Menendez and Cornyn Amendments

June 5, 2007

From Ana Maria Patino, Esq.:

This is quick update on the amendments that will be introduced in the U.S. Senate this week. These are amendments are designed to change the immigration bill the Senate is now debating.

The ones being introduced by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) we are supporting and ask you to call your U.S. Senators and ask them to vote for Menendez’s amendments.

There is an amendment authored by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) that we opposed. Tell you U.S. Senators to vote against Cornyn’s amendment.

Menendez was one of the Senators who initially wrote and participated in the negotiations for positive immigration reform. However, he left the group after he saw the political horse swapping that was being done to get conservative Republican support for the bill. Menendez felt the concessions given to these conservative legislators were done at the sacrifice of immigrants and their families.

Menendez amendments:

1. This amendment would change the deadline for reducing the backlog of family members waiting to enter the United States. The bill would immediately clear the backlog of 4 million family members who applied to enter the U.S. before May 2005. Menendez would shift the date to January 2007. The effect of the bill resulting from the change of the cutoff date would increase the number of family applicants allowed in by more than 800,000;

2. This amendment would increase the number of green cards, or legal permanent resident visas, available for parents of U.S. citizens and extend the duration of a new parent visitor visa;

3. This amendment would change the point system that Republicans have set up for awarding green cards. It would make it easier for applicants to earn points for family ties to the United States along with points for education, skills and English ability.

Cornyn’s amendment:

1. This amendment would bar anyone from receiving legal status if he or she has been convicted of reentering the country illegally or of using someone else’s Social Security number — a group that critics estimate could include half the workers now in the agricultural industry.

The problem with Cornyn’s amendment is it is estimated that 50% of immigrants who work in agrculture in the U.S. have either used someone else’s Social Security number and/or re-entered the country illegally. It is agricultural business owners who have been complaining to members of Congress that they want a stable work force who has the ability to become legal residents of the U.S. They have told Congress that their crops are rotting in the fields because of the anti-immigrant laws Congress has passed and the raids made on their companies.

Many Senators of states with large agricultural companies have been listening to these business owners and realize that immigrants are the critical workers for the harvesting of the crops that feed all us.