Immigration Reform’s “Elephant In The Room”: 11 Million People In The Shadows, What Will Work To Bring Them Forward?
July 27, 2003
A hearing on comprehensive immigration reform in the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday tackled head-on the thorny issue of what to do with the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S.
Either they leave and return to the U.S. through some type of new temporary worker program after which they must return home or they stay and work while getting in line to gain eventual legal permanent residency.
The bills discussed in yesterday’s hearing mirror these ideas. The bipartisan Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act of 2005 (S. 1033/H.R. 2330), introduced by Senators Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and John McCain (R-AZ) and Representatives Jim Kolbe (R-AZ), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), and Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), requires undocumented immigrants to come forward, pay a fine, and permits them to stay in the U.S. and apply for a worker visa. If they choose to, they may eventually apply for legal permanent status.
The Comprehensive Enforcement and Immigration Act of 2005 (S. 1438), introduced by Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ), calls for undocumented immigrants to leave the U.S. Once outside the U.S., they may apply for a guest worker program which would require them to eventually return home. Senators Cornyn and Kyl emphasized that participants may apply for permanent status “through the normal channels.” However, they failed to address the virtual absence of legal channels for people seeking residency.
Which of these approaches would really work on the ground?
According to former Representative Hal Daub (R-NE), President and CEO of the American Health Care Association & National Center For Assisted Living, who testified at the hearing, “work and return” would not be ideal for the health care industry. “[We] find it illogical that an administrator must send his or her most senior, qualified aide home after just two or three years simply because they were born in a foreign country.” According to a press release from conservative activist Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform, the Cornyn/Kyl approach won’t work.
“That provision is highly impractical, would never happen in the real world, and would encourage undocumented workers to avoid, not comply with, the new law. Can you imagine the prospect of 11 million hardworking laborers having to go across a border just to sign a piece of paper, only to return to their current jobs? That’s just the kind of bureaucratic run-around people leave their home countries to avoid.”
Fellow conservative Tamar Jacoby of the Manhattan Institute, said in her testimony yesterday:
“An effective temporary worker program will have to be large enough to provide the workers we need to keep our economy growing and flexible enough to accommodate a variety of immigrants, including those who ultimately chose to settle in the United States. Of the two proposals on the table, only the McCain-Kennedy bill meets the second requirement, and it is the only one that seems likely to work realistically to meet our future labor needs.”
And an editorial in today’s Tucson Citizen has more:
“The McCain proposal is likely to be far more successful in enticing people to come forward. Faced with the requirement that they leave the country, as the Kyl bill does, and the economic hardship that would impose, those here illegally would have little incentive to participate.” (Tucson Citizen, Editorial, Immigration still is low on Bush's agenda, July 27, 2005.)
Finally, what does the Latino community think? In January 2004, right after President Bush issued his principles for immigration reform, a national poll conducted by Bendixen & Associates for New California Media/Pacific News Service found that when asked to choose between an earned legalization policy and the President’s temporary legal status proposal (which is similar to the Cornyn/Kyl formula), 75% of Latinos polled favored the proposal for earned legalization while 16% preferred the President’s temporary worker program.
Will Congress advance authentic reform that may actually work? Or will they pass laws so skewed by political calculations that the result will be little if any improvement over the status quo – further eroding American’s trust in our immigration system? Let’s hope Congress chooses to do the former.
http://www.immigrationforum.org/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=758
July 27, 2003
A hearing on comprehensive immigration reform in the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday tackled head-on the thorny issue of what to do with the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S.
Either they leave and return to the U.S. through some type of new temporary worker program after which they must return home or they stay and work while getting in line to gain eventual legal permanent residency.
The bills discussed in yesterday’s hearing mirror these ideas. The bipartisan Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act of 2005 (S. 1033/H.R. 2330), introduced by Senators Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and John McCain (R-AZ) and Representatives Jim Kolbe (R-AZ), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), and Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), requires undocumented immigrants to come forward, pay a fine, and permits them to stay in the U.S. and apply for a worker visa. If they choose to, they may eventually apply for legal permanent status.
The Comprehensive Enforcement and Immigration Act of 2005 (S. 1438), introduced by Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ), calls for undocumented immigrants to leave the U.S. Once outside the U.S., they may apply for a guest worker program which would require them to eventually return home. Senators Cornyn and Kyl emphasized that participants may apply for permanent status “through the normal channels.” However, they failed to address the virtual absence of legal channels for people seeking residency.
Which of these approaches would really work on the ground?
According to former Representative Hal Daub (R-NE), President and CEO of the American Health Care Association & National Center For Assisted Living, who testified at the hearing, “work and return” would not be ideal for the health care industry. “[We] find it illogical that an administrator must send his or her most senior, qualified aide home after just two or three years simply because they were born in a foreign country.” According to a press release from conservative activist Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform, the Cornyn/Kyl approach won’t work.
“That provision is highly impractical, would never happen in the real world, and would encourage undocumented workers to avoid, not comply with, the new law. Can you imagine the prospect of 11 million hardworking laborers having to go across a border just to sign a piece of paper, only to return to their current jobs? That’s just the kind of bureaucratic run-around people leave their home countries to avoid.”
Fellow conservative Tamar Jacoby of the Manhattan Institute, said in her testimony yesterday:
“An effective temporary worker program will have to be large enough to provide the workers we need to keep our economy growing and flexible enough to accommodate a variety of immigrants, including those who ultimately chose to settle in the United States. Of the two proposals on the table, only the McCain-Kennedy bill meets the second requirement, and it is the only one that seems likely to work realistically to meet our future labor needs.”
And an editorial in today’s Tucson Citizen has more:
“The McCain proposal is likely to be far more successful in enticing people to come forward. Faced with the requirement that they leave the country, as the Kyl bill does, and the economic hardship that would impose, those here illegally would have little incentive to participate.” (Tucson Citizen, Editorial, Immigration still is low on Bush's agenda, July 27, 2005.)
Finally, what does the Latino community think? In January 2004, right after President Bush issued his principles for immigration reform, a national poll conducted by Bendixen & Associates for New California Media/Pacific News Service found that when asked to choose between an earned legalization policy and the President’s temporary legal status proposal (which is similar to the Cornyn/Kyl formula), 75% of Latinos polled favored the proposal for earned legalization while 16% preferred the President’s temporary worker program.
Will Congress advance authentic reform that may actually work? Or will they pass laws so skewed by political calculations that the result will be little if any improvement over the status quo – further eroding American’s trust in our immigration system? Let’s hope Congress chooses to do the former.
http://www.immigrationforum.org/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=758
posted by Noel at 5:22 PM
1 Comments:
Is the date at the top of this a typo?
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