The Latest on Immigration Reform

From Immigration Daily (www.ilw.com):

Newspapers across the country continue to report on the ongoing problems with the bi-partisan Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) negotiations underway in the Senate. The Houston Chronicle (here) today reports “Deal being negotiated would put tighter borders first”. The New York Times (here) today reports “Senators Reach Outline on Immigration Bill”. Here is where the agreements and disagreement stand as of this writing.

There is wide agreement on the enforcement provisions – both border enforcement, as well as a significantly stepped-up mandatory worker-verification program for employers. There is also agreement on citizenship training and integration measures for new immigrants. The action has moved to the two benefits provisions – on legalization, and a huge new temporary worker program to ensure that future immigration is lawful, and not undocumented. There is bi- partisan agreement on legalization, albeit one with triggers and touchbacks. “Triggers” signify that legalization will not go into effect until the two aforementioned enforcement provisions are in place – secure borders and a worker-verification program. “Touchbacks” would require the undocumented to “touch back” to another country before being re-admitted legally (there would be some waivers for this). So, on four of the five key points in CIR – borders, worker-verification, citizenship training, and legalization – there is wide-spread, bi-partisan agreement in the Senate. The disagreements center on some aspects of the large new temporary worker program that is required to ensure that we do not continue to have large scale undocumented immigration in the future. The issue is not the temporary immigrant workers themselves, but their families, whether they can bring the families with them, and whether they would eventually become Americans or go back. On one side are some conservative Republicans led by Sen. Kyl who believe that immigrant workers should come, work and go back. On the other side are some liberal Democrats led by Sen. Kennedy who believe that immigrant workers should come, work and stay. The issue is are these workers our guests, in which case they should eventually leave, or are they Americans in waiting, who will eventually become permanent residents? It is certainly true that many workers from overseas may choose to voluntarily separate themselves temporarily from their spouses and minor children for the sake of earning a living. However, we believe that the weight of history is on the side of Sen. Kennedy in that many such workers will eventually become Americans, and we should so see them. The thorniest issue is that the massive increase in legal immigration – both temporary and permanent immigration will be more than doubled by CIR – requires a fundamental tenet of our post-1965 immigration regime to be re-engineered. Our legal immigration system over the past four decades is largely a family immigration system, with employment immigration a mere afterthought. This myopia in our law is a critical reason why we have a large undocumented population who have had no legal way of coming here or staying here lawfully. CIR seeks to redefine our immigration law to have greater balance between family and employment immigration – say 50-50. This means that even with the great increases to come in employment immigration through CIR, cuts in family immigration must be made, and entire categories will likely be eliminated. Our view on this is simple – a proper immigration system for America must hold the biological family – spouses and minor children – sacrosanct. Either admit the whole biological family in, or don’t admit anyone from the family at all. Thus, we are opposed to the very concept of the FB2A category and the V visas, which cruelly separate the basic unit of the human species. These inhuman categories must be abolished and the biological family members must be admitted at the same time as the principal entrant. On the other hand, we are not sympathetic to the idea of extended families being accomodated at the same level as biological families and support the abolition or dimunition of as many other categories (especially FB4) or re-definitions (especially excluding parents from the Immediate Relative class) as are necessary to achieve balance and realism in our immigration laws. Family immigration, long the corner-stone of our immigration policy, and responsible in no small part for our undocumented problem today, must share equally in the future with employment immigration. Continuing with an unbalanced immigration policy heavily weighted toward family immigration ensures a repeat of the failure of our laws in the future. Action on the Hill continues at a pace designed to ensure an Act, repeat an Act, this summer. Many, many twists and turns lie ahead. There will surely be disagreements aplenty. The active support of the immigration bar and the immigrant community in sustained activism and lobbying both Congress and their fellow Americans will be absolutely necessary in the coming weeks and months to get CIR enacted in less than 90 days from today.

KJ