Posted on 03/15/2006 9:59:05 AM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - A key provision in the Senate's main immigration bill would create a "gold card" for the nation's estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants, allowing them to live and work legally in the United States -- but without offering them a clear path to citizenship.
The legislation, which calls for dramatic increases in the number of legal immigrants, is meant to placate those who want illegal immigrants sent back to their home countries and those who want them to become legal, permanent residents.
The problem is both sides oppose it.
"It says, 'We want your labor. Yes we think you're good enough to take care of our children, but we don't want you to be one of us,' " said Douglas Rivlin, a spokesman for the National Immigration Forum, a pro-immigration organization in Washington, D.C. "It's a bad message for immigration policy."
The gold-card proposal is part of a far-reaching immigration bill introduced by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa.
The Senate Judiciary Committee began considering the bill last week and is expected to take up the gold-card issue today or Thursday.
A final version of the legislation is expected to go to the full Senate by March 27.
The gold card would be available to illegal immigrants who entered the United States before Jan. 4, 2004, the date President Bush first proposed establishing a guest-worker program.
Applicants would have to provide proof that they've worked in the country since then and also undergo a background check by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Those without criminal records would be eligible for two-year work visas that could be renewed indefinitely.
Gold vs. Green Card
Judiciary committee staff members, who briefed reporters earlier this month about the bill, said the gold-card proposal isn't amnesty because it doesn't offer direct path from gold cards to green cards, which reflect permanent legal-resident status.
Carl Shusterman, an immigration attorney in Los Angeles, said the gold card wouldn't provide enough of an incentive for workers to come forward because it doesn't guarantee that they'll be allowed to stay in the United States.
"It's like some guy coming up to you and asking, 'Will you marry me for a year?' " Shusterman said. "You'd say, 'What happens after a year?' He says 'You can decide to renew it or I could decide.' That's what the gold card is like."
"It's impractical, it's a nonstarter," he added.
Auxiliary Bishop Rutilio del Riego of the Diocese of San Bernardino said a gold card could work only if there is a provision for the person to become a legal permanent resident.
"Otherwise this would be like an underclass where they are neither here nor there," del Riego said. "I think they cannot be in limbo. If they are legally here, they should be protected."
Jim Rietkerk, owner of Kallisto Greenhouses in Fontana, which sells houseplants, said he could support a gold-card proposal or some form of guest-worker program for agriculture workers.
He said the California agriculture industry relies on immigrant laborers.
"Sending everybody back is ludicrous, and, as an employer, I need to know who I'm hiring," Rietkerk said.
In the post-Sept. 11 era, many fear that the porous borders could allow potential terrorists to enter the United States and do the country harm.
Proponents of the legislation say it makes the nation safer because the government would have information on illegal immigrants, such as who they are, where they live and work, bringing them "out of the shadows" and into mainstream society.
But Steven Camarota, research director for the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank that favors reducing illegal and legal immigration rates, said he doubts the Department of Homeland Security could handle the program and the vetting of potentially millions of immigrant workers.
"The notion that rubber-stamping illegal aliens is helpful to homeland security is absurd," Camarota said.
He said that if the provision passes, it will eventually amount to a kind of bait and switch. The nation is never going to allow a class of people to legally stay on an indefinite temporary status. Eventually they'll all get green cards, he said.
First Step
Specter has said that his immigration bill is expected to be a first step and will likely include many changes before the Senate votes on it later this month.
His legislation also includes border-security provisions, more visas for skilled foreign workers, additional green cards for legal immigrants, and a guest-worker program. Foreign applicants could work for three years, renew for another three years and would then be required to return home. They would have to wait a year before reapplying to the guest-worker program.
Unlike the gold card, which allows workers in various fields to remain in the United States, Sen. Dianne Feinstein wants to create a "blue card" just for agriculture workers, which would give legal status to up to 900,000 undocumented agriculture workers over three years.
Under her plan, the workers would be able to travel and their immediate families also would gain legal status. After three years, the workers could trade in their blue cards for green cards and switch industries.
"The industry depends on this immigrant labor force," Feinstein, D-Calif., said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing earlier this month. "It seems to me that this is the place to start, with people who have been here for a period of time, who have not committed a crime, who have worked hard, and who we know aren't going back to their country."
Mark Draper, who up until a year ago was a farm-labor contractor in the Coachella Valley, said immigrants are key to agriculture.
Draper estimated that in his 20 years of working in agriculture, fewer than a half-dozen men who were not Hispanic immigrants came looking for field work.
"We need some sort of program that allows people that are here now to qualify and work under some sort of legal status," said Draper, who now grows sod in Thermal. "I think they can be given the chance to work here and not be afraid."
Green Card: Gives you official immigration status (Lawful Permanent Residency) in the United States.
Gold Card: A work permit that would allow illegal immigrants to stay and work in the United States after they complete a background check. Does not include a special path to citizenship.
Blue Card: A work permit specifically for agriculture workers. As many as 900,000 undocumented agriculture employees would be eligible.
Whoever named it "The gold card" either wanted it to fail or was a moron.
Gold Card. I like the sound of it.
Kinda like "Outta the way, moron, I got a GOLD Card, I'm a V.I.P. Waiting in line to get into the United States is for suckers and peons. Now lemme in and which way to the hand outs?"
Owl_Eagle(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,
You left out Race Card - to be played against critics of the Gold Card and Blue Card plans.
Just why is it congress, that there is a legal way to enter the country, but not many want to use it?
What is the ratio between legal, and illegal entrants?
What is wrong with treating illegal immigrants, based on the laws of the land?
Why is it that our government chooses to completely ignore the illegal immigration into the country?
Just why is it that legislators waste their time and ours attempting to legalize in some paper shuffling way, the illegal immigrant?
More questions to come when these are answered.
It's amazing how "we want you to enter this country legally" becomes "we don't want you to be one of us."
Just why is it congress, that there is a legal way to enter the country, but not many want to use it?
What is the ratio between legal, and illegal entrants?
What is wrong with treating illegal immigrants, based on the laws of the land?
Why is it that our government chooses to completely ignore the illegal immigration into the country?
Just why is it that legislators waste their time and ours attempting to legalize in some paper shuffling way, the illegal immigrant?
More questions to come when these are answered.
out out damn double post.
The president's pet project, a massive guest worker program with six-year temporary cards, will be overseen by an agency already strapped with an alphabet soup of temporary worker plans, already impossible to enforce.
In fact, the new director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, Emilio Gonzalez, during his Senate confirmation process said, quote, "I don't think the system's -- in fact, I know the systems that exists right now wouldn't be able to handle it."
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0602/06/ldt.01.html aired 2/6/06
Ping!
I like your screen name. Too bad we are held hostage by our politicians and will never experience freedom through truth. The prerequisite to being elected is to learn how to deceive and lie.
Red card: The card of the liberal free traitor gloabists like Jorge Arbusto.
It may simply be a means to register and identify illegal immigrants. That way, at a later date, the government can do somehting about it. But until there is sufficient bait, like this gold card, to get illegals to be identified by immigration, we can't do anything about deporting them. It's like firearms registration. First you register, then the government comes for your guns. In this case, first you register, then later, the government deports you.
Thanks. I joined when Clinton was President. It was a natural response to his perfidy.
what else is new and committing crimes and going to jail is a way of a giving them a handout. unbelievable
The president's pet project, a massive guest worker program with six-year temporary cards, will be overseen by an agency already strapped with an alphabet soup of temporary worker plans, already impossible to enforce.
In fact, the new director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, Emilio Gonzalez, during his Senate confirmation process said, quote, "I don't think the system's -- in fact, I know the systems that exists right now wouldn't be able to handle it."
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0602/06/ldt.01.html aired 2/6/06
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