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With elections on horizon, immigration bills have new momentum in Congress
San Diego Union-Tribune ^ | 10-20-03

Posted on 10/20/2003 4:10:59 PM PDT by Brian S

By Dana Wilkie COPLEY NEWS SERVICE 2:54 p.m. October 20, 2003

WASHINGTON – Speed citizenship for immigrants in the armed forces.

Give work permits to illegal immigrants who pay taxes and study English. Legalize tens of thousands of high school students who sometimes discover only when applying for college jobs that their parents brought them here illegally.

These ideas have been floating around Congress for years, promoted mostly by Democrats and immigrant advocates.

But now, some of Capitol Hill's most powerful Republicans are pushing them.

As politicians strive to appease Latino voters who will influence next year's elections, and placate powerful business groups that need immigrant labor, several efforts are gaining momentum in Congress to legalize millions of undocumented workers and students.

"The majority of these people are seeking the American dream, looking for a good paying job that will enable them to provide a better life for themselves and their families," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., one of several Republicans pushing immigration reforms. "We must recognize that as long as there are jobs available and employers in need of workers, people will continue to migrate."

One plan with a good chance of becoming law would legalize up to 500,000 agricultural workers, and trim the paperwork for hiring those workers from abroad. The plan, by Sens. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., was negotiated for years between farm workers' unions and farmers, and has the support of Senate leaders and the White House. Immigrants who can show they did farm work for 100 days over the past 18 months would get temporary resident status. They would have to work another 360 days in the following six years to keep that status.

Normally, the bill's roughest ride would be in the House Judiciary Committee, immigration advocates said. But committee chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., seems to have warmed to some immigration reform ideas.

Some experts see that as a testament to how powerful farm interests have given new momentum to immigration legislation.

"The agricultural interests are really quite formidable in Congress, and many of them need workers at a price they can afford to pay," said Sidney Weintraub, who runs the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Kennedy is also working with another Republican – Chuck Hagel of Nebraska – on a plan that would, for a $1,000 fee, give work permits to all immigrants who have been in the country for five years, paid taxes for three, and taken English instruction. Their spouses and children would also get legal status.

McCain and Reps. Jeff Flake and Jim Kolbe, all Arizona Republicans, would give law-abiding undocumented workers in other industries – restaurants and hotels, for instance – a chance at getting work permits. Workers would have to wait six years for permits, and there is no provision for family. The lawmakers introduced the bill last summer, after 339 people died crossing the country's southern borders.

Immigration expert Riordan Roett believes Republicans are warming to legalization plans because Americans are warming to undocumented workers who have long contributed to the American economy and paid taxes.

"I think there is now a growing sense that the Latino population is spread across this country, and that they're seen as good citizens in more and more congressional districts," said Roett, director of the Western Hemisphere Program for the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies

Others, however, believe Republicans recognize they must appease Latino voters before next year's elections.

In August, a New York Times/CBS poll showed that only 21 percent of Latinos would vote for Bush, though the president carried 35 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2000. Experts believe this disenchantment arose after President Bush failed to keep a promise to help undocumented immigrants gain legal status by reducing the waiting periods for naturalization.

"Democrats, having allowed Bush to gain the initiative, now have seized it back," said Robert Leiken, director of the Immigration and National Security Program at The Nixon Center, a foreign policy think tank. "Republicans are trying to regain it."

Not all Republicans are on board. Conservatives say many of the plans moving through Congress reward people who broke immigration laws, while costing American citizens jobs.

In general, immigration advocates dislike the strictly Republican plans – such as McCain's – because they leave out family and lack worker protections.

"We're very happy Republicans are looking at immigration reform, but (the McCain bill) won't solve any problems," said Katherine Culliton, an immigrants' rights attorney with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF).

Immigrant advocates are happy, however, with a plan by GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah that would give conditional residency to as many as 70,000 teens who have been in the country five years, graduated from high school, and have no criminal record.

Hatch, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, expects the committee to pass his plan on Thursdayoct.23.

"Often, these students don't find out – until they fill out financial aid forms – that their parents stuck them in this immigration limbo," said James Ferg-Cadima (cq), legislative staff attorney for MALDEF.

A plan by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, would speed citizenship for the 37,000 immigrants serving in the U.S. armed forces. Hilda Solis, D-Calif., has a similar plan that is likely to move faster than Cornyn's.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2004; amnesty; hispanicvote; illegalimmigrants; illegalvote; immigrantlist; immigration
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1 posted on 10/20/2003 4:11:00 PM PDT by Brian S
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To: *immigrant_list; A Navy Vet; Lion Den Dan; Free the USA; Libertarianize the GOP; madfly; B4Ranch; ..
ping
2 posted on 10/20/2003 4:13:41 PM PDT by gubamyster
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To: Brian S
I read something today that stated that whitey is currently only 17% of the world's population and that by 2100, whitey will only be 6%, if that.
3 posted on 10/20/2003 4:22:44 PM PDT by xrp
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To: xrp
Yep. There is a good reason why marketers tend not to produce ads targeting children or young families in Germany anymore. Whitey aint making ANY babies over in Europe.
4 posted on 10/20/2003 4:24:16 PM PDT by Clemenza (East side, West side, all around the town. Tripping the light fantastic on the sidewalks of New York)
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To: Brian S
Americans are warming to undocumented workers

Do tell.

5 posted on 10/20/2003 4:29:59 PM PDT by DumpsterDiver
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To: Brian S
law-abiding undocumented workers

Impossible. They broke federal law by their trespass. They have been criminals from the day they crossed the border without permission.

6 posted on 10/20/2003 4:35:53 PM PDT by NoControllingLegalAuthority
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To: Brian S
As a White American citizen, I feel like I am just so much @r$e w!pe for the politicians. This in effect says, "lump it you White honkies who don't like it, you no longer have political power and your wishes no longer matter".

I know one thing as sure as the sun sets and rises, there is currently a spoken, and a unspoken class warfare being waged to disenfranchise the Whites in America, and it is happening at all levels of the government and media.


7 posted on 10/20/2003 4:43:39 PM PDT by Ursus arctos horribilis ("It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!" Emiliano Zapata 1879-1919)
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To: Ursus arctos horribilis
You *just* noticed this?
8 posted on 10/20/2003 4:44:35 PM PDT by superloser
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To: Brian S
"The agricultural interests are really quite formidable in Congress, and many of them need workers at a price they can afford to pay,"

It's funny how the truth always surfaces. The argument used to be "they do jobs Americans won't do." Here, the argument changes to the real truth - "they do jobs Americans won't do for the low wages being offered."

Illegal aliens are being allowed into America to depress labor costs and rob American citizens of a chance to work for a living wage. It is also the worst kind of exploitation of poor, uneducated people who are in no position to challenge any mistreatment.

9 posted on 10/20/2003 4:45:06 PM PDT by NoControllingLegalAuthority
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To: Brian S; diotima; Bob J
Dio: Re our email... Here is some movement on the "immigrant" issue. But not necessarily in what we believe is the right direction.
10 posted on 10/20/2003 4:46:02 PM PDT by Libertina (Steadfast loyalty - The sign of a true friend and leader.)
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To: Ursus arctos horribilis
To the "elite" we are non-people and when we are referenced to it is almost in the way a doctor would describe a virus, and all this so a few grandee white liberals can play god to their children.
11 posted on 10/20/2003 4:50:43 PM PDT by junta (Xenophobia a perfectly reasonable response to the feckless stupidity of globalism.)
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To: Brian S
Edward Kennedy, D-Mass

It explains alot to see Ted Kennedys fingerprints all over this bill. And GWB said he was a nice guy. Makes me sick.

12 posted on 10/20/2003 4:57:57 PM PDT by Missouri
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To: Brian S
Well I can see that my letter to Senator Cornyn will go unanswered. I have been thinking about this situation and sadly have just about come to the decision of not voting for Bush or Kay Hutchison next year. The RNC called last week seeking another contribution I told them to call the illegals as Bush and the RNC supports them more than they do the working class of the nation. I will not send in another dime that much is for sure and as far as voting for them that is up in the air.
13 posted on 10/20/2003 5:03:45 PM PDT by engrpat
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To: Brian S
For the Race everything. For those outside the Race, nothing.
14 posted on 10/20/2003 5:06:28 PM PDT by Guillermo ( Proud Infidel)
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To: superloser
"You *just* noticed this?"

No not "Just" noticed, I am now "just" mad as hell at "this," and all the other "this" being fostered and imposed on the Whites in America.

Somewhere out there in red hinterland country there is a dangerous Hitler like demagogue, may G_D help us all if he should rise and connect with Whitey's suppressed anger boiling just beneath the surface, if such is unleashed, this country will be torn asunder. And the very media and government who miscalculated and drove it to the breaking point, well they will say they never seen it coming.

15 posted on 10/20/2003 5:19:31 PM PDT by Ursus arctos horribilis ("It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!" Emiliano Zapata 1879-1919)
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To: Ursus arctos horribilis
Absoutely. I share your fears about someone rising and collecting followers.

We need to get back to the concept of "a person is a person" and stop the classifications.

If there was no benefit to carrying a label, it would likely vanish or be ridiculed into disuse.

But we live in a country where the Liberals hold much power. :(
16 posted on 10/20/2003 5:23:17 PM PDT by superloser
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Comment #17 Removed by Moderator

To: Brian S
to the Republicans, they're cheap labor. To the Democrats, they're cheap votes. That's a hard combination to fight.

The only recourse is to write letters, make calls, and otherwise let your congresscritters know you don't want any amnesties or legalizations. Deport the illegals and make them take their turn, behind those who have obeyed the law.

If there are enough letters, maybe it will do some good.

18 posted on 10/20/2003 5:55:27 PM PDT by JoeFromSidney
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To: Brian S
Paaaandering.
19 posted on 10/20/2003 6:47:45 PM PDT by VU4G10 (Have You Forgotten?)
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To: vikingcelt
"We must recognize that as long as there are jobs available and employers in need of workers, people will continue to migrate."

What a McCainiac crock! Most countries (including Canada) require that employers first make an attempt to hire the natives (even the unemployed, even those over 50) before they can import foreign workers.

Yes, foreigners who are serving in the U.S. armed forces should get a smooth track to U.S. citizenship, but not economic migrants who simply want to undercut American workers..

20 posted on 10/20/2003 6:56:25 PM PDT by Rubber Duck
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