Democrats Reframe the Debate on Immigration

Democrats Reframe the Debate on Immigration
By JULIA PRESTON
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: April 30, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/01/us/politics/01immig.html?th&emc=th


The outline for an immigration overhaul unveiled by Democratic senators this week lays down a new starting point for any national debate: tough immigration enforcement. But perhaps more significantly it reveals how politics have shifted on the contentious issue.

The enforcement would be more far-reaching than anything in place now — or anything proposed by the administration of President George W. Bush.

It begins with “zero tolerance” for immigrants trying to enter the country illegally, by tightening border enforcement and by barring them from taking jobs in the United States.

“It shows how far the Democrats have moved in terms of tougher and tougher enforcement,” said Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who studies immigration. “Across the board you see language that would be very comfortable in a proposal written by Republicans.”

The move to a more security-minded consensus comes as the Democrats and their leader in the Senate, Harry Reid of Nevada, face a challenging midterm election season.

Democrats have joined Republicans in seeking to avoid the mistakes of 1986, when the last major overhaul gave amnesty to more than three million illegal immigrants, but enforcement provisions were largely left out of the final legislation.

The proposal’s prospects of coming up in the Senate this year appear dim, after a tough immigration law in Arizona further polarized the national debate and President Obama said this week that the time might not be right.

Yet the outline, with many game-changing measures that would broadly redesign the system bringing immigrants to this country, is likely to be the centerpiece of the immigration discussion this year, lawmakers and advocates said, whether or not it comes to the floor of the Senate.

The “conceptual proposal,” as the senators called it, is an outline, not a draft of legislation. No Republican signed on to it, not even Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who worked for months with Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, shaping sections of a potential bill.

Mr. Graham, in a statement with Senator Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, dismissed the blueprint, saying it “promises everything to everyone.”

Senator John Cornyn of Texas, another border state Republican, said the timing of the outline “suggests that politics rather than policy is driving the train,” since it comes just before nationwide rallies on Saturday by advocate groups demanding progress from Mr. Obama on the immigration overhaul.

The blueprint, written primarily by Mr. Schumer, includes a proposal for a Social Security card containing a biometric chip that all workers, including American citizens, would have to present to an employer when being hired.

The proposal was presented by Mr. Schumer, Mr. Reid, Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, Dianne Feinstein of California and Richard J. Durbin of Illinois. Employers would be responsible for monitoring the immigration status of potential hires much more closely than they do now. Every employer would be required to use a new verification system, including a scanner at every business to confirm the validity of the Social Security cards of job applicants.

Conservatives, while supporting stronger enforcement, have long opposed national identity cards, or making the Social Security card a de facto one.

Mr. Cornyn said the “emphasis on border enforcement was certainly encouraging,” but, he said, Congress should not wait for the whole package to pass before financing new border security measures.

As part of the enforcement system, the outline calls for a national system to register births and deaths, to eliminate the fraudulent use by immigrants of documents of people who have died.

It would establish a system to monitor the departure of all immigrants as well as their entry into the country. If immigrants failed to leave when their visas expired, the immigration authorities would be required to deport them quickly.

Immigration officials have said that creating an exit system would be a vast task that could take many years to complete.

The proposal opens the door wider than ever before to high-skilled immigrants. It would offer permanent-resident status, with a document known as a green card, to every foreigner with an advanced degree in science or technology from an American university. It would make it much easier for foreign students in the sciences to stay in the United States after they graduate, and eliminate numerical restrictions that have kept highly educated immigrants from India and China waiting for many years before becoming residents.

The outline would make it possible for the spouses and other close relatives of legal green-card holders to come immediately to the United States, reuniting many thousands of families and eliminating a wait that now stretches to eight years. It would create a commission to monitor labor markets and determine when the supply of foreign workers should be raised or lowered.

Mr. Schumer “made an effort to fix every piece of the system that doesn’t work right,” said Paul Donnelly, an advocate for legal immigrants.

Also for the first time, the Democrats’ proposal would recognize same-sex relationships in allowing immigration.

In exchange for more enforcement, the proposal offers a relatively simple path to legal status for an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants. They would register, admit their legal violation and pay penalties and back taxes up front. Then they would remain on provisional status for eight years.

On Friday, different sides were weighing in. Roman Catholic bishops embraced the framework but strongly opposed the benefits for same-sex couples. The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights said the proposal was “heavily framed around enforcement.”