A Closer Look at Immigration Reform Legislation in the New Year

By Mary Giovagnoli

Everyone pulled out the sports analogies last week when Congressman Luis Gutierrez and his 91 co-sponsors introduced H.R. 4321, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity Act of 2009—and rightly so, as this bill marks the opening bell in the 2010 immigration debate. It is not only the first major piece of comprehensive reform legislation introduced in the 111th Congress, but the first since the last debate on immigration reform, which took place in May and June of 2007 in the Senate.

But CIR ASAP also marks the end of a year that has been filled with movement on immigration reform. Most of it was not legislative, but reflected instead the change in Presidential administrations. Among the key developments:

-Janet Napolitano, governor of Arizona, an outspoken supporter of the comprehensive immigration reform and smart enforcement strategies, was named Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. She immediately called for review of enforcement programs that were highly criticized, including 287(g), E-verify, and worksite raids. This review ultimately led to major reforms in detention practices, an end to the massive worksite raids of the past, and a revamping of 287(g).

-President Obama reaffirmed his commitment to CIR over and over again, most notably by calling a White House summit of key Congressional leaders in May, naming Napolitano as his point person for getting reform done. Other cabinet leaders have been pulled into the effort, too. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, speaking at the Center for American Progress last week noted that cabinet secretaries and their staff are meeting weekly to coordinate administration efforts on reform.

-The President’s budget included a request for appropriated funds for USCIS, to pay for the costs of processing, asylum refugee, and military naturalization applications. Although Congress ultimately appropriated only a small portion of those funds, the mere fact that the administration recognized the need to revisit current fee structures (in which the agency must fund its operations almost exclusively through fees), marked a major policy departure, and the glimmer of true fee reform.

Still, there’s no denying the significance of the 644 page legislative package introduced last week. While it is a product of 2009, many of the proposals, including detention reforms and family reunification proposals, reflect tremendous work over the years by many of the co-sponsors—including Reps. Woolsey, Roybal Allard, Honda, Grijalva, Reyes, and Berman—while other sections incorporate legislation from Senators Menendez, Durbin, and former Senator Obama. As with all legislation of this type, it is a compilation of new and old ideas, woven together to reflect both a prescription for immigration policy and a plan for bringing along votes.

Does this mean that CIR ASAP is merely a marker bill, one designed to throw down the gauntlet, but not to move? Not exactly. Senator Schumer, as head of the Senate’s immigration subcommittee, and Congresswoman Lofgren, chair of the House Immigration subcommittee, are both expected to champion their own legislative packages in the coming year. It’s anticipated that Sen. Schumer will introduce his own comprehensive package early in 2010, which is likely to change significantly as it goes through committee, and then through the whole Senate. Assuming Senate passage, then the House will have to decide whether to simply take up the Senate bill, introduce a new package, or take CIR ASAP and its fellow proposals (and there will be more, it’s the nature of the game) through committee markups and so forth. So, it’s hard to tell what everything will look like by the time a bill hits the president’s desk. But CIR ASAP contains a number of viable solutions, and the final package will no doubt reflect some of those ideas—and hopefully some of the passion that infuses the bill.

So, while CIR ASAP may be the beginning of an era, it is also the end of a period of transition. The administration has made its position pretty clear. A big chunk of the House has now, too. The next move is Senator Schumer’s—and then the real games begin.

Comprehensive Immigration Reform to be Introduced December 15

Comprehensive Immigration Reform to be Introduced December 15

December 11, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Washington D.C.) On Tuesday, December 15, Congressman Luis V. Gutierrez (D-IL) will introduce new legislation, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America's Security and Prosperity Act of 2009 (CIR ASAP), to the U.S. House of Representatives. Gutierrez will be joined by members of many different faiths and backgrounds, including the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Black Caucus, Asian Pacific American Caucus and Progressive Caucus.

Who:
Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (IL-4), Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Immigration Task Force

Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez (NY-12), Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus

Rep. Yvette D. Clarke (NY-11), Whip of the Congressional Black Caucus

Rep. Mike Honda (CA-15), Chair of Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (CA-6), Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus

Rep. Judy Chu (CA-32)

Rep. Joseph Crowley (NY-7)

Rep. Pedro R. Pierluisi (PR-At large)

Rep. Jared Polis (CO-2)

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (IL-9)

Rep. Jose E. Serrano (NY-16)

Other Members of Congress

What:
Introduction of Comprehensive Immigration Reform Legislation

When:
12:30 pm, Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Where:
Room 2220, Rayburn House Office Building

"We have waited patiently for a workable solution to our immigration crisis to be taken up by this Congress and our President," said Rep. Gutierrez. "The time for waiting is over. This bill will be presented before Congress recesses for the holidays so that there is no excuse for inaction in the New Year. It is the product of months of collaboration with civil rights advocates, labor organizations, and members of Congress. It is an answer to too many years of pain —mothers separated from their children, workers exploited and undermined security at the border— all caused at the hands of a broken immigration system. This bill says 'enough,' and presents a solution to our broken system that we as a nation of immigrants can be proud of."

Testimony on "Oversight of the Department of Homeland Security"

In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano reiterated the Obama Administration’s plan to push for Comprehensive Immigration Reform legislation early next year.

...Finally, we look forward to working with you on immigration reform. The President is committed to that. He is committed to reform that includes serious, effective and sustained enforcement, that includes improved legal flows for families and workers, and a firm way to deal with those already illegally in the country.

We need to demand responsibility and accountability from everyone involved. The Department of Homeland Security, our law enforcement partners, businesses who must be able to find the workers they need here in America, and immigrants themselves as we enforce the law moving forward.

So I look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman and Senator Sessions and others on this Committee to develop a path forward early next year to reform the immigration system as a whole.

In Commemoration of Human Rights Day 2009

December 9, 2009
From FCNL: In Commemoration of Human Rights Day 2009

Hello all,

Becca Sheff at FCNL, the organization I used to work for, wrote this article which was published in yesterday’s E-News. She makes a powerful argument that health is a human right as she discusses why immigrants should be included in the final heathcare reform bill.

Much of what she says also rings true to my work here in Burundi. Check it out:

Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. ~World Health Organization, 1948

If you don’t have your health, then almost nothing else matters. From the smallest of injuries to grave illnesses, poor health disrupts daily life and can threaten your livelihood or even your survival. What so many of us take for granted – a healthy body, access to health care, and an environment conducive to good health – remains inaccessible for many of today’s immigrants.

This Thursday, December 10, is Human Rights Day, which commemorates the 61st anniversary of the creation of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. This year, as health care reform advances in Congress and immigration reform is around the corner, let’s take a moment to consider whether immigrants deserve to be in good health.

This should seem like a no-brainer, right? Of course immigrants deserve to be healthy, just like everyone else. But this notion, that people have rights based on their common humanity, is actually not yet well accepted in the United States. It is time for the U.S. government to recognize that the right to health is an essential and basic human right.

Immigrants face multiple barriers to good health. Conflicts abroad can force them from their homelands, sending them on a circuitous journey across national borders with few resources. Environmental destruction can dry up wells, destroy crops, and send people out in search of a better life. Economic disparities and governmental policies can deny immigrants and other marginalized populations access to basic health care even when it is widely available to the rest of the population.

The premise of human rights like the right to health is that people deserve to live with a certain level of dignity, and if they are unable to achieve that on their own, then their government will step in and help them out. Human rights law is a way of holding governments responsible to their people.

International human rights law clearly supports health as a human right. The Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights both state that all peoples have the right to a standard of living that promotes physical and mental health and well-being. In addition, the United States, as a signatory to the Charter of the Organization of American States, is committed to development efforts that promote a healthful life for all.

But how do these international commitments translate on the ground?

If the state of the current health reform legislation is any indicator, then the United States has a long way to go in ensuring that all of its residents – including immigrants – have access to adequate health care. Even with the upcoming reforms, immigrants face significant and unfair restrictions. Undocumented immigrants may not be able to buy coverage in the health insurance exchange even with their own money. Immigrants with green cards, who are in the country legally, would still face a 5-year ban for Medicaid.

From a public health standpoint, it just makes sense to want as many people as possible to have good access to health care. Healthy people make for healthy and productive communities. This is a common-sense solution to a shared problem. From a human rights standpoint, immigrants deserve health care coverage just as much as anyone else.

But the broken U.S. immigration system prevents immigrants from demanding their rights. Undocumented immigrants, unable to adjust their legal status, are particularly at risk of human rights abuses.

One of the most prominent sites of human rights abuses is the immigration detention system. The Department of Homeland Security will detain more than 440,000 immigrants annually by the end of 2009. Most of these immigrants are non-criminal and are suspected only of immigration violations, yet they are detained in jail-like settings and routinely denied access to basic and timely health care. Cases have been documented in which regularly taken medication was withheld, follow-up treatment for cancer was denied, and sick call requests were ignored. At least 104 immigrants have died in detention since 2003. This is unacceptable.

Just about everyone agrees that the U.S. immigration system is broken and needs fixing. Immigrants and their families need workable solutions that make it possible to live with dignity, in a way that is consistent with this country’s values of equality and opportunity. Health is an essential part of this equation.

In honor of Human Rights Day and in recognition of health as a human right, Congress should include immigrants in the final health reform bill and work toward passing humane and comprehensive immigration reform in early 2010.

We Can Fix This

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/11/napolitano_event.html

White House to Begin Push on Immigration Overhaul in 2010

The New York Times
November 14, 2009
White House to Begin Push on Immigration Overhaul in 2010
By JULIA PRESTON

The Obama administration will insist on measures to give legal status to an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants as it pushes early next year for legislation to overhaul the immigration system, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Friday.

In her first major speech on the overhaul, Ms. Napolitano dispelled any suggestion that the administration — with health care, energy and other major issues crowding its agenda — would postpone the most contentious piece of immigration legislation until after midterm elections next November.

Laying out the administration’s bottom line, Ms. Napolitano said officials would argue for a “three-legged stool” that includes tougher enforcement laws against illegal immigrants and employers who hire them and a streamlined system for legal immigration, as well as a “tough and fair pathway to earned legal status.”

With unemployment surging over 10 percent and Congress still wrangling over health care, advocates on all sides of the immigration debate had begun to doubt that President Obama would keep his pledge to tackle the divisive illegal immigration issue in the first months of 2010.

Speaking at the Center for American Progress, a liberal policy group in Washington, Ms. Napolitano unveiled a double-barrel argument for a legalization program, saying it would enhance national security and, as the economy climbs out of recession, protect American workers from unfair competition from lower-paid, easily exploited illegal immigrants.

“Let me emphasize this: we will never have fully effective law enforcement or national security as long as so many millions remain in the shadows,” she said, adding that the recovering economy would be strengthened “as these immigrants become full-paying taxpayers.”

Under the administration’s plan, illegal immigrants who hope to gain legal status would have to register, pay fines and all taxes they owe, pass a criminal background check and learn English.

Drawing a contrast with 2007, when a bill with legalization provisions offered by President George W. Bush failed in Congress, Ms. Napolitano said the Obama administration had achieved a “fundamental change” in border security and enforcement against employers hiring illegal immigrants. She said a sharp reduction in the flow of illegal immigrants into the country created an opportunity to move ahead with a legalization program.

Some Republicans were quick to challenge Ms. Napolitano’s claims that border security had significantly improved or that American workers would be helped by bringing illegal immigrants into the system.

“How can they claim that enforcement is done when there are more than 400 open miles of border with Mexico?” asked Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, the senior Republican on the House Judiciary Committee. He said the administration should “deport illegal immigrant workers so they don’t remain here to compete with citizen and legal immigrant job seekers.”

But Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the top Republican on the Judiciary subcommittee on immigration, agreed that it was time to open the immigration debate. “My commitment to immigration reform has not changed,” he said in a statement Friday. “I am interested in seeing a proposal sooner rather than later from President Obama.”

Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York and the chairman of that subcommittee, has been writing an overhaul bill and consulting with Republicans, particularly Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Mr. Schumer said that the administration’s agenda was “ambitious,” but that he was “confident we can have a bipartisan immigration bill ready to go under whatever timeline the president thinks is best.”

Ms. Napolitano has been leading the administration’s efforts to gather ideas and support for the immigration overhaul, meeting in recent weeks with business leaders, religious groups, law enforcement officials and others to gauge their willingness to go forward with a debate in Congress.

Framing the administration’s proposals in stark law and order terms, she said immigration legislation should include tougher laws against migrant smugglers and more severe sanctions for employers who hire unauthorized workers.

Ms. Napolitano said that the Border Patrol had grown by 20,000 officers and that more than 600 miles of border fence had been finished, meeting security benchmarks set by Congress in 2007. She was echoing an argument adopted by Mr. Bush after the bill collapsed in 2007, and by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, in his race against Mr. Obama. They said Americans wanted to see effective enforcement before they would agree to legal status for millions of illegal immigrants.

Some immigrant advocates were dismayed by Ms. Napolitano’s approach. Benjamin E. Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Council, praised her package of proposals, but said some enforcement policies she outlined “have proven to do more harm than good.”

Over 100 Democrats Push Obama on Immigration Reform

Over 100 Democrats Push Obama on Immigration Reform

Posted By La Prensa San Diego On October 30, 2009 @ 7:28 pm

By Marcelo Ballvé

Is immigration reform back?

Hoping to jump-start a major legislative drive on immigration reform in the U.S. Congress, more than 100 pro-reform House Democrats signed a letter reminding President Obama of his administration’s commitment to overhaul immigration.

The letter was clearly meant to nudge the White House toward engaging an issue it has allowed to languish.

The letter expressed House Democrats’ “commitment to fix our broken immigration system” and cited “strong support for moving forward on fair and humane comprehensive immigration reform this year.” One of the signees, Rep. Luis Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat, is gearing up to introduce a major immigration reform bill as early as next month.

Immigration advocates and their allies in Congress believe there is a window for immigration reform to pass early next year, before midterm elections complicate the political calculus.

“The room for doing this is very tight,” Gutierrez said earlier this month on the Spanish-language Univision network’s political talk program, “Al Punto.” “We have to do it in February or early March of next year.”

The renewed buzz around reform has raised expectations in the Hispanic community, but since such hopes have been dashed before, there is still an undercurrent of skepticism.

Despite the stirrings in the lower House of Representatives, it’s still unclear how much traction an immigration fix has in the Congress overall. Gutierrez’s bill and the letter to President Obama are only opening plays in a long campaign to push immigration to the center of Washington, D.C.’s always crowded agenda.

The recent moves might help Democrats show Hispanic voters that the party is aware of widespread frustration with the current immigration system. But there’s still no clear commitment to a timetable for an overhaul, or certainty that it will come.

“The timeline for immigration remains uncertain,” acknowledged Rep. Joseph Crowley, the New York Democrat who organized the letter on immigration sent to President Obama and signed by 111 House Democrats.

Time, he went on to admit, is short. Because of the November 2010 elections, “the further we go into next year… the more difficult I think it will be to address this issue” as risk-averse incumbents avoid controversial issues like immigration.

Rep. Crowley spoke during a teleconference call with reporters organized last week by the National Immigration Forum, a nonpartisan pro-immigration advocacy group in Washington, D.C., and New America Media.

Immigrant advocates know that once health care reform is settled, immigration will compete with other crucial issues, including banking regulation and the interrelated climate and energy questions, for political attention, said Ali Noorani, National Immigration Forum’s executive director.

That is why pro-immigration groups like his are organizing letter-writing, fax, and email campaigns, to create a groundswell that will inject urgency into their demands that Congress act on immigration.

As always, immigration reform pivots on one sensitive question: What happens with the nation’s 12 million undocumented immigrants?

While most pro-reform advocates envision a path to some sort of legal status for undocumented immigrants already in the country, opponents call such plans an amnesty that would encourage still more illegal immigration.

The cries of “amnesty” sunk Congress’s last serious attempt to reform immigration in 2007, and this time pro-reform advocates want to ensure that they are not drowned out by anti-immigration voices.

“We must keep up the drumbeat,” wrote Tamar Jacoby, head of Immi-grationWorks USA, a pro-immigration business group, in an e-mail to supporters. “Many members of Congress still don’t get it. Many are still leery of immigration. And when they go home to their districts, they still hear only the voices shouting ‘No.’ We have to help change that.”

Local groups advocating for immigrants’ rights are striving to be proactive.

“We need to take control of this [reform] timeline,” said Chung-Wa Hong, New York Immigrant Coalition executive director.

Hong, who participated in the teleconference last week with Rep. Crowley, said immigrant voters “are angry – they voted for change and they’re seeing more of the same.” She said that only a surge of voter demands for an immigration overhaul would galvanize Congress into action, and any expectations of a Washington, D.C.-initiated fix were politically naive.

Part of the problem for immigration reform is partisanship. Rep. Crowley could cite only one possible Republican backer by name: Arizona Rep. Jeff Flake.

When pushed to outline a reform plan that House Democrats could get behind, Rep. Crowley emphasized tighter border security and the targeting of “bad actor” employees who exploit undocumented immigrants. These get-tough measures are clearly designed to attract Republican support for a reform bill that would presumably create a path to legalization for those without papers.

President Reagan tried a similar “carrot and stick” plan in 1986, granting legal status to millions of undocumented along with cracking down on employers who hired unauthorized workers.

But there is little indication that present-day Republicans have an appetite for following Reagan’s lead. Michael Steele, president of the Republican National Committee, has long blamed the 1986 immigration law for today’s illegal immigration crisis.

More recently, in his own appearance on Univision’s Al Punto program, Steele said he was sick of politicians exploiting the “hot politics” of immigration. He also advocated for immigrants to assimilate by working hard, eating apple pie and learning the Star Spangled Banner.

But he gave no specifics on what sort of an immigration reform plan Republicans might be willing to hammer out with Democrats.

Noorani, of the National Immigration Forum, believes immigration reform has a “very, very good opportunity to move early in 2010.”

But until a substantive debate on immigration begins to build in Congress and nationwide, it will remain unclear whether the deadlock on immigration really is loosening.

The LAPD fights crime, not illegal immigration

Opinion

The LAPD fights crime, not illegal immigration
The outgoing chief of police urges the department to keep focusing on community outreach.
By William J. Bratton

October 27, 2009

On March 12, Juan Garcia, a 53-year-old homeless man, was brutally murdered in an alley off 9th and Alvarado streets in the Westlake District, just west of downtown Los Angeles. At first, the police were stumped; there were no known witnesses and few clues. Then a 43-year-old undocumented immigrant who witnessed the crime came forward and told the homicide detectives from the Rampart station what he saw. Because of his help, a suspect was identified and arrested a few days later while hiding on skid row. Because the witness was not afraid to contact the police, an accused murderer was taken off the streets, and we are all a little bit safer. Stories like this are repeated daily in Los Angeles.

Keeping America's neighborhoods safe requires our police forces to have the trust and help of everyone in our communities. My nearly 40 years in law enforcement, and my experience as police commissioner in Boston and New York City and as chief in Los Angeles, have taught me this.

Yet every day our effectiveness is diminished because immigrants living and working in our communities are afraid to have any contact with the police. A person reporting a crime should never fear being deported, but such fears are real and palpable for many of our immigrant neighbors.

This fear is not unfounded. Earlier this month, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that 11 more locations across the United States have agreed to participate in a controversial law enforcement program known as 287(g). The program gives local law enforcement agencies the powers of federal immigration agents by entering into agreements with Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. Although many local agencies have declined to participate in 287(g), 67 state and local law enforcement agencies are working with ICE, acting as immigration agents.

Some in Los Angeles have asked why the LAPD doesn't participate. My officers can't prevent or solve crimes if victims or witnesses are unwilling to talk to us because of the fear of being deported. That basic fact led to the implementation almost 30 years ago of the LAPD's policy on immigrants, which has come to be known as Special Order 40. The order prohibits LAPD officers from initiating contact with someone solely to determine whether they are in the country legally. The philosophy that underlies that policy is simple: Criminals are the biggest benefactors when immigrants fear the police. We can't solve crimes that aren't reported because the victims are afraid to come forward to the police.

The idea of engaging all members of the public in reporting crime and identifying criminals not only helps us with short- and medium-term goals of reducing crime; it helps improve relations with community members. We all have an interest in helping our young people develop into healthy, educated and law-abiding adults. Breeding fear and distrust of authority among some of our children could increase rates of crime, violence and disorder as those children grow up to become fearful and distrustful adolescents and adults. That is why the Los Angeles Police Department has not participated in 287(g) and the federal government is not pressuring the department to do so.

Americans want a solution to our immigration dilemma, as do law enforcement officials across this nation. But the solution isn't turning every local police department into an arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Police Foundation published a report in April titled "The Role of Local Police: Striking a Balance Between Immigration Enforcement and Civil Liberties." The report confirms that when local police enforce immigration laws, it undermines their core public safety mission, diverts scarce resources, increases their exposure to liability and litigation, and exacerbates fear in communities that are already distrustful of police.

The report concluded that to optimize public safety, the federal government must enact comprehensive immigration reform. As police chief of one of the most diverse cities in the United States, and possibly the world, I agree. As I leave my position as leader of the LAPD, I will encourage my successor to adopt the same rigid attitude toward keeping Special Order 40 and keeping the mission of the men and women of the department focused on community cooperation instead of community alienation.

Working with victims and witnesses of crimes closes cases faster and protects all of our families by getting criminals off the street. We must pass immigration reform and bring our neighbors out of the shadows so they get the police service they need and deserve. When officers can speak freely with victims and witnesses, it goes a long way toward making every American neighborhood much safer.

William J. Bratton is chief of the Los Angeles Police Department. The Police Foundation's report is available online at http://www.policefoundation.

Police chiefs press for immigration reform

By Dennis Wagner, The Arizona Republic
PHOENIX — Some of the nation's top cops on Wednesday called upon Congress to promptly adopt an immigration reform measure, saying local law enforcement agencies across America are struggling to deal with crime and confusion caused by a broken system.
About 100 police chiefs and administrators from Framingham, Mass., to San Diego joined Department of Homeland Security officials in Phoenix for a National Summit on Local Immigration Policies sponsored by the Police Executive Research Forum, a nonprofit law enforcement educational organization.

During closed discussions, the participants agreed that America needs a comprehensive new law containing guest-worker programs, a means for immigrants to become permanent residents and federal enforcement of the prohibition against hiring illegal immigrants, according to Chuck Wexler, the forum's executive director.

Dennis Burke, senior adviser to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, agreed with the police chiefs.

"Congress needs to work quickly," Burke said. "Delay is not painless. Secretary Napolitano has said the situation the country is in is not defensible."

The meeting focused on the struggles of community police agencies in coping with unlawful immigration and related crime. Police administrators said Department of Homeland Security enforcement efforts have inconsistent and unreliable for years, leaving police and sheriffs agencies to establish helter-skelter policies that polarize the public.

"It's starting to tear my town apart," said Steven Carl, the chief in Framington, "especially with the economy going south. You see a hatred toward the immigrant population."

Larry Boyd, police chief in Irving, Texas, said he has been "beaten over the head" by conservative groups for not going after illegal aliens, and by Latino groups for enforcing immigration laws. "Neither side was dealing with factual information," Boyd added, "but it's an issue the media loves to cover."

Phoenix police Chief Jack Harris noted that Arizona's capital city leads the nation in kidnappings — mostly involving human-smuggling syndicates that reflect federal policy failures. "It needs to be fixed, and it needs to be done sooner rather than later," Harris said.

Alan Bersin, President Obama's border czar, assured police administrators that a transformation is underway in Homeland Security.

"There's no question that under this secretary there's been a sea change," Bersin said, adding that ICE already is focusing more on workplace violations rather than immigrant roundups. However, he concluded, enforcement is likely to remain schizoid "until there is a reform of immigration law that is acceptable to the American people."

Police administrators were especially critical of the government's so-called "287(g)" program which provides for state and local police to enforce immigration law. The program has created nationwide confusion and controversy.

Paul Lewis, an associate professor of political science at Arizona State University who recently surveyed 237 U.S. police agencies, said nearly one-fifth of the departments have a policies that eschew immigration enforcement, 28% pursue undocumented aliens to some extent, and nearly half have no immigration enforcement policy at all.

George Gascón, outgoing police chief in Mesa, Ariz., noted that 60 Maricopa County Sheriff's deputies raided his suburban City Hall and library recently, looking for undocumented workers. Gascón said only three were arrested, adding, "I have seen the ugly side of this enforcement."

Many of the chiefs stressed that state and local immigration enforcement conflicts with community policing because it makes undocumented aliens fearful of reporting crimes or serving as witnesses. They said short-sighted policies lured the estimated 11.5 million undocumented immigrants into the United States, and the enforcement debate has been oversimplified by advocacy groups.

"I think a lot of people are trying to see, well, where's the new (Obama) administration going to go with this?" added Boyd, the Irving, Texas, police chief.

Immigration Rally, Tied to a New Bill, Draws Thousands

The New York Times
October 14, 2009
Immigration Rally, Tied to a New Bill, Draws Thousands
By IAN URBINA
WASHINGTON — Thousands of immigrants came to Capitol Hill on Tuesday for a day of lobbying and an afternoon rally calling for comprehensive immigration reform.

The event was timed to the unveiling of an immigration bill by Representative Luis V. Gutierrez, a Democrat from Illinois and the chairman of the Immigration Task Force of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

With President Obama’s stated commitment to immigration reform, advocates for immigrants said they hoped to revive a debate that has been overshadowed by other priorities, like the economy and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. As deportations continue to rise, immigration reform is needed now, they said, to allow illegal immigrants to obtain legal status and to stop families from being torn apart.

“We need a bill that says if you come here to hurt our communities, we will not support you; but if you are here to work hard and to make a better life for your family, you will have the opportunity to earn your citizenship,” Mr. Gutierrez said in a prepared statement. “We need a law that says it is un-American for a mother to be torn from her child, and it is unacceptable to undermine our workforce by driving the most vulnerable among us further into the shadows.”

Immigration reform faces a difficult road. President George W. Bush twice failed to get Congress to pass similar legislation. President Obama recently said his administration would pursue reform this year but expected no action on legislation before 2010.

Tuesday’s event was sponsored by various immigrant advocacy groups, including the Reform Immigration For America campaign, the National Capital Immigration Coalition, and Families United/Familias Unidas. It attracted convoys of buses, vans and cars carrying more than 3,000 protesters from at least 17 states.

Immigrants, religious leaders, members of Congress and immigrant advocates planned to gather on the West Lawn for speeches and a prayer vigil at 3 p.m. Similar rallies were being held in at least 20 cities around the nation, including Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Denver and Albany.

“I’m here representing the undocumented workers who cleaned Ground Zero and its surrounding area after the 9/11 terrorist attacks,” said Rubiela Arias, 43, an illegal immigrant from Colombia. She described how she came from Medellín to New York in 1998 with her 5-year-old son, seeking a safer place for her family.

“I worked for eight months cleaning the dust and debris surrounding the World Trade Center,” said Ms. Arias, who cleans offices in Manhattan and was dressed in a light-blue T-shirt with a sticker reading, “Reform Immigration for America.” “There was no question about immigration status. We were all New Yorkers; we were all Americans.”

In June, Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat from New York, announced what he called seven principles that would give form to his own reform proposal, including the need to “curtail future illegal immigration,” to have “operational control of our borders” and a “biometric-based employer verification system.” Mr. Schumer, who has been working with Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said he would introduce a bill by Labor Day but missed that deadline.

Mr. Gutierrez’s bill, which is likely to propose less restrictive terms than Mr. Schumer’s plan for allowing illegal immigrants to become legal citizens, is partly meant to pressure his Congressional colleagues.

A main purpose of the rally was to highlight the way current immigration law splits families.

“Families deserve better than this from our government,” said Peter Derezinski, a 17-year-old high school senior and a United States citizen whose father was deported to Poland in April 2008 after 18 years as a truck driver and an air-conditioning repairman in Chicago. “We need to fix our broken immigration system so our parents who have contributed to this nation’s economy in a positive way have a chance of reuniting with their children.”

Robin Ferschke, who was traveling from Maryville, Tenn., said she planned to talk to lawmakers about changing the law so that her daughter-in-law and grandson could live legally in the United States. Ms. Ferschke’s son, Sgt. Michael Ferschke, a 22-year-old Marine radio operator, was killed in Iraq in 2008, leaving his Japanese widow and their infant son in immigration limbo.

While Sergeant Ferschke was deployed to Iraq, he learned that his girlfriend was pregnant. They decided to get married by proxy, a method that has a long history in the military when the bride and groom cannot be in the same place for a ceremony. The boy was born in Japan and holds dual citizenship.

But under a 1950s legal standard meant to curb marriage fraud, the wedding is not recognized for immigration purposes even though the military recognizes the unions.

“The laws we have now are inhumane and need to be changed,” Ms. Ferschke said. “So I came to beg lawmakers to change that and not force my daughter-in-law and my grandson to leave the country.”

Comprehensive Immigration Reform Must Protect Privacy And Civil Liberties, Says ACLU

October 13, 2009
1:44 PM
ACLU
Claire O’Brien, (202) 675-2312; media@dcaclu.org

Comprehensive Immigration Reform Must Protect Privacy And Civil Liberties, Says ACLU
WASHINGTON - October 13 - Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-IL) will join with other House Democrats this afternoon to outline priorities for comprehensive immigration reform legislation. The American Civil Liberties Union applauds Congress’s efforts to overhaul the broken immigration system and urges leaders in Washington to work for legislation that does not sacrifice civil liberties and personal privacy.


“The ACLU is encouraged by the willingness of congressional leaders to lay out details of immigration reform, but we strongly oppose any reforms that would unnecessarily violate the privacy of Americans,” said Michael Macleod-Ball, Acting Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “We urge lawmakers to reject any proposed immigration reform measures that include a biometric national worker ID system or a universal compulsory electronic employment verification system. These systems come at enormous cost to the American public and do little to prevent the hiring of undocumented workers. It is unacceptable to force Americans to be fingerprinted and photographed in order to work.”

The ACLU also calls on members of Congress to reject any legislation that gives state and local authorities a role in enforcing federal civil immigration laws. 287(g) agreements between the federal government and state and local law enforcement have led to racial and ethnic profiling across the country. Such agreements undermine effective law enforcement, creating an environment of fear that discourages immigrant communities from cooperating with the police. Cities and states cannot be allowed to supersede national immigration policy by enacting their own laws targeting immigrant communities.

Immigration reform legislation must also address due process failures embodied in current immigration law. Congress should pass provisions that end prolonged detention of people who pose no risk or danger; restore discretion so immigration judges can consider U.S. citizen children and spouses when rendering deportation decisions; and repeal summary procedures that deny fair immigration hearings.

“Comprehensive immigration reform must ensure American core values of due process and equal protection under the law, affording people the right to go to the federal courts to enforce the law and the Constitution,” said Joanne Lin, ACLU Legislative Counsel. “The power of courts to review the practices and policies governing implementation of legalization is essential to upholding fundamental rights, enforcing the Constitution, ensuring the rule of law and preventing bureaucratic abuses.”

Wrong Paths to Immigration Reform

October 12, 2009
Wrong Paths to Immigration Reform

All last week the people of Phoenix witnessed public outbursts by their sheriff, Joe Arpaio, as he railed against the Department of Homeland Security for supposedly trying to limit his ability to enforce federal immigration laws. He vowed to keep scouring Maricopa County for people whose clothing, accents and behavior betrayed them as likely illegal immigrants. He said he had already nabbed more than 32,000 people that way, and announced his next immigrant sweep for Oct. 16.

The spectacle raises two critical questions that the Obama administration is in danger of getting wrong.

One is the specific question of whether the federal government should keep Sheriff Arpaio in its 287(g) program, which deputizes local law enforcement to act as immigration agents in street patrols and in jails. The answer is absolutely not. Sheriff Arpaio has a long, ugly record of abusing and humiliating inmates. His scandal-ridden desert jails have lost accreditation and are notorious places of cruelty and injury. His indiscriminate neighborhood raids use minor infractions like broken taillights as pretexts for mass immigration arrests.

To the broader question of whether federal immigration enforcement should be outsourced en masse in the first place, the answer again is no.

It was only days ago that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano unveiled a plan to repair the rotting immigration detention system. The Bush administration had outsourced the job to state, local and private jailers, with terrible results: inadequate supervision, appalling conditions, injuries and deaths.

Ms. Napolitano wants to centralize federal control over the system that handles detainees. But she insists on continuing to outsource and expand the flawed machinery that catches them, including 287(g) and a system of jailhouse fingerprint checks called Secure Communities, which increase the likelihood that local enforcers will abuse their authority and undermine the law.

Rather than broadening the reach of law enforcement, using local police can cause immigrant crime victims to fear the police and divert the police from fighting crime. It leads to racial profiling, to Latino citizens and legal residents being asked for their papers. Responsible sheriffs and police chiefs across the country have looked at 287(g) and said no thanks.

Programs like 287(g) rest on the dishonest premise that illegal immigrants are a vast criminal threat. But only a small percentage are dangerous felons. The vast majority are those whom President Obama has vowed to help get right with the law, by paying fines and earning citizenship. Treating the majority of illegal immigrants as potential Americans, not a criminal horde, is the right response to the problem.

Agency Plans for Visa Push by Residents Made Legal

The New York Times
October 2, 2009
Agency Plans for Visa Push by Residents Made Legal
By JULIA PRESTON

Although President Obama has put off an immigration overhaul until next year, the federal agency in charge of approving visas is planning ahead for the possibility of giving legal status to millions of illegal immigrants, the agency’s director said Thursday.

“We are under way to prepare for that,” Alejandro Mayorkas, the director of the agency, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, said in an interview. Mr. Obama has told immigration officials that a legalization program would be part of legislation the White House would propose, said Mr. Mayorkas, who became director in August. The agency’s goal, he said, is to be ready to expand rapidly to handle the gigantic increase in visa applications it would face if the legislation, known as comprehensive immigration reform, passed Congress.

The citizenship agency faces a difficult balancing act, preparing for a potential workload bigger than any it has faced, based on legislation in early stages of discussion that is fiercely opposed by many lawmakers in Congress. Also, the agency must work to reduce backlogs and delays that have hampered its performance.

There are no official estimates of the number of illegal immigrants who would apply for legal documents. The Pew Hispanic Center and the Center for Immigration Studies, two research groups in Washington, estimate that at least 10.8 million illegal immigrants live in this country. But a large number of those would not be eligible for legal status for many reasons, including past immigration violations.

Currently, the citizenship agency can handle applications from about six million immigrants a year, Mr. Mayorkas said, including the time-consuming collection of fingerprints and other biometric identity information. Under some plans for legalization, the agency might receive that many applications in a few weeks.

An example of the planning, Mr. Mayorkas said, is an effort to improve the agency’s ability to receive applications via postal mail at secure reception points known as lockboxes. The agency currently receives about 65 percent of applications through lockboxes, which is more efficient than receiving them through local offices. The agency is trying to move quickly to receive all applications through lockboxes.

One idea calls for illegal immigrants to start the legalization process by verifying their presence in the United States through a simple registration form mailed to a lockbox, according to officials familiar with the planning.

As part of the planning, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Mr. Mayorkas and other officials have held meetings around the country in recent weeks to gather suggestions from the public for the overhaul.

The Obama administration’s planning contrasts with that of the Bush administration, which also supported a legalization program. Some opponents of President Bush’s proposal, which was defeated in Congress in 2007, cited the immigration agencies’ lack of preparation.

Some lawmakers who oppose the overhaul have questioned whether the planning was a good use of limited resources. “There is a risk to national security that they will take their eyes off background checks of immigrants,” said Representative Steve King of Iowa, the senior Republican on the House immigration subcommittee, “while they are busy setting up for legislation that has not been introduced in any way, shape or form.”

Health Care, Immigrants, and the Character of our Country

Health Care, Immigrants, and the Character of our Country
by Jim Wallis and Allison Johnson 09-29-2009
Sojourners

With an issue like health, deeply personal, but of great public concern, the faith community has a unique and important role to play — to define and raise the moral issues beneath the policy debate. One major moral issue that has surfaced is how we treat the immigrant in our society as we discuss and debate health-care reform.

Lawmakers have gone above and beyond to ensure that no undocumented immigrant would be covered under the proposed health-care plan, and the White House insists that people unlawfully present in the U.S. will be barred from using the proposed “exchange.”

When the now-infamous representative from South Carolina shouted “You lie!” at President Obama, political fact-checkers and the media struck back with force. They have been clear to say that President Obama wasn’t lying or misrepresenting the facts about undocumented immigrants in health-care reform.

These adamant denials from the fact-checkers and the White House, that the proposed bill will definitely not cover the undocumented, might help its political feasibility, but they don’t say much for its moral priorities.

In the faith community, we have a different ethic than political feasibility. For many years, our practice and policy has been that health care for all should mean health care for all. Yes, we believe that reform should also include immigrants, and that all within our shores at least have access to a basic safety net of services. We believe that would be a sign of strength in health-care reform, not weakness, if it included the immigrants among us. Jewish and Christian scriptures alike are more than clear about the moral mandate to take care of “the alien” and “the stranger” in your midst, to treat them as if they were your own. Why? Because at some time we all have been strangers or aliens in a new place. When politicians brag about the fact that immigrants are not included in health-care reform, it is a sign that political calculation has won out over moral consideration.

We are well aware that immigration is a tricky issue and an emotionally volatile topic, and best dealt with directly. Attempts to employ the volatile politics of the immigration issue to derail meaningful progress on health-care reform are unacceptable. But when outbursts from members of Congress incite a national media frenzy about what kinds of people should not benefit from meaningful health-care reform, we have a moral obligation to speak out.

Three dozen faith groups, including Sojourners, sent a letter to the White House and Congress last week. In the letter, we stated:

It is our strongly-held view that the provision of health care is a shared responsibility grounded in the sacred act of creation and our common humanity. Universal teachings within the scriptural texts of our diverse faith communities call us to welcome strangers and compassionately care for their basic human needs — including health care.

This means, first, that legal immigrants should be eligible for subsidies that assist them in purchasing health insurance. Second, we should eliminate the five-year bar on legal immigrants being eligible for Medicaid. Third, our concern for life and children must mean the inclusion of pregnant women and children in any health-care plan, regardless of their legal status.

The president has said that our response to health care in this nation is about the character of our country. We believe that is true. Our response to the issue of immigration is also about our character as a country. Do we want to be the sort of country who prides itself in its ability to prove that no immigrant, with or without documentation, is able to secure health coverage on a public exchange or receive financial assistance to obtain coverage when times are tough? After we accomplish that, will we move on to ensure that immigrant children are denied health care at clinics? Hospitals? Emergency rooms? By marginalizing immigrants in health-care reform legislation, we create a shadow health-care system to accompany the shadow society in which many immigrants are already forced to live and operate.

As Christians we are instructed to be generous, caring, and welcoming. Why would we support public policy designed to prohibit a needy person from accessing life-giving health care because of his or her immigrant status? And for us, health-care reform challenges our commitments as Christians. Let’s focus on good public policies, not fear-driven or divisive political games, which reflect our best moral values and the better nature of our country by including all immigrants in heath-care reform.

Obama: Legalize illegals to get them health care

The Washington Times
September 18, 2009
Obama: Legalize illegals to get them health care
Stephen Dinan

President Obama said this week that his health care plan won't cover illegal immigrants, but argued that's all the more reason to legalize them and ensure they eventually do get coverage.

He also staked out a position that anyone in the country legally should be covered - a major break with the 1996 welfare reform bill, which limited most federal public assistance programs only to citizens and longtime immigrants.

"Even though I do not believe we can extend coverage to those who are here illegally, I also don't simply believe we can simply ignore the fact that our immigration system is broken," Mr. Obama said Wednesday evening in a speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. "That's why I strongly support making sure folks who are here legally have access to affordable, quality health insurance under this plan, just like everybody else.

Mr. Obama added, "If anything, this debate underscores the necessity of passing comprehensive immigration reform and resolving the issue of 12 million undocumented people living and working in this country once and for all."

Republicans said that amounts to an amnesty, calling it a backdoor effort to make sure current illegal immigrants get health care.

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"It is ironic that the president told the American people that illegal immigrants should not be covered by the health care bill, but now just days later he's talking about letting them in the back door," said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee.

"If the American people do not want to provide government health care for illegal immigrants, why would they support giving them citizenship, the highest honor America can bestow?" Mr. Smith said.

But immigrant rights groups see the speech as a signal that Mr. Obama is committed to providing health care coverage for anyone in the United States legally, regardless of their citizenship status.

"It's the first time I've certainly heard, publicly, him talking more about legal immigrants," said Eric Rodriguez, vice president for research and advocacy at the National Council of La Raza (NCLR). "I think that was certainly positive progress. We were absolutely concerned about not hearing that."

On Wednesday, hours before Mr. Obama's speech, the NCLR had given the administration a public scolding, demanding that Mr. Obama needed to make "a public commitment ... to ensure that those who are here legally are covered."

A White House spokesman did not respond to questions about where the White House would make the cutoff for eligibility, and Mr. Rodriguez said he's still waiting for an answer from the administration.

"We don't know where they mean to draw the line," he said. "Our biggest concern is that most people don't realize legal immigrants are currently barred from receiving health care benefits for the first five years in the country."

Under the 1996 welfare overhaul, most federal aid programs are restricted to citizens and legal immigrants who have been in the country for at least five years. Democrats have tried this year to chip away at that rule.

Immigration has dogged Mr. Obama in the health care debate. Rep. Joe Wilson, South Carolina Republican, shouted, "You lie," when the president, in an address to Congress last week, said his plans wouldn't cover illegal immigrants.

Lawmakers - who got an earful from constituents back home during August - have insisted on extra checks to make sure illegal immigrants do not have access to taxpayer-funded programs.

Senators have worked on language that would prevent illegal immigrants from buying insurance through a proposed insurance exchange envisioned in the health care reform package.

But the NCLR said that could lead to situations where some members of a family would be covered and others, including children of illegal immigrants, wouldn't be.

Mr. Obama said legalizing illegal immigrants is a way to take the sting out of the entire issue.

But Republicans said by pushing to legalize illegal immigrants, Mr. Obama is signaling that those here illegally eventually will get access to taxpayer-funded benefits.

Still, the push to pass a legalization bill is beginning to gain steam, even as advocates fret that the White House is moving too slowly.

On Thursday, Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, Illinois Democrat and an outspoken advocate for legalization, agreed to take leadership in writing a new, more generous bill.

"We simply cannot wait any longer for a bill that keeps our families together, protects our workers and allows a pathway to legalization for those who have earned it," Mr. Gutierrez said. "Saying immigration is a priority for this administration or this Congress is not the same as seeing tangible action, and the longer we wait, the more every single piece of legislation we debate will be obstructed by our failure to pass comprehensive reform."

You Think the Right Wing Is Mad Now? We Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet

The Huffington Post
Miguel Guadalupe
Sept. 16, 2009

You Think the Right Wing Is Mad Now? We Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet


The congressional heckle heard around the world ... thousands converge on Washington DC for hate-fest 2009. Birthers, deathers, and conspiracy theorists feed rumor and misinformation via biased "news" channels.

Looking at the national health care debate, one may begin to think that the United States has lost its collective mind. As implausible as it may sound, this could be just the beginning. I fear that we have yet to see the worst of what the far right has in store for the rest of America.

What could possibly be more polarizing than the current health care debate? Immigration reform. Immigration will open the hornet's nest that is the conservative right and their rabid minions will swarm the sky like nothing we have ever seen before, save maybe during the Reformation and passing of the 14th and 15th amendments.

In some fashion they are already buzzing. Hate mongers like Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh blame immigrants for almost every ill plaguing America, feeding off fear and ignorance to fatten their ratings. Ask a protester at one of these circus town halls or tea bag parties, and you will hear the putrid regurgitation of lies as if they were holy psalms. To paraphrase one such child of God:

... Illegals ... send on the first bus one way back to wherever they came from ... send 'em home with a bullet in the head the second time.

The template is clear. Conservatives will claim that America is going into chaos and that this President is the harbinger of death to liberty and democracy. While wrapping themselves in the flag representing freedom for all, they fight to deny freedoms and dehumanize men, women and children whose only crime is not waiting in line while their families starve before trying and find work and a better life in America.

The right will focus on so-called "amnesty." They will say the President is caving to criminals, that he is giving the country away. They will make people fear that "illegals" are at every turn, a danger to society. They will say they are doing this to "take their country back." The question is again -- take it back from whom?

The "moderate" voices will mask the same arguments under "fighting terrorism." They will bring up 9/11, forgetting that many immigrants, some undocumented, died horribly in that tragedy, and many have died or are dying of health complications from participating in the subsequent clean up efforts.

Perhaps most disturbing, the rhetoric that will come from the right will begin a bonfire of violence against those perceived to be immigrants. Already, we are seeing an increase in anti-immigrant violence across the country. They will foster an atmosphere so thick with suspicion and prejudice that neighbors will have trouble looking each other in the eye.

How can the rest of America protect itself from this new wave of vitriol coming our way? Preparing ourselves will be crucial, for a nation unprepared for this tsunami will be too late to protect innocents who fall victim to its wrath.

We must strengthen the enforcement of hate crime laws, and make it clear that violence to others based on the victim's supposed group will not be tolerated.

We must make sure that rumors and misinformation are confronted head on and early by the media, community groups and politicians.

The media must stop giving fringe elements "equal time" for debate in order to appear balanced.

We must strengthen the resolve of our representatives who we elected on a change and reform platform, and let them know they have the support of a majority of Americans, and that we will hold them accountable should they cower under the heavy hammer of the regressionist movement.

Above all, we must all prepare to support reform. Support by talking to friends, relatives, colleagues about why it is crucial to keep families united, to allow for a transition from undocumented to documented status, and allow families to come out of the shadows.

We changed the policy makers through the ballot box, but changing minds happens across the dinner table and at local public forums. Supporters must defend their rights to be heard with poise and dignity and not tolerate the chaos we've seen in previous town hall gatherings. .

The good news is the right wing has played their hand early in the "change game." By pulling out most of the stops against health care, we now have an idea of how they will attack immigration reform. The real grass roots movement must rise again and not only defend reform, but protect the people most affected. It will be hard, it will difficult, but change is always difficult, and those who would "conserve" the status quo are not going to give it up without waging the fight of their lives. Neither will we.

Comprehensive reform needed on immigration

SalisburyPost.com
Comprehensive reform needed on immigration
Monday, September 14, 2009 3:00 AM

By Rev. J. George Reed and Chris Liu-Beers

N.C. Editorial Forum

Across North Carolina, nearly everyone agrees that the current immigration system is broken. So if the system is broken, why do we continue pouring money into it? Instead, we should take this historic opportunity to fix it.

Many politicians are saying that they want to address the root causes of our immigration situation, but they go on to talk only about increased enforcement. Of course, we are a nation of laws and the rule of law should be upheld. But experience and common sense show us that merely building a bigger wall won't work because enforcement alone does not deal with the root causes. If we're going to address the causes of immigration, we need to have a serious conversation about factors like American trade policy (including NAFTA) and the lack of opportunity in many "sending" countries. When NAFTA went into effect in the mid-1990s, its unfair trade provisions allowed U.S.-subsidized corn to flood the Mexican market, bankrupting nearly 2 million Mexican corn farmers virtually overnight. This major economic disaster had a big impact on immigration into the U.S. from Mexico.

The bottom line is that Congress and the president basically have three options for addressing immigration — and only one of them will work.

- Allow the current immigration mess to deteriorate further, a prospect that frustrates the vast majority the American people.

- Hold out for the ugly fantasy that we are going to get rid of 12 million undocumented immigrants, a prospect as unrealistic as it is un-American.

- Move forward with a comprehensive plan that restores the rule of law, gets people in the system, makes employers play by the rules, and creates a stable, sustainable and legal system of immigration.

Since we're not going to deport 12 million people, we need comprehensive immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship in order to assimilate new Americans. We already know that building a bigger wall won't help. We've tried that for the last few years with nothing to show for it. What we need is an orderly system that works for both immigrants and our country.

Comprehensive reform is the only practical and sensible way to ensure that all workers are here legally, unscrupulous employers cannot undercut their honest competitors, fairness is restored to the labor market, and enforceability and justice are restored to the rule of law. It will lift wages for workers, restore tax fairness and create a level playing field for law-abiding employers.

Despite the clamoring of a noisy minority, polling data consistently shows that American voters support comprehensive reform over an enforcement-only approach. A recent national poll found that when voters are given the details of comprehensive reform, 86 percent support Congress passing comprehensive reform, while only 7 percent strongly oppose the plan.

So what should comprehensive immigration reform look like? The solution to our current broken system must include:

- The reunification of families and preservation of our family immigration system.

- A way for people to get in the system with legal status so they get on a path to citizenship, learn English, and become part of society.

- A coherent and fair legal system that respects the value of due process.

- A logical, viable system for regulating legal immigration; and

- Effective, humane border and interior enforcement that respects everyone's rights and keeps communities safe without forcing people into society's shadows.

We know Americans do not want our families getting torn apart. We do not want our workers getting abused. We do not want a trap door in the minimum wage. The American people want a practical, commonsense solution. Difficult problems demand strong leadership, and the people of North Carolina are looking to Washington to put our immigration system back on the right track.

As members of the faith community, we believe that we have the opportunity to fix our nation's broken immigration system and uphold our deepest values at the same time. The command to welcome the "stranger" echoes in our ears as immigrant families and workers are living in a state of fear due to increased raids, deportations and anti-immigrant sentiment. Our religious traditions call us to love our neighbor as ourselves, and we believe this applies to immigrants as much as anyone else

Can a Mother Lose Her Child Because She Doesn't Speak English?

TIME
Thursday, Aug. 27, 2009
Can a Mother Lose Her Child Because She Doesn't Speak English?
By Tim Padgett with Dolly Mascareñas / Oaxaca

Can the U.S. government take a woman's baby from her because she doesn't speak English? That's the latest question to arise in the hothouse debate over illegal immigration, as an undocumented woman from impoverished rural Mexico — who speaks only an obscure indigenous language — fights in a Mississippi court to regain custody of her infant daughter.

Cirila Baltazar Cruz comes from the mountainous southern state of Oaxaca, a region of Mexico that makes Appalachia look affluent. To escape the destitution in her village of 1,500 mostly Chatino Indians, Baltazar Cruz, 34, migrated earlier this decade to the U.S., hoping to send money back to two children she'd left in her mother's care. She found work at a Chinese restaurant on Mississippi's Gulf Coast.

But Baltazar Cruz speaks only Chatino, barely any Spanish and no English. Last November, she went to Singing River Hospital in Pascagoula, Miss., where she lives, to give birth to a baby girl, Rubí. According to documents obtained by the Mississippi Clarion-Ledger, the hospital called the state Department of Human Services (DHS), which ruled that Baltazar Cruz was an unfit mother in part because her lack of English "placed her unborn child in danger and will place the baby in danger in the future." (Read "Should a Muslim Mother Be Caned for Drinking a Beer?")

Rubí was taken from Baltazar Cruz, who now faces deportation. In May, a Jackson County judge gave the infant to a couple (it is unclear if for foster care or adoptive purposes) who reportedly live in Ocean Springs. Baltazar Cruz is challenging the ruling in Jackson County Youth Court and hopes that if she is deported she can at least take Rubí back to Mexico with her. (She has not disclosed the father's identity.) (See the best and worst moms ever.)

Baltazar Cruz's case has been taken up by the Mississippi Immigrants' Rights Alliance (MIRA) and the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), whose lawyers say they can't comment on its specifics because of a judge's gag order. But Mary Bauer, the SPLC's legal director, says that on a general level, any notion that a mother can lose custody of a child because she doesn't speak a particular language "is a fundamentally outrageous violation of human rights." (Read "When Motherhood Gets You Jail Time.")

Before the gag order, advocates for Baltazar Cruz had charged that the problems sprang from faulty translation at Singing River. Baltazar Cruz arrived at the hospital after she flagged down a Pascagoula police officer on a city street. She was later joined there by a Chatino-speaking relative, according to MIRA, but the hospital declined his services and instead used a translator from state social services, an American of Puerto Rican descent who spoke no Chatino and whose Spanish was significantly different from that spoken in Mexico.

According to the Clarion-Ledger, the state report portrayed Baltazar Cruz as virtually a prostitute, claiming she was "exchanging living arrangements for sex" in Pascagoula and planned to put the child up for adoption. Through her advocates (before the gag order), Baltazar Cruz adamantly denied those claims. Since "she has failed to learn the English language," the newspaper quotes the documents as saying, she was "unable to call for assistance for transportation to the hospital" to give birth. The social-services translator also reported that Baltazar Cruz had put Rubí in danger because she "had not brought a cradle, clothes or baby formula." But indigenous Oaxacan mothers traditionally breast feed their babies for a year and rarely use bassinets, carrying their infants instead in a rebozo, a type of sling.

MIRA has accused Singing River and Mississippi DHS of essentially "stealing" Rubí. Citing the gag order, DHS will not comment on Baltazar Cruz's case, but before the order, an official insisted to the Clarion-Ledger that "the language a person speaks has nothing to do with the outcome of the investigation." Singing River spokesman Richard Lucas calls the MIRA charge "preposterous" and, while noting that the nonprofit hospital delivered Baltazar Cruz's baby free of charge, insists it "did what any good hospital would have done given her unusual circumstances" by alerting DHS.

Still, despite DHS statements to the contrary, language seems a central issue in the state's case against Baltazar Cruz. It wouldn't be the first time this has happened in the U.S. In 2004 a Tennessee judge ordered into foster care the child of a Mexican migrant mother who spoke only an indigenous tongue. (Another judge later returned the child to her family.) Last year, a California court took custody of the U.S.-born twin babies of another indigenous, undocumented migrant from Oaxaca. After she was deported, the Oaxaca state government's Institute for Attention to Migrants fought successfully to have the twins repatriated to her in Mexico this summer. In such cases, says the SPLC's Bauer, a lack of interpreters is a key factor. When a mother can't follow the proceedings, "she looks unresponsive, and that conveys to a judge a lack of interest in the child, which is clearly not the case," she says. She also argues it's hard enough for any adult to learn a new language, "let alone when you're a migrant working long hours for low pay."

One of DHS's apparent fears is that an infant isn't safe in a home where the mother can articulate a 911 call solely in a language spoken only by some 50,000 Oaxacan Indians. Bauer points out that children have been raised safely in the U.S. by non-English-speaking parents for well over a century. Had they not, thousands of Italians and Russians would have had to leave their kids with foster care on Ellis Island. "Raising your child is one of the most fundamental liberties, and it can only be taken from you for the most serious concerns of endangerment," says Bauer. "Not speaking English hardly meets that standard."

Rosalba Piña, a Chicago attorney who co-hosts a local radio program on immigration law, agrees. She likens Mississippi officials to those who fought to keep 6-year-old Elián Gonzalez in the U.S. nine years ago because they argued his life would be better here than in impoverished Cuba with his father. "They're ignoring basic U.S. and international law," says Piña. "Unless there's some real threat to the child's life back in the home country, most judges know it's in the child's best interest to be with his parents." In the end, she notes, Rubí is a U.S. citizen who could return to this country at any time as an adult.

The next court hearing in Baltazar Cruz's case is slated for November. In the meantime, Mexican consular officials in the U.S. struck an agreement with Mississippi authorities this month to ensure that Mexico will be informed when nationals like Baltazar Cruz become embroiled in cases like this. Says Daniel Hernandez Joseph, director of Mexico's program for protection of citizens abroad: "The main concern of the Mexican government is not to separate immigrant families." Baltazar Cruz now has to persuade Mississippi judges that it should be their concern too.

Health fight arouses immigration battle

Politico
Health fight arouses immigration battle
By: Gebe Martinez
September 10, 2009 04:50 AM EST

Regardless of how the stormy health care debate ends, the lingering question will be whether the rest of President Barack Obama’s legislative agenda was swept away in the political debris.

One priority that has become entangled in the messy health care discussion is immigration, a reliable lightning rod for conservatives who habitually try to confuse any issue by playing to xenophobes’ fears.

In recent town hall meetings and media interviews, conservative Republicans falsely claimed illegal immigrants would get free health insurance under the president’s plan. Though blatantly untrue, the statement has taken on a life of its own and compounded headaches for some Democrats who are wavering on Obama’s health care proposal.

But the renewed immigrant-bashing has served to strengthen the determination of immigration reform advocates to advance their own initiative after the health care issue is resolved and to not let their bill’s destiny be determined by the twisted politics of health care.

Both issues present the most vexing dilemmas for politicians, but there is a key strategic difference between the two: The battle over health insurance has become fiercely partisan, while the immigration debate has previously allied Republicans and Democrats, business and labor, and other unusual partners.

Republicans also have come to realize they may be better off dealing with immigration and getting it off the table than being blamed for the angry anti-immigrant rhetoric that turned Latino voters off from the GOP ticket in 2008.

Democratic leaders predict Republicans will co-sponsor the immigration bill, something that has eluded Obama on health care and other major legislation he advanced this year.

“There’s strong interest from the Republican side in coming up with a balanced, down-the-middle approach on immigration,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee’s immigration subcommittee.

Schumer had promised to have an immigration bill drafted by the time Congress returned to work this week, but he has delayed unveiling any proposal in order to draw input and support from both sides of the aisle. The Obama administration also has been meeting with key Senate and House members from both parties to find consensus on a plan.

To say that immigration is at least as tough a political issue as health care is an understatement. Twice in the past four years, the Senate tried and failed to approve a comprehensive package of reforms, and the House was too timid to take it up.

But the seasoned veterans of those legislative battles are more confident that they can overcome attacks against legal and illegal immigrants and get a bill done by spring.


“Immigration, unlike health care, has been discussed over and over. The angry voices that we are hearing on health care, we have been hearing on immigration for years and years. We have been able to absorb that hate and the anger,” said Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), the vice chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.

“We have gone through this. We have heard the harsh voices, and we have discussed the different solutions. We are not going to go through this airing of anger, so much, on immigration that we will not be familiar with,” Becerra added. “We know what we are going to face.”

Still, the long fight over health insurance already has affected immigration.

With many items on the agenda after health care and ahead of immigration — Afghanistan troop funding, climate change legislation, overhauling financial services — there is concern that the president will not have sufficient political capital to push immigration to completion.

The immigration movement also suffered psychological setbacks this summer. Its longtime champion, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), died 15 months after being diagnosed with brain cancer.

And despite Democrats’ expectations that Republicans will co-sponsor an immigration bill, key allies from earlier fights will not be there the next time around.

Kennedy’s Republican ally on the 2006 immigration bill, Arizona Sen. John McCain, voiced his disapproval of the new immigration plan being pushed by Democrats and is not expected to play a leading role. Taking his place will most likely be Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who worked side by side with McCain in the 2006 and 2007 immigration negotiations.

Another key Republican negotiator in those battles, Florida Sen. Mel Martinez, retires from the Senate on Thursday, with regrets that immigration reform was not accomplished during his brief time in office.

Taking Martinez’s seat until the start of the next term, in January 2011, will be George LeMieux, a longtime adviser to Republican Florida Gov. Charlie Crist — who is running for the seat himself. LeMieux’s immigration position remains a question mark.

Still, immigration advocates say they are ready to “tee up” their plan.

“We saw where people landed on this issue before. We have a better sense of the landscape on immigration and on how to get it done,” Becerra said. “Running at a soft speed on this gives you a chance to ramp it up.”

Assuming health care does not suck up all of the political oxygen.

Gebe Martinez is a longtime journalist and a frequent lecturer and commentator on the policy and politics of Capitol Hill.

© 2009 Capitol News Company, LLC

Immigration reform remains a necessary and worthy goal

Posted on Fri, Aug. 28, 2009
Immigration reform remains a necessary and worthy goal
Philadelphia Inquirer

President Obama should have tackled immigration reform first. His drop in the polls probably wouldn’t have been any worse than the dip he’s received in attempting comprehensive health-care reform.

Plus, after spending the better part of two years trying to hammer out an immigration compromise, Congress was closer to overhauling that law than it is, after six months of debate, to changing the way the nation buys and receives its medical care.

That doesn’t mean immigration reform would be easy. But considering the greater likelihood of success with it — which, like health-care reform, has been a defining goal of Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., — Obama should have seen it as the better vehicle to forge bipartisan support. That might have even helped smooth the way for health-care reform.

Because he took the opposite approach, the president found himself at the recent trilateral conference with Mexico and Canada announcing that he had to back off his campaign promise to tackle immigration this year. “I’ve got a lot on my plate,” he pleaded. What a triumph it would have been if instead, Obama could have stood with the leaders of our two closest neighbors to shake hands on a new border pact.

Now, immigration reform may become a collateral victim in the health-care war, which has Republicans walking in lockstep with so-called Blue Dog Democrats, whose opposition to reform really has more to do with their personal re-election chances than what’s good for America.

On health care, Obama has let the legislators put forth their various ideas while he lends his support to broad themes he wants to see included in the final package. That may avoid the top-down-management criticism of the Clinton administration’s health-care initiative, but it also allows opponents to label any idea they don’t like as “Obamacare.”

That’s why the president should be very specific with immigration reform, leaving no doubt about what he wants in legislation that he says could be introduced by year’s end. He should start by telling Republicans he wants the same thing President George W. Bush wanted — a path to citizenship for the more than 12 million illegal immigrants in this country.

Although very complex, the compromise hammered out in 2008 by Democrat Kennedy and then-Republican Sen. Arlen Specter gives Obama something to work with. It would allow most illegal immigrants to apply for new “Z” visas giving them probationary residency status. The plan also called for a “Y” visa to be issued to low-skilled “guest” workers such as farm laborers.

The stumbling block remains how to best move people to permanent-residency status. The compromise called for them to go back home to apply for a green card and pay $5,000 in fees and fines for their previous illegal entry. Many wouldn’t bother to do that, but others would, hoping to become full citizens.

While Obama has placed reform on a back burner, he has stepped up enforcement efforts begun by the Bush administration. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano recently announced that 181,000 illegal immigrants had been arrested and 215,000 deported so far this year, both figures double what they were two years ago.

Immigration reform supporters are hoping Napolitano, a former governor of border state Arizona, will eventually join their cause. She met Thursday with immigrant advocates who want her to acknowledge that making the borders more secure does little for the millions of undocumented immigrants already here.

Of course, any new immigration legislation will bring back howls that it grants unearned “amnesty” to lawbreakers. And screaming the loudest will be the same dissimulating crowd that now yells about “death panels” in the debate over health-care reform. In many cases, they are egged on by people whose primary goal is to keep lowering Obama’s poll numbers.

The president can’t ignore the polls. His success is inextricably tied to his popularity. But even in only his first eight months of office, he should have learned that Americans like a fighter. Immigration reform is something worth fighting for. It’s been supported by Republicans and Democrats. It has links to other important issues, including education, employment, and, yes, health care.

Because midterm elections occur next year, Congress may want to delay immigration reform even further. Obama should not let that happen. National security depends not only on making it harder to breach our borders; it also requires a rational program that allows entry to those we want to enter and sets up a better process to help those we want to stay.

UFW Mourns the Passing of Long Time Friend Senator Edward Kennedy

Kennedy 'fashioned the modern day' immigration system

Kennedy 'fashioned the modern day' immigration system
By Kathy Kiely, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Sen. Edward Kennedy's first major legislative victory helped change the face of the country and shaped his own political career.
In 1965, Kennedy had been in the Senate less than three years. His party's leaders gave him the job of pushing a bill to eliminate the quota system that had made it virtually impossible for anyone from anywhere but western Europe to immigrate to the USA.

Eliminating national quotas for immigration had been the goal of every U.S. president since Harry Truman— including Kennedy's brother John F. Kennedy. That was probably one reason that "Ted seized the cause," in the words of his biographer, Adam Clymer. Passage marked "the first of many times Ted Kennedy fulfilled an unfinished dream of one of his brothers," Clymer wrote.

It was also the first of many times that Kennedy found himself at the forefront of an issue of a cause that he came to see as a personal crusade.

"From the windows of my office in Boston … I can see the Golden Stairs from Boston Harbor where all eight of my great-grandparents set foot on this great land for the first time," Kennedy told Senate colleagues in a 2007 speech. "That immigrant spirit of limitless possibility animates America even today."

Beginning with the 1965 bill, which opened the doors for the flood of Latin American and Asian immigrants who dramatically altered the nation's demography, to the end of his life, Kennedy remained the Senate's most impassioned advocate for widening opportunities for America's newcomers.

"He fashioned the modern-day legal system of immigration. He created humane refugee and asylum policies. And he has set the stage for a 21st century solution to the problem of illegal immigration," said Frank Sharry, an immigrant rights advocate who worked with Kennedy on legislation.

Among the immigration measures that Kennedy helped shape:

•A 1980 bill that established a system for refugee resettlement in the USA and nearly tripled the number of people who would qualify for admission.

•A 1986 bill that granted amnesty to an estimated 2.7 million people living illegally in the USA and established penalties against employers who hired illegal immigrants.

•A 1990 bill that revised the legal immigration system to allow for more immigrants and more high-skilled workers.

For all of his accomplishments, Sharry thinks Kennedy will be best known for the work he did with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on a bill that failed. The legislation would have put an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship and plugged holes in the employer sanctions system. It collapsed despite its powerful backers, including President Bush.

Sharry remains convinced that Kennedy "laid the groundwork" for a bill that eventually will pass. President Obama has made an immigration overhaul along the lines of the Kennedy-McCain bill one of his top legislative priorities.

On the day the bill failed in 2007, Kennedy himself predicted its backers would be vindicated. "We will be back and we will prevail," he said.

Some Hear More PR, Less Policy at White House Immigration Meeting

The Wall Street Journal
August 20, 2009, 7:05 PM ET Some Hear More PR, Less Policy at White House Immigration Meeting

Cam Simpson reports on immigration.

Business groups, immigrant advocates, labor unions, law enforcement groups and religious organizations were all represented at a big White House meeting Thursday on immigration.
And when it ended, some of the nearly 100 attendees left uncertain about what it all meant, or where things were heading.

Some told Washington Wire that they thought the session, hosted by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, was less about policy and more about public relations, especially given that some advocacy groups are growing more and more vocal and more and more unhappy.

Napolitano made an opening statement about broad principles — nothing new there, some attendees said — before the crowd broke into “working groups.” They covered basic ground — how to bring illegal immigrants out from the shadows, how to fashion a potential guest-worker program, how to improve family reunification, and how to develop effective and smart enforcement. Administration note takers scribbled away. Kal Penn, of “Harold and Kumar” fame, who now does public outreach for the White House, talked with attendees.

They came together again at the end, and just when Napolitano indicated she was ready to take questions, President Barack Obama walked into the room — surprise, surprise — and gave a pep talk. With that, the meeting ended, letting Napolitano off the hook. Some advocates had been looking for a chance to vent their dissatisfaction with the administration’s enforcement approach, part of Napolitano’s responsibilities.

Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, said in a statement afterwards that “pro-reform constituencies are growing impatient.” He said he was pleased to hear Napolitano and Obama reaffirm their support for overhauling immigration laws, but also made it clear he wants to see more vocal leadership from the administration.

Napolitano’s own statement called the meeting “an important opportunity to hear from stakeholders” and build on her meetings with Congress “on this critical subject.” Officials declined to discuss details about the session.

Una promesa que cuesta cumplir - Obama y el plan de reforma migratoria

Una promesa que cuesta cumplir
Obama y el plan de reforma migratoria

Por Jorge Ramos Avalos, Univision.com

Esto es lo que Barack Obama le prometió a los latinos y a los inmigrantes: "Lo que yo puedo garantizar es que vamos a tener durante el primer año (de mi gobierno) una propuesta de ley migratoria".

La pregunta ahora es si Obama cumplirá esa promesa (que hizo en una entrevista con Univision el 28 de mayo del 2008).

Cuesta arriba

Ese primer año en la Casa Blanca termina el 20 de enero del 2010. Pero todo parece indicar que la legalización de 12 millones de indocumentados se tardará más.

Durante su reciente visita a Guadalaja, México, Obama dijo que aún tenía muchas cosas pendientes en el congreso -crisis económica, un nuevo sistema de salud, reforma energética- y que, por lo tanto, la reforma migratoria tendría que esperar al 2010.

Pero el 2010 es un año muy peligroso. En noviembre del próximo año hay elecciones para el congreso y no es ningún secreto que senadores y representantes van a estar más preocupados por su reelección que por los indocumentados (que no votan). Y difícilmente van a querer apoyar un tema tan controversial si su puesto está en juego.

Planean boicot

Por eso, organizaciones como la Asociación Política Mexico Americana no quieren esperar y están planeando un boicot del censo hasta que se legalice a los indocumentados. Su mensaje es claro: si me quieres contar, antes me tienes que legalizar.

Sin embargo, la mayoría de las organizaciones hispanas, incluyendo al Concilio Nacional de la Raza, no está de acuerdo con el boicot y, en cambio, insiste en presionar al congreso -no tanto al presidente- para que haya pronto una reforma migratoria.

Obama, está claro, apoya la legalización de indocumentados. Lo ha dicho muchas veces. Pero también es un político muy pragmático. Se ha dado cuenta que los ataques y gritos durante el actual debate sobre el sistema de salud son un preludio de lo que nos espera durante el debate migratorio. Así que ha decidido esperar el momento propicio.

Apurar la reforma en un congreso abrumado con otros temas pudiera ser fatal. Ya nos pasó en el 2006 y 2007. Pero esperar demasiado mataría las legítimas esperanzas de millones.

George Bush esperó 7 años y cuando quiso ya no le quedaba capital político.
Mientras tanto, miles de inmigrantes siguen siendo detenidos y deportados. Es cierto que Obama ha suspendido las redadas masivas a centros de trabajo que caracterizaron la presidencia de Bush.

¿Cuánto más?

Pero el nuevo énfasis presionando a las empresas para que no contraten a indocumentados tiene el mismo efecto: más despidos y más deportaciones. La realidad es que este sistema no funciona. Ni con Bush ni con Obama.

El sistema es tan deficiente que ha permitido que personas que no son agentes de inmigración realicen redadas. La semana pasada el controversial sheriff del condado de Maricopa en Arizona, Joe Arpaio, envió a sus alguaciles a una planta de papel en Phoenix y arrestó a decenas de indocumentados. ¿Cómo es eso posible?

En lugar de perseguir inmigrantes habría que traer más. El Instituto Cato acaba de publicar un estudio que concluye que la legalización de indocumentados significaría un beneficio económico para Estados Unidos de $180 mil millones en 10 años.

Es decir, el estímulo económico para salir de esta crisis tiene un nombre: inmigrantes.

Es muy preocupante que el presidente Obama quiera retrasar el tema migratorio hasta el próximo año. Pero, al menos por ahora, él es la única esperanza de millones de personas que quieren dejar de ser perseguidas injustamente.

Los hispanos votaron abrumadoramente por Obama en el 2008 -67 por ciento- a cambio de su promesa de una legalización de indocumentados. Y no van a olvidar esa promesa.

Creo que los hispanos pueden esperar al presidente un poquito más. No hay más remedio. El marca sus propios tiempos políticos. Pero si no sale nada en el 2010, los votantes latinos le van a recordar a Obama esa promesa no cumplida en las próximas elecciones. Dando y dando.