05/17/13 Today, America’s Voice Education Fund and fellow immigration experts held the twelfth in a series of weekly press briefings, or Immigration Reform “Office Hours.”  Each week, a different and diverse group of speakers shares the latest information on the players, politics, legislation and other developments in the debate in Washington and around the nation. Moderated [...]
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05/17/13 Title II is intended to provide the undocumented the chance to earn their way to citizenship. To be sure, the road will be long and arduous--full of rigorous, yet even-handed, requirements. S.744 gives nothing to anyone. The right to remain permanently in the U.S. will have to be earned. But that’s not enough for Senators Grassley, Cornyn and Sessions. They’ve offered amendments to Title II designed to keep as many undocumented immigrants as possible in the shadows.
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05/17/13 On her radio show yesterday, conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham said that immigration reform would turn the US into a “third world,” if passed. Ingraham was commenting on a clip of Marco Rubio describing the IRS news as “things you typically see in the third world.”  Ingraham added, “Well, we’re going to become a [...]
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05/17/13 The news that a bipartisan working group in the House of Representatives has reached an agreement in principle on immigration legislation, alongside the continued steady legislative progress on the Senate’s immigration bill, underscores our optimism about immigration reform’s prospects in 2013. According to Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America’s Voice: This is a major breakthrough.  [...]
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05/17/13 Cross-posted at Latino Decisions, Latino Vote Matters, and Daily Kos: It’s no secret that the Republican Party has a serious problem with immigration.  But in this instance I’m talking about their problem with Latinos migrating out of their own party. Republicans are trading in the elephant for the donkey, or at the very least just [...]
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05/17/13 USA Today: Immigration plan continues moving through Senate By Alan Gomez NATIONAL Washington Post: Bipartisan House Group Reaches Preliminary Immigration Deal By Ashley Parker Reuters: House lawmakers reach tentative deal to revamp immigration By Richard Cowan and Rachelle Younglai Washington Post: Hatch negotiates to expand H-1B visas as part of Senate immigration bill By David [...]
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05/16/13 While most countries accept the return of their citizens if the United States orders them deported, several refuse to take back them back, either because of a lack of formal relations with the U.S. (Cuba, for example), or simply because of slow background check processes.
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05/16/13 Is Tom Tancredo really thinking about running for Colorado Governor?? From the Denver Post today: Tancredo, who represented Colorado’s 6th Congressional District from 1999 to 2009, strongly opposes amnesty for anyone in the country illegally, and he advocates for increased border security. In an op-ed piece for The Christian Post in March,Tancredo wrote that “the problem [...]
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05/16/13 Update: According to the DRM Action Coalition, Sen. Heller is liking the Gang of 8 immigration bill so far: @americasvoice @senatorreid @sendeanheller said tday he is supportive & likes #Gangof8 proposal so far. @astrid_nv twitter.com/DRMAction/stat… — DRM Action Coalition (@DRMAction) May 16, 2013 Today on the Senate floor, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid spoke about [...]
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05/16/13 Voxxi: Senators amending immigration reform in a ‘bipartisan manner’ By Griselda Nevarez NATIONAL Politico: Republicans threaten to quit immigration group By Jake Sherman CNN: Bipartisan House immigration talks foundering, Republican warns By Deirdre Walsh The Hill: Immigration group in the House facing make-or-break moment By Russell Berman The Hill: Democrats: We can call Rubio’s bluff [...]
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05/16/13 Watch video here. Blogging Day 3 of the markup: 1:07 PM: the following is a press release from the Alliance 4 Citizenship on Sen. Al Franken’s E-Verify amendment for business owners: Sen. Al Franken’s E-Verify Amendment Lightens Burden on Small Business Owners Small Business Owner Reacts to Franken’s Move to Increase Protections for Employers and [...]
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05/15/13 “Due process and fundamental fairness” are not words often associated with immigration enforcement, especially the deportation process. So, as the Senate Judiciary considers the interior enforcement provisions contained Title III keep a close eye on a several amendments, some promising, others not so much, which go to the heart of due process in immigration proceedings.
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05/15/13 Senator Blumenthal has filed an amendment that would codify vital current practices within and between the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Labor which ensure that enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws do not undermine enforcement of our national’s labor and employment laws. We support this amendment for the following reasons...
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05/15/13 Last week members of the Senate Judiciary Committee filed potential amendments to the bipartisan immigration bill (S. 744) negotiated by the “Gang of 8” – Senators Michael Bennet, Richard Durbin, Jeff Flake, Lindsey Graham, John McCain, Robert Menendez, Marco Rubio and Charles Schumer. Among the proposed amendments are two sponsored by Senator Grassley (Grassley 27 and Grassley 52) that would eliminate or substantially delay two targeted reforms to the U.S. asylum system included in the bipartisan bill.
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05/15/13 This title includes one provision that will affect every worker in America: mandatory E-Verify. By mandating that every employer – large and small – run each new hire through an electronic database, we risk pushing hundreds of thousands of citizens out of a job. Protections to ensure that small businesses aren't burdened by a system that has an unacceptably high error rate, and to protect workers from being fired simply due to an error in the systems database, are the least we can do to keep E-Verify from hurting countless American workers.
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05/15/13 When the Gang of 8 talks about how immigration enforcement will look under their bill, they tend to mention 1) border security and 2) mandatory E-Verify. But make no mistake, ICE isn’t going away—much as those of us who’ve been paying attention to the 1100 deportations a day under this Administration might wish that it would. While offering an inclusive path to citizenship to the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently in the country should go a long way toward humanizing detention and deportation practices, several amendments being offered by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee would curb some of the most abusive practices ICE has developed over the last several years.
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05/15/13 Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee cast a near-unanimous vote against an amendment from Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) to restrict future legal immigration.  It underscores the growing irrelevance and isolation of the anti-immigrant movement in this year’s debate. According to Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America’s Voice: The anti-immigrant movement thought that their efforts to define and distort the Senate immigration bill combined [...]
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05/15/13 Below is a press release from immigration advocates in Nevada, who held a press conference today asking Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) where he stands on immigration reform: Leaders from Nevada’s Latino, Asian and immigrant communities gathered on a conference call with reporters on Wednesday to ask where Senator Dean Heller (R-NV) stands on the bipartisan [...]
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05/15/13 Burnt Orange: John Cornyn’s Hypocrisy on Immigration Reform By Katherine Haenschen SENATE JUDICIARY MARKUP DAY 2 COVERAGE Washington Post: Senators protect fragile compromise on H-1B visas, fend off immigration bill amendments By JD Harrison Politico: On tech visas, Orrin Hatch holds some cards By Seung Min Kim and Carrie Budoff Brown Washington Post: Two controversial [...]
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05/15/13 As we start markup on the Senate Gang of 8 immigration bill again tomorrow, watch out for Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX)’s continuing hypocrisy on immigration reform. This week, the Senator released a new video (and wrote an op-ed) portraying himself as an advocate of migrants who die in the desert while trying to come into the US. [...]
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05/14/13 NEW RESOURCE: Review of key amendments filed in Senate Judiciary Committee from America’s Voice This morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee cast a near-unanimous vote against an amendment from Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) to unduly restrict future legal immigration into the country over the next decade.  Sessions was the only Senator to vote for his amendment, [...]
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05/14/13 Today, one of the leading anti-immigrant voices in the country, Rep. Steve King (R-IA), hosted a press conference to rail against the Senate’s immigration reform bill. In its coverage of the event, Buzzfeed reported a “Small Turnout For Anti-“Amnesty” Leaders In Congress.” If you’re so inclined, watch the presser here. We heard something we hadn’t heard for a [...]
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05/14/13 Liveblogging the CIR Markup, Day 2: 2:07 PM: By the way, during the earlier discussion of Sessions’ amendment 1, Sen. Sessions repeated the conservative claim that immigration reform will hurt African-American workers. Peter Curstenow testified before our committee, a member of the civil rights commission along with Abigail Thurstrom a brilliant member of that commission wrote [...]
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05/14/13 The following is a press statement from the Reform Immigration for Texas Alliance, in response to the immigration video Sen. John Cornyn released this week: Sen. Cornyn’s Concern over Migrant Deaths Must Match His Votes The Senator is in the position to alleviate this humanitarian crisis at the border, but has so far he has [...]
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05/14/13 The anti-immigrant ProEnglish, founded by white nationalist John Tanton, is now running ads against the immigration reform bill. And, this time, the extreme opponents of immigration reform are being seen for what they are. Buzzfeed’s headline reads: Controversial “Pro-English” Group Launches Ad Campaign To Take Down Immigration Reform. The subtitle is even more on point: “Group tied to [...]
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05/14/13 Yesterday, advocates with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, United We DREAM, and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund held a press conference asking President Obama to stop deporting future citizens.  Here’s David Nakamura at the Washington Post covering: Immigration advocates called on President Obama on Monday to suspend deportations of undocumented workers who [...]
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05/13/13 UPDATE: Here’s Jamelle Bouie at the Washington Post today, writing about this story and how it relates to immigration reform: Pantoja’s departure from the Republican Party is instructive. Not only does it illustrate the dynamic of the last four years — where Latino voters responded to negative Republican rhetoric by going further into the Democratic [...]
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