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Like a waking giant, immigrant communities are
beginning to respond en masse to more than a year of unrelenting
attacks by cable television commentators, talk show hosts,
anti-immigrant groups, and politicians. In recent weeks, immigrants and
their friends have shown up in startling numbers to events protesting
anti-immigrant legislation that passed the U.S. House of Representatives
in December and that is now being considered in the Senate. One event
in Washington, DC, attracted about 30,000 people, and another in Chicago
easily surpassed 100,000 participants. Though planned, these events
bordered on spontaneous because they were put together so rapidly on a
shoe-string budget and because their success so far outstripped the most
optimistic projections of their organizers.
Additional events are
coming together as this is being written, including a high visibility
national day of action in Washington, DC, on Monday, March 27 -- the day
the Senate is scheduled to resume debate on the immigration bill -- and
actions on April 10 in numerous cities across the nation.
On Thursday, March 16, the Senate Judiciary Committee met for the fourth
time in two weeks to debate how the Senate should address immigration
reform this year. Hanging over the committee deliberations was a threat
by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) that he would invoke a
rarely used parliamentary procedure to bypass the committee and bring
his own punitive-only bill to the Senate floor if the committee was
unable to complete its work in time for floor consideration starting on
March 27, when Congress returns from this week’s Saint Patrick’s Day
recess.
SENATOR SPECTER’S “MARK”
The
bill being considered by the Judiciary Committee is a 305-page behemoth,
drafted by the committee’s chair, Arlen Specter (R-PA). This bill,
referred to as the “chairman’s mark,” is not numbered because it has not
officially been introduced. Its text and some analysis of the bill can
be found on our website --
here. Its
titles include (our descriptions, not the actual titles used in the
bill):
I. Changes at the
border
II. Changes in the
interior
III. Employment
verification systems
IV. Guest worker
provisions and student visas
V. Legal immigration
reform, including family unification
VI. Indefinite
nonimmigrant visas for currently undocumented immigrant workers
VII. Restrictions on
judicial review and judicial review reform
While the chairman’s mark goes beyond fences, punishment, and
“enforcement” alone, it also incorporates many of the more punitive and
extreme provisions of
HR 4437, the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and
Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005, passed by the House of
Representatives in December 2005.
By Thursday, March 16, the committee had only considered amendments to
the first two titles and had not come close to completing work on
these. This lack of progress can primarily be attributed to the
difficulty of the task. The bill under consideration would make
wholesale changes in all aspects of immigration law.
These dramatic changes would not be felt solely by the nearly 25 million
immigrants who are not yet citizens (almost 1 in 5 school-age children
in the U.S. now have at least one foreign-born parent). They would also
have a direct impact on all Americans and profoundly alter how our
society is organized and the kind of nation we will be in years to
come.
Yet despite the length and reach of the bill, its contents were closely
held by Senator Specter’s staff until late February. As a result, the
Specter bill has never been vetted, and the committee’s consideration is
the first and best opportunity for senators to vet it.
On Thursday, Senator Specter told the Judiciary Committee he believed
that Senator Frist’s determination to take an immigration bill directly
to the floor on an arbitrary date without adequate committee
consideration was a “colossal mistake.” He nevertheless proceeded to
act on the assumption that Senator Frist could not be dissuaded, setting
one final committee meeting on the bill for Monday, March 27, in the
hope that many of the remaining titles and issues can be worked out by
staff before then.
POSSIBLE COMPROMISES
Based
on the comments of senators during Thursday’s session and on subsequent
statements by staff, the committee does appear to be close to resolving
two critical issues: (1) the treatment of the 11 million undocumented
individuals who now live in the U.S., and (2) the basic outlines of a
large new temporary work program. Please note: it is altogether
possible that the negotiations this week could break down or change
substantially, so the following details should be taken with a grain of
salt.
Treatment
of Currently Undocumented Non–U.S. Citizens
With
one change, Senator Specter suggested on Thursday that he is willing to
support the McCain-Kennedy approach to resolving the status of
undocumented persons, which was embodied in Title VII of the
Secure
America and Orderly Immigration Act (S. 1033), which
Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Ted Kennedy (D-MA) introduced earlier
this year. Under McCain-Kennedy, undocumented noncitizens who were
working in the U.S. on May 12, 2005, could qualify for 6 years of
temporary lawful status if they pay a $1,000 fine and application fees,
have complied with tax requirements, have not committed certain crimes,
and understand or are studying English, U.S. civics, and history. After
the 6-year period, applicants who have worked or studied continuously
and meet the other requirements of the bill would be able to adjust to
lawful permanent resident (LPR) status after payment of a second $1,000
fine and additional application fees.
The change offered by Senator Specter would clarify that these
immigrants would not be able to “jump in line” ahead of persons in the
current backlog of pending family- and employment-based immigrant visa
applications. Specifically, under Senator Specter’s concept, currently
undocumented noncitizens would be unable to adjust from temporary to
permanent status until all persons in the current backlog of pending
family- and employment-based applications for permanent resident status
have been processed. This change may not actually delay the adjustment
of undocumented workers, given that the family immigration reforms in
the Specter bill are estimated to reduce the family immigration backlog
below six years, and that under the original McCain-Kennedy proposal
undocumented workers would have to wait at least that long before
adjusting from temporary to permanent status.
Guest
Worker Provisions
Senators Kennedy and John Cornyn (R-TX) may be on the verge of agreeing
on the outlines of a temporary worker program that would replace the one
in Title IV of the chairman’s mark. The details of the possible
agreement are hazy, and reports have been contradictory, but it likely
would permit a set number of persons per year to come to the U.S. for up
to 2 years as temporary workers, after which they would be required
(with some exceptions) to return to their countries of origin for at
least a year. Those who come back to the U.S. after the 1-year absence
would be able to remain for up to two 3-year terms, and would also
eventually be eligible to adjust to lawful permanent resident status.
Even if the committee members are able to come to agreement on these two
issues, there remain many other important ones that are as yet either
unresolved or unaddressed. For example, under the chairman’s mark,
unlawful immigration status would for the first time become a crime,
punishable by up to 6 months in prison. Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL)
has attempted several times to offer an amendment in the committee to
strike this provision, but he has been prevented from calling for a vote
by promises of negotiation and agreement.
Another example of an issue that remains to be addressed is the massive
employment verification system expansion that the chairman’s mark
provides for. Under the proposal, all U.S. employers — large and small
— would be required to participate in the new system within 5 years by
connecting electronically with the government to confirm the employment
eligibility of all new hires. Unfortunately, major flaws in the
chairman’s mark all but guarantee that implementation of the system
would lead to a significant increase in discrimination against people
who “look foreign” or “sound foreign,” lapses in privacy, as well as
errors, abuse, and frustration — and would move us very close to
adopting a national ID. Yet the committee has not yet addressed the
details of this enormous new federal program.
MAJORITY LEADER FRIST INTRODUCES HIS OWN BILL
On Thursday, March 16, Senator Frist upped the ante by introducing his
own bill,
S. 2454, and filing a motion to proceed to debate,
altogether bypassing the normal committee process. If he follows
through with this maneuver, the Senate could start debate on his
punitive-only bill as early as Monday. But he could be prevented from
bypassing the committee if Democrats object and Senator Frist is unable
to muster at least 60 votes to overcome their objections. On
Wednesday, March 22, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said he
would “use every procedural means at my disposal” to prevent Senator
Frist from bypassing the Judiciary Committee.
The Frist bill is composed of the first three titles of the chairman’s
mark (border and interior changes, and the employment eligibility
verification system), plus the student visa portion of Title IV, and the
limitations of judicial review contained in Title VII. The only
modifications of these provisions are amendments that were offered by
Republicans and adopted by the Judiciary Committee during consideration
of the chairman’s mark over the last two weeks. These amendments all
make the bill even more punitive than originally drafted by Senator
Specter. Left out of S. 2454 are any measures to resolve the situation
of undocumented immigrants, to reduce family immigration backlogs, or
otherwise to reform the temporary or permanent legal immigration
system.
WHAT’S NEXT?
It is very difficult to predict what will happen next week, other than
it could be decisive in the immigration battles in Congress this year.
The Judiciary Committee may or may not complete its work on Monday,
with or without a vote on the McCain-Kennedy language. Senator Frist
may or may not make good on his threat to move forward apart from the
committee. There could be an explosive confrontation on the Senate
floor, or cooler heads could prevail.
One thing is certain: this being an election year, each and every
Senator is measuring common sense and sensible policy against his or her
political calculations. Anti-immigrant groups and individuals are fully
active, flooding Congress with their concerns, while immigrant
communities are just now waking to the threat.
Update: Today, 10,000 to
30,000 people participated in yet another march, this one in Milwaukee. According
to the local ABC affiliate, the march stretched 6 or 7 blocks and may be
the largest the city has seen since the civil rights protests 40 years
ago.
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