Senate Begins Work on Details of Immigration Reform

 

WASHINGTON (By Angie C. Marek, US News) May 2, 2007 — The emotions and the crowds may not be as boisterous, large, and bedecked in Mexican flags as they were during last year's May Day immigration rallies, but make no mistake about it, many watching the issue closely are still plenty worried about the direction of immigration reform.

On Tuesday, as more than a thousand people gathered to march in Phoenix–and thousands upon thousands descended on the cities of Chicago and Los Angeles–delicate negotiations among lawmakers were still continuing unabated behind closed doors in Washington. Many say if consensus isn't reached soon, it could be Mayday for the whole immigration effort until 2009, at least.

Right now all attention is focused on the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid plans to kick off discussion on May 14 with two weeks of floor debate on an immigration reform bill.

Earlier this spring the White House decided it would be necessary to secure the support of conservative Senate Republicans for any reforms, with the idea being that crucial support there could persuade skeptical House conservatives to vote for a reform bill when they take one up later this summer.

For weeks, White House officials–led by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez–have been meeting almost daily with the Republicans they're trying to court, including, most crucially, Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, who opposed the more moderate immigration reform bill that passed the Senate last year. A PowerPoint presentation that leaked in March of a working proposal being floated among the group prompted some ire from immigration advocates. They objected to two provisions: a $10,000 fine immigrants would need to pay to get a green card and a tightening of restrictions on immigrants' sponsorship of family members for visas.

Since then, Democratic senators, including liberal Sen. Edward Kennedy, have entered the negotiating room. Still, says Angela Kelley, deputy director of the National Immigration Forum, a pro-immigrant group, "It's easy to become increasingly concerned because the days are ticking by and we've yet to see anything good come out of these negotiations." Many are banking on a bill that would come directly out of negotiations onto the floor of the Senate, bypassing the usual channels in the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, which could be done if Reid invokes a special Senate rule.

The latest proposals being weighed by the group reportedly still call for some crucial shifts in decades of immigration policy–especially current laws that have resulted in more than three fourths of legal migration to this country being for the reunification of family members. The administration has proposed to eliminate visa categories that currently allow immigrants already here to bring over adult children, siblings, and potentially parents; visas to bring over spouses and young children would be unaffected. At the same time, eliminated visa classes would be replaced with new "merit visas" that would reward immigrants with in-demand skills.

Proposals also appear to allow the roughly 12 million illegal immigrants already in the country to legalize their status as long as they pass a background check and pay large fines. Unlike last year's Senate bill, the entire visa reform process would not begin until certain "triggers," or enforcement benchmarks, have been met at the border. Proposals so far also call for guest workers to come and work for three years at a time before being sent home for at least a year; workers that chose to bring family members could only do two-year-long work stints in the country. President Bush has said he's pushing for reforms "without amnesty and without animosity."

Tamar Jacoby, a Republican immigration expert with the Manhattan Institute who has long agreed with the administration's immigration policies, says one crucial question will be if some portion of the temporary workers will be able to eventually become citizens, and if there will be enough visas for a decent portion to do so in a timely manner.

"Some people will want to come and do work for a short time and go home, but we as Americans, should want some immigrants to stay," Jacoby says. "I don't think we can abandon the whole melting-pot model for a strictly temporary model that could create a whole permanent underclass of workers."

She also, like many, worries that the clock is ticking. Many experts say if an immigration reform bill doesn't pass in 2007, presidential election politics will make it virtually impossible to do anything the following year, in 2008.

"They've got two weeks of hard negotiations to go on this bill," says Jacoby. "And I think a lot of things are going to change in those two weeks." Immigration advocates and thousands on the streets for May Day certainly hope so.