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STRIVE Act and H2C visas
Immigration bill gets a hearing
Subcommittee takes testimony on the issue despite earlier failure of a similar bill.
By VANJA PETROVIC
The Orange County Register
WASHINGTON - Although the debate about a comprehensive immigration overhaul was stopped cold in the Senate earlier this year, the House immigration subcommittee held a hearing on the issue Thursday.
The session, called by subcommittee Chairwoman Rep. Zoe Lofgren, came as a surprise because there is nearly no possibility of an immigration bill getting through Congress before the 2008 presidential election.
The hearing examined the STRIVE Act, which would toughen the nation's borders, create a new guest worker program, require employers to verify the legal status of their workforces and allow an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants to earn their way to citizenship. It had many of the same elements as the failed Senate bill.
Lofgren, D-San Jose, said she was enormously disappointed by the Senate's failure to pass a measure and wanted to give the issue a full airing in her subcommittee. "The details matter … and today, we will get the details," she said.
The subcommittee heard from a dozen witnesses, including House members, activists and people whose lives were personally touched by the immigration issue.
Eduardo Gonzalez, a Naval officer, told the subcommittee he was worried that before he gets back from his third deployment overseas his wife may be deported because she is undocumented. And Tony Wasilewski told the panel that his wife of 14 years was deported this year because she was denied political asylum. She took their 6-year-old son back to Poland with her.
Much of the testimony at the hearing was a repetition of old talking points on the issue from those who support or oppose the comprehensive approach.
"We should be ashamed of ourselves," for not passing a bill, said Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill. "We have failed the American people."
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., complained about the use of the word amnesty.
"This term amnesty has been misused more times in this debate than any other word I've heard in any other debate," Conyers said. "I've never before noticed so much anti-immigrant bias."
The subcommittee's ranking Republican, Rep. Steve King of Iowa, was one of the few dissenting voices. King compared the STRIVE Act to the 1986 immigration law. He said that both are amnesty and would reward illegal behavior and disrespect of American law.
"No one wants to repeat the mistake of 1986, but the STRIVE Act does that," he said. "The STRIVE Act sells U.S. citizenship for $2,100." King was referring to the fines illegal immigrants would pay to get on the path to citizenship.
Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Carlsbad, agreed.
"The STRIVE Act and similar plans have failed to gain a wide support from the American people for a very simple reason: Americans do not believe that we should reward people for breaking our laws," he said.
Contact the writer: 202-628-6381 or vpetrovic@ocregister.com
ocregister.com
Congressional Hearing Revisits Need For Immigration Reform
Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL).
Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL). introduced the bill with Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ)
Hardbeatnews, WASHINGTON, D.C., Fri. Sept. 7, 2007: Immigration reform in the United States may have been killed by the U.S. Senate but a congressional sub-committee is revisiting the issue with witnesses yesterday calling for renewed attention to modification of the immigration law.
Among those leading the charge were Michael L. Barrera, President and CEO of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Barrera was one of eight witnesses who testified before the Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees Border Security, and International Law yesterday as its members zoned in on the Security Through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy Act of 2007 or the STRIVE Act.
Barrera urged the committee “to remain steadfast in passing comprehensive immigration Reform,” while insisting, “This is not the time to close the door to others that dare to pursue the American Dream, and we must lend a hand to the immigrant families that are here contributing to this nation’s strength and economy.”
It was a call echoed by several of the panelists who testified, including Cassandra Q. Butts, senior vice president for Domestic Policy, Center for American Progress. Butts urged Congress to honor the principles of civil rights and democracy by passing comprehensive immigration reform. Two American citizen husbands, who are fighting to keep their immigrant wives in the US also testified, giving a first hand account on the personal horrors their families are experiencing in fighting to stay together.
However, Julie Kirchner, Government Relations Director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, claimed the STRIVE Act “compounds, rather than eases, the problems of our broken immigration system.”
“By granting amnesty to illegal aliens, Congress rewards those who openly break our immigration laws and encourages more illegal immigration,” said Kirchner of the anti-immigration organization.
The STRIVE Act, a piece of bipartisan immigration reform legislation introduced earlier this year by Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL). Flake, who also testified, wrapped up by insisting the answer to the problem was simple for lawmakers. It is about “whether we want to fix the problem…or continue to allow it to get worse,” he said.
The STRIVE Act would set up a new worker program for low-skilled workers, when a U.S. worker cannot be found to fill a needed job while undocumented workers who pay a fine and pass extensive and thorough background examinations would be eligible for conditional status with work and travel authorization for six years, with the conditional ability to adjust their status if they leave the country and re-enter legally. And it would overhaul the family-based and employment-based immigration system to reduce backlogs and inefficiencies.
The bill would also increase border enforcement through increasing enforcement personnel on the border and requiring a thorough evaluation of information sharing, international and federal-state-local coordination, technology, anti-smuggling, and other border security initiatives to ensure that we are doing everything possible to bolster border security.
The STRIVE Act would also strengthen interior enforcement by increasing penalties for crimes committed by immigrants, including those related to smuggling and gang activities. The bill also sets up an employment verification system whereby employers would be required to confirm each potential employee's eligibility to work.
The hearing comes as US Department of Homeland Security officials push a tougher enforcement policy, boosting raids across the U.S. at employment sites. The plan is also set to include the Social Security Administration in the fight against “illegals.”
But a policy that would have seen thousands of “no match” letters from the Social Security Administration sent to employers this week has been temporarily halted by a federal judge following a lawsuit last week. For now, immigrant workers have been given a break as activists see the hearing as a silver lining in a dark tunnel.
Angela Kelley, deputy director of the National Immigration Forum, a pro-immigrant advocacy organization in Washington, saw the hearing as a sign of hope.
“We applaud the Judiciary Committee, especially Chair John Conyers (D-MI), Immigration Subcommittee Chair Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), for keeping solutions to immigration in the public eye,” said Kelley. – Hardbeatnews.com
hardbeatnews.com |
