Immigration Reform To Be Revisited
by Gerri L. Elder
Remember the immigration bill that died a horrible death in the Senate on June, 28th? Some lawmakers are now working to revive parts of the failed bill.
If some Democrats in the Senate are successful in reviving a provision of the failed immigration bill, some children of illegal immigrants may gain a path to citizenship.
Democrat Senator Diane Feinstein from California is also working on breathing life into another provision of the failed immigration bill, and if she is successful a guest worker program will be created for 1.5 million illegal immigrants who work in the agriculture industry that so desperately needs them.
Both of these efforts to revive parts of the failed immigration bill will likely fuel a hot debate similar to the one that raged in the Senate during June when the original bill was trying to make its way through.
Illinois Senator Richard J. Durbin is likely to introduce an amendment to the defense bill that will introduce legislation to allow the children of illegal immigrants who entered the United States before the age of 16, and have lived here for at least 5 years, to gain conditional legal status and lead the path to established citizenship, providing that they attend college or join the military for at least 2 years.
Durbin recently announced that he is working on authoring the amendment now and getting the word out to his colleagues to try to get a sense of the level of support the proposed legislation will have. He says that the Department of Defense has already endorsed the amendment.
Durbin also said that Feinstein is currently looking for the right piece of legislation to carry her proposed amendment. She may be considering the five-year farm bill which is expected to hit the Senate during October.
Legal analysts say that attaching immigration legislation to defense bills is a risky move. Republicans who oppose immigration reform may accuse the Democrats of tying up legislation that is intended to help the U.S. troops.
Even people who support immigration reform say that the amendments are unlikely to pass, given the massive defeat of the immigration bill in June.
Durbin says that he knows it will be a struggle, but waiting until next year to do something for the immigrants, as has been suggested, will only make it more difficult to get the laws in support of helping illegal immigrants passed. Next year is election year and politics related to the election will take top billing.
The sponsor of the broader immigration bill, Democrat Edward M. Kennedy, will be working with Durbin to advance the measure to clear a path for some of the children of illegal immigrants to gain citizenship. An aide to Kennedy said that the amendment that Durbin is working on is relevant to the defense bill because it would offer a strong incentive for children who hope to obtain legal status to join the military.
Frank Sharry, the executive director for the National Immigration Forum, says that "Most legislation does get done as riders on appropriations or authorization bills. That's how it happens. This is really the way business gets done."
The strategy of picking out the most popular provisions of the immigration bill and reviving them as already seen some success. In July, the Senate voted an overwhelming 89-1 to attach a provision to the Homeland Security spending bill that provided $3 billion in emergency spending for border security.
The new Democratic proposals are not expected to have nearly that level of support, and tough critics are already speaking out against the proposed amendments. Republican Senator Jeff Sessions from Alabama said that the proposals would put 4 million illegal immigrants on the path to citizenship. He pointed out that the figure is one-third of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants who would have benefited from the comprehensive immigration reform bill that he helped knock out in the Senate earlier this year.
With such an evenly divided Congress, the legislation could really go either way. Until these proposals hit the floor in the Senate, there is really no way of predicting what will happen.