Immigrants and Politics Blog

[KR: Except for policy wonks, advocates, and Congress scholars, proposed amendments to bills don’t get much attention. MALDEF sent out a ‘position-paper’ email today which is helpful in seeing the kinds of amendments being proposed, and MALDEF’s stances and rationales…]

Senate Taking Major Action on Immigration Bill
The U.S. Senate is starting to make action that will determine which way the Immigration Legislation will go. Your voice is needed today! You can reach your Senator via the Capitol Hill Operator at 202-224-3121.

Yesterday, the Senate approved the Bingaman Amendment by a vote of 74-24 that cuts the temporary worker in half from 400,000 workers annually to 200,000. What is left is a program that has fundamental inequities for these workers (cutting off their ability to remain in the U.S.; inadequate labor protections; splitting of families) and for U.S. workers (temporary workers will be less likely to complain about dangerous working conditions or inadequate compensation that hurts all workers) and lacks enough visas to serve legitimate business needs. Passage of the Bingaman Amendment may make it harder for the bill to pass the Senate. Today, the Senate may vote on the Coleman Amendment (#1158) that would outlaw state and local government policies that prevent government employees - including police and health and safety workers - from inquiring about the immigration status of those they serve if there is “probable cause” to believe the individual being questioned is undocumented. There is no exception where such policies are necessary to protect the health and safety or promote the welfare of the community.
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[KR: As previewed in the LAT yesterday, a deal was announced today that has some contentious provisions including a point system, and a requirement to leave and re-enter the country. This article by the AP suggests that the intended beneficiaries may not care much for the provisions and its steep financial cost. Another interesting point to see in the future is whether trust in the government will finally start going down among first-gen Latinos, at least among the undocumented.]

Illegal immigrants question Senate deal

By PETER PRENGAMAN, Associated Press Writer
May 17, 2007

LOS ANGELES - David Guerra wants to be legal, but he says the path to citizenship offered by the Senate on Thursday would be too risky and too expensive, and could end up driving him deeper into the shadows.

Guerra’s wife and children in El Salvador depend on the $300 he sends home each month from his job as a day laborer. Key provisions of the legislation would require him to return home to apply for residency, pay a $5,000 fine and spend thousands more in application fees.

That would be disastrous for his family, he said, and, worse, he’s not sure he can trust U.S. immigration authorities who have been rounding up and deporting his fellow immigrants for months.

“If I go home, who is going to guarantee that I’ll be let back in?” said the 44-year-old who lays bricks, clears weeds and does landscaping.

Across the nation, illegal immigrants, many of whom toil in dirty, low-paying jobs, sharply criticized the Senate’s immigration overhaul package as overly burdensome and impractical.

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[KR: With the busy-ness of the end of the academic year, I had not been paying much attention to the status of legislation in Congress.  It looks like this Z visa idea satisfies conservatives who don’t want an automatic qualification for eventual citizenship while at the same time not instituting an unrealistic financial bar for those interested in citizenship later on.  But the bigger potential change, which I saw 2 weeks ago when in Omaha, NE for a conference on immigration, is Hagel’s proposal for a Canadian-style point system, which seems to be entering the mix for more comprehensive reform–not to supplant family reunification, but certainly to shift away from the high priority given to it since 1965].

“And they also will tackle a larger issue. From its formal beginnings, the U.S. immigration system has been based on family reunification. Republicans want to change that to a point-based system designed to serve the nation’s economic needs. Potential immigrants would be ranked on education and skills.

Senators said they were compromising by combining the family and point system, allocating points for those who have family already in the United States. “It’s not going to be all family, but there will be a family component,” Martinez said.”
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[KR: Interesting story in the LA Times about Martinez’s efforts to bring different factions in the GOP together to support a moderate bill.  How long will the GOP’s image as anti-immigrant last if a moderate bill with earned citizenship passes?  A few years?  A decade?  A generation?]
“Sen. Mel Martinez, tapped as party chairman to help expand the GOP’s appeal to Latino voters, is struggling to bridge seemingly intractable divides among Republicans over immigration.

In months of intense closed-door talks among White House officials and key Republicans and Democrats, the Florida senator’s main task has been to referee between warring GOP factions.

He has prodded business-minded moderates like himself who are eager for a politically palatable compromise to partner with hardline conservatives who are wary of one.

His bottom line: that immigration laws need to be fixed and Republicans politically can’t afford to be seen as the party standing in the way of such changes.”

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“The integration of alienated, second-generation immigrant youths into mainstream French society is one of the thorniest problems facing French politics today, and Mr. Sarkozy, as interior minister, tackled the problem head-on with a directness more typical of an American politician than a French one.

But his Giuliani-inspired zero-tolerance anticrime campaign, his frank, sometimes imprudent talk (tailored to attract far-right voters during an earlier stage of his campaign) and his combative style have turned him into an enemy for many young minorities. Fear that a President Sarkozy would bring five years of heightened tension and violence is an emotion operating at the core of the presidential campaign.”

Full story here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/05/world/europe/05france.html