Immigration Legislation in Washington Must be Comprehensive, All Agree
IMMIGRATION
New Bedford Standard-Times
Valerie Sullivan
Boston University Washington News Service
26 April 2007
WASHINGTON, April 26 —When federal immigration officials stormed New Bedford’s Michael Bianco Inc. factory in early March, detaining 361 Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition illegal immigrants and arresting the company’s owner and top managers, immigration reform once again moved into the legislative spotlight.
Within days, both Massachusetts senators had declared the immigration system “broken” and vowed to support laws that would improve it.
Today, many of those detained immigrants have been released and are awaiting hearings. The future of each is unknown; some face deportation, others asylum.
The future of immigration legislation in Congress is equally unknown – but by no means stagnant.
New immigration reform bills are introduced every month in Congress by members from across the country. But many of those bills “tend to focus only on enforcement measures,” Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said. “We need to take a more comprehensive approach.”
Both Sen. Kerry and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., voted last year for a bill that would have tightened border security by increasing the number of border patrol officers, constructing additional fencing along the southern border and creating harsher penalties for the construction of illegal border tunnels.
The bill also would have expanded the number of offenses resulting in mandatory detention and deportation, increased penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants, and created a temporary guest worker program that included a path to potential legal residency.
To reduce the backlog, the bill proposed increasing the total number of immigrants allowed to gain employment and legal status.
The bill, which collapsed into another bill sponsored by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn., ultimately passed, 62-36, but died in the House Judiciary Committee before the end of the last Congress.
“Sen. Kennedy and Sen. [John] McCain [R-Ariz.] have shown the way forward towards sensible reform that provides both a path to citizenship for the illegal immigrants who are already part of the life of our communities, as well as smart, tough enforcement of our laws,” Sen. Kerry said.
Sen. Kennedy, according to his office, is negotiating the details of a new bill on the Senate side. Although the details are unknown, Sen. Kennedy has said, “Only a plan that offers a path to earned citizenship will fix our broken system.”
On the House side, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Newton, is co-sponsoring with Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., a bill that would increase the number of border and enforcement personnel, employ new unmanned aerial vehicles, cameras and sensors on the border, increase penalties for illegal immigrants within the United States, tighten employment verification standards and create a new worker visa program. The bill would also include an opportunity for earned citizenship and legalization.
The bill is not perfect, Rep. Frank said, but it does provide better solutions for the current situation.
Sen. Kennedy said he supports Frank’s bill. The support is reciprocal. “I’m really supportive of Kennedy and his approach,” Rep. Frank said.
Mr. Frank’s bill is similar to last year’s McCain-Kennedy bill before it was amended on the Senate floor. According to Jeanne Butterfield, the executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the new legislation “embraces the framework [of last year’s bill] and makes improvements to make it more workable.”
It “streamlines and simplifies” the complexities the Senate added to the bill and provides immigrants with “a very clear path to legalization” over six years, she said, and would provide a “robust” temporary worker program that had been scaled back by the Senate last year.
The proposed House bill also would eliminate a “punitive” judicial review process that the Senate added on the floor, Ms. Butterfield said, and offer “enforcement provisions that are pretty strong, but they smart and achievable…, using technology in a smart way, using border enforcement in a smart way and strengthening document requirements.”
Both Massachusetts senators and Rep. Frank argue that an overhaul of immigration laws should not focus solely on improving border security.
“I’m optimistic that soon we will have legislation in the Senate that strikes the right balance between protecting our security, strengthening our economy, and enacting laws that uphold our humanity,” Sen. Kennedy said. “The American people have waited long enough.”
The debate is not over whether change is needed, but what that change should be, and.
the Kennedy-Frank approach has drawn criticism from all sides of the debate.
“Currently we’re working very hard to fix” the Frank-sponsored bill, said Ali Noorani, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, which protects and promotes the rights and opportunities of immigrants and refugees.
The organization advocates that any immigration legislation should reduce backlogs, allow for legalization of immigrants and protect all workers. “There are a number of fixes needed.”
Mr. Noorani said the bill includes a “trigger” mechanism that forces immigrants “to wait for a bureaucracy to fix itself before [they] can obtain legal status.”
“In essence, none of the legalization measures can be implemented until the enforcement measures [are implemented],” Mr. Noorani said. For example, border security measures must be implemented before any of the measures to move the legalization process forward for an immigrant can begin, he said.
Mr. Noorani also said the act should more “significantly strengthen worker protection provisions,” such as capping ever-increasing legalization fees.
He criticized the legislation for not drawing “a more clear line between the role of local police and federal police.” When local police regulate immigration, “it erodes the trust between local police and local communities,” he said, because illegal immigrants tend to not report crimes out of fear their legal status will be questioned. Mr. Noorani’s organization is also lobbying on potential Senate legislation, he said.
“Whether we’re looking at the raids [in New Bedford] or any community across the country, the fact is you have hardworking immigrants who are making small cities and towns [what they are], and our system does not allow them to emerge from the underground and get in line for citizenship,” Mr. Noorani said.
James Carafano, a senior fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, pointed to illegal activity as an indication that immigration laws are not effective.
“There [are] 15 million immigrants unlawfully living in the United States,” he said. “There are 500,000 people illegally crossing the border every year,” not to mention the backlogs of immigrants trying to become legal.
Mr. Carafano added: “There is no acceptable legislation in Congress.”
The only solution, he said, would be a combination of strengthening border security and enforcement of immigration laws to deter “people from coming in and living in the Unites States and creating legitimate legal opportunities to work in the United States.”
Furthermore, he said, any amnesty for illegal immigrants “should be off the table” because it would reward people for breaking the law.
Rep. Frank disagreed, arguing that trying to deport all of the illegal immigrants in the country would be impractical.
“Having 33,000 raids like the one we had in New Bedford is not a good idea, which is what it would take to get rid of everybody here,” he said. The solution, he added, is to “accept the people who are already here illegally but haven’t otherwise committed a crime, along with border security and better verification.”
Rep. Frank agreed that tighter border security and stronger penalties for illegal behavior are necessary. “If you’re caught crossing the border illegally, maybe the first time you get sent back, but the second time you get 60 days in jail,” he said.
“We need to put in a better tracking system of visas” as well, to deter people from coming to the United States on limited visas and then overstaying their visas, he said.
He emphasized the need for cooperation. “If we don’t all come together, we’re not going to get a good result.” he said. “Either [all of these changes] will happen or none of them will happen, and I think they will all happen.”
Mr. Noorani, for his part, said that when he thinks about the future of immigration, he thinks in days, not years.
“Quite frankly… I don’t think cities and towns across the country can weather the storm that has been caused by the type of immigration raids in New Bedford,” Mr. Noorani said.
###
WASHINGTON—When federal immigration officials stormed New Bedford’s Michael Bianco Inc. factory in early March, detaining 361 Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition illegal immigrants and arresting the company’s owner and top managers, immigration reform once again moved into the legislative spotlight.
Within days, both Massachusetts senators had declared the immigration system “broken” and vowed to support laws that would improve it.
Today, many of those detained immigrants have been released and are awaiting hearings. The future of each is unknown; some face deportation, others asylum.
The future of immigration legislation in Congress is equally unknown – but by no means stagnant.
New immigration reform bills are introduced every month in Congress by members from across the country. But many of those bills “tend to focus only on enforcement measures,” Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said. “We need to take a more comprehensive approach.”
Both Sen. Kerry and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., voted last year for a bill that would have tightened border security by increasing the number of border patrol officers, constructing additional fencing along the southern border and creating harsher penalties for the construction of illegal border tunnels.
The bill also would have expanded the number of offenses resulting in mandatory detention and deportation, increased penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants, and created a temporary guest worker program that included a path to potential legal residency.
To reduce the backlog, the bill proposed increasing the total number of immigrants allowed to gain employment and legal status.
The bill, which collapsed into another bill sponsored by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn., ultimately passed, 62-36, but died in the House Judiciary Committee before the end of the last Congress.
“Sen. Kennedy and Sen. [John] McCain [R-Ariz.] have shown the way forward towards sensible reform that provides both a path to citizenship for the illegal immigrants who are already part of the life of our communities, as well as smart, tough enforcement of our laws,” Sen. Kerry said.
Sen. Kennedy, according to his office, is negotiating the details of a new bill on the Senate side. Although the details are unknown, Sen. Kennedy has said, “Only a plan that offers a path to earned citizenship will fix our broken system.”
On the House side, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Newton, is co-sponsoring with Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., a bill that would increase the number of border and enforcement personnel, employ new unmanned aerial vehicles, cameras and sensors on the border, increase penalties for illegal immigrants within the United States, tighten employment verification standards and create a new worker visa program. The bill would also include an opportunity for earned citizenship and legalization.
The bill is not perfect, Rep. Frank said, but it does provide better solutions for the current situation.
Sen. Kennedy said he supports Frank’s bill. The support is reciprocal. “I’m really supportive of Kennedy and his approach,” Rep. Frank said.
Mr. Frank’s bill is similar to last year’s McCain-Kennedy bill before it was amended on the Senate floor. According to Jeanne Butterfield, the executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the new legislation “embraces the framework [of last year’s bill] and makes improvements to make it more workable.”
It “streamlines and simplifies” the complexities the Senate added to the bill and provides immigrants with “a very clear path to legalization” over six years, she said, and would provide a “robust” temporary worker program that had been scaled back by the Senate last year.
The proposed House bill also would eliminate a “punitive” judicial review process that the Senate added on the floor, Ms. Butterfield said, and offer “enforcement provisions that are pretty strong, but they smart and achievable…, using technology in a smart way, using border enforcement in a smart way and strengthening document requirements.”
Both Massachusetts senators and Rep. Frank argue that an overhaul of immigration laws should not focus solely on improving border security.
“I’m optimistic that soon we will have legislation in the Senate that strikes the right balance between protecting our security, strengthening our economy, and enacting laws that uphold our humanity,” Sen. Kennedy said. “The American people have waited long enough.”
The debate is not over whether change is needed, but what that change should be, and.
the Kennedy-Frank approach has drawn criticism from all sides of the debate.
“Currently we’re working very hard to fix” the Frank-sponsored bill, said Ali Noorani, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, which protects and promotes the rights and opportunities of immigrants and refugees.
The organization advocates that any immigration legislation should reduce backlogs, allow for legalization of immigrants and protect all workers. “There are a number of fixes needed.”
Mr. Noorani said the bill includes a “trigger” mechanism that forces immigrants “to wait for a bureaucracy to fix itself before [they] can obtain legal status.”
“In essence, none of the legalization measures can be implemented until the enforcement measures [are implemented],” Mr. Noorani said. For example, border security measures must be implemented before any of the measures to move the legalization process forward for an immigrant can begin, he said.
Mr. Noorani also said the act should more “significantly strengthen worker protection provisions,” such as capping ever-increasing legalization fees.
He criticized the legislation for not drawing “a more clear line between the role of local police and federal police.” When local police regulate immigration, “it erodes the trust between local police and local communities,” he said, because illegal immigrants tend to not report crimes out of fear their legal status will be questioned. Mr. Noorani’s organization is also lobbying on potential Senate legislation, he said.
“Whether we’re looking at the raids [in New Bedford] or any community across the country, the fact is you have hardworking immigrants who are making small cities and towns [what they are], and our system does not allow them to emerge from the underground and get in line for citizenship,” Mr. Noorani said.
James Carafano, a senior fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, pointed to illegal activity as an indication that immigration laws are not effective.
“There [are] 15 million immigrants unlawfully living in the United States,” he said. “There are 500,000 people illegally crossing the border every year,” not to mention the backlogs of immigrants trying to become legal.
Mr. Carafano added: “There is no acceptable legislation in Congress.”
The only solution, he said, would be a combination of strengthening border security and enforcement of immigration laws to deter “people from coming in and living in the Unites States and creating legitimate legal opportunities to work in the United States.”
Furthermore, he said, any amnesty for illegal immigrants “should be off the table” because it would reward people for breaking the law.
Rep. Frank disagreed, arguing that trying to deport all of the illegal immigrants in the country would be impractical.
“Having 33,000 raids like the one we had in New Bedford is not a good idea, which is what it would take to get rid of everybody here,” he said. The solution, he added, is to “accept the people who are already here illegally but haven’t otherwise committed a crime, along with border security and better verification.”
Rep. Frank agreed that tighter border security and stronger penalties for illegal behavior are necessary. “If you’re caught crossing the border illegally, maybe the first time you get sent back, but the second time you get 60 days in jail,” he said.
“We need to put in a better tracking system of visas” as well, to deter people from coming to the United States on limited visas and then overstaying their visas, he said.
He emphasized the need for cooperation. “If we don’t all come together, we’re not going to get a good result.” he said. “Either [all of these changes] will happen or none of them will happen, and I think they will all happen.”
Mr. Noorani, for his part, said that when he thinks about the future of immigration, he thinks in days, not years.
“Quite frankly… I don’t think cities and towns across the country can weather the storm that has been caused by the type of immigration raids in New Bedford,” Mr. Noorani said.
###
