If immigration reform is to be achieved -- and it is pretty clear that it must be -- the solution likely will not be a sweeping overhaul but a series of smaller, politically digestible steps.
By executive order this year, President Barack Obama took the first of those baby steps by halting deportation of young illegal immigrants. Youngsters who were brought to this country before age 16, were in school or had graduated or had served in the military and had clean criminal records and were younger than 30 were eligible for work permits that could be renewed every two years.
Congressional Republicans cried foul, charging that it was a backdoor attempt to revive the DREAM Act rejected by the Senate two years earlier. The DREAM Act would have culminated in full U.S. citizenship, which Obama, in his executive order couldn't do without congressional approval, which at the time he had no chance of getting.
Republicans also dismissed it as a grandstand play for the Latino vote, coming as it did three months before the November election. If so, the ploy certainly helped, since Obama beat Mitt Romney by 44 percentage points among Latinos. Republicans, generally the most vigorous opponents of changes in the immigration laws other than building longer and higher walls on the border, took notice.
This week the House will take up a GOP-sponsored measure to make it easier for foreign students who earn advanced degrees from U.S. universities to obtain green cards and stay here. Injecting a rare note of common sense into the immigration debate, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said, "We cannot afford to educate these foreign graduates in the United States and then send them back home to work for our competitors."
Even though some Democrats will vote against, because the bill falls short of the massive immigration overhaul they seek, the measure should pass. The Senate will likely run out of time before it can take up the bill.
Meanwhile, the Senate has a Republican-backed measure of its own that closely tracks Obama's order but sets up a three-tiered visa process, culminating in a permanent nonimmigrant visa that can be renewed every five years.
The bill was introduced by outgoing GOP Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and Jon Kyl of Arizona. Like the House bill, the Senate is unlikely get around to the measure for lack of time.
But the Senate GOP immigration torch, so to speak, has been passed to Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and John McCain of Arizona, meaning that the full Senate will get another crack at it next year.
It is through this kind of incremental change that our immigration laws will be rewritten and eventually the idea of a path to full citizenship will become acceptable.
• Dale McFeatters writes for Scripps Howard News Service.
Dale Whiting posted at 9:50 am on Thu, Nov 29, 2012.
I am saddened to realize that many of the foreign graduate engineering studients I studied with at ASU in the early 80's likely had to return to India, Pakistan and elsewhere to find work. In Canada, they would have been able to stay. And I am encouraged to learn that Cesar Millan finally was able to become a US citizen in 2009. Judging from the age of his son who was native born, Cesar must have left his native country of Mexico [where his father was a farmer] in the 90's or earlier. Cesar is the genius behind "Dog Whisperer." His new series is called "Leader of the Pack" a program encouraging the adoption of pound dogs. Most all of my four dogs are adoptees from the several Maricopa County Animal Control pounds.
Now Leon,
when are you going to adopt an illegal alien family for Christmas? We're waiting to hear back from you! Don't chicken out! MAN UP!
samkat posted at 8:09 pm on Thu, Nov 29, 2012.
No amnesty period.
chatmandu002 posted at 10:44 am on Fri, Nov 30, 2012.
We wouldn't need immigration reform if our government had enforced our immigration laws to start with. All political parties are responsible for this problem. This issue has been used to buy votes and has corrupted the immigration process. Now that so many illegals have been here for 20-30 years they have acquired rights that should only be reserved for citizens. Amnesty and citizenship are the only solution they will now accept. The results of not enforcing our immigration laws has produced chaos and anarchy.
Cerulean posted at 11:15 am on Fri, Nov 30, 2012.
Just as Dale McFeatters outlined, some Republicans are prepared to participate in immigration reform. The STEM Jobs Act introduced in the House, will provide for 55,000 new green cards to foreign-born graduates and the Startup Act 2.0 will allow 75,000 new visas for immigrant entrepreneurs.
In a Brookings blog, Neil Ruiz describes those issues as the easy hurdles. What congress really needs to get right is “Balancing immigration reform with the existing workforce”. Ruiz talks about Microsoft’s proposal that would allow more green-cards with a price tag of 10 – 15k. That money would then be tied to “workforce development and education”.
You can read the blog here: http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/the-avenue/posts/2012/11/19-immigration-reform-ruiz
Dale said it well – “It is through this kind of incremental change that our immigration laws will be rewritten and eventually the idea of a path to full citizenship will become acceptable.”
Accuracy posted at 12:55 pm on Fri, Nov 30, 2012.
Dale McFeatters stated: “But the Senate GOP immigration torch, so to speak, has been passed to Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and John McCain of Arizona, meaning that the full Senate will get another crack at it next year.”
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It was retiring Republican Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Jon Kyl that introduced the "Achieve Act” bill. A measure that would give legal status to children of illegal immigrants, provided those children go to college or join the military.
Hutchison says she has spoken with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain and her replacement, Texas Republican Senator-elect Ted Cruz, to “carry the torch once she retires”. "It allows them to be here legally, get their education and not live in fear that they are going to be deported," Hutchison said.
Because it would only give legal status, NOT AMNESTY, and not a guaranteed path to citizenship, Latino activists are already opposing the GOP illegal immigration measure.
Accuracy posted at 8:02 am on Sat, Dec 1, 2012.
Dale McFeatters also stated: "This week the House will take up a GOP-sponsored measure..."
Yes, and the House passed the Republican-led “STEM Jobs Act” bill on Friday. A bill to increase visas that would make it easier for foreign-born students who earn advanced degrees in U.S. universities (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) to stay in the country.
GOP leaders also added a provision making it easier for immigrants working in the country legally to bring their spouses and children to the United States while they wait for their visa applications to be approved.
But most Democrats and the White House balked at the GOP-sponsored measure. Meaning, with parties far apart on immigration, the Democratic-controlled Senate is likely to ignore the House STEM bill in the waning days of the current congressional session.
bobunf posted at 1:38 am on Sun, Dec 2, 2012.
Neither of the Republican proposals will get anywhere because they do not deal the issue of 11 million undocumented people in the country.
Republicans do not seem to understand the extent of blended families amongst the Latino and Asian populations. When it's your mother they are talking about deporting, there's no appetite for considering H1B visas for privileged PhDs from Harvard, MIT and Cal Tech, especially when it means cutting visas for others. Nor for considering a Dream Act lite.
Samkat may say, "No amnesty period," but there is not other way to deal with this issue, starting with the dreamers. With the Latino and Asian vote at 14% in this election, with over 2,000 Latinos and Asians turning 18 every day, and old white guys dying off every day, the Republican problem with Latinos and Asians will be fatal in the longer term.
Add in Blacks and gays and by 2016 one gets to over a third of the voting population, who vote against Republicans by over 80%. And it will worse on a state by state and district by district basis.
mnjcpa posted at 10:24 am on Sun, Dec 2, 2012.
As long as people are encouraged to come to America - illegally nonetheless - for FREE everything we will continue to have the problem. Liberalism is what needs to be eradicated.
Masterrogue666 posted at 6:32 pm on Sun, Dec 2, 2012.
No amnesty until our porous southern border is secured much more throughly than it is now! CRIMINALS should not be rewarded WHATSOEVER. They demand citizenship, what are they willing to GIVE to their new country. How about fines, special taxes, et al? Mexico gets the lion's share of LEGAL immigration slots now. And how do you make it up to the people that ARE CURRENTLY FOLLOWING THE RULES?
@bobunf: As for your blended families, WHOM made the decision to cross ILLEGAL and become a CRIMINAL? Did someone hold a gun to their head?
Amnesty was given ONCE before, and the border was suppose to be improved. Since it wasn't, all that happened was that the flood gates were opened. Close those gates, THEN and ONLY THEN would I consider amnesty, but it should be for the cream of the crop. It's OUR COUNTRY, not theirs. And no more signs in Spanish, unless it's in German, Galeic, French, et al.....
Accuracy posted at 5:24 pm on Mon, Dec 3, 2012.
Masterrogue666 posted a good point…… “Amnesty was given ONCE before, and the border was suppose to be improved.”
But now President Barack Obama, “Open Border” Janet Napolitano, and Liberal Democrats want to give all 18,000 illegal immigrants (and their relatives), that are in the United States, amnesty. Plus a government guaranty to grant pardon to all other illegal aliens.