of illegal immigrants should not be barred from attending school (or presumably, as it is unstated, from other benefits).
You don’t have to agree with all of these, but on the whole, as stated, it seems pretty sensible.
Mike, you forgot this part of the DEMs 1996 statement:
and we deplore those who blame immigrants for economic and social problems.
in your comment below. That is “still” very real today as it was in 1996.
Run,
See my point 6 in the first comment. There is a difference between saying some immigrants are criminals and saying immigrants are criminals. To the best of my recollection, I have never said immigration or immigrants are a problem or immigration should be reduced. I have said repeatedly that data shows that we can cluster immigrants into groups with some groups performing better than others and we should endeavor to have more of the former and less of the latter.
This is no different than a car insurance grouping customers by observable characteristics. I am no doctor but I imagine it is less race or ethnicity based than an OB-Gyn deciding that one fetus should be tested for Tay Sachs and another should be tested for sickle cell anemia.
Mike:
Where is this comment I posted on point 6? “and we deplore those who blame immigrants for economic and social problems.” You left this important consideration off of point six in your comments. Furthermore, you did not bold it in the text of your post. You did not believe this to be important? You have been making an economic issue to date on the cost of immigrants coming to the US whether criminal or less than capable of sustaining themselves economically. You appear to be at a stalemate in completing your analysis.
The DEM’s platform included that statement and it was left out.
Mike
I thought you said you had better things to do.
The trouble with saying you agree with the Dem platform is that no one can tell what you mean by that.
And genetic testing for a race based medical problem is very different from genetic testing for a race based propensity to slow the growth of GDP.
“And we applaud the wisdom of Republicans like Mayor Giuliani”
Jesus.
And there’s that word, “deplore.” Anyone who has mixed feelings about immigration automatically believes the party is dumping them into the basket of “deplorables.” Not smart. Democrats have not a clue about how to market their brand.
There seems to be a persistent theme showing up in these immigration threads having to do with the economic consequences of immigration. More specifically there is often an assumption that immigrants are “stealing” jobs from native borne citizens. Let’s focus there and see if there is a valid basis for that point of view. First we have to come to a conclusion regarding the citizen status of those whose jobs are being stolen. Are they native borne, or are they other immigrants who have been here longer than the new comers, the so called job thieves?
Even more important is the issue of who is doing the thieving. Are jobs being stolen by immigrants? Or, more likely, are employers simply exploiting new immigrants by paying them lower wages while replacing higher paid long term employees? Isn’t that the case with the misuse of the H-1B visa program? Is the entire issue of job theft only a canard used by employers to cover up for t heir own exploitative activities? Would all of the so called illegal, ie undocumented, aliens have settled in here if their employers were disappointed with their presence? If there were a genuine minimum wage in the $20/hr range would employers have any reason to hire undocumented workers in order to reduce their labor costs? Of course that means we would have to have meaningful tariffs on goods coming in from high exploitation origination points. That’s another kettle of fish worth looking into.