May 16, 2013
IMMIGRATION REFORM BILL
NILC Responds to E-Verify Amendments

The Senate Judiciary Committee today began marking up Title III of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013 (S. 744). The senators’ discussion focused on E-Verify, an online employment eligibility verification system that the bill would require all employers in the U.S. to use. Some senators offered amendments that would increase the system’s worker protections, while others offered amendments that would require employers to use the system before it is actually ready for every employer in the U.S. to use. Here is a statement from Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center.

May 14, 2013
IMMIGRATION REFORM BILL
Judiciary Committee Rejects Poison Pill Visa Cap Amendment to Senate Bill

An amendment offered by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) that would have capped the number of visas available for workers was solidly rejected Tuesday by the Senate Judiciary Committee on a 17-1 vote. The amendment reflected the views of the most extreme anti-immigrant voices in the immigration debate and would have driven a stake through the heart of the Senate’s immigration reform bill. The only senator who voted in favor of the amendment was Sessions himself. Here is a statement from Don Lyster, director of the National Immigration Law Center’s Washington, DC, office.

May 9, 2013
IMMIGRATION REFORM BILL
National Immigration Law Center Statement on the First Day of Senate Markup

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted on the first of several proposed amendments to S. 744, the bipartisan immigration reform bill introduced two weeks ago. Amendments to the “triggers” and components of Title I (also known as the border component of the bill), as well as a vote on the manager’s amendments, were brought forward and addressed. Here is a statement from Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, who attended today’s proceedings.