Posted on 11/19/2007 9:58:44 PM PST by Tennessee Nana
WASHINGTON -- About 100 House members will attempt to do what the Senate could not do this year: pass an immigration reform bill.
The Secure America through Verification and Enforcement Act, recently introduced by Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N.C., would require employers to verify that their workers are here legally through an electronic database, authorize money to add 8,000 border patrol agents over five years and increase aerial surveillance of the Southwest border.
"This is, I feel, a common-sense approach," Rep. Shuler said. "We've seen how the Senate has failed on two occasions to put together an immigration policy."
The bill, which would add resources and staff to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has 112 co-sponsors, about evenly matched between Democrats and Republicans, including Reps. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn.; Lincoln Davis, D-Tenn.; and Nathan Deal, R-Ga.
The lawmakers say they favor the SAVE Act because unlike the Senate legislation, it would not provide a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
"People are sick and tired of nothing happening up here on things like border security," Rep. Wamp said. "Just because the comprehensive immigration reform that came from the Senate did not go forward does not mean we should retreat from immigration (legislation) until the next election."
The Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition opposes the SAVE Act, calling it an "enforcement-only" bill that would penalize immigrant communities and do nothing to fix a "broken" immigration system, spokesman Steven Fotopulos said.
The organization favors creating a legal system for temporary workers to come to the United States and become citizens, he said.
"Because of their failure to provide real solutions, Congress is just regressing back to the old enforcement-only strategies, which have not worked," he said.
Mr. Fotopulos said the employee-verification system relies on government databases with high error rates.
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus also opposes the bill.
"The Congressional Hispanic Caucus supports broader immigration reform that considers not only the security of our nation's borders, but also ... a safe, regulated flow of workers to come legally in the future to meet our economic and work force needs," said Rep. Joe Baca, D-Calif., chairman of the caucus.
The National Federation of Independent Business and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers endorsed the SAVE Act.
"Mass unregulated immigration into the United States creates unfair wage competition, which is detrimental to the best interests of U.S. citizens and legal residents," IBEW said in a statement.
The last time the House took up immigration reform in December 2005, it passed a bill that did not address a guest-worker program and contained provisions that would make illegal immigration a felony. All Chattanooga-area House members voted for the legislation.
House and Senate leaders were unable to reconcile their versions of the bill in 2006, and immigration reform died until it was attempted this year.
That failed Senate legislation would have provided a path to citizenship for about 12 million illegal immigrants now here while beefing up border security and creating a guest worker program. Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama senators voted against the bill both times because of their opposition to what they called the amnesty provisions.
Rep. Shuler said he hopes his SAVE Act will be taken up on the House floor soon, though Democratic and Republican leaders have not indicated their support for the legislation. For now, it has been referred to several committees.
"I'm just hoping the more co-sponsors we get on both sides of the aisle, it'll force the issue," Rep. Shuler said.
An identical Senate version was introduced Friday by Sens. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Mark Pryor, D-Ark.
E-mail Herman Wang at hwang@timesfreepress.com
PING
Looks like the dems are jumping in the water. (’bout time!)
This bill is going nowhere. The Republicans in the House and Senate need to add the provisions in the House bill of 2006. This bill is just a cover by freshmen rats in the House to bolster re-election chances.
Compare this bill with the reality in the rat controlled Congress. A joint conference committee recently stripped $3 billion for fence construction even though the fence was approved last year. The House rats have stopped an effort to ensure that the EEOC does not penalize employers like the Salvation Army for requiring English usage in the workplace.
Even if by a wild chance that this legislation moves forward, the rats will find a way to torpedo its implementation. If the rats gain complete control in 2009, an amnesty is certain. The only way to prevent an amnesty is a conservative President and more conservatives in the House.
If this (or any bill) intrinsically is a good bill, and it moves us forward to cracking down on this issue, I won’t care if it is demo or repub sponsored. the repub party had its chance. they, along with the democrats, if they know what is good for them, can get on board or be left out. if it is bipartisan and with teeth, the better.
My lithmus test on any immigration bill is to see where Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo come down on it. I trust their judgement.
Conversely, see who opposes it, too.
You’re right! I tend to judge the worthiness of some folks by the people who “hate” them.
And this is generally the press which is positive toward illegal immigration and always refers to illegals as "indocumentados" (undocumented) rather than "ilegales".
Judge it for what it is worth.
Hunter & Tancredo are two of the co-sponsors of this bill. The list of co-sponsors are at the link I posted in post# 5 (this thread).
Thanks for that link. There you go, the confirmation I was looking for.
Why am I skeptical about ANY bill that Pelosi will let see the light of day?
I don't have to look, my congressman is a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. He is Mexico's member of the U.S. House.
He won't talk to me, unless I catch him in a situation where he'll look like a fool if he doesn't.
Database etc. all well and good but I don’t see anything in there about a FENCE.
“The Secure America through Verification and Enforcement Act, recently introduced by Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N.C., would require employers to verify that their workers are here legally through an electronic database”
The hospital I work at..for 42 years.. has just implemented a policy that every employee needs to have two forms of identification to verify “legal status”. Last month we ALL had to bring in two forms of identification either a passport, driver’s license, birth certificate or social security card.
Likely correct. It was decided in 2004 that if Congress tried to implement immigration reform piecemeal, they would never be able to reach agreement on all the issues, only the easy issues.
A good example of this is the Dream Act, which has wide and deep support in Congress. In the recent attempt to pass that act, ardent supporters were voting against it, because it was not comprehensive.
Having said that, Shuler's SAVE Act is very significant in that it has removed the REAL ID from internal enforcement/workplace enforcement. Even more significant is that there are immigration hardliners supporting the SAVE Act since these same hardliners were the ones that insisted Real ID be utilized for enforcement.
Very good lithmus test
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.