OC Immigration Attorney

A bipartisan group of senators begins a fifth full day of debating changes to the immigration reform bill Tuesday. So far, the so-called mark-up process has left the sweeping overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws—which would legalize most of the country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants—largely untouched.

On Tuesday, the senators will address some of the final controversial changes to the bill, including increasing the number of visas for the high tech industry and whether to allow people in same-sex marriages to apply for green cards for their spouses. A final vote is expected by the end of the week.

Republicans are outnumbered on the 18-member Senate Judiciary Committee, and two of them—Sens. Jeff Flake and Lindsey Graham—helped draft the original bipartisan bill in the first place. Nonetheless, Republican senators have been able to push through a few amendments that they say will strengthen the enforcement portion of the bill.

On Monday, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, introduced an amendment that would require officials at 30 major airports to take the fingerprints of departing foreign visitors as a way to better keep track of which people on temporary visas had left the country when they were supposed to. Graham, meanwhile, passed an amendment that would prevent people applying for asylum from returning to their home countries to visit unless they showed there was good cause to do so. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, also passed an amendment that would bar unauthorized immigrants with three drunken driving convictions from legalizing.

With the Gang of Eight’s immigration measure coming under the legislative magnifying glass this week, senators on a key committee are sharpening their red pencils in preparation to edit the 844-page bill.

The 18 members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have proposed 300 amendments to the legislation, ranging from protections for gay couples, to border-security fixes, to efforts to dismantle the bill’s central goal of creating a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Friends and foes of the reform effort will push their proposals starting Thursday, when the committee begins marking up the legislation. While observers do not expect that the bill will undergo dramatic changes in the committee process — with bipartisan proponents of reform on the panel likely to stick together to resist substantial changes to their core legislation –  the high-profile debate is sure to elevate the often-dull “markup” process to must-see TV for anyone with a dog in the immigration fight.

While Republicans proposed the lion’s share of the changes — 194 in total from the GOP side — some Democratic amendments will be controversial as well.

As expected, Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, the panel’s chairman, proposed changes that would make the foreign-born same-sex partners of U.S. citizens eligible to apply for green cards. Many Republicans — including key Gang of Eight author Sen. Marco Rubio — have resisted the change, which some suggest would torpedo the entire bill by angering religious organizations and other social conservatives who have otherwise expressed support for the reform legislation.

After four years of Democratic control, Republicans are now in charge of the U.S. House of Representatives.  House Republican leaders have placed a familiar cast of characters in position to draft the chamber’s strategy on immigration:

* Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) is now the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and he has declared that immigration will be a top priority for his Committee.  Smith was the chair of the House Immigration Subcommittee in 1996 when Congress passed a series of laws that ramped up enforcement against both legal and undocumented immigrants—bills that collectively made the broken immigration system worse, not better.  Despite following Smith’s enforcement-only strategy for nearly fifteen years, the number of undocumented immigrants in our country has continued to rise.

* Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-CA) is now the chair of the House Immigration Subcommittee, and he is preparing to launch a series of hearings on immigration enforcement at the beginning of the 112th Congress.  Gallegly also has a long track record on immigration, and has focused much of his efforts on attacking children.  For example, since the early 1990s Gallegly has sponsored legislation to deny U.S. citizenship to babies born in America based on who their parents are.  In 1996, he famously pushed an amendment to deny undocumented children access to an education—the federal version of California’s Proposition 187.

* Rep. Steve King (R-IA) is now vice-chair of the House Immigration Subcommittee.  He may have been passed over for the top spot because of his incendiary comments, such as his comparison of immigrants to livestock and suggestion that we install an electric fence at the border to keep them out.  Still, Smith and Gallegly share King’s policy positions on immigration, and he will continue to play a key role in crafting their approach.

In one of his first acts of the year, Rep. Smith (R-TX) changed the name of the Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law to the Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement.  The name change reflects the new priorities of the Committee—an enforcement-only approach with the goal of driving 11 million undocumented immigrants and their family members out of the country.

However, since a mass deportation policy is not popular with Latino voters, House Republicans are attempting to recast their approach in more palatable terms.  Rather than change course and embrace comprehensive immigration reform—the only proposal that would truly level the playing field, turn workers into taxpayers, and restore the rule of law—they are simply recasting their anti-immigration agenda using pro-worker terms.

In this report, America’s Voice Education Fund (AVEF) peels back the pro-worker mask that Smith, Gallegly, and King are attempting to put on, and shows that they are motivated not by concern for workers but their desire to remove 11 million immigrants and their family members from the country.  AVEF reviews their voting records on worker issues, and find that they have a long history of opposing policies to help American workers succeed, such as an increase to the minimum wage.

In reality, Smith, Gallegly, and King are simply carrying out the policies embraced by a shadowy coalition of anti-immigrant organizations—many of whom have been tied to white supremacists or labeled hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center.  This report exposes that connection and makes it clear that groups like the “Coalition for the Future American Worker” are simply using American unemployment as the latest excuse to rail against immigrants.  In the past, these same organizations have blamed immigrants for such diverse issues such as global warming, the housing crisis, a broken health care system, traffic congestion, and more.

Finally, AVEF examines why a mass deportation agenda is dangerous politics for the Republican Party.  After pushing anti-immigrant policies for years and campaigning on the issue in the 2006, 2008, and 2010 elections, Republicans have boxed themselves in with Latino voters.  Following the strategy of Smith, Gallegly, and King, they are the party of Proposition 187, the Sensenbrenner bill, the Arizona “papers, please” immigration law and copycat proposals in other states, the defeat of comprehensive immigration reform, and the defeat of the DREAM Act.  Latino voters feel disrespected and attacked by the GOP, and are increasingly voting Democratic because of it.

As the 2010 Census results drive home, unless the GOP finds a way to reverse course on immigration and win at least 40% of the Latino vote, it will never see the inside of the White House again, and will become a minority party.  With Smith, Gallegly, and King at the helm in the House, the GOP is poised to become a sinking ship with Latino voters unless real leaders in the Party step up.

(As published by America’s Voice)