As many of you already know, this week the U.S. Senate received another Immigration Reform bill (PDF file at link). The title of the diary is appropriate because it was sponsored by two Republicans–Jon Kyl (AZ) and John Cornyn (TX).
Apparently these two border-state senators decided now would be a good time to give the middle finger to the tens of thousands of latinos and progressives in their states because this bill is full of hubris. Compare and contrast it to the Kennedy-McCain bi-partisan bill sponsored and you will see what I mean.
Below the fold I will outline some of the provisions of their Comprehensive Enforcement and Immigration Reform Act of 2005.
Full details can be found via the immigration section of Sen. Cornyn’s website. Here are some key areas I would like to bring to your attention:
- Border Enforcement and Visa Security
- Authorizes sufficient resources, including 10,000 Border Patrol Agents (same figure as Intelligence Reform bill, with monthly reports to Congress on progress made in hiring and deploying the agents) and 1,250 new Customs and Border Protection Officers (working at ports of entry). Authorizes $5 billion over 5 years for accompanying technology (e.g. cameras and sensors) and infrastructure (e.g. stations and checkpoints), to stop illegal border crossing
- Expands and improves Expedited Removal, which provides a streamlined means of removing aliens who are clearly ineligible to enter the U.S. Authorizes $50 million over 5 years
- Strengthening Interior Enforcement and Leveraging State and Local Law Resources
- Provides the Department of Homeland Security with 10,000 detention beds over 5 years to eliminate the release of illegal aliens into the country
- Clarifies State and local authority to enforce federal immigration laws
- Expands Institutional Removal Program to identify criminal aliens in federal and state correctional facilities and remove them upon completion of their sentences
- Establishes new Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice to oversee immigration enforcement and litigation, to ensure high level DOJ attention and accountability
- Worksite Enforcement
- Authorizes 10,000 additional agents over 5 years to investigate employers who hire illegal aliens. Also 1,000 new investigators over 5 years to detect fraud in application process
- Increases the penalties for unauthorized employment of aliens, social security fraud and false claims to citizenship
- Requires within one year issuance of secure machine-readable, tamper-resistant Social Security cards
- Closes loopholes in identity theft by establishing minimum standards for state-issued birth certificates
- Requires within one year that all new hires participate in a Social Security-based electronic employment eligibility verification system
- Obligations of Participating Countries
- Requires countries to enter into bilateral agreement with U.S. government before the nationals of the country are allowed to participate in a temporary worker visa program or Mandatory Departure status
- Requires aliens to have a minimum level of health coverage, which can be provided by the participating country, the alien or the employer
- Temporary Worker Program
- Establishes new visa category that allows aliens to enter the U.S. to work temporarily when there are no available U.S. workers
- Limits the period of visa to two years, after which the alien must return home for one year. Alien may participate up to three times (for a total of 6 years of employment in the U.S.)
- Establishes a Temporary Worker Task Force to prepare a report on the effect of the temporary worker program on wages and employment of U.S. workers, which would then form basis of cap
- Family members may visit principal worker in the U.S. for no longer than 30 days within a given year
- Mandatory Departure and Reentry in Legal Status
- Allows aliens who are present in the U.S. illegally to apply for Mandatory Departure, which enables them time to depart the United States voluntarily and reenter the country through normal legal channels (e.g. as temporary worker)
- Aliens granted Mandatory Departure status are ineligible to obtain permanent resident status (i.e. green card) while in the U.S. – they must depart and reenter through normal legal channels
- Aliens are registered, fingerprinted, and checked against all available criminal/terrorist lists
- Aliens are issued secure, biometric identity documentation. The documents will function as identity documents and employers will use document readers to verify identity and employment authorization
- Provides incentives for aliens to depart the United States immediately, but all aliens are required to depart prior to five years
- Aliens who return to home country within a short period of time may quickly reenter through legal channels as a temporary worker and are not required to spend up to 10 years outside of the country
- Aliens who fail to depart are ineligible for any other immigration benefit for a period of ten years
- Circular Migration and Visa Backlog Reduction
- Creates temporary worker investment funds to encourage aliens to return home
- Reduces visa backlog waiting times by allowing the recapture of unused visa numbers and terminating the Diversity Visa Program
Aside from the fact that this automatically lumps all illegal immigrants into the terrorist/criminal category, I guarantee you that there will be a lot of kicking and screaming from the latino community if the Democrats support this bill. There is already a bi-partisan alternative out there that can be a decent starting point for discussion.
Howard Dean already understands that the Republicans are going to use this issue to divide the country next year for the congressional elections. They will appeal, as usual, to the worst emotions from Americans in order to gain more political power–fear, bigotry and bitterness.
Republicans tried to scare people by talking about “race quotas” instead of affirmative action in 2002 and putting ballot initiatives to ban gay marriage in several states in 2004, he said.
“In 2006, it’s going to be immigrants, you wait and see,” he told the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic civil rights organization, at its annual convention.
After the speech, Dean said he doesn’t think that President Bush is a bigot but that he “doesn’t have the guts” to speak up against “the bigots in his own party.”
For further reading:
- Duke 1676’s diary where he outlined a good starting point for discussion.
- My diary, “The Immigration Crisis”, where I outlined the human cost to the delay of this debate.
- Detailed information on the Kennedy/McCain sponsored Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act
- Washington Post’s take on the Kyl-Cornyn bill
- Minuteman Project update – the Border Patrol is considering making them an auxiliary branch
- Az Central article with a heads-up that J.D. Hayworth is going to be entering the immigration boxing ring soon.
- An article on the International Organization for Migration’s report citing the advantages of immigration.
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
–inscription found at the Statue of Liberty
Crossposted at:
at DailyKos. This needs to be on the radar screen.
I think this observation:
brings to light one of the angles that the Republicans are going to use to make this a wedge issue. They’re going to play up the connection between terrorist threats and immigration bigtime. I think that will be the major plotline…not ‘illegal immigrants are taking jobs from hardworking Americans’ or anything like that…they’ll link it back to terrorism.
Is ‘Mandatory Departure and Reentry’ already part of current immigration practices? I’ve never heard of it. It sounds…well, kind of ridiculous. It’d be like if I went in through the out door of the supermarket, and while checking out, the cashier told me I wouldn’t be able to check out unless I leave, come back in through the ‘in’ door, and then go get all my groceries again.
I love your analogy. Watch out for DeLay’s henchmen in the parking lot though or you may find yourself on the receiving end of their interrogation “techniques”.
Yeah, I don’t think I could take being force-fed Baked Tandouri Chicken Breast for 3 meals a day.
</snark>
Sorry, had a Rush Limbaugh moment there.
Minutemen are racist thugs. It’s a shame and a sham that this is being tolerated at any level.
thx, unfortunately this is a real possibility:
(quote from the Minuteman article referenced in diary)
backed off the suggestion. Well, that didn’t take long.
I was going to post a pix of one of those bloated aholes called the “Minutemen” and came across this…
http://aztlan.net/sincoxarrested.htm
how one of the original “leaders” of this mob has been arrested.
http://www.minutemanhq.com/hq/aboutus.php
here the same pukebag asks for donations on the official Minutemen Civil Defense Corp page.
the article is from 2003, unfortunately simcox is still going strong with his movement–bowel movement that is.
Yes, it’s crazy how someone who wants to “HUNT MEXICANS” and has been arrested for it in the past (actually arrested for carrying a gun in a park) can get away with this.
He is a real THREAT to me and mine. Carrying guns in parks and such… Hunting PEOPLE.
Immigrants need to be protected and helped, not hunted down.
Real Threat. Real Terrorists. White Supremacist Groups drenched in the Religious Zealot Ideas and Beliefs.
I say let’s shine the spotlight on their bigotry. They’ll be tripping over themselves so fast to get away from even a whiff of racism. Let’s just call it what it is. I can’t wait to start working on Kyl’s departure from the Senate.
The reason I think the immigration reform discussion remains stagnant is because it forces us to examine our own thoughts about race. It can be a scary thing to look inside ourselves and see something that we may not feel comfortable sharing–but it still has to be done. I know I have a lot of latent racist thoughts that I am still trying to unlearn, unfortunately many of these feelings were taught at a young age through environment.
So, consider this a safe zone to air out your thoughts. I may regret this later but I think it’s an important discussion that the country will eventually have whether we like it or not.
Okay.. I have a deep seeded mistrust of oil men, pharamceutical dudes and tv evangelists.
“Individuals” are pretty cool and you can learn from them. “People” pretty much suck.
I kinda, sorta don’t like those 18 year models telling me how to color my grey hair even if I am not “worth it”.
People who eat ice. I find it really annoying to sit next to them.
People who have those “my kid is on the honor” bumper stickers…
I’d really like to get my hands on those people who shoot at road signs. Probably the same yahoos who shoot their guns in the air and fire off firework in a zone clearly not safe to shoot off fire works.
People who ramble on and on… Oh wait… 🙂
perfectly stated, I bow to your brilliance.
that brilliance is just my ultra glossy lip gloss 🙂
Well, if we let the Republicans just keep ruining the country, nobody is going to want to come here anyway.
To me, it isn’t a racial issue. That isn’t to say that it isn’t for a great many people, but I don’t think it is for me.
Feel free to call me out on it though, if anything rubs the wrong way 🙂
I like to break things down into their parts when I’m trying to understand them. So, we have a few facets of this discussion.
First, why do people come to the USA?
Those are very generic…obviously there are a lot of other reasons, but I think those cover the bases.
Next, why do people come to the USA illegally?
Now, let’s look at the flip side. What are we doing, as a society, to encourage this behavior?
Again, surely there are more, but I don’t want to turn this into a diary yet 🙂
So, it seems to me that the best way to solve the illegal immigration ‘problem’ is to make it less attractive for people to immigrate illegally. Make it easier to immigrate legally, but reduce the apparent need to do so. Help other governments create better living conditions for their citizens so that they don’t live in such dire circumstances that they need to flee to the US. Do a better job of regulating companies and businesses that try to underpay illegal immigrants. If they were forced to pay a livable minimum wage, they would be less likely to hire illegal immigrants in the first place. This takes away an illegal immigrants advantage in getting a slave-labor job, and also protects them from being taken advantage of by people who know they can get away with it.
OK, I gotta run for now…catch up with y’all later!
Great post ejmw, I think you should definitely put some of these thoughts into a future diary. The only way we’re going to get more dialogue on this issue is if we all put our ideas out on the table.
This sounds like a good place for Dems to position themselves, unfortunately there is so much spread on where they all stand that their message gets muddled (sound familiar, like every other issue?) I hope Dean can rally the party to make a clear stand.
You know what makes me especially ill about this? They want to have it both ways. They play on the xenophobia of Pat Buchanan types, but they don’t want to go so far as to “close the border” because they like having cheap labour to take care of their kids, pick their grapes, what have you. So they go the way of Kuwait and make a special category of second class noncitisen “guest workers”. Fuck that.
-Alan
Hey Slacker, I totally agree. It’s almost as if Kyl and Cornyn did this to position themselves politically to the right of McCain rather than help seek a good solution. I’m thoroughly disgusted with Kyl, it’s pretty sad when we Az Dems have to cross our fingers that maybe McCain will support something we can mildly tolerate. With this joker it’s a lost cause.
This bill is Exhibit A to prove the Republican tactic of wedge politics.
I have to confess that I am a total libertarian on this issue….
ANYBODY who seeks to come to this country for a better life (after a thorough vetting for criminal/terrorist connections, if thats even possible)should be allowed to emigrate to the US.
And the discussion needs to expand far beyond the Mexican-American border. The Korean community in this country contains among the most intelligent, self respecting, hard working and hard traveled (they are considered criminals in their home country when they leave and are subject to immediate jailing upon reentry to Korea)people I have ever met.
Not to mention, most who come here from Korea are educated, relatively wealthy and are here less for their own economic gain than to provide better educational opportunities for their kids. In Korea, only a small percentage of the population receives higher education in a tightly controlled system.
I know Koreans who are in this country illegally, work hard, pay taxes and live in $250,000 houses! Yet everyday they face the threat of deportation and subsequently, jailing in their own country if they are returned.
The history of the US is nothing but a successive wave of immigrant blocs which have repeatedly reenergized and brought new skills and insights to this country.
And of course, the US borders were closed off ONLY when the color of the skins of the overwhelming majority of immigrants changed from white to brown, black and yellow. It is a racial issue in my mind, almost exclusively.
And Democrats deserve no special dispensation on this issue. The special interest groups to which OUR Dear Leaders are beholden, include unions and the native born American working classes, who generally are not vocal (and sometimes personally hostile, if we are honest)on this issue. In fact, it is my sincere belief that Democratic leaders are doubly guilty by virtue of their timidity on this most important issue.
Great, timely diary and a discussion that needs to evolve quickly into action or we will be beaten to the punch by this ridiculous attempt at legislating desperate peoples’ lives on the part of the Republicans.
Also, we should not forget that the US born children of illegal immigrants are citizens who receive full voting rights at age 18…..