05/22/13 The following is a press release from the Alliance for Citizenship: Leaders from the Alliance for Citizenship, a national campaign working with hundreds of groups across the country to pass comprehensive immigration reform with a direct and inclusive path to citizenship, previewed the next steps to advance S. 744: Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration [...]
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05/22/13 Last night, the immigration reform world cheered as the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the Gang of 8 immigration reform bill out of markup on a 13-5 bipartisan vote.  As our own executive director Frank Sharry said: Today immigration reform took a giant step forward.  The Gang of Eight bill is a carefully balanced piece of [...]
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05/21/13 Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced the immigration legislation by a bipartisan vote (13-5).  The vote concludes the committee markup process in the Senate and signifies the clearing of the first official legislative hurdle for immigration reform’s passage in 2013 (see here for a list of “good and bad” amendments added to the Senate bill [...]
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05/21/13 Update: Cruz 3 has just been rejected on a 5-13 vote. Senators supporting a permanent, second-class status: Sessions, Lee, Grassley, Cruz, Cornyn. Right now the Senate Judiciary Committee (#CIRmarkup) is considering Sen. Ted Cruz’s amendment 3, one of the worst amendments that has been proposed to the Senate Gang of 8 immigration bill.  Cruz seems [...]
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05/21/13 Having worked through a majority of its amendments, the Senate Judiciary Committee is in the final stages of marking up the bipartisan immigration reform bill.  According to Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who led the process thoughtfully and fairly, the markup is likely to finish today. The biggest takeaway?  Although some call the path [...]
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05/21/13 Watch live-stream here. Here’s what happened today in the Senate Judiciary Committee markup, from the Senate Judiciary Committee majority staff: Day Five Recap: Committee Concludes Consideration of Immigration Reform Bill The Senate Judiciary Committee today completed consideration of S.744, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act.  The immigration reform bill will make the [...]
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05/20/13 Watch live-stream here. And follow the conversation on Twitter at #CIRMarkup. 9:15 PM: the following is a press release from the Senate Judiciary Committee majority staff: Day Four Recap: More Than 165 Amendments Considered to Immigration Bill The Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday continued consideration of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act.  The [...]
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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 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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05/16/13 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 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 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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05/14/13 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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05/09/13 As the Senate Judiciary Committee began to mark-up of S. 744: Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act on Thursday, immigration advocates and community leaders joined a telephone press conference to offer reactions to the initial votes and progress of immigration reform. With the focus of today’s mark-up on border security, speakers on the [...]
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05/09/13 It’s not a surprise, but Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions (R-AL) has been one of the most anti-immigrant voices at today’s markup. While rookie Ted Cruz is making a surprising run for the title of Worst Senator for Immigrants, longtime veterans Sessions and Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) are making it clear they don’t intend to give up [...]
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05/09/13 The following is a press statement from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Sen. Cruz’s amendment to prohibit immigrants from ever obtaining citizenship: Today, CHC Chairman Rubén Hinojosa (TX-15) and Members of the CHC released the following statement in response to the amendment offered by Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) that would prohibit current and former undocumented [...]
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05/09/13 At the Senate Judiciary Committee markup, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) claimed that Americans want to address border security only, and wait on broader immigration reform.  A recent New York Times/CBS news poll addresses this very question, and proves Senator Grassley is out of touch with public opinion on this issue. According to the poll, 83% [...]
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05/09/13 And rejects others, including Grassley4, which would have held off legalization until impossible border security measures had been met.  Here are some of the security amendments that have been passed: Grassley2 – Adds Senate and House Judiciary Committees to list of bodies Secretary reports to on Border Strategy, implementation of strategy, Ombudsman reporting on Interagency [...]
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05/09/13 Senator Jeff Sessions has established himself as one of the leading opponents of immigration reform. We expect him to put on quite a show against immigration reform as markup continues over the next few weeks. Today, Sessions began challenging Chuck Schumer over aspects of the “Gang of Eight” bill. But Schumer was having none of [...]
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05/09/13 The mark up of the Senate immigration reform bill is underway. At the start of their meeting today, the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy (D-VT), and the Ranking Republican, Chuck Grassley (R-IA), gave opening statements that set the tone for what’s to come. Leahy, who is a champion for immigration reform, made [...]
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05/09/13 When Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said the security provisions contained in the bipartisan Senate bill are “weak” in his opening statement today, he completely ignored reality and the real state of border security: As a nation, we have mounted an aggressive “enforcement-first” strategy for the past 20 years.  Currently, according to the Migration Policy Institute, we [...]
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