by Ollie Ruth Jefferson, Attorney at Law

This article was first printed in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Monday, 9/16/96, Section B, Page 10

Copyright (C) September 16, 1996, Star-Telegram. All rights reserved. Reproduced with permission of the Star-Telegram. Any unauthorized reproduction of this article is strictly prohibited. For reprint information, contact the Star-Telegram at 817-390-7574.

This political year has seen several anti-immigrant legislative initiatives succeed because the proponents of the bills were able to implicate immigrants as the root of all our problems.

One anti-terrorism measure denies the possibility of judicial due process to many long-term immigrants involved in deportation proceedings, and it precludes some immigrants from applying for relief from deportation if apprehended. The welfare reform legislation signed into law a few weeks ago deprives immigrants of benefits, whether they are legal or illegal immigrants, whether they pay taxes or not.

The anti-immigrant forces in Congress achieved this, in part, by inaccurately portraying legal and illegal immigration as the same and by characterizing all immigrants as predominantly terrorists and welfare abusers. During the past year, immigrants have been made the scapegoat of our fears in a more tragic fashion than in any of my 15 years in immigration law.

Regardless of these losses, immigrants have the power to press for reversal by becoming naturalized voting citizens of the United States. This is happening, and on a grand scale. Tomorrow, Texas Stadium will host the naturalization ceremony of 10,000 immigrants who applied for citizenship, successfully completed the interview and testing process, and are prepared to take the oath of citizenship.

Volunteers will be present to distribute voter registration applications at this and subsequent smaller ceremonies. Activists within the immigrant community have been educating their constituency on the American political system and the power of the vote.

This is the culmination of an aggressive campaign begun by the Immigration and Naturalization Service last year to encourage eligible residents to become citizens. The INS campaign anticipated conferring the oath of citizenship to more than 1 million immigrants before the end of this month.

The mass ceremony tomorrow in North Texas will certainly help the INS meet its goal, which is reported to be on track. If these new citizens, and in fact all citizens, take their responsibility to vote seriously, we will all play a role in electing the president in November. Such a vote will allow us to determine the future of recently enacted laws, as the most controversial laws are likely to be litigated to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Our next president may have the opportunity to appoint two Supreme Court justices and even more federal judges at varying levels. The philosophical balance of the Supreme Court is indeed delicate, with the senior members - Chief Justice William Rehnquist, a conservative, and John Paul Stevens, a moderate - both being more than 70 years old. Upon the retirement of even one justice, the balance will tilt with more certainty to either the left or right.

The makeup of the Supreme Court will decide the lifespan of the new laws that have affected immigrants so negatively. And just as certainly, 1 million new U.S. citizens exercising the vote have the ability to affect their own future.