Senate
How the Senate Votes On Amendments
The Senate voted on four amendments to the immigration reform bill today, starting the ball rolling on what is likely to be a series of amendment votes over the next few days. The Senate rejected two votes requiring more enforcement at the border as a condition of implementing or completing a legalization program: Vitter 1228, which failed 36-58, and Thune 1197, which failed 39-54. Two other amendments were less divisive: Tester 1198, adding tribal governments to the Border Task Force, which passed 94-0 and Landrieu 1222, an adoption measure, which passed on a voice vote. In each case, in order to be adopted, a sixty vote threshold was required, rather than a simple majority, which has become the norm in the Senate. Needless to say, the variety of votes and rules can be confusing, leading to the need for some background on the amendment process. Read More
Border Security Amendments To Delay Legalization Harm Immigration Bill Efforts
During The first full day of debate after the Senate approved a motion to proceed to S. 744, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, several Senators sought to make the debate all about border security. In the process, they proposed amendments that tie border security increases to the start of the legalization program in ways that make legalization a virtually unattainable goal. One of these amendments is from Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX). His RESULTS amendment ties the fate of unauthorized immigrants who are already living in the United States, and who have applied for legalization, to the success of highly stringent border-enforcement measures in deterring future unauthorized immigration. However, applicants for legalization have no control over the ability of the federal government to maintain the integrity of U.S. borders, so there is no logical reason to link their legal status to border-enforcement metrics. The RESULTS amendment also mistakenly views immigration reform as a two-step process: enforcement, followed by legalization. However, the various components of immigration reform must be implemented simultaneously to maximize their effectiveness. The amendment breaks apart what should by a single, integrated revamping of U.S. immigration policy. Finally, the RESULTS amendment contains no mechanism for judging the feasibility or cost-effectiveness of the border-security measures and metrics that it would mandate. Read More
Senate Overwhelmingly Approves Motion To Proceed To Immigration Bill
S. 744, the Gang of Eight’s immigration reform bill, cleared another significant hurdle today when the Senate approved a motion to proceed to the legislation. The motion to proceed passed overwhelmingly by a vote of 84-15. Read More
Procedural Path Of The Senate Immigration Bill
The Senate immigration reform debate has officially begun. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) filed cloture on the motion to proceed Thursday on S. 744, the “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act,” the first step to having the full Senate debate the measure after the Senate Judiciary Committee approved it a few weeks ago. Senators started to make their cases for and against the bill during floor speeches on Friday. On Tuesday, the Senate will vote to end debate on the motion to proceed to the immigration bill at 2:15 p.m. Tuesday and then vote to proceed at 4 p.m. Read More
How the Immigration Reform Bill Could Help Undocumented Farmworkers and Growers
Approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants could become eligible for legal status under S. 744, the immigration reform bill the Senate is considering, including millions of undocumented farmworkers. The importance of finding a way to create a legal workforce within the agriculture industry is critical, as undocumented farmworkers make up an estimated 53 percent of agriculture workers. Read More
Medicare’s Health and Well-Being Depends on Immigrants
Immigrants’ access to affordable health care is one of the most contested issues in the current immigration reform debate. Most advocates of comprehensive immigration reform point to the need to ensure that aspiring citizens have opportunities to access appropriate health care since such access will impact their ability to learn, to work, and to contribute to their communities. On the other end of the spectrum, anti-immigration groups tend to inaccurately emphasize that newly legalized immigrants would represent an excessive fiscal burden. This prediction is based on a misleading characterization of immigrants as “takers”—in other words, as disproportionate consumers of public resources. Several studies have shown that this is just not the case. In fact, non-citizens use public benefit programs at a lower rate than similar low-income native-born citizens. With regard to medical expenditures in particular, immigrants tend to use less health care than their U.S.-born counterparts. Read More
Will Immigration Reform Correct the Immigration System’s Gender Bias?
Within the current immigration system, many women confront systematic barriers when trying to gain legal status. This is one of the main conclusions drawn from a study conducted by social scientists Cecilia Menjivar and Olivia Salcido. Based on a 10-year-long research project on immigrant women in Arizona, the authors identify specific instances in which gender inequality is ingrained in the formulation, interpretation, and implementation of immigration laws. Read More
How Immigrant Entrepreneurs Fare in the New Immigration Bill
With the Senate Judiciary Committee’s vote last week to pass S.744 on to the Senate floor, a new proposal for spurring immigrant entrepreneurship and innovation will be before Congress. Title IV, Subtitle H of the bill creates the INVEST visa (Investing in New Venture, Entrepreneurial Startups, and Technologies) for immigrant entrepreneurs. This new visa program would allow immigrant entrepreneurs to come to the United States, start businesses, and create jobs in America. There would be two types of INVEST visas. A nonimmigrant INVEST visa would be renewable provided certain initial investment, annual revenue, and job creation criteria are met within an initial three-year period. The immigrant version of the INVEST visa would have basically the same criteria just at higher thresholds. The committee also adopted an amendment that permanently authorizes the EB-5 Regional Center Program, which has created tens of thousands of American jobs and attracted over $1 billion in investments since 2006. Read More
Experts from Left and Right Agree on Economic Power of Immigration Reform
In recent years, study after study has demonstrated a simple yet economically powerful truth about broad-based immigration reform: workers with legal status earn more than workers who are unauthorized—and these extra earnings generate more tax revenue, as well as more consumer spending, which creates more jobs. As a new report from the Center for American Progress (CAP) points out, this fact implies that states with appreciable unauthorized populations stand to gain economically from immigration reform that includes a legalization program for the unauthorized. Moreover, a new open letter to Congressional leaders released by the conservative American Action Forum illustrates that it is not only liberal advocacy groups like CAP which recognize the economic potential of immigration reform. Read More
What Does the Success of the Mark-Up Tell us About the Coming Full Senate Vote on Immigration?
One year ago, with the presidential race in full swing and proponents of self-deportation making the headlines, it would have been difficult to predict the extraordinary vote that took place Tuesday in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Ten Democrats and three Republicans voted to pass S. 744 out of committee and send a comprehensive immigration bill to the Senate floor. This could never have happened without the overwhelming support for immigration reform that the public has shown, particularly since the November 2012 election. Even with that support, however, there was no guarantee that the long, slow process of negotiating and drafting a bipartisan bill that could succeed in committee (and then the Senate floor) would ever come to fruition. And once a bill is introduced, getting it through committee requires a mix of political acumen to keep the bill alive. Read More
All gifts are matched dollar for dollar
No one should face the immigration system alone
