June 11, 2007
In Journey Home to Mexico Grave, an Industry Rises
By EDUARDO PORTER

CONWAY, Ark. — Héctor Acevedo was 22, in this country illegally and far from his mother when he died last month in a car accident outside of town just across the Arkansas River.

But mother and son were soon reunited. The tight-knit immigrant network rallied to repatriate the body, adding Mr. Acevedo to a procession of thousands of dead Mexicans making their way home each year. A survivor of the accident approached a relative of another victim, who worked in a restaurant owned by one of Mr. Acevedo’s relatives.

An uncle identified the body, contacted the Mexican consulate in nearby Little Rock and arranged the paperwork. For $2,300, and a $500 contribution from the consulate, they bought the “Hispanic Package” at Brown’s Christian Funeral Services, which specializes in repatriation of remains to Mexico. Six days after the accident, Mr. Acevedo was buried next to his grandfather in the family plot in González, Tamaulipas, in northeastern Mexico.

“Waiting for the body was agony,” said Juanita Soto, Mr. Acevedo’s mother. “I had to see him, to caress him.”

Such posthumous reunions have become increasingly common in villages and towns across Mexico that have sent their sons and daughters, more often than not illegally, to find work in the United States.

“We deal with it every day,” said Eric Levy, the consul who oversees the repatriation of remains at the Mexican consulate in Little Rock, which opened in late April.

Last year, Mexican consulates across the United States recorded 10,622 shipments of bodies for burial back home, 7 percent more than in 2005 and 11 percent more than in 2004. The consulates, which do not track the immigration status of the deceased, spent $4 million in 2006 to help repatriate bodies to Mexico, up from $3.4 million in 2005.

As debate rages in Congress over a proposed immigration law that would provide a path to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants and temporary working visas for hundreds of thousands, the reverse journey of the dead suggests that for many Mexicans the sojourn to the United States, legal or not, is meant to be temporary.

Home — at least in death — is south of the border.

“For Mexicans, the bonds of the family unit are very strong,” said the Rev. John Brown, who ministers to Hispanics at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Conway and who presided over a memorial service for Mr. Acevedo. “The bond is broken when they go to work in the United States. It is restored in death.”

In Mexican immigrant neighborhoods throughout the United States, collection boxes to help pay for the repatriation of a body are placed in grocery store windows. Employers also chip in. Mr. Acevedo’s relatives, for example, were reimbursed for his burial by the Chili’s restaurant where he had worked as a cook.

When the dead have no known relatives in the United States, friends often go to great lengths to find family in Mexico.

When the police shot a man known as El Cholo outside a Hispanic meat market in Stockton, Calif., just before Christmas in 2005, residents scrambled to figure out who he was. Armed with little more than the name of town called Mazamitla in the state of Jalisco, the butcher at the meat market contacted a cousin who lived nearby.

The cousin contacted an official he knew in a neighboring town, who called his counterpart in Mazamitla, who found a sister of the deceased on the local voting register. The sister called two brothers, working as landscapers in Southern California, who picked up the body and sent it home.

“I hadn’t seen my brother in four years; we didn’t know where he was,” said Ignacio Ponce Martínez, El Cholo’s older brother. “We had to send him to Mexico with his mother. We couldn’t just leave him here.”

Mexican consulates negotiate discounts with funeral homes, and help in other ways. There is a clear benefit for Mexican politicians to be seen helping migrants in their final homecoming, spurring some Mexican state governments to help, too. The government in the state of Michoacán promises to pay for the transport of returning bodies from any point in Mexico to the deceased’s hometown in Michoacán.

Inevitably, haggling arises. The Mexican foreign ministry authorized the consulate in Little Rock to pay some $20,000, nearly half of the consulate’s budget this year for body transfers, to cover the full cost of transporting to Mexico City the bodies of seven illegal immigrants from Oaxaca who died last month in a highway accident in Oklahoma.

The Oaxacan government initially agreed to pay only to move the bodies from the Oaxacan state capital to their hometowns and waited for days before picking up the tab for the transport from Mexico City, consular officials said.

Agustín García, who runs Funerales García in Mexico City, has a large share of the mortuary trade from the United States by visiting funeral home conventions there to pick up business on the receiving end.

“I have arrangements with 150 funeral homes all over the United States,” Mr. García said. “I receive about 2,500 bodies a year. I receive them in Mexico City and take them anywhere in Mexico.”

For illegal immigrants, some of whom pay $2,000 to $3,000 to be smuggled across the border through the Arizona desert, the return trip in a coffin can be more expensive than the journey into the United States.

Typically, the cheapest “Hispanic Package” at Brown Christian Funeral Services in Little Rock, which includes pickup, embalming, dressing, a $660 coffin, the shipping container and airfare, costs $3,444. The funeral home offers a discounted package for those who are subsidized by the consulate. But during holidays, when the airlines are full, it costs an additional $688 for airfare.

Mr. Acevedo, who dropped out of a naval school in Tampico to come to the United States three years ago, lived the torn family circumstances of many illegal immigrants. He was not alone in the United States, living with his sister Gabriela, her husband and their two daughters.

“We arrived in the United States together, and he always lived with us,” Gabriela Acevedo said. “He spent more time with my daughters than my husband did.” And there were aunts, uncles and cousins from González living around Conway and Little Rock.

Still, Mr. Acevedo’s mother and father were in Mexico. When the car in which he was traveling dived into a ditch, killing him and two friends, there was no discussion about where he should go. “My mother wanted to have him with her,” Ms. Acevedo said.

The transfer was expeditious. After a memorial service at St. Joseph Catholic Church, Mr. Acevedo’s body was sent back to Mexico with that of one of his friends killed in the accident. The third person who died, also a Mexican immigrant, was buried in Conway because his mother was here.

Back in González, Ms. Soto was grateful to see her son one last time. “There was an enormous show of support,” she said. “Family came from different parts of Mexico, friends of my son were there and some of my childhood friends.”

Still, the brisk departure from Arkansas was painful. During the memorial service, Ms. Acevedo was overtaken by grief — beating on the closed coffin and demanding to see her brother again.

“I wanted to go with him,” she said of her brother’s final journey to Mexico, “but I couldn’t because if I did maybe I couldn’t come back.”

In the end, she was left with a memorial by the side of the road — three crosses in remembrance of three dead immigrants.

Refugee Roulette: Disparities in Asylum Adjudication
Ramji-Nogales, Jaya, Schoenholtz , Andrew and Schrag, Philip G.
http://ssrn.com/abstract=983946
The analysis reveals significant disparities in grant rates, even when different adjudicators in the same office each considered large numbers of applications from nationals of the same country. In many cases, the most important moment in an asylum case is the instant in which a clerk randomly assigns an application to a particular asylum officer or immigration judge.

Using cross-tabulations based on public biographies, the paper also explores correlations between sociological characteristics of individual immigration judges and their grant rates. The cross tabulations show that the chance of winning asylum was strongly affected by whether or not the applicant had legal representation, by the gender of the immigration judge, and by the immigration judge’s work experience prior to appointment.

WASHINGTON, June 2 — President Bush’s advocacy of an immigration overhaul and his attacks on critics of the plan are provoking an unusually intense backlash from conservatives who form the bulwark of his remaining support, splintering his base and laying bare divisions within a party whose unity has been the envy of Democrats.

It has pitted some of Mr. Bush’s most stalwart Congressional and grass-roots backers against him, inciting a vitriol that has at times exceeded anything seen yet between Mr. Bush and his supporters, who have generally stood with him through the toughest patches of his presidency. Those supporters now view him as pursuing amnesty for foreign lawbreakers when he should be focusing on border security.

Postings on conservative Web sites this week have gone so far as to call for Mr. Bush’s impeachment, and usually friendly radio hosts, commentators and Congressional allies are warning that he stands to lose supporters — a potentially damaging development, they say, when he needs all the backing he can get on other vital matters like the war in Iraq.

“I think President Bush hurts himself every time he says it is not amnesty,” said Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, referring to the bill’s legalization process for immigrants. “We are not all that stupid.”

This week, after Mr. Bush’s suggestion that those opposing the Congressional plan “don’t want to do what’s right for America” inflamed conservative passions, Rush Limbaugh told listeners, “I just wish he hadn’t done it because he’s not going to lose me on Iraq, and he’s not going to lose me on national security.” He added, “But he might lose some of you.”

Such sentiments have reverberated through talk radio, conservative publications like National Review and Fox News. They have also appeared on Web sites including RedState.com and FreeRepublic.com, where postings reflect a feeling that Mr. Bush is smiting his own coalition in pursuit of a badly needed domestic accomplishment, and working in league with the likes of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a co-author of the legislation.

White House officials said it had led them to engage the blogosphere in a concerted way for the first time, posting defenses on liberal and conservative sites.

The tensions, which have rippled through the Republican presidential field, are intensifying just as the Senate is preparing to renew debate on the measure next week. Opponents are seeking significant changes — or outright defeat of the legislation — and raising the specter of a filibuster. The battle has pitted the White House against a group that includes even Mr. Bush’s reliable supporters from his home state of Texas, Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, both Republicans.

White House officials said it was a debate they welcomed in pursuit of a long-sought presidential goal, but in interviews this week, they expressed frustration at what they described as ill-informed criticism that the bill provided amnesty for illegal immigrants when it in fact traded legal status for fines and fees — more than $6,000 for green card holders, officials said. They also noted that the most recent New York Times/CBS News poll showed 66 percent of Republicans supported its legalization provisions.

Karl Rove, Mr. Bush’s top political adviser, said Friday he was confident that the White House would win over its critics as it explained the details of the bill and the administration’s continuing efforts to enforce existing border control laws.

Mr. Rove said he did not think that anger over immigration within the party would affect support for the president on the war and other national security issues. “People are able to say, ‘I don’t need to agree with anyone 100 percent of the time to be with them on the most important issue facing America,’ ” he said.

But that same day, Peggy Noonan, the Wall Street Journal opinion writer and former Reagan speechwriter who has supported Mr. Bush, said, “What conservatives and Republicans must recognize is that the White House has broken with them,” in a column under the heading, “President Bush has torn the conservative coalition asunder.”

Democrats have their own serious differences on immigration, with many worried that the Senate plan is too punitive. Others who are closely allied with labor are fearful about the impact on job opportunities, and still others oppose any plan that allows illegal immigrants to earn citizenship. But the Democratic divisions have been all but lost in the loud and volatile clashes among Republicans.

Reflecting the division between the business wing, Congressional moderates and the rest of the party, the editorial board of National Review, which opposes the legislation, has issued a debate challenge to The Journal’s business-minded editorial board, which is more supportive. (The Journal editorial page editor, Paul Gigot, dismissed the challenge, saying National Review writers had not accepted offers to appear on The Journal’s program on Fox to discuss the matter.)

Opposition to Mr. Bush’s immigration plan, which calls for a way to legalize illegal workers who are here now, has been stiff for years. But last year, when similar legislation was under debate, opponents were rightly confident that Republican leaders who controlled Congress would not let it progress. Mr. Bush, not wishing to intensify the fight in an election year, stayed behind the scenes and relented when the legislation died.

Not so this year, when Mr. Bush’s personal involvement in brokering a bipartisan immigration deal, and his clear determination to push for its passage, has intensified criticism from grass-roots and legislative leaders of his own party to the highest levels of his presidency. The criticism reflects a central tension between Mr. Bush’s pursuit of a defining domestic policy accomplishment and the party’s concerns about its 2008 prospects when base voters are so angry about immigration.

Mr. Bush’s comments to federal law enforcement trainees in Georgia on Tuesday, in which he took the rare step of going after conservative critics in terms usually reserved for Democrats, has charged the Republican ferment, specifically his suggestion that those opposed to the plan “don’t want to do what’s right for America.”

Presidential aides said later that Mr. Bush did not mean to impugn anyone’s patriotism, and that he had ad-libbed the line during a passionate address on an issue he holds dear.

But days later, Mr. Cornyn still seemed rankled. “I honestly don’t know whether it was scripted or unscripted,” he said. “But I think it was uncalled for.”

In its online editorial in which it challenged The Wall Street Journal to a debate, National Review referred to an Internet video on The Journal’s Web site of an editorial board meeting in which Paul Gigot, the editorial page editor, referred to what he calls “the degree to which the right isn’t even rational about this anymore.” National Review wrote, “It shouldn’t be a problem for The Journal’s editors to take up this challenge, since opponents of the bill aren’t ‘rational’ on the question.”

The debate has bled into the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, providing fodder for one of the sharpest exchanges so far, between Senator John McCain of Arizona, who supports the bill, and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, who has come out against it.

Caught in the middle of the broader fight, the Republican National Committee has seemed to have taken less of a supporting role than on other White House initiatives, though Senator Mel Martinez, chairman of the committee and a strong backer of the compromise, said its support was unwavering.

(Republican Party officials disputed parts of a report in The Washington Times linking a decision to fire dozens of phone bank employees to a decline in small donations that the paper reported was partly caused by disaffection over immigration.)

The Republican vs. Republican debate has also played out intensively for lawmakers back home. Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, a critic of the measure, said he had heard from people who were upset not only with the legislation, but also with his Republican colleague from the state, Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the measure’s architects. “I discourage that kind of talk,” Mr. DeMint said. “We are good friends, and he is a great senator. We are just in disagreement on this particular issue.”

The Republican and conservative critiques on the Internet are not so polite. “Bush has turned on his own people, his political supporters,” wrote a visitor to a message board on the conservative Web site FreeRepublic.com. Another visitor wrote, “Why have I cared that liberals not attempt to impeach this man? He’s gone crazy.”

Mr. Rove and Dan Bartlett, the White House counselor, said officials would continue trying to persuade critics.

And some White House allies were trying to cool tensions. Mr. McCain, who had a salty clash with Mr. Cornyn over the legislation when it was being drafted, said Friday, “The president, and all of us, feel frustrated sometimes by the criticism and the level of the dialogue,” adding, “I wish we could lift up the level of discourse and dialogue.”

The president’s brother, Jeb Bush, and his former campaign manager, Ken Mehlman, wrote an op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal pleading the case for the legislation, saying that the debate, “has led many close personal and ideological friends — people we respect and whose criticism we take seriously — to oppose new rules governing how people enter this country and how we handle those who are here illegally. But we hope our friends reconsider.”

Jeff Zeleny contributed reporting from Des Moines.

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.

MALDEF opposes this amendment because many cities, counties, and police departments have decided that it’s a matter of public health and safety not to ask about immigration status when people report crimes, have been the victims of domestic abuse, or go to the hospital seeking emergency medical care. It will make us all less safe, not more safe. These cities understand that all members of communities are hurt when their residents are afraid that their immigration status will be questioned when they seek refuge at a domestic violence shelter or ask the police for help in escaping an abusive spouse. We are asking Senators to vote No on the Coleman Amendment.

The Clinton/Menendez/Hagel Amendment

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 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.

MALDEF has worked closely with the sponsoring senators of this amendment and is seeking full Senate approval.

The Menendez/Hagel Amendment

Currently, the immigration deal includes a cutoff date of May 1, 2005, for those family visa applicants who are eligible to be cleared through the family backlog. This is inconsistent, arbitrary, and fundamentally unfair.

The Menendez/Hagel amendment will simply provide fairness to those who have played by the rules. It would give U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents who apply to bring a family member to the U.S. the same opportunity to be part of the backlog clearance as undocumented immigrants (January 1, 2007).

Applications of those who have applied legally, played by the rules, paid taxes, and petitioned for family members after May 1, 2005, will not be cleared as part of the family backlog, but instead, will be relegated to a new, untested merit-based point system as currently outlined in the negotiated Senate bill.

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.

Cornyn Amendment (#1184)

Senator Cornyn filed an amendment that would make anyone who is inadmissible under immigration law, ineligible for the legalization program. It also expands the class of aggravated felony crimes and makes them retroactive. In the case of an immigrant who entered illegally in the past, that individual could be convicted of an aggravated felony and subjected to mandatory detention and permanently barred from any immigration benefit.

MALDEF opposes any amendment that would attempt to gut the legalization program and further criminalizes potential undocumented immigrants who might benefit from the proposed Senate bill.

McConnell Amendment:

Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will offer an amendment today that would require voters to present a photo ID before voting in federal elections. If approved, this requirement would disproportionately disenfranchise people of color, the elderly, individuals with disabilities, rural and Native voters, the homeless, and low-income people, who are far less likely to possess a photo ID. Photo ID requirements also build an enormous amount of discretion into the election process, creating opportunities for discrimination at the polls against racial, ethnic, and language minority voters.

MALDEF has long opposed voter ID requirements and is working to defeat the McConnell amendment.

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.

“Where would I find $5,000? In two years, I don’t get $5,000,” said Daniel Carrillo Maldonado, an illegal immigrant who was looking for construction work outside a Home Depot in Phoenix.

The agreement between the Senate and White House would allow illegal immigrants to obtain a special visa. After paying fees and the fine, they could get on a path to permanent residency that could take eight to 13 years. Heads of household would have to return to their home countries first.

Some illegal immigrants said returning home presented another major hurdle: Applying for residency at U.S. embassies in their home countries.

Amy Ndour, a 23-year-old illegal immigrant from Senegal who lives in New York, said she would be willing to pay the $5,000 fine, but not return home because her family there depends on what she earns as a hair braider.

“I’m helping myself” here, she said. “I’m helping people there too.”

Karina Corona, 32, an illegal immigrant from San Diego, works seven days a week at two jobs — one at a delicatessen and another as a seamstress. She said $5,000 is a small price to pay.

“Compared with the better jobs you can get, it’s nothing. It’s well worth it,” she said.

Carlos Velazquez, a 40-year-old illegal immigrant in Los Angeles, said he applied twice for visas in Honduras, and both times had to pay several bribes to local embassy staff.

“Only with money will the monkey dance,” said Velazquez, using an idiomatic expression to refer to bribes.

The Senate agreement includes a so-called “point system,” which for the first time would prioritize immigrants’ education and skill level over family connections in deciding how to award green cards that allow permanent residency.

Family connections alone would no longer be enough to qualify for a green card — except for spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens. And new limits would apply to U.S. citizens seeking to bring foreign-born parents into the country.

Many illegal immigrants said they had little incentive to apply for residency because the process was long and did not offer much hope of bringing their families.

“If I’ll never be able to bring my family, why should I apply?” said Jose Monson, a 33-year-old illegal immigrant from Guatemala who has lived in Los Angeles for four years. “I prefer to just stay here illegally.”

“If I get deported and need to cross the border again, that’s not a problem,” he said.

Several unions, which have many immigrants in their ranks, took issue with the creation of a new temporary guest worker program.

New workers would have to return home after two-year stints, with little opportunity to gain permanent legal status or ever become U.S. citizens. They could renew their guest worker visas twice, but would be required to leave for a year between each stint.

“Temporary workers depress wages and create a second-class work force that is disconnected from the U.S. mainstream and not equal,” said Eliseo Medina, executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union.

Pablo Alvarado, director of the National Day Labor Organizing Network, said the guest worker component would likely exacerbate rhetoric between anti-illegal immigration groups and immigration groups. Groups such as the Minutemen regularly stage protests in front of day labor centers.

“You will still have the anti-immigrant organizations blaming immigrants for depressed wages,” Alvarado said.

Still, the agreement gave some hope.

In Houston, Marco Antonio Rodiguez, said he would be happy with a permit that would allow him to work legally and return to Mexico twice a year to see his wife and three children.

“Immigration reform would benefit us so much, both ourselves and families,” said Rodriguez, a 48-year-old illegal immigrant who does odd jobs. “We want the law to be approved. I’m praying to God that it passes.”

Pascual Bravo, an illegal immigrant who works at a construction company in Middletown, N.Y., was also eager to achieve legal status.

Bravo, 49, last crossed the border in Arizona eight years ago, paying a smuggler $1,800. “I miss my country,” he said.

___

Associated Press writers Deepti Hajela in New York, Elliot Spagat in San Diego, Terry Tang in Phoenix and Monica Rhor in Houston contributed to this report.

“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.”
Senate nearing immigration bill
A bipartisan group moves toward a plan to give immediate legal status to 12 million illegal immigrants.
By Nicole Gaouette
Times Staff Writer

May 16, 2007

WASHINGTON — Senators negotiating a bipartisan immigration reform bill have settled on the details of a plan that would immediately grant legal status to all illegal immigrants currently in the United States.

The deal on “Z visas” for illegal immigrants is one of several issues where Democrats and Republicans have reached broad agreement.

But as senators emerged from what they had hoped would be a final round of negotiations Tuesday, they indicated that painstakingly slow progress would keep them from meeting the deadline set by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to begin debate on a bill today.

Late Tuesday, Reid agreed to push that deadline to Monday.

“They tell me they’re 80% of the way,” Reid said in announcing the delay. “That’s fine, the other 20% is hard.”

The plan to award legal status to all illegal immigrants who meet certain qualifications would occur only after other “triggers” are met. These triggers would require that certain border security and work-site enforcement measures be in place before other aspects of the overhaul go forward.

The Z visa plan would start with the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States going on a probationary legal status. If the triggers are met — a process that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) estimated would take 18 months — then illegal immigrants who qualify could get Z visas. Those who have committed felonies would not be eligible, Graham said, and all participants would have to pass security checks, pay a fine and a processing fee and pass an English proficiency test.

Z visa holders would be able to apply for legal permanent resident status, a step toward citizenship. But at some point, the heads of households with Z visas would have to return to his or her home country and then reenter the United States. They would have to take their Z visa to the U.S. Embassy or consulate and would be guaranteed reentry. The Z visa would include a photo and fingerprints, Graham said.

Tuesday’s talks followed two months of negotiations between key senators and administration officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez.

“We’ve made a lot of progress,” said Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.). “There are a few issues outstanding. The staffs have worked around the clock.”

Reid had said that if the negotiators could not reach a compromise, he would start debate on a new version of the immigration bill that the Senate passed last year. Republicans say last year’s bill is no longer acceptable and had signaled that they may block it. With the new deadline, chances are better that the senators will be able to reach a deal.

Republicans sounded cautiously hopeful. “I remain optimistic that we’ll be able to put together a bill that can clear the Senate on a bipartisan basis, hopefully an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Democrats were more measured. Reid cited “some areas of accomplishment,” but added that the two sides were “a long ways from where we need to be.”

Unresolved issues include the terms of a guest worker program for future immigrants. Republicans are adamant that any program that imports labor should be temporary and not allow participants to become citizens.

“There is grudging acquiescence that that’s the way it’s going to work,” Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) said of his Democratic colleagues.

Democrats, immigrant advocates and some unions argue that if temporary workers do not have the option of citizenship, the United States will create a permanent underclass.

The senators also have to settle on the number of green cards to make available for legal immigrants who want to become permanent residents.

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.

The two sides have come to agreement on the Dream Act, a provision that would allow young illegal immigrants to attend college at in-state tuition rates and eventually gain citizenship. Democrats and Republicans also agreed on a jobs program for the agriculture industry.

As the Senate struggled to move forward, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) announced that the House would take up immigration legislation in July, even if the Senate talks collapsed.

House leaders had previously insisted that the Senate move first on the issue.

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.”

GOP struggles with immigration bill balance
Sen. Martinez, GOP chair, seeks to expand party’s Latino base while bridging gaps in Congress.
From Associated Press

12:55 PM PDT, May 15, 2007

WASHINGTON — 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.

Senators were racing to get an immigration agreement by Wednesday, when Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., otherwise will bring up a measure passed last year with strong Democratic support — but one opposed by most Republicans.

Negotiators were close to a deal that could be announced as early as Tuesday, said officials of both parties, speaking not for attribution because the talks were ongoing.

Squeezed by both sides, Martinez’ precarious spot in the immigration debate reflects his party’s dilemma on the divisive issue.

Strategists are eager to grab hold of the fast-growing Latino segment of the electorate and stay in good graces with powerful business groups that depend on a steady flow of immigrant labor. But then they risk alienating conservatives with an overly permissive immigration policy.

A perception in the 2006 election that the GOP was blocking a compromise on immigration “was very hurtful in many places, and it showed itself in the outcome,” said the Cuban-born Martinez.

“People who had a harsh view of this lost,” he said.

His job as GOP party chairman has required some difficult political acrobatics for Martinez, 60, whose own experiences have shaped his views on immigration. He left Cuba as a teenager as part of Operation Pedro Pan, a Catholic Charities-organized effort that helped 14,000 unaccompanied minors escape to the United States in the early 1960s.

Last year, Martinez broke with his party and joined Democrats to help write and pass a measure that would have given many of the nation’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants a chance at citizenship.

Now he has turned against his own bill in favor of an approach with more conservative appeal that would allow legalization, but only after steep border security and worker identification measures are put in place. Critics of the compromise say it would create a guest worker program that could essentially bar some immigrants from ever gaining permanent legal status.

It’s a formula designed to get more Republicans on board, although one that also risks alienating the Democrats and GOP moderates who have in the past been the strongest supporters of an overhaul.

Rather than writing legislation, Martinez says this year he has been a “conciliator” among disparate GOP blocs in the talks — from conservative Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona to moderate Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. Instead of advocating his own position, he has spent long hours prodding Republicans to draft a compromise the majority of them can tolerate.

“When things seems to break down, then I have, on occasion, said, ‘Look, this is too important — we can’t let it fail.’,” Martinez said.

Still, Republicans who oppose any changes beyond stricter border enforcement and crackdowns on illegal immigrants are highly critical of Martinez, saying he is not representing his party. They accuse him of grasping for nonexistent political advantage by pushing measures that violate the party’s basic values.

“Senator Martinez is operating off an illusion, and that is that somehow the Republican party can flourish off of rewarding illegal behavior,” said Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Calif., chairman of the Immigration Reform Caucus, a coalition of conservative Republicans and some Democrats who are opposed to allowing illegal immigrants a chance at gaining legal status, which they derisively brand “amnesty.”

Meanwhile, liberal groups pushing for legalization for the undocumented workers and a guest worker program that allows new immigrants a path to citizenship accuse Martinez of squandering his unique opportunity to get it done.

Last week, a coalition of immigrant advocacy groups launched a Miami-based ad campaign criticizing Martinez for backing away from last year’s Senate-passed bill. They say he has adopted a more punitive approach to immigration.

“He has the kind of position to get the White House to move this proposal in the right direction. He may be the only one who does and we don’t think he’s done that,” said Clarissa Martinez of the Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform.

Immigration analyst Tamar Jacoby of the Manhattan Institute calls Martinez the “center of gravity” in the bipartisan talks.

“He exemplifies the dilemma of the party,” said Jacoby. His “instinct — not just because he’s an immigrant, but because he knows what’s good for the economy and what’s good for the country — is to say, ‘Lets figure out a rational way to do this.’ But like the party, he’s got these yahoos riding his coattails — a loud, vocal 25 percent of the party that doesn’t want to do anything — and he has to deal with them.”

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

One client, she said, was a Mexican man who lugged in a suitcase holding $14,000, cash he had set aside to pay his taxes over six years of work as a landscaper. Like many, he had only recently learned that he could file a legitimate tax return, said Ms. Borthayre, who is the author of several books on tax preparation with ITINs.

Like Social Security numbers, individual taxpayer numbers have nine digits, but all begin with a “9.” The appeal of the numbers grew as they were accepted in some places as alternative identification to open a bank account, qualify for credit or even obtain a driver’s license — all uses that the I.R.S. opposed and has tried to curb, Ms. Mathis said.

Since 2003, applications for an ITIN must be accompanied by a tax return, with few exceptions. And to avoid confusion with a Social Security card, the I.R.S. now sends a letter assigning a number, instead of a card.

Full story here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/16/nyregion/16immig.html

“While Republican divisions were highlighted last year, this time it’s Democrats — eager to show they can lead — whose fissures are on display.
In an ironic twist, the outlines of a potential deal have moved to the right — toward a more difficult road to citizenship for the nation’s roughly 12 million illegal immigrants — even as the power in Congress has shifted to Democrats, who overwhelmingly favor a more permissive approach.”

“Immigration debate sours for illegals
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press
April 12, 2007

The terms of the immigration debate have turned less friendly for illegal immigrants as lawmakers and the Bush administration struggle to reach a deal in the next few weeks.

The landscape for an immigration overhaul has turned upside down in only a year, with a different party in control of Congress and new political realities for President Bush and the chief congressional negotiators.

Bush — in search of a domestic legacy — has morphed from cheerleader on the sidelines to broker in the fray, dispatching Cabinet members for lengthy daily meetings with senators on Capitol Hill.

Last year’s GOP point man, Sen. John McCain — whose moderate stance on immigration defined last year’s approach — is hanging back, wary of angering conservatives while he struggles to keep his presidential run going.

And while Republican divisions were highlighted last year, this time it’s Democrats — eager to show they can lead — whose fissures are on display.

In an ironic twist, the outlines of a potential deal have moved to the right — toward a more difficult road to citizenship for the nation’s roughly 12 million illegal immigrants — even as the power in Congress has shifted to Democrats, who overwhelmingly favor a more permissive approach.

The White House has floated a proposal that would require illegal immigrants to pay fines as high as $10,000, face long waits and return to their home countries in order to be eligible for citizenship — far tougher conditions than in a bipartisan measure passed by the Senate last year and backed by Bush. The immigrants also would be denied a right to bring family members to the United States.

A bipartisan House measure introduced earlier this year would add a new mandate that undocumented immigrants go home before gaining legal status — a requirement that many Democrats and pro-immigrant groups have decried as “report to deport.”

The changes reflect a new political calculus for Republicans, who fear that any plan passed by the centrist Senate will become more permissive toward immigrants in the more liberal House and during final Democratic-dominated negotiations.

Democrats, in turn, recognize that any immigration plan must have substantial GOP support in order to have a chance of being signed into law, so they are considering tougher measures. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has told Bush he must deliver 70 Republican votes before she will attempt to pass any immigration bill.

The White House said the proposal floated recently was part of an effort to find an immigration plan the president’s party could agree on.

“Those were discussion points on which consensus was beginning to build among Republican senators,” said Scott Stanzel, a White House spokesman.

As Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., his party’s point man on the issue, huddles with Republicans and Bush’s team in search of a deal, other Democrats are impatient to pitch their own, more immigrant-friendly plan. Many advocates of an overhaul, including immigrant advocacy groups, business interests and organized labor, are adamantly opposed to the framework under discussion.

“This is the kind of gut-wrenching moment that happens before a deal is about to be cut and before legislation is about to start moving,” said Angela Kelley, the deputy director of the National Immigration Forum, a private group pushing for an overhaul.

Bush and Democrats regard the tricky issue as one of their few areas of potential compromise during a year dominated by partisan clashes on the Iraq war. Strategists in both parties say the 2006 elections — which punished many vocally anti-immigration candidates — showed that voters support action on the issue.

But the clock is ticking on attempts to compromise, with the Senate set to debate immigration next month and most insiders seeing August as a deadline for action by both chambers.

“There are plenty of Democrats who would rather just walk away and say the Republicans are racist, and the Hispanics will vote for us, and then we’ll do something” after the 2008 elections, said Tamar Jacoby, an immigration expert at the conservative Hudson Institute who has consulted with the White House and Republicans on the issue.

Last year’s effort collapsed as House Republicans revolted against the Senate-passed measure, calling it amnesty. They rejected Bush’s call for a “comprehensive” deal that included both a temporary guest worker program for new arrivals and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already here. Many conservative Republicans, particularly in the House, still are adamantly opposed to any such measure.

Now GOP leaders have tapped Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, one of those who hung back from the comprehensive approach amid a tough re-election fight, to lead negotiations on a compromise.

McCain’s office, meanwhile,denies that he has scaled back his once-prominent role.

“The more members that are involved the better, but he is thoroughly engaged and totally committed to finding a solution,” said Eileen McMenamin, McCain’s spokeswoman.

Privately, senators in both parties and strategists on the issue say he has faded from the forefront of immigration negotiations — leaving his staff to track them and a confidant, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, to mediate — while he waits for the right moment to weigh in.

“He’ll be there if they emerge with a bipartisan bill — he’ll be there standing with everyone else — but it didn’t pay for him to be the lonely guy,” Jacoby said.