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Pending Immigration Bills in Congress
by
PhillyIMC | 02.10.2006
A breakdown of some of the currently proposed immigration reform bills pending in the US Senate and of how this affects Philadelphians.  Girl by the Fence The disastrous Sensenbrenner Bill, H.R. 4437, the so-called "Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005" passed the House of Representatives by a recorded vote of 239 ayes to 182 noes, on December 16, 2005, and is currently in under consideration in Pennsylvania Senator Specter's Judiciary committee to be synthesized with other pending immigration reform bills for introduction into the Senate. As approved in the House, this bill would make unlawful presence in the United States, currently governed only under civil code, a federal aggravated felony, thereby criminalizing the approximately 11 million immigrants who live within the United States without legal status (one-sixth of whom are children). Because aggravated felons are ineligible to obtain legal status in the United States, this would make some of the most commonly accepted forms of immigration relief, including asylum and the Violence Against Women Act (for battered spouses of US Citizens and green card holders), nearly impossible to obtain. This criminalization would be retroactive, so that long-time Lawful Permanent Residents who were out of immigration status at one time in their past, could be barred from citizenship and deported at any time.
Furthermore, even though it is a federal law, the bill would make state and local law-enforcement, most of whom have no knowledge of immigration law whatsoever, responsible for enforcing immigration violations. It would also require seven million This law also turns any relative, employer, co-worker, or friend of who helps an undocumented migrant an "alien smuggler" and a felon, punishable by imprisonment. The criminalized forms of assisting an undocumented immigrant could be as innoccous as driving a neighbor to the grocery store or providing shelter to a survivor of domestic violence. It is in direct violation of the Civil Rights Act, which states that public services cannot be denied on the basis of national origin; suddenly, hospital emergency rooms would have to ask for immigration documents before admitting a pregnant woman. An undocumented woman could call the police on her abusive husband and find herself locked up instead, for the "crime" of living in the United States without a visa. This law would empower police to demand "papers" of anyone, at any time, forcing even United States citizens to carry proof of their US Citizenship with them at all times. It would open the door for selective enforcement to be used for purposes of ethnic and political intimidation. It would criminalize student visa holders who drop a class or work visa holders who change jobs. It would put three million US Citizen children of undocumented immigrants in danger of losing their parents at any minute. The bill would also make it much easier for US government officials to deny citizenship to lawful permanent residents (green card holders) who apply for naturalization, at their own discretion and on the basis of secret evidence that is not subject to review. However, the Sensenbrenner bill is not the only model for immigration reform currently under consideration in the Senate. There is also the proposed McCain/Kennedy Bill, the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act of 2005 (S. 1033), which was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 12, 2005. This bill has bipartisan support and is seen by immigration advocates as the best of all possible immigration reform bills that could come out of the Senate this month. It would direct the Social Security Administration fo create a new electronic employer-verification database to replace the current paper-based system to verify employees' authorization to work in the US, and doubles the fines for employers who hire undocumented immigrants. The McCain/Kennedy would create a new low-skilled temporary-worker visa (called an H-5A visa) that would be available, for a $500 fee, for three years, with a three-year extension available. Only 400,000 such visas would be issued within the first year, but up to 80,000 more visas could be granted if all new visas are used up immediately (as they nearly always are with employment-based visa applications). Ten percent of those fees would be dedicated to the Department of Homeland Security to tighten the border. Immigrants who have previously fallen out of valid visa status in minor ways could pay a $1,500 penalty to get back into legal status. Undocumented immigrants who were currently present in the United States on the day that the bill was first introduced into the Senate, would be eligible to apply for the H-5A visa; they would have to prove current employment, pass a national security and criminal background check, have paid all their federal taxes, demonstrate knowledge of English and of American civics, register for the draft, and pay an additional $1,000 fine. If they meet all requirements and work legally under the H-5A visa for six years, they may then apply for lawful permanent resident status (the "green card"), based on an employer's labor certification petition. (After five years of lawful permanent residence, good moral character, and many other requirements, a green-card holder is eligible to apply for U.S. Citizenship.) The McCain/Kennedy Bill would significantly increase the numbers of visas available for those who already have family-based immigration petitions approved, which were made by their sponsoring members of their nuclear family who are U.S. Citizen and Lawful Permanent Resident. Because of the limited number of visas available every year and the backlog of already-approved immigration petitions, people often wait for years to obtain a visa, even though they have complied with all of the legal requirements necessary for family reunification. For example, currently the National Visa Center is processing visas for Filipinos that have approved family-reunification petitions that were made by their U.S.-citizen brothers and sisters in 1983. Other bills currently under consideration in the Senate include the Cornyn/Kyle "Comprehensive Enforcement and Immigration Reform Act," the so-called "Report to Deport" program also supported by the White House. It would allow undocumented immigrants currently in the United States to apply for "Mandatory Departure," under which they would voluntarily depart from the United States, after which time they could apply for reentry to the United States as temporary workers. It would establish a new visa category that would allow aliens to enter the United States temporrarily when there are no available U.S. workers, but that visa would be limited to to years, after which the immigrant must return to his or her country of origin for one year; immigrants may particiapte in this program up to three times, for a total of six years of employment in the United States, upon meeting extensive background checks, health screening and biometric documentation. There is no path to permanent legal status available to participants in this guest worker program. All undocumented immigrants would be required to depart from the United States within five years. The Cornyn/Kyle bill would require that within one year, all newly hired employees participate in an electronic employment eligibility verification system, authorize 11,000 new agents to investigate the hiring of unodocumented workers and immigration fraud, and increase the penalties for the unauthorized employment of immigrants. It would also allocate 11,250 new Border Patrol and Customs officers $5 billion over five years for more physical and telesurveillance barriers along the U.S. borders. It would authorize $50 million over 5 years for grealt expanded "Expedited Removal" of immigrants, that is, removing them from the United States without allowing them due process of law through immigration court deportation hearings (thereby denying them the possibility to present defenses against deportation, such as actually having U.S. citizenship derived from their parents, protection from removal under the Convention Against Torture, and other such reasons why deporting them would be contrary to existing United States law). It also expands the system of tracking of visitors who come to the United States and fail to leave the US at the expiration of their visa. Pennsylvania's undocumented immigrant population is estimated at 100,000 to 125,000, but it is growing; estimates currently place 58,000 to 72,000 undocumented immigrants in Philadelphia. In 2004, 11.4% of all Philadelphians were born in other countries. The foreign-born population of Philadelphia increased by 30% in the 1990s, but was still not sufficient to offset Philadelphia's overall population loss during those years. Philadelphia ranks the highest among all of the largest cities in the United States, in the number of lawful permanent resident immigrants who become naturalized United States citizens. In 2000, 13% of Philadelphia's minor children had one or more foreign-born parents, and 18% of Philadelphians spoke at least one language other than English. As of March 2005, there were an estimated 11 million immigrants living in the United States without legal immigration status -- whether through entry to the United States without a visa, entering on a valid visa and overstaying the temporary authorized stay, working without legal authorization, or simply due to bureaucratic delays or errors in the processing of their legally-filed applications for valid immigration status. One-sixth of all undocumented immigrants are children. Undocumented immigrants are mostly in the United States with their families and relatively young. Almost all are gainfully employed and most pay taxes in any way that they can. The percentage of undocumented men who work is higher than the percentage of native-born US Citizens and legal immigrants who have jobs, while the percentage of immigrant women who work outside the home is less than the percentage of native-born U.S. Citizen women who hold jobs. The average invome of undocumented migrant families is more than 40% less than the average income of families with workers who are in legal status; according to a recent study, half of all undocumented day laborers reported having been denied payment within the previous two months.
For more information on pending immigration legislation, see
For information on border activism in general, see
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