Immigration bill clears Senate Judiciary Committee

AP is reporting that an Immigration bill has cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee.  The story is here.  The bill contains a guest worker provision, which allows unauthorized migrants to apply for permission to work for 5 years and then to apply for the legal permanent resident status that will move them toward citizenship.

The bill voted out by the Committee does not contain the  provisions that would make it a felony to be present without authorization nor does it contain provisions criminalizing the humanitarian assistance of unauthorized migrants.  Hundreds of thousands of people around the country have rallied over the past few weeks in opposition to these and other harsh provisions.

The bill does include a huge increase in the Border Patrol.

Unsuprisingly, the mainstream media coverage  is not yet mentioning what happened to the  judicial review provisions proposed in the Chairman’s Mark.  Many of these review provisions (Chairman’s mark Section 701 proposing consolidation of immigration appeals in the Federal Circuit, Section 708 barring judicial review on motions to reopen or reconsider immirgation cases, Section 707 barring judicial review unless the Federal Circuit the issued of a certificate of reviewability  30 days after a petitioner filed her brief) were quite troubling, but at this point I’m not clear on what happened to them.  Stay tuned.

The bill was voted out of committee on a 12-6 vote.  The twelve votes came from a mix of Republicans and Democrats.  The vote by no means ensures that immigration legislation will be enacted within the next few weeks.  The AP story printed on the NYTimes website concludes: “Whatever the outcome of the committee’s debate the prospects for legislation clearing Congress before the elections did not appear strong. The House has cleared legislation that consists of provisions to toughen enforcement against violators of immigration laws. It contains no guest worker program.”

-jmc