US Senate Launches Immigration Reforms

May 18th, 2007

Congressional leaders from both parties and White House staff reached a deal on Immigration reform on Thursday. This comes after many weeks of closed door negotiations. This is a good starting time in immigration reform, especially with the offer to 12 million undocumented immigrants to grant legal status to live and work in the U.S.

This Senate package includes a doubling of border patrol, smart security perimeter and a border fence. It would create a guest worker program for 400,000 temporary workers per year on a two year visa with a touch back at home for a year. Undocumented immigrants who arrived before January 1, 2007 would be issued with a “Z” visa (4 Years, renewable once) after paying $5000 penalty fee and other processing fess and it also puts them on permanent residence path after 8 – 13 years.

In advocating for immigrants’ justice, this is a good starting point. At least there is a bipartisan effort in Washington, DC, in the midst of divisions over the Iraq war. The earned legal status for undocumented immigrants is good opportunity because then they will be assured to see their family whenever they end their work, will walk freely without fear of deportation, and can rent apartments.

Some elements of the bill will need to be improved on, especially the opportunity to reunite families. This bill may cut family immigration for the future because it now favors a “merit based system”. In addition, the guest temporary visa for two year with a return to home for a year will be a hot issue. Some people opposed to this deal are calling it Amnesty. This is not Amnesty, but is an opportunity to change the illegal into the legal and to reform the system. It is not amnesty because applicants have to pay a hefty fine of $5000 plus, they can’t use the time they have been in the U.S. to qualify for citizenship, and they will have to learn English and not have a criminal record. Secondly, those opposed to the deal are not providing an alternative to the current broken system or a realistic solution to the problem of 12 million undocumented immigrants.

The Senate will start the debate the week of May 21st. The House will take up the issue after the Senate vote; we are hoping the House sticks to its STRIVE ACT (H.R. 1645) which is a sound bill, but which will need a lot of our support in order to be enacted. A Conference Committee (comprised of relevant House and Senate Committee members) will need to sort out the differences in the House and Senate bills before sending it to President Bush, who is “anxiously waiting” to sign a Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill this year.

We need to continue pushing and contacting our Congressional leaders to get immigration reform done now. Failure to act now will lead to more deaths of immigrants across the border, millions of people will continue to live in fear and families will continue to face indefinite separations.

For more information, please contact George Ngolwe

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