FORWARD NOVEMBER 29, 2002 Community Questioning 'Open Door' Debate Raging On Immigration By NACHA CATTAN FORWARD STAFF One year after the September 11 terrorist attacks, a fierce debate has broken out within some central bodies in the Jewish organizational world over the community's traditional support for open immigration. In a sharp break with the past, advocates of reduced immigration have been invited in recent months to speak before the General Assembly of United Jewish Communities as well as to board members of the American Jewish Committee and at an American Jewish Congress event. All three institutions have historically been staunch advocates of open immigration. The shift in mood coincides with a shift in the general immigration debate, from one that centered on America's capacity to absorb needy immigrants to one focused on fears that open borders pose a security threat to Americans. The shift also coincides with a radical decline in Jewish immigration following the fall of the Soviet Union a decade ago. Jewish immigration agencies such as the New York Association for New Americans have seen their refugee budgets halved in the past three years alone, while the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society has openly debated what role Jewish immigration agencies should play in an era without large numbers of Jewish immigrants. In a recent parry in that debate, HIAS opened a satellite office in Nairobi this fall. It is the agency's first-ever overseas center for processing non-Jewish immigrants. Pro-immigration advocates say the debate does not represent shifting Jewish public opinion but merely reflects lobbying efforts by a few highly vocal opponents. "I have not yet seen it rise to the level of a concerted anti-immigration drive within the community as opposed to a small group outside the community that's trying to convince the community," said Gary Rubin, managing director of the Commission on the Jewish People of UJA-Federation of New York. But the Forward has found that support for reduced immigration is far more widespread in the Jewish institutional establishment than pro-immigration advocates allow. "It's my impression that more people in the Jewish community are revisiting the traditional position on immigration quotas and limitations in light of the problems that we have become aware of since 9/11," the AJCommittee's Midwest regional director, Jonathan Levine, told the Forward in an interview. Voicing what he said were his personal views and not his organization's, Levine continued: "We simply can't allow in the numbers of immigrants we are letting in. Not because it's good or bad to let them in, but because we don't have the ability to effectively regulate the immigration process." Levine's own organization is "reviewing" its immigration policy for the first time since the 1970s, according to AJCommittee's director of domestic policy, Jeffrey Sinensky. "We're looking at national security issues that emerged post-9/11," Sinensky said. "It's important that in addition to due process concerns we want to make sure law enforcement has the tools it needs to track people in the United States. Looking at [our immigration policy] does not necessarily mean changing it." Although no Jewish agency has formally switched sides, the professional head of one major national organization, who requested anonymity, told the Forward: "It seems that Jewish opinions are changing and trending toward more concern about security issues than in the past." The AJCommittee's 2001 Annual Survey of American Jewish Opinion showed a stark drop in support for maintaining current immigration numbers. In 2001, 49% of those polled wanted immigration numbers decreased, compared to 27% the year before. Among the advocates of immigration restrictions who have been seeking inroads in the Jewish community are Stephen Steinlight, editor of South Asia in Review and a onetime AJCommittee director of national affairs; Dan Stein, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform in Washington, and Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. Krikorian was one of four speakers at a forum on immigration at the General Assembly last week in Philadelphia, the largest annual gathering of Jewish communal leaders. Barbara Rosenthal, a UJC lay leader who moderated the panel, said that inviting Krikorian was "just good programming" and not a sign of "any reversal of Jewish policy." The forum, titled: "Immigration Policy and Terrorism: Is the Community at a Crossroads?" included three pro-immigration speakers, one of whom was the president and CEO of HIAS, Leonard Glickman. Krikorian and Steinlight were invited in June to an AJCongress panel discussion in Philadelphia. It was hosted by the executive director of AJCongress's Pennsylvania Region, Joseph Puder, and its treasurer, Robert Guzzardi. The third panelist, Theodore Mann, a former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, represented the traditional Jewish view favoring open borders. But he stepped out of his liberal shoes at one point during the discussion and called for the State Department to apply stricter standards to people emigrating from countries that "encourage" or "permit" the teaching of hatred for the West in the press and in schools. Krikorian went further: "I would submit that whatever reforms or changes or tightening up we enact in our immigration policy need to be across the board and not targeted at Muslims, because ultimately that's not going to work." Puder, a former head of the far-right Americans for a Safe Israel, said the panelists' opinions did not represent those of the AJCongress. He declined to offer his own views. But Guzzardi was more than happy to. "Immigration needs to be re-looked at and there need to be further restrictions, particularly on Muslim immigration," he said. "If you asked me what our sense of our membership was, our membership was more open to some of Mark Krikorian's ideas." HIAS officials have maintained in recent years that the dwindling number of Jewish immigrants should not erode the Jewish commitment to immigration. While 80,000 of 120,000 refugees entering the United States in 1991 were Jewish, a decade later only 20,000 of 70,000 total refugees were Jews, according to Nyana officials. HIAS officials maintain that Jews should continue to support immigration of other groups. "The more diverse American society is the safer [Jews] are," Glickman told the Forward. The HIAS Nairobi office is being funded by a $750,000 gift from an anonymous donor who specified that it be used to help African refugees, according to HIAS officials. (https://www.forward.com/issues/2002/02.11.29/news3.html)