MALDEF Urges Passage of Pro-Family Amendments
Today, the Senate considers MALDEF’s top priority amendments aimed at protecting family reunification from both immediate and permanent damage. Senators Menendez, Clinton, Obama, and Dodd have pro-family amendments we are strongly supporting.
In the first key vote today, the Senate rejected, 51-46, the Cornyn Amendment that would have made anyone who is inadmissible under current immigration law ineligible for the legalization program. We and our allies opposed the amendment, and we are heartened to have gained the votes of some senators, including Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana and Sen. Clarie McCaskill of Missouri, who had opposed our positions on earlier amendments.
Summary of key amendments:
Menendez/Hagel Amendment (#1194)
Currently, the immigration deal terminates the applications for family reunification of visa applicants who filed their petitions after May 1, 2005. This is inconsistent with other parts of the bill and fundamentally unfair to legal immigrants and U.S. citizens who want to be reunited with family members.
The Menendez/Hagel amendment protects all U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents who apply to bring a family member to the U.S. who had an application pending as of January 1, 2007, the same date as used to qualify for the legalization program.
Without the amendment, these family members will be relegated to a new, untested merit-based point system, as currently outlined in the negotiated Senate bill, for which immigrants from Latin America are least likely to qualify.
At its core, this amendment reflects the commitment to family values that has molded our national character as a nation of immigrants and, for this reason, MALDEF supports this amendment.
Clinton/Menendez/Hagel Amendment (#1183)
Under the current immigration system, spouses and minor children of legal permanent residents are placed in a preference category that caps their annual visas. Senator Clinton’s amendment would remove these spouses and minor children from their preference categories and treat them as immediate relatives, not subject to an annual cap.
Hundreds of thousands of lawful permanent residents are currently living in the United States separated from their immediate family while their spouse and children wait abroad for up to six years for a green card. This amendment encourages family unity by enabling legal, tax-paying residents to more quickly be reunited with their immediate family. All other visa categories have provisions that allow the visa holder to bring their spouse or child. The current system of differentiating between spouses and children of legal residents and those of citizens is contrary to family re-unification, which is a fundamental cornerstone of our nation’s immigration system and an American core value.
The Latino community, like all communities, places a high premium on family reunification and family unity promotes the stability, health and productivity of family members living and working in the United States.
Obama Amendment (#1202)
This amendment reduces the damage to family reunification under the bill by ending the new point system after 5 years. There are 100,000 parents of adult U.S. citizens who come to the United States each year. These are often grandparents coming to raise their grandchildren. Under the proposed point system, they are shut out of the process and no longer considered immediate family members. The same would be true for adult children of United States citizens.
MALDEF opposes the point system in its entirety. It is untried in the United States. There is no consensus on what type of attributes should be rewarded under the point system. What we do know is that Latin American immigrants will fare the poorest under the point system and that employers will have difficulty matching job applicants with visa applicants. It attempts to quantify the value of the contributions of immigrants to the United States at the point of entry and thus completely ignoring the history of the nation which is replete with examples of immigrants coming to the United States and struggling to provide a platform for future generations to succeed. Moreover, families are good for the economy-many immigrant entrepreneurs come on family visas and use family networks to establish new businesses.
We support the Obama Amendment and will work to make further changes to ultimately eliminate the point system altogether.
Dodd/Menendez Amendment (#1199)
This amendment undoes a backlog in reunification with parents that the bill would otherwise create. Under the bill, a new annual cap of 40,000 visas would be imposed on the number of green cards for parents of United States citizens. This amendment would raise the cap to 90,000 or roughly the current flow of entrants and extend the duration of the new parent visitor visa (from an aggregate 30 days per year to an aggregate 180 days per year). Penalties would only be imposed on individuals who overstay such visas.
We reject the notion that reducing family reunification for U.S. citizens is an appropriate price to pay for legalizing unauthorized immigrants. The Dodd/Menendez Amendment allows the Senate to accomplish both. We support it.
What you can do: Call your senators to urge a YES vote on:
The Menendez/Hagel Amendment
The Clinton/Menendez/Hagel Amendment
The Obama Amendment
The Dodd Amendment
The telephone number for the Capitol Switchboard is (202) 224-3121.
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