Mañana for Immigration Reform

A long-promised, bi-partisan U.S. Senate bill aimed at comprehensive immigration reform will be delayed until at least March, according to a lobbyist involved in negotiations over the content of the legislation. "The timeline originally was to have a bill by February," said Sonia Ramirez, legislative representative for the AFL-CIO. "Now I think they're shooting at having a detailed outline of the direction they'd like to go in the bill by the end of February." Once the outline is agreed on, she explained, lawyers will draft the text.

The on-again, off again timetable has disappointed immigration reform advocates. Sen. Charles. E. Schumer (D-NY), Chairman of the Senate Immigration Subcommittee, who has been working on an immigration bill with South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham, indicated during the summer that legislation would be introduced last year "I think we'll have a good bill by Labor Day," Schumer, told the Associated Press last July. But it never materialized.

Before and after the presidential election, Barack Obama also promised that he would move on immigration reform. But a one sentence mention of the subject towards the end of his state of the union speech on Wednesday seemed more like an obligatory item on a to-do list than a rousing call to action: "And we should continue the work of fixing our broken immigration system," said the President, "to secure our borders and enforce our laws, and ensure that everyone who plays by the rules can contribute to our economy and enrich our nation." End of subject.

The following day at a press conference, when a reporter asked Schumer about plans for immigration reform, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) jumped in with instructions for the New York Senator: "Chuck, let's not get into any deadlines," he cautioned. ""You get into trouble by setting deadlines. It is something we're committed to do. And we'll do it as soon as we can." Schumer was obligingly vague about his plans. "We are making good progress," he said, explaining that he was having difficulty enlisting support from Republican ranks. "Now, I've said all along, even before last Tuesday with the Massachusetts election, that we have to have this bill be a bipartisan bill, two Democrats, two Republicans to introduce it. We're not there yet. We're still working on getting our Republicans." Schumer announced that he had met with former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs, whom he said, without elaboration "is changing his views on immigration." It was unclear what contribution, if any, Dobbs would make to the immigration debate.

The AFL-CIO's Ramirez indicated that she and other labor leaders are trying to reach a compromise with business representatives on a complicated section of the bill that would set guidelines to regulate the use of migrant workers on either a temporary or permanent basis. Labor organizations have supported a plan for a new Presidential commission to help establish criteria and calculate labor needs. Business groups have said that they would not accept a commission that could be politicized and not suitably responsive to "market forces." This issue may seem esoteric, but as legislative efforts to enact immigration reform move haltingly along, the ability of labor and business to agree on the fundamentals of migrant worker programs could make the difference between a viable bill and yet another failed effort to fix the broken system. The recently-introduced House immigration bill advocated most forcefully by Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) and championed by many reform advocates is widely seen as basically dead on arrival because of criticisms from the right that it is too migrant friendly.

Labor's Ramirez suggested that the commission proposal would not be a deal breaker. "In terms of creating a system--let's put the word 'commission' aside--that contemplates economic need and makes decisions on visas based on demonstrated need, that's attractive to us both [business and labor]. So I think there is lots of agreement on how to move forward." Ramirez said that labor would want to insist that migrant workers involved in "future flows" be assured worker protections and rights. Labor is also pushing to make sure that recruiters who bring in foreign workers are better regulated. But she made it clear that the commission idea was more of a subject for negotiation than a key demand. "It's about crafting a system," she said, "not calling it a 'commission.'"

Time is not on the side of immigration reformers. As the 2010 midterm elections approach, politicians on the fence are likely to be seen as loathe to embrace such a controversial issue. One influential senator, Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has suggested a more wary piecemeal approach to immigration reform, rather than one big package. Breaking off chunks and dealing separately with the contentious issues of legalization, enforcement, and "future flows" of migrants may seem like a pragmatic short term approach to immigration but is likely to result in once again postponing the issue. And, if it's not going to be dealt with in 2010, it's almost certain to be ignored later on as politicos prepare for the 2012 presidential election year.

Clarification:
After this article first appeared, Sonia Ramirez wrote to clarify the position of the AFL-CIO. Ramirez explained that the AFL-CIO is committed to replacing the "current employment-based immigration system----that is currently arbitrarily set by Congress and is a product of political compromise, without regard to real labor shortages----with a system that assesses labor market needs on an ongoing basis and determines the number of foreign workers to be admitted for employment based on demonstrated labor market needs." Ramirez wrote that the AFL-CIO supports "a system that examines the impact of immigration on the economy, wages, the workforce and business. We would never negotiate away these principles," she explained. "If we have to call this entity something else like a "board" or an "authority" we are willing to do that."

Jeffrey Kaye is a veteran journalist and author. His forthcoming book, Moving Millions: How Coyote Capitalism Fuels Global Immigration (Wiley & Sons) will be available in April 2010.

 

 

 

Comments

[Gido]

07:45 PM on 02/03/2010

Undocument­ed Workers 11,200,000

2009 population from 1 to 10

New York, N.Y. ..........­........8,­363,710
Los Angeles, Calif.....­......... 3,833,995
Chicago, Ill.......­..........­....... 2,853,114
Houston, Tex.......­..........­.... 2,242,193
Philadelph­ia, Pa. ..........­.....1,567­,924
Phoenix, Ariz......­..........­.... 1,447,395
San Diego, Calif.....­..........­. 1,351,305
Dallas, Tex. ..........­..........­..1,279,91­0
San Diego ..........­..........­....1,279,­329
San Jose, Calif. ..........­........94­8,279

That means that is the same quantity of people that New York and Chicago has.
Just imagine our county with out people in New York and Chicago...
How expensive is going to be that?

Let's use our heads We are the # 1 country in the world! Let's fix this problem as We are.

The problem is based on the way that our broken immigratio­n system is, if the visa gap could be larger for family members and if we could have a real temporary workers program like in Europe, We can solve the problem. Let's rebuild our database to use the E-Verify

We don't need more fences, we don't need more expenses on that. We just have to fix what is broken and unfortunat­ely in this case is our law that was designed for the situation that we had 30 years ago, don't patch it, fix it!. and fix it for ever, do it right.

Fixing our immigratio­n system is not just the right thing to do for immigrant workers; it's the right thing to do for all workers and for our economy.

[nee]

01:22 AM on 01/30/2010

"And we should continue the work of fixing our broken immigratio­n system," said the President, "to secure our borders and enforce our laws, and ensure that everyone who plays by the rules can contribute to our economy and enrich our nation."

I couldn't agree more - I just hope he sticks to what he has said and not go along with those who want amnesty and open borders.
We should heavily fine those who hire ILLEGALS and the jobs for them would dry up and they would self-depor­t. That would free up BILLIONS of tax dollars that we spend on ILLEGALS. We could then use that money on our own citizens and LEGAL immigrants­.

[GrayRiv]

11:51 PM on 01/29/2010

The Dems would be crazy to go into November without a serious run at immigratio­n reform. It brings out the worst in the worst parts of the GOP, would light a fire under immigrant and Latino voters, and would draw bright lines for younger, Catholic and labor voters who are repelled by the GOP approach to immigratio­n (make legal immigratio­n more difficult and then rail against illegal immigratio­n, Latinos, and immigrants­). Americans want rules and enforcemen­t of those rules and getting 12,000,000 people into the system and governed by labor laws, fully taxed and on their road to becoming citizens and voters (like every generation of immigrants before them) all while enhancing enforcemen­t against employers is a much better alternativ­e to the fantasy of mass deportatio­n or the chaos of the status quo. Lean into it Dems, the field is yours for the taking.

[nee]

01:26 AM on 01/30/2010

We do have "rules" that are not being enforced by the federal government­. The American people do not want to put 12,000,000 ILLEGAL ALIENS into the system. We want to get them OUT. We need to heavily fine those who hire ILLEGALS and then ILLEGALS would SELF-DEPOR­T. We need to free up the BILLIONS ILLEGALS are sucking out of CA alone and use that money on our own citizens and LEGAL immigrants­.

[Contact1972]

02:13 AM on 01/30/2010

Youre right! We dont want or for that matter need the 1.5 TRILLION dollars that will be generated legalizing the 12 million people ALREADY here working jobs Americans have no desire to touch!

Sheeple much?

[AnimalLover6]

02:17 AM on 01/30/2010

Enforcemen­t of current immigratio­n laws would go a long way towards solving the problem, including heavy fines against employers who hire illegal immigrants­.

No one has a "fantasy of mass deportatio­n." Cut off the jobs and the illegal immigrants self-depor­t.

[Contact1972]

06:30 AM on 01/30/2010

"Cut off the jobs and the illegal immigrants self-depor­t."

You still dont get it. The jobs the undocument­ed do, Americans have NO DESIRE for. Even when paid more money, Americans for example, do not want to pick fruit when they can work at Starbucks. Just the plain truth.

If we dont deal with this issue properly now it will just become more of a problem. Screaming into the wind about enforcemen­t only and heavy fines gets you nowhere.

It's time to sit down, stop screaming at each other and fix the system thats so broken people feel they have no choice but to sneak across the border.