senators agree on principles of immigration reform

[5/21/13] The most far-reaching US immigration legislation in about two decades moved forward on a solid bipartisan vote in the Senate judiciary committee after supporters avoided a controversy over the rights of gay spouses.

The 13-5 vote cleared the way for a full Senate showdown on one of President Barack Obama's top domestic priorities and gives the opposition Republican party a chance to recast itself as more appealing to minorities.

"Yes, we can! Sí, se puede," immigration activists shouted after the vote, reprising Obama's campaign cry in his historic run for the White House in 2008.

In addition to creating a pathway to citizenship for 11.5 million immigrants living illegally in the country, the legislation creates a new program for low-skilled foreign labour and would permit highly skilled workers into the country at far higher levels. At the same time it requires the government to take costly new steps to guard against future illegal immigration.

Obama said the legislation was "largely consistent with the principles of common-sense reform I have proposed and meets the challenge of fixing our broken immigration system".

Republicans have embraced the idea of immigration reform after a large majority of Hispanic voters supporters Obama in the 2012 election, leading to concerns that the party was out of touch with a younger, more diverse country.

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[1/17/13] A bipartisan group of eight senators plans to announce they have agreed on a set of principles for comprehensive immigration reform.

The deal, which will be announced at a news conference Monday afternoon, covers border security, guest workers and employer verification, as well as a path to citizenship for the 11 million illegal immigrants already in this country.

The eight senators expected to endorse the new principles are Democrats Charles Schumer of New York, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Michael Bennet of Colorado; and Republicans John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Marco Rubio of Florida and Jeff Flake of Arizona.

According to documents released early Monday, the senators will call for accomplishing four main goals:

--Creating a path to citizenship for the estimated illegal immigrants already in the U.S., contingent upon securing the border and better tracking of people here on visas.

--Reforming the legal immigration system, including awarding green cards to immigrants who obtain advanced degrees in science, math, technology or engineering from an American university.

--Creating an effective employment verification system to ensure that employers do not hire illegal immigrants.

--Allowing more low-skill workers into the country and allowing employers to hire immigrants if they can demonstrate they couldn't recruit a U.S. citizen; and establishing an agricultural worker program.

The principles being released Monday are outlined on just over four pages, leaving plenty of details left to fill in.

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[4/16/13] (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Tuesday embraced a sweeping overhaul of the nation's immigration system put forward by a bipartisan group of senators, saying it was "largely consistent" with his own principles for immigration reform.

The Democratic president, who had said previously that he would submit his own bill if he was not satisfied with the Senate proposal, urged Congress to "quickly move" the bill forward and pledged to do "whatever it takes" to help.

He spoke after meeting with two of the measure's chief sponsors, Senators John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, and Charles Schumer, a Democrat from New York.

Obama's endorsement and the bipartisan support for the bill improves its chances for passage but by no means ensures it.

The four Democrats and four Republicans sponsoring the bill likely face a months-long battle, with the biggest challenge expected in the Republican-led House of Representatives.


McCain, who lost the 2008 presidential election to Obama, warned that the defeat of any one of the key provisions of the complex legislation could jeopardize the whole effort.

He told reporters that it was "carefully crafted" to keep Republicans, Democrats and different interest groups on board and that if "certain things" were changed, "we would lose one side or the other."

For this and other reasons, Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, another of the bill's sponsors, said the group planned on taking its time with the legislation.

"It's a complicated issue and I think people want to learn more about it," the Cuban-American lawmaker told reporters. "This will be a while. This is not going to be done in a week or quite frankly in a month."

Rubio's comment underscored the delicate construction of the proposal, which would create a new legal status for millions of undocumented immigrants, as urged by immigrant advocacy groups and large segments of the Democratic party.

But to lure Republican support, it conditions a path to permanent legal status - and ultimately a chance for citizenship - on the success of a multibillion-dollar effort to make U.S. borders less porous, using unmanned aerial surveillance, the construction of double and triple lawyers of fencing and the deployment of thousands of additional border patrol officers along with the National Guard.

To get business support, the bill would create a new system of visas for temporary agricultural workers and low-skilled laborers as well as expand the number of specialized, highly-trained foreigners allowed to enter the country to work for technology companies.

To avoid alienating fiscal conservatives in both parties, the proposal denies most federal benefits to the immigrants until they achieve permanent status in the United States, which could take 10 years.
Supporters insist that the bill would not provide an amnesty to illegal immigrants.

The eight senators are trying to pull together broad Republican and Democratic support in hopes that doing so will save the legislation from the fate of failed efforts to comprehensively reform immigration over the past three decades.

That strategy began to pay off Tuesday, even before the bill had been formally introduced.

Conservative anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, was among those who praised the immigration reform effort. He said he would attend a news conference later this week sponsored by the bipartisan group of senators backing the bill.

"They are doing serious border security. They are making sure that the 10 or 11 million who are here without papers can stay and work as long they are not criminals as long as they're working. So you're weeding out bad guys and allowing people who are good and decent and hard-working to be able to stay and work and get in line in questions of citizenship ..."

Rather than being a cost to the country, the bill would be a "boon" to the economy and would save taxpayers money because those with the provisional visas won't be eligible for federal benefits, Norquist said.

The Senate proposal has been embraced by a range of groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO labor organization and immigrants rights activists.

The argument that the new law would be too costly has struck a chord with Tea Party conservatives and could become a central theme of opposition in the House.

"America's entitlement system is already on a sinking ship and it would be fiscally irresponsible to add another 10 million people to the public assistance rolls," said Debbie Dooley, co-founder of the Atlanta Tea Party.