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Battle
heats Up Over Immigration Proposal |
The battle over immigration reform intensified recently as key Democrats, answering President Bush's plan to give some Mexicans temporary guest worker status, proposed to cover workers from all countries.
Adding fuel to that burgeoning political fight was a government study that said efforts to stem illegal border crossings have largely failed.
The report by the General Accounting Office said that despite a seven-year, multibillion-dollar federal investment in controlling the border with Mexico, "there is no clear indication that overall illegal entry into the United States along the Southwest border has declined."
Responding to Bush's Mexican proposal, Democrats issued their "governing principles" on immigration recently.
In a letter to President Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox, Senate Majority Leader Thomas Daschle and House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt said: "We strongly support efforts to reform our migration policy with Mexico, but we also want to use the opportunity to expand such an effort to include equally deserving people of other nations."
The letter specifically mentioned undocumented workers from China and Haiti, saying: "We should create a fair, uniform set of procedures for all immigrants."
The Daschle-Gephardt letter outlined four immigration goals: reunifying families, allowing working immigrants to "earn" legal status, improving border safety and creating a temporary worker program.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service must be reformed to reduce the processing backlog slowing immigrants from securing legal status, according to the letter. "It is long past time to create immigration policies that reunite families, meet the labor needs of America's economy, secure new economic stability for Mexico and honor the values of both countries."
There is opposition in both parties to the Democrats proposal. But Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia said even the narrower Bush plan was unacceptable.
"To capriciously grant amnesty to 3 million immigrants who circumvented (legal) processes, who have resided and worked in this country illegally, sends exactly the wrong message," Byrd said.
A coalition of conservative Republican lawmakers also oppose any plan to legalize illegal immigrants.
The Bush plan is focused on creating a new status of temporary guest worker for as many as 2 million Mexicans illegally holding jobs in the United States. It would allow some of those workers to begin the process of becoming permanent legal residents.
Some characterized the proposal as an attempt by Bush to court the Latino vote, which could be an important voting bloc for the 2004 presidential election.
"This is purely political. He wants to get the Mexican vote," said Brigette Huynh, an editor at Little Saigon News, a Vietnamese-language weekly newspaper in Westminster, Calif.
"Immigration law is supposed to be for everybody," Samedi Florvil of the Haitian Refugee Center in Miami said Monday. "I don't think it complies with the law of immigration just to choose a nation and say, 'We're going to give residency to 3 million people by country only and leave all the other immigrants behind."'
"The obvious question is: Why to them and not to Asian-Americans or people from other parts of the world?" wondered Wang Yung, a Seattle architect and board member of the local chapter of the Organization of Chinese Americans.
But Diane T. Chin, executive director of San Francisco-based Chinese for Affirmative Action, said the limited amnesty proposal is an "opening to discuss many different communities."
In a related matter Governor George E. Pataki of New York has renewed his call for Congress to extend the Legal Immigration and Family Equity (LIFE) Act to provide additional time for undocumented immigrants to apply for legal residence.
"Congress must provide more time so these immigrants, who are working and contributing to our State economy every day, can take advantage of this important program. I urge Congress to answer President Bush's call to get this done before their summer recess."
Under the program, undocumented immigrants could apply for legal residents without having to return to their country of origin to get a green card.
The Governor had asked Congress to grant an extension to the LIFE Act because of the short application window for a green card, widespread misinformation and reports of fraud being perpetrated in the immigrant community. His bill, which was sponsored by Representatives Peter King and Carolyn McCarthy, called for a six month extension of the law. While there was a shorter extension passed by the House of Representatives, an extension has yet to be taken up in the Senate.
Meanwhile the wait for permanent residency may get up to four months longer in the New York City area because of more processing delays at the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Immigration officials say that with the crush of forms they received earlier this year, they have fallen behind on a data entry step in the processing of certain permanent residency applications.
There is now a 60-day delay in entering biographical information in form I-181 on permanent residency applicants at the California and Vermont INS service centers, immigration officials said. Data entry of the biographical information triggers the customary CIA checks on applicants.
In turn, the New York INS district, which is affected by the backlog at the Vermont service center, has issued a memo to its examiners telling them not to approve permanent residency applications in cases where the I-181 file was created less than 120 days ago, agency officials said.
People affected by this delay are those who are applying to adjust their status to that of permanent residents through a petition from a family member, officials explained.
On another matter, The Refugee Protection Act of 2001 was introduced in the US Congress on August 3, to reduce the likelihood that refugees will be returned to countries where they may face persecution, and to promote alternatives to detention for asylum-seekers.
Meanwhilediscrimination against immigrants is on the rise, according to a new report released recently by the Oakland, California-based National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. The report is entitled "From the Borderline to the Colorline: A Report on Anti-Immigrant Racism in the United States".