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SUNDAY, AUGUST 1, 2010
In Arizona’s showdown, nobody wins immigration from B1 wish list
Dan Ellsberg’s WikiLeaks
The disclosure of tens of thousands of classified re- ports on the Afghan war last week by WikiLeaks has been compared, rightly or wrongly, to the release in 1971 of the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. “The parallels are very strong,” Pentagon Papers con- tributor and leaker Daniel Ellsberg told The Washington Post on Monday. “This is the largest unauthorized disclo- sure since the Pentagon Pa- pers.”
But perhaps not large enough? Outlook asked Ells- berg for his wish list of docu- ments to be leaked, declassi- fied or otherwise made public, documents that could funda- mentally alter public under- standing of key national secu- rity issues and foreign policy debates. Below, he outlines his selections and calls for con- gressional investigations:
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The official U.S. “order of battle” estimates of the Taliban in Afghan- istan, detailing its size, organiza- tion and geographic breakdown — in short, the total of our opponents in this war. If possible, a comparison of the esti- mate in December 2009 (when Presi- dent Obama decided on a troop in- crease and new strategy) and the esti- mate in June or July 2010 (after six or seven months of the new strategy). We would probably see that our increased presence and activities have strength- ened the Taliban, as has happened over the past three years.
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Memos from the administra- tion’s decision-making process between July and December 2009 on the new strategy for Afghani- stan, presenting internal critiques of the McChrystal-Petraeus strategy and troop requests — similar to the November 2009 cables from Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry that were leaked in January. In particular, memos by Vice President Biden, national security adviser Jim Jones and others; responses to the cri- tiques; and responses to the responses. This paperwork would probably show that, like Eikenberry, other high-level in- ternal critics of escalation made a stron- ger and more realistic case than its ad- vocates, warranting congressional reex- amination of the president’s policy.
Iran from November 2007. This has been held up for the past several months, apparently because it is consis- tent with the judgment of that NIE that Iran has not made a decision to produce nuclear weapons. In particular, the con- tribution to that memo by the State De- partment’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), since the INR has had the best track record on such matters. Plus, estimates by the INR and others of the likelihood of an Israeli attack on Iran later this summer. Such disclosures could arrest momentum toward a fore- seeably disastrous U.S.-supported at- tack, as the same finding did in 2007.
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The 28 or more pages on the foreknowledge or involvement of foreign governments (particular-
ly Saudi Arabia) that were redacted from the congressional investigation of 9/11, over the protest of then-Sen. Bob Gra- ham (D-Fla.).
On each of these matters, congres- sional investigation is called for. The chance of this would be greatly strength- ened by leaks from insiders. Subsequent hearings could elicit testimony from the insiders who provided the information (whose identities could be made known to congressional investigators) and oth- ers who, while not willing to take on the personal risks of leaking, would be ready to testify honestly under oath if request- ed or subpoenaed by Congress. Leaks are essential to this process.
outlook@washpost.com
The draft revision, known as a “memo to holders,” of the Na- tional Intelligence Estimate on
That’s a false hope regardless of where you stand on the issue, but it’s a false hope that has struck a chord with many Amer- icans. Nearly two dozen state governments
have contemplated copycat measures, and support for Arizona has become an article of faith for Republicans on the campaign trail. Democrats are scram- bling. That makes sense given the public opinion polls showing broad agreement with the Arizona law and its get-tough ap- proach. A Pew survey in June, for exam- ple, found that a solid majority of the pub- lic (64 percent) approves of the law, with its requirement that police verify the im- migration status of anyone they stop if they suspect that the person is in the country illegally. Several other recent na- tional polls show majorities supporting SB 1070. But the policy challenges in im- migration are never single faceted, and the public knows that.
erhaps more than other issues, im- migration requires balancing multi- ple interests and objectives: satis- fying both employers and workers, being both fair and strict, for example. As a re- sult, public opinion can seem ambivalent. The same Pew survey that found backing for Arizona also showed that more than two-thirds of Americans (68 percent) sup- port a path to citizenship for illegal mi- grants who pass background checks, pay fines and have jobs. That’s not much dif- ferent than other Pew surveys going back before the recession. Indeed, a majority has been saying for several years that it wants to see illegal immigration brought under control, but not with harsh meas- ures. The recession has increased anxiety about getting this done, and Arizona of- fered a vehicle for expressing impatience with Washington’s bipartisan dithering. The frustration has been building qui-
P CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES
Arizona’s new law has brought immigration reform — an issue President Obama promised to take up, but has so far essentially avoided — directly to his door. These young protesters demonstrated in front of the White House last week.
etly since the last big push to overhaul the immigration system ended in June 2007 with the Senate locked in a stalemate. Af- ter more than a year of political drama, including massive immigrant marches in the spring of 2006, legislation had emerged with backing from President George W. Bush, some Republican mod- erates and most Democrats. It would have increased enforcement, offered legaliza- tion to the current population of illegal migrants and created measures to reg- ulate future flows, including a temporary- worker program. But conservative Re- publicans attacked the legalization pro- gram as an “amnesty” for law-breaking migrants, while liberal Democrats split over the terms of the temporary-worker program. Comprehensive immigration reform, as proponents dubbed it, failed to get the 60 votes necessary to move through the Senate. Since then, nothing has shifted that political accounting, not even the 2008 election,which changed so much else in Washington. As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama promised to undertake compre- hensive reform during his first year but never really got into the details. After he took office, he repeatedly postponed con- sideration of the issue, never fully defin- ing his position while blaming Repub- licans for blocking progress. Meanwhile, congressional Democrats, with no one to replace their longtime leader on immi- gration, the late senator Edward M. Ken- nedy (Mass.), never quite managed to re- solve the differences that divided them in
2007 or come up with a new proposal. The result was a vacuum, and Arizona filled it. Immigration had practically fallen out of the public discourse and the news me- dia until Republican Gov. Jan Brewer signed the measure on April 23. Then the topic roared back, and the Obama admin- istration’s decision to oppose the law guaranteed it the spotlight for a long time.
T
hrough its lawsuit, the Obama ad- ministration has in effect said, “Im- migration is a federal issue; let us,
not the states, handle it.” If the Supreme Court agrees, Obama will be morally and politically obliged to move aggressively on amatter he has avoided. His reluctance so far is understandable: He has had other priorities; there is no consensus within his party on key aspects of the issue; and he has never taken a stand on the details that bedevil any effort at consensus. Moreover, immigration is his worst is- sue as far as the public is concerned. It has consistently brought him the lowest approval ratings among nine issues Pew regularly asks the public to rate his per- formance on — with scores (25 percent to 33 percent) comparable to those for Bush’s handling of Hurricane Katrina. But Obama may find himself campaign- ing for reelection based on how he han- dles immigration. If the courts end up backing Arizona and
the states are authorized to get tough on immigration, many Americans, especially those most anxious about the problem, will be disappointed with the results. Arizona doesn’t claim to have the power to enact a full range of immigration policies, deciding who gets in, under what terms and for how long. There is no chance that the courts would allow such a sweeping grab of feder- al powers. The law’s supporters insist that the state merely wants the right to apply ex- isting federal laws, using its own police and
its own tactics — what they call “concurrent enforcement.” But this doesn’t make sense. If the federal laws are fundamentally flawed, then no amount of enforcement, no matter who does it, will solve the problem. And everyone, starting with the folks most adamant about enforcement, agrees that the laws are flawed. To begin with, there is no effective means to hold employ- ers accountable for hiring illegal workers. They can shrug when it turns out that their employees had false papers. They can’t be held at fault because the country has re- peatedly rejected a national ID card and other measures that would allow an em- ployer — or anyone else — to know with certainty that people are who they say they are. Repeated enforcement actions by Washington over the past 20 years have not cut the size of the undocumented popula- tion. Illegal flows have followed the ups and downs of the unemployment rate, not the pace of factory raids.
Regardless of how the court battle is re- solved, the Arizona law’s likely legacy is a focus on enforcement in the next round of policymaking, plus long arguments over the role of state and local cops. Effective enforcement that deters illegal immigra- tion is essential, but it may be easier to achieve as an outcome rather than a start- ing point. This is not a semantic differ- ence. Enforcement has been the starting point for almost every immigration de- bate over the past 30 years, and look where that’s gotten us.
that’s how the Rev. Theodore M. Hes- burgh, then president of Notre Dame, summarized the recommendations of the congressionally appointed commission on immigration reform that he chaired in 1981. The same basic construct has guid- ed the immigration debate in the United States ever since. Our framework for
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lose the “back door” to illegal immi- gration so that we can keep the “front door” open to legal flows —
thinking about immigration starts with the idea that the country can be sealed and that government can stand at the en- tries deciding who gets in. In the age of a globalized economy,we don’t think about capital that way, nor goods or commod- ities or information. Instead, we know there is a constant interchange taking place across networks connecting many elements of many societies. Government needs to police extreme behavior in those networks, but it cannot control every- thing that enters and leaves the country. It needs policies to shape the channels, not constant scrutiny of the transactions. If you think about immigration in those terms — as one more type of in- terchange — then you can envision long- term goals that enhance our global com- petitiveness. We need to manage immi- gration as part of our relations with send- ing countries such as Mexico, and we need to be deliberate about its impact on our national identity. Then it isn’t just a matter of deciding who gets into the country. It requires a broader view, start- ing with the causes of migration and stretching to policies that help migrants and their children integrate into our soci- ety. Do this with an efficient bureaucracy, and such policies could reduce the incen- tives behind illegal flows, easing the en- forcement challenge. That’s the opposite of Hesburgh’s prescription: Keep the front door open as part of a broad engage- ment with the world, and not many peo- ple will need to come in through the back door. That’s also the opposite of what Ari- zona proposes. The relentless focus on catching people who aren’t supposed to be here is bad enough; a long marshals- vs.-sheriffs shootout is a dangerous dis- traction. No matter what kind of new im- migration system you want to build, law- suits over who handles traffic stops won’t get you very far.
surorob@gmail.com
Left in the dark by Pepco, once again pepco from B1
tration welled in my eyes. Like 300,000 other customers in the
Washington area, we lost power during Sunday’s 45-minute storm. Like so many others, we spent the next few days troll- ing the city with power cords, searching for juice, trying to stay connected, won- dering when our lives would return to normal. And like so many others, we got the runaround from Pepco, our power company. From virtually the moment lightning struck Sunday, Pepco was breaking its promises to customers and giving us misleading information. “Two hours and you’ll have it,” they’d tell us, and, “You’ll have it in the morning.” That Sunday night, we naively wait
for Pepco to make good on its promise to turn the electricity back on by 7 p.m. When that doesn’t happen, we are told we will have power by 9 p.m. We play Uno by candlelight. At 9:30, my son’s friend Max, who had planned to sleep over, ditches us. “I can’t sleep without air conditioning,” he explains. We make a third call to Pepco’s re- corded line and are told that it will be morning before we have electricity. We climb into bed clinging to the promise of a brighter day. Instead, I end up camped out at Star- bucks, connecting to WiFi and angling for a seat near the electrical outlets. We eat at a Chinese restaurant, asking the hostess if we can borrow her power out- let. We wander the aisles of Crate and Barrel as my computer, BlackBerry, iPad and even — I cannot lie — my kids’ handheld game systems charge. (A word of warning: Do not bring three children to Crate and Barrel to kill time, outlets or no. Unless you like cleaning up bro-
ken glass.) I find irony in the fact that I’m sched- uled to moderate an environmental sus- tainability summit at Boeing’s head- quarters in Rosslyn. I arrive with wet hair (no hair dryer), power cords spill- ing out of my purse and the “low bat- tery” sign flashing on my BlackBerry. With my gizmos plugged in and sucking juice behind me, I spend an hour asking panelists how we can make renewable energy projects work. “Hello, this is Pepco,” a kindly woman
says when I call Wednesday to report that our power has gone back out. Wait, a real person? This is a first! “Hello,” I say, a bit too eagerly. “I’m calling to report a loss of power. Well, we lost it Sunday and it’s been off for three days. But we had it for several hours to- day, and now it’s gone.” She looks up my address in Northwest Washington, then tells me that a tree fell on 49th Street, smashing a utility pole and bringing down wires. No news there. It’s a fact my neigh- bors and I have confirmed many times over on repeated pilgrimages to the of- fending oak. We’ve developed an un- written code that we will share tidbits of information with another. As in: The Pepco guy told me it will be on in an hour. And: Really, I talked to them. To- morrow morning at the latest! In a sympathetic voice, my Pepco rep-
resentative says six simple words that forever change my view of the behemoth monopoly we call our electric utility. “They told us that would happen,” she
says. “They told you our electricity would
go out a second time?” I ask. I try to process this. If they knew that
my power would go back off, why didn’t they tell me before I threw out every-
thing in the refrigerator and freezer, cleaned the shelves, drove to the grocery store, and bought stocks of meat and fish and milk? Who in their right mind would withhold this information? I know that the inconveniences I have
suffered pale in comparison with the circumstances of those with serious health conditions, for whom a lack of electricity can be a matter of life and death. I also know that that this stuff happens. Storms strike and trees fall over and power lines fail. And it’s worth noting that many people worked tire- lessly to restore our power, including utility workers (heroes, to my mind) who traveled from as far away as Michi- gan.
But as frustrated as I was by my lack
of electricity, the lack of information was worse. What Pepco has here is a fail- ure to communicate.
Over Crises: State Panel Cites Delays and Lack of Cooperation.” “Utilities Dis- cover Message Matters: Pepco Gets Les- son in Public Relations.” “Pepco to Check Outage Tracking: Full Restora- tion Declared Too Soon.” “Customers Criticize Response to Repeated Calls.” And now here we are in 2010. We are
still paying for our electricity, and we still expect a well-functioning utility in return (even if it is a monopoly with no real competition). But here’s the other thing: The rest of the world has changed, even if Pepco hasn’t. We’ve come to expect accurate Web site updates, e-mail pushes to con- sumers and social media outreach. If Google Earth can show me my front door when I zoom in on my street, why can’t Pepco have a map on its site that gives outage information by street? We know it can be done.
As frustrated as I was by my lack of electricity, the lack of information was worse.
Even worse, it’s nothing new. Reading through old news accounts of Pepco’s handling of previous storms reminds me of the movie “Groundhog Day,” in which Bill Murray’s weatherman keeps having the worst day of his life, over and over and over again. As Pepco’s then- President William Sim said in 2003, re- garding the poor performance of local utility companies in the wake of Hurri- cane Isabel, “There has got to be a better way.” The headlines stretch back more than a decade. “Report Blasts Md. Utilities
As of Friday, our own electricity had been back on for a couple of days, and fewer than 3,000 Pepco customers were still without power. With some serious maneuvering, I made my deadlines. For their part, my kids have a newfound ap- preciation for electricity — but they still ask to eat out every night. I tell them they will have to wait until
next time. And there will, I am afraid, be a next time. If experience is any guide, sooner or later Pepco will have us in the dark again. In every sense of the word.
lauren@ashburnmediaco.com
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