Q&A

laws of attraction

As head of the nation’s immigration services, Emilio T. Gonzalez understands the forces that draw people to the U.S.

Emilio T. Gonzalez is a man many people love to hate. The hostility has nothing to do with his manner or style—he is open,
gracious and direct—and there is no personal animosity involved. The threats and lawsuits that come his way are due to his high-profile job as director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), where he oversees 15,000 federal employees and deals with all the pitfalls, problems and emotions of both legal and illegal immigration.
Appointed to the job in 2005 by President Bush, Gonzalez is an international affairs specialist who, during 26 years in the Army, earned three master’s degrees and served as director for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the National Security Council before assuming his current spot—an undersecretary position within the Department of Homeland Security.
A Cuban native, Gonzalez emigrated to Florida when his father’s tobacco business was confiscated in 1961. He was 4 years old and remembers the trip. “It was in a Spanish vessel, which I’ve actually Googled a couple of times,” he says, “I still have the tickets. I keep them in a drawer.” He also keeps his certificate of citizenship framed and prominently displayed on his desk.
His primary challenges: to keep afloat his agency, which is funded through fees, not the federal government, and to turn the organization into the most effective immigration service in the world.

HE: When did you get so involved in
immigration?
EG: When the president asked me to take this on not so much from a technical perspective but from a management one. This is a very big department in a very new agency going through growing pains. They wanted someone who could run this agency, run it well and get it where it needs to be. I do not, on a daily basis, involve myself in particular immigration cases. I involve myself in politics, policy and bureaucracy of this agency.

HE: Immigration is so important in our lives. Everybody’s got an opinion.
EG: Not only that—it’s a very contentious, combative and passionate issue and it affects all sectors of our society. I think America is schizophrenic about immigration. We love immigrants because we can all claim descent from one, and we hate immigration because we can blame it for any number of problems. We have to take a step back and say: “Immigration is still good, positive and productive, but we need to control and safeguard it.” That’s where you have to have the balance.

HE: But you have people like CNN’s Lou Dobbs who are screaming about it all the time.
EG: He’s playing to people’s fears, and when you do that you lump everybody together. By definition the people we deal with are here legally. They are working everyday in their community. Those who try to instill fear are obsessed with people swimming across rivers or crossing mountain passes. Those are illegal immigrants. There’s a big difference between the groups, and we need to combat the fear.

HE: We have approximately 11 million illegal immigrants in this country. How do we solve this?
EG: We don’t do the extremes [such as] giving everybody amnesty, and we don’t want to deport people, so we have to create a moderate centrist approach.

HE: Is that a guest worker program?
EG: Correct. We have to strengthen the border to stop the future flow, and strengthen workforce enhancement to make sure that those business models that revolve around hiring illegal workers and paying them under the table are heavily penalized. We have to account for the folks who are already here. We need a program where these folks will step forward acknowledge their culpability, be given a fine, pay a processing fee, have security checks and be given an authorization.

HE: Will people do that?
EG: I think people, given the opportunity to legalize their status and not have to look over their shoulder all the time, will do that. There is empirical data to back it up.

HE: Why have we done so little for Iraqi refugees?
EG: We’re expecting to take about 7,000 this year, which I will grant you is very small. I’ll be honest with you: There are very few countries that want to take Iraqis. America stands alone with maybe Canada and Australia. You have to balance that because you have to be compassionate, but you don’t want to create a magnet effect where all of a sudden you are stampeded by 3 million Iraqis.

HE: Now that there is bipartisan support, will there be an immigration bill this year, and what will it look like?
EG: There is no crystal ball to say precisely what a bill will look like in the end, but we are optimistic about the chances for reform.
Genuine reform will meet our key goals of stronger border security and enforcement, continued economic prosperity and honoring both the rule of law and our heritage as a country of immigrants—a heritage that not only welcomes immigrants, but encourages them to participate fully in the life and culture of our country.

HE: How do you view your role?
EG: I do a lot of missionary work. When people say stupid things about immigrants, I’m there so they can tell me to my face. When people tend to disparage or stereotype Hispanics, I’m there, so I’m constantly showing the flag. People need to understand America is what it is today because of its immigrant communities. Can we do better? Should we do it in a more secure way? Yes. Should we control the flow? Absolutely. But should we stop it altogether? Never.
The day we stop allowing people to immigrate to the U.S. is the day America stops being America.