Politics

New immigration legislation proves controversial

by Rebecca Harshbarger

Friday April 21, 2006

On March 27, the Senate Judiciary Committee completed an immigration reform bill that passed in committee two to six during a two week Senate period of debate on immigration. The bill, S 1033: The Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act, or the McCain-Kennedy Bill, has not yet been voted on or passed by the Senate. The McCain-Kennedy Bill, named for its sponsors Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Ted Kennedy (D-MA), is a response to the House bill that passed on December 16, 2005 by a vote of 239 to 182, titled HR 4437: The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005, or the Sensenbrenner Bill, after the bill’s sponsor, Representative Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI).

There are currently four main immigration proposals circulating in Washington: President Bush’s guest worker plan, the House bill passed in December (HR 4437), the Senate bill that is currently underway (S 1033), and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s (R-TN) recently proposed bill named S 2454: The Securing America’s Borders Act. HR 4437 calls for the most dramatic changes to current immigration law.

Some major aspects of HR 4437 include erecting a seven hundred mile long fence along the U.S.-Mexican border at places documented as locations of the “highest number of immigrant deaths,” requiring that all employers electronically verify current and new workers’ legal status over the next several years (most likely through the use of ID cards), and mandating that all children born to undocumented workers in the United States would become wards of the state.

For immigrants’ rights groups, the most shocking aspect of the Sensenbrenner Bill is that undocumented workers would be charged with a felony, a major change from current protocol. Today, an undocumented immigrant would be charged with a violation of civil law, rather than a felony. Likewise, anyone who houses undocumented workers would be considered a felon and would be subject to up to three years in prison. For employers who hire undocumented workers, the possible fine is $7,500 for the first offense, and then $15,000 and $40,000 subsequently. Also under the House bill, the U.S.-Mexico Border Patrol, which currently has 11,300 agents, would be increased to 25,300 agents.

HR 4437 is a major departure from President Bush’s guest worker plan, which he described as a “new temporary worker program that will match willing foreign workers with willing American employers, when no Americans can be found to fill the jobs.” Current undocumented workers would pay a fee to be a legal part of this program, and the program would be free for future immigrant workers. Temporary workers would be expected to return back to their countries with financial incentives, such as special bank accounts that would allow them to bring money back home to their families more easily, or they could choose to apply for citizenship. However, Bush’s guest worker program is not an amnesty program for economic migrants who cross the U.S.-Mexico border.

The bill proposed by the Senate Judiciary Committee, the McCain-Kennedy Bill, is more moderate than the Sensenbrenner Bill that the House passed in December. A major feature of the proposed McCain-Kennedy Bill, S 1033, is that illegal immigrants who entered the United States before 2004 would be able to work legally for the next six years if they pay a $1,000 fine and pass a background check. New immigrants would need temporary work visas, and could earn legal permanent residence after six years. Rather than a literal one, a virtual wall would be placed across the U.S.-Mexico border through the use of unmanned vehicles, cameras and sensors. A special guest worker program would be created for an estimated 1.5 million immigrant farm workers, who would then have the opportunity to earn legal permanent residency. An undocumented worker with a high school diploma or a G.E.D. and no criminal record would be allowed to enroll in college or enlist in the United States Military.

Frist’s proposal, S 2454, is harsher and more extreme than the Sensenbrenner Bill (HR 4437) and the McCain-Kennedy Bill (S 1033). Frist’s bill includes penalties for employers that range from civil fines of $500 up to $20,000, to additional criminal fines of as much as $20,000 and six months in jail for each undocumented worker hired; undocumented workers would be charged with a misdemeanor. Frist’s plan also increases the number of employment-based Green Cards from 140,000 to 290,000, and makes more of these visas available to unskilled workers. The bill would cancel the visas of immigrants who have stayed longer than their visas permitted, and require those immigrants to return home and undergo an additional screening at the U.S. consulate within their country.

The proposed legislation would also increase the number of visas available for high-tech workers. However, this could be problematic for the workers’ home countries, as it drains the countries’ population of highly skilled workers. Many of these countries of origin for immigrants may put considerable amounts of money into their education systems, only to end up seeing their highly trained workers leave to find higher-paid work in Europe or the United States. This is a significant problem for Ghana, for instance, a country that trains many biomedical health care professionals but often loses them to Great Britain.

In the United States it is estimated that there are currently 12 million undocumented workers, hailing from Central America to Canada to Eastern Europe, according to the U.S. Custom Enforcement Agency. It is estimated that between 400,000 and one million undocumented people, sometimes referred to as “economic migrants,” cross the U.S.-Mexico border every year; newspaper articles and institutions have reported a diverse range of statistics. These people are primarily of Mexican descent, but people from other Central American nations make the trek across the border as well, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. The Center estimates that these undocumented workers from Central America make up 25 percent of all drywall and ceiling tile installers in the United States, 25 percent of all meat and poultry workers, and 25 percent of all dishwashers. According to migration experts at the University of California at Davis, 45 percent of all agricultural laborers in the United States are undocumented.

In attempts to get into the United States, many immigrants suffocate in shipping containers, boxcars and trucks; drown due to poor quality sea vessels; perish from dehydration and exposure during long walks without water; die from the brutality of organizations such as the U.S. Border Patrol (which has frequently been accused of major human rights violations) and the smugglers who bring undocumented immigrants into the United States—according to international organizations such as Human Rights Watch. U.S. government press releases state that between 1998 and 2004 about two thousand people died trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.

To cross into the United States, undocumented workers from Mexico frequently give up their life savings to so-called “coyotes,” or immigrant smugglers, perform extremely difficult labor and work without health insurance.
The past few weeks have seen major protests throughout the United States in response to major discussions of immigration and legislative changes.

The civil rights group Latino Movement USA has designated May 1 as an official boycott to protest the anti-immigration and racist sentiment reflected in many of the bill proposals, especially Frist’s S 2454 and HR 4437, which passed in the House.
On April 2 Sarah Lawrence students attended a protest organized by a Filipino community organization in Queens, and on April 10, many attended a large immigration rally in New York City.

Thousands of people also marched on April 2 from Brooklyn to Lower Manhattan in support of immigrants’ rights, spanning neighborhoods that have been home to major waves of European, Asian and Latino immigrants.

Support for these protests and rallies has come from Thomas Suozzi, the Nassau County executive and governor candidate, New York Representative Nydia Velàzquez,the Bronx borough president Adolfo Carriôn Jr. and Albany senator Rubén Dîaz, according to the New York Times.

Many classes and student groups have been discussing and organizing around this issue throughout campus, in particular Dean Hubbard’s Institute for Policy Alternatives.