With 12 or 13 million illegals in the country we've got a headache, as we've also got millions of legals who waited in line to receive their visas, whether temporary or permanent.
The illegals are lawbreakers in the view of conservatives and ought to be sent home or at the very least be sent home to start the legal application process all over, and oh, yes, pay at least a $5,000 fine before being allowed in.
This is crazy of course. Can you imagine sending millions of people home who don't want to go? Disrupting families, jobs, employers, lives? And who is going to administer this foolish program? The INS (now called, since 9-11, ICE for Immigration and Customs Enforcement)? The overstretched government cannot even process millions of visa applicants for Americans wishing to travel abroad for business or pleasure.
Conservatives go nuts over the fact that someone else has violated the law. When conservatives violate the law, it's no big thing. It must've been conservatives who invented the distinction between felony (serious criminality, originally resulting in outlawry and the death penalty) and misdemeanor (anything less). Today we have infractions.
Border jumping doesn't amount to overtime parking. The people coming up from the south are coming to work to live because we need them so we can live. They pick our food, prepare it, serve it, clean our hotel and motel rooms and rebuild after Katrina, as well as all over the rest of the country. If these folks didn't exist, we'd have to import them, from south of the border, no doubt.
I'd hate to have to go back because of lies my grandfather told getting through Ellis Island, wouldn't you?
If my parents had to jump a border to keep me and my sisters fed, I'd expect them to do so, wouldn't you?
We ought to give medals to those who successfully jump our border. For Bravery. For Courage. For Willingness to Work Hard. For Willing to Support Family, Sending Money Back.
Mexico is our Employment Bank. Some cities have Kelly Girls to supply temporary workers to offices. We have Mexico. Need a few thousand workers? Call Mexico. You don't even have to waste the dime, Mexico will come to you, in fact they're crossing the border as we speak.
Congress has been trying to do something to solve this non-problem which benefits us.
Congress wants to put order in this system.
Well and good, put order in the system. Eliminate the alleged problem of the illegals by legalizing the illegals without sending anyone home and impose no fines. Let them go to the nearest post office and sign a paper that says "Here I am; it's me Juan; you can find me any time; meanwhile I'm off to work; here's my cellphone if you'd like to call. Adios. Juan" Boom. Done. No administrative headache. Juan returns to hanging sheetrock, just as God intended. American boss: happy. American homeowner: happy. Family in Mexico: happy. Win-win-win.
Who loses? Conservatives: unhappy. Why? Because we didn't send the Mexicans home and make them gyrate through all sorts of administrative hoops, which conservatives love to see others do. This makes conservatives feel good, even though it hurts others. The conservative instinct is to make others squirm and acknowledge their superiority. Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, indeed the whole Iraq war was brought to you by whom? Conservatives.
When Congress enacts a law addressing a small part of a large problem, it is sometimes argued that Congress discriminates unfairly by not addressing the concerns of other, similarly situated, groups, i.e. an equal protection violation.
But the Court has recognized that Congress is entitled to attack large problems piecemeal without such a challenge succeeding.
The current immigration reform process seems to be an example of Congress trying to do too much all at once. All the forces seem to have converged to cobble a massive hodge-podge of a bill that covers everything. This is making the effort unusually cumbersome.
Below is an example of the difficulty of maintaining the coalitions of interested groups from ethnic to labor, business, liberal, conservative, etc., necessary to craft a viable reform bill covering a large topic in an overall fashion.
The latest news today, below, following the Boxer article, is that the bill to require millions to return home is defeated, tabled in a process designed to prevent filibustering, thank the Lord and those who thought the anti-filibuster remedy up.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
(06-27) 04:00 PDT Washington --
The Senate's mammoth immigration overhaul was resurrected Tuesday in a big
test vote -- aided by a reversal by California Sen. Barbara Boxer -- but
the strange alliance of business, unions and ethnic groups supporting the
effort is increasingly fractured.
The tensions are nowhere more evident than in Boxer's shaky role as a
Democrat who a month ago split with her California colleague, Sen. Dianne
Feinstein, to kill the bill, and on Tuesday rejoined her party in a 64-35 vote
to let it move forward to the Senate floor for debate.
"I'd say it's a pretty good pounding from all directions," Boxer said.
"People are strong on both sides. ... Constituents have opinions, labor has
opinions, the Hispanic groups and other immigrant groups are split."
Boxer said her decisions on final passage later this week ride on two
dozen highly controversial amendments affecting everything from H-1B visas for
skilled workers to family green cards.
Her biggest complaint is a proposed guest worker program that would admit
200,000 unskilled workers a year for up to three two-year stints, each
punctuated by a year out of the country. Boxer is proposing to subtract one
guest worker from the quota for each one that fails to go home.
"As I decide, it will be based on my feelings about the whole issue, and
what is in the best interests of my state and my country," Boxer said. "I know
that sounds very corny, but that's really where it's at."
Feinstein, who helped negotiate the legislation and remains an ardent
supporter, said she has received over 100,000 calls and letters on the issue.
"Have we gotten a lot of heat? Yes," Feinstein said. But she said it is
hard to tell in a state as large as California whether that sample of mostly
hostile opinion reflects a majority. Feinstein said she believes, "people
understand we have an amnesty now" with millions of people living in the
country illegally.
Silicon Valley technology companies were fighting their own battles behind
the scenes, spurning White House entreaties to help push the larger bill until
they are assured passage of an amendment by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., to
increase H-1B visas and allow employers to continue to sponsor some permanent
migrants for five years.
The industry was horrified when the bill emerged from closed-door talks
not only without the big increase in H-1B temporary visas for skilled workers
they have sought for three years, but also eliminating employer-sponsored green
cards for permanent residence with a merit-based point system.
The administration called 30 tech lobbyists to the White House on Monday
to solicit their support, but got a limp handshake.
"A month ago, the same people said we shouldn't even get the Cantwell
amendment," one said, speaking anonymously for fear of alienating the White
House. "The president said, 'This bill is great and we don't want you to fight
it.' Now they're saying, 'What a great amendment, we have helped get this for
tech, and we support it.' "
The lobbyist said that was all well and good, but that high-tech muscle
was riding entirely on their own provisions.
"We love them and want to work with them," the lobbyist said, "but our
fate will be determined on the Senate floor and that's where our fight will
be."
The technology provision remains caught in the swirl of backroom
deal-making and arm twisting that delayed further progress on the bill
throughout the afternoon. Cantwell said her amendment was being "used as bait"
by Republicans trying to get Democratic votes for their tougher enforcement
amendments.
Divisions within business, labor and immigrant rights groups have only
grown over the past weeks. This unstable alliance has provided the muscle for
every major immigration reform of the last four decades, and this one is no
different.
But this time, with a bill hammered out secretly by a bipartisan group of
senators and the White House, each faction felt left out in the cold. As the
compromises pile higher, the cracks widen.
The more liberal of California's senatorial duo, Boxer is under greater
pressure from unions and ethnic groups, who themselves are divided. Several Bay
Area immigrant organizations -- the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco, the
Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition and others -- split off from the national
lobbies, arguing that the enforcement-heavy bill is akin to apartheid.
National groups, such as the National Immigration Forum and the Mexican
American Legal Defense Fund, have stayed on board, hoping to alter the bill
later in the Democratic-controlled House.
The AFL-CIO, especially its construction trades, has split on immigration
from the United Farm Workers union, hotel, restaurant, laundry and gaming
workers union called UNITE HERE!, the Service Employees International Union and
others with heavy immigrant memberships. UNITE's political director Tom Snyder
is delighted that Boxer has come around, so far.
"Our California-based locals and leadership did reach out to her after
that vote," Snyder said. "The opportunity, which won't return for many, many
years, to legalize 10 million undocumented immigrants is essential to the
future of the American workplace. You can't have that many people undocumented
and have a workplace that's good from a union's standpoint."
Fractures among Democrats have been obscured by the ferocious fight
between GOP conservatives and the White House.
Newly elected Democratic moderates such as Sens. Jon Tester of Montana and
Claire McCaskill of Missouri oppose an expansion of immigration. Pro-union
liberals like Boxer worry that large numbers of low-skilled immigrants are
putting pressure on wages.
Many Democrats and their immigrant allies are torn between the prospect of
legalizing the estimated 12 million people living in the country illegally and
GOP provisions that they loathe: the guest worker program and a new
skills-based point system that would gradually replace extended family ties as
the main basis for admitting new immigrants.
Republicans wrestle with trade-offs between legalization and a big boost
in enforcement, not just at the border but at the workplace, sweetened with
$4.4 billion in up-front money Bush promised.
Feinstein and Boxer both badly want long-languishing provisions to admit
farmworkers and allow children brought illegally to the United States to
gradually legalize their status, receive in-state college tuition, travel
freely and get driver's licenses.
"There's a lot in the bill that's really good and a lot in the bill that's
not good," Boxer said.
E-mail Carolyn Lochhead at [email protected].
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/27/MNGL7QM87O1.DTL
This article appeared on page A - 4 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Plan to Send Immigrants Home Is Defeated
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
(06-27) 11:36 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --
The Senate on Wednesday killed a Republican proposal to require all adult illegal immigrants to return home temporarily in order to qualify for permanent lawful status in this country.
Also defeated was a Democratic bid to restrict legal status to those who have been in the United States for four years.
The vote was 53-45 to table an amendment by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, to require that illegal immigrants go home within two years in order to qualify for a renewable Z visa to live and work lawfully in the United States.
The bill, which could grant lawful status to as many as 12 million illegal immigrants, requires only heads of household seeking permanent legal residency to return home to apply for green cards.
Senators also voted 79-18 to kill a proposal by Democratic Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., that would have allowed only those who had been in the country for at least four years to gain lawful status. The bill would make anyone here by Jan. 1, 2007 eligible for legalization.
Both amendments were designed to respond to conservatives who decry President Bush's immigration bill as a form of amnesty.
Without her amendment, Hutchison said shortly before the vote, "the amnesty tag that has been put on this bill will remain. It is the key issue in the bill for the American people."
Webb said his proposal would raise the public's comfort level with granting lawful status to illegal immigrants.
"People in this country who traditionally would be supporting fair immigration policies, but who are worried about the legalization process in this bill, would come forward and support this," Webb said.
The revived immigration measure, which also would toughen border security and institute a new system for weeding out illegal immigrants from workplaces, is facing steep challenges from the right and left.
Conservatives call the measure too lenient toward unlawful immigrants, while liberals say it could rip apart families and doom guest workers to exploitation at the hands of unscrupulous employers.
Votes on key amendments were continuing Wednesday afternoon under a complex and carefully orchestrated procedure designed to overcome stalling tactics by conservative foes. It will allow votes only on a limited list of 26 amendments before a critical test-vote on the bill Thursday.
"It's going to be a rough ride," said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., an architect of the bill. "We're in trench warfare."
Republican framers of the bill were proposing their own, less burdensome return-home requirement for illegal immigrants. It would apply only to heads of household and would give them three years to meet the requirement.
Also expected to be voted on is an amendment by Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., that would bar illegal immigrants from eventually getting green cards.
Democratic amendments to give family members of citizens and legal permanent residents more chances to immigrate are also slated for votes.
Conservatives, irate at a process that has essentially stymied their ability to filibuster, said Senate leaders were trying to rush through a bad bill.
"The process has not been a pretty one," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.
___
The bill is S 1639
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/06/27/national/w095940D14.DTL
Comments