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April 3, 2006
BY MICHELLE MITTELSTADT and SUDEEP REDDY
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
Protesters pray during a walk for solidarity with immigrants Saturday in New York. The Senate is considering legalizing the nation's 11 million-plus illegal immigrants and creating a guest worker program. (FRANK FRANKLIN II/Associated Press)
Immigrants in the United States
The Pew Hispanic Center, a research organization in Washington, estimates that 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants, including children, are in the United States. An estimated 850,000 illegal immigrants have arrived each year since 2000.
About 6.2 million of them, or 56%, are from Mexico, according to Pew. About 2.5 million are from Latin America, 1.5 million from Asia, 600,000 from Europe and Canada and about 400,000 from Africa and other countries.
There are about 13.1 million legal immigrants, not including naturalized citizens.
CITIZENSHIP: Immigrants can apply for citizenship five years after becoming legal permanent residents. They must pay a naturalization fee, pass English, history and U.S. government tests and be of good moral character.
GUEST WORKERS: They have employer-sponsored visas to work in the country for a limited time, usually two to seven years. Some can apply for permanent residency.
The House has passed a bill that would make all illegal immigrants felons. It would also make offering them nonemergency aid or assistance a federal crime.
The Senate is looking at two proposals. The main differences:
One would let them stay in the country for up to five years if they apply within six months and pay fines that start in the second year at $2,000 and rise by that much each year. But they would have to leave the country at the end of five years. They could then apply to return to the country as permanent residents or guest workers. As guest workers, they could work in 2-year intervals for up to six years, but must leave for a year between each 2-year period.
The other would let them stay up to six years after clearing a background check and paying a $1,000 fine. If they pay all their taxes and don't get into trouble, they could apply for permanent residency without having to leave. Critics call this approach amnesty, saying it's unfair to immigrants who get in line to come to the United States legally.
President George W. Bush supports giving temporary legal guest worker status to illegal immigrants who have jobs and providing them with a path to becoming permanent residents and naturalized citizens. They couldn't get in front of legal residents already in that process.
WASHINGTON -- From the corridors of Capitol Hill to cities across the nation, people are passionately debating immigration -- at least the illegal part. Almost entirely unnoticed is that the Senate may be poised to hike legal immigration in dramatic fashion.
Some estimate that bills pending in the Senate could double the nearly 1 million green cards handed out yearly, granting legal permanent residence.
The United States, which already welcomes more legal immigrants than any other country, would see major increases in green cards under both immigration proposals being debated in the Senate. The bills also would add tens of thousands of temporary visas for workers, from the high-tech industry to medically underserved areas.
Advocates say it's time Congress expanded a green card quota so miserly that it keeps some would-be residents trapped overseas as long as 22 years before they're reunited with their relatives in the United States.
But others question the drive to increase legal immigration, particularly as the Senate is considering legalizing the nation's 11 million-plus illegal immigrants and creating a guest worker program to bring in 400,000 more foreigners every year.
"There has never been a public opinion poll that indicates Americans want more immigration," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, which opposes higher immigration. "Obviously, if the public were asked ... they'd say no to doubling legal immigration."
Just 17% of Americans favor increasing legal immigration, while 40% say it should be decreased, according to a Pew Hispanic Center poll released Thursday. Thirty-seven percent said they believe the current level is appropriate, pollsters found.
But tackling illegal immigration without increasing legal immigration would be a recipe for trouble, said Doris Meissner, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute who headed the Immigration and Naturalization Service under former President Bill Clinton.
"You really have to expand legal immigration, otherwise you're just creating a whole other bottleneck in the system in the future," she said. That's in part because newly legal immigrants in many cases would try to bring relatives from abroad, and if legal pathways don't exist, illegal immigration would begin anew.
Krikorian and others critical of increased immigration quotas accuse congressional leaders of flying below the radar when it comes to their efforts to boost legal immigration.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, the Tennessee Republican who has crafted one of the two immigration bills on the Senate floor, has stressed the border-control and enforcement aspects of his bill -- not his proposed increase in legal immigration.
Likewise, there's been little focus on the virtually identical legal immigration changes in a competing bill that the Senate Judiciary Committee approved last week.
The way the bills are worded, it's impossible to figure how much they would increase legal immigration. Judiciary Committee Republican aides say the legislation would add 500,000 to 550,000 green cards each year.
That estimate is far too low, said Rosemary Jenks, director of government relations for Arlington, Va.-based Numbers USA, which is lobbying against what she said would "by far" represent the biggest increase in legal immigration in U.S. history.
"It's huge, huge, huge," she said. "I'm estimating it would double legal immigration."
In 2004, the most recent year for which U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has provided figures, 946,142 green cards were issued -- two-thirds for family reunification.
The Senate bills would greatly increase family-sponsored green cards, now capped at 480,000 annually, by exempting the spouses, children and parents of U.S. citizens from the total. That is expected to add about 260,000 green cards annually.
The bills also would boost employment-based green cards from 140,000 annually to 290,000, and would exempt applicants' spouses and children from the cap. Foreign students would be placed on a faster track for green cards.
And the Judiciary Committee bill would, for seven years, permit an unlimited number of green cards for nurses, physical therapists and others in jobs where the Labor Department says workers are in short supply.
Jeanne Butterfield, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association in Washington, welcomed the Senate legal immigration proposals, pegging their rises at 550,000 to 650,000 green cards annually.
While acknowledging that the numbers "seem like a big gulp to people," she noted that legal immigration, as a percentage of the total population, would remain below the historic highs of the 1890s and 1910s. And many of the green cards would go to people already in the country, she said.
"It represents, I think, an understanding on the part of these congressional leaders that our economic system and our social fabric need to be adjusted to take account of 21st-Century realities," Butterfield said.
April 3, 2006
BY MICHELLE MITTELSTADT and SUDEEP REDDY
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
Protesters pray during a walk for solidarity with immigrants Saturday in New York. The Senate is considering legalizing the nation's 11 million-plus illegal immigrants and creating a guest worker program. (FRANK FRANKLIN II/Associated Press)
Immigrants in the United States
The Pew Hispanic Center, a research organization in Washington, estimates that 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants, including children, are in the United States. An estimated 850,000 illegal immigrants have arrived each year since 2000.
About 6.2 million of them, or 56%, are from Mexico, according to Pew. About 2.5 million are from Latin America, 1.5 million from Asia, 600,000 from Europe and Canada and about 400,000 from Africa and other countries.
There are about 13.1 million legal immigrants, not including naturalized citizens.
CITIZENSHIP: Immigrants can apply for citizenship five years after becoming legal permanent residents. They must pay a naturalization fee, pass English, history and U.S. government tests and be of good moral character.
GUEST WORKERS: They have employer-sponsored visas to work in the country for a limited time, usually two to seven years. Some can apply for permanent residency.
The House has passed a bill that would make all illegal immigrants felons. It would also make offering them nonemergency aid or assistance a federal crime.
The Senate is looking at two proposals. The main differences:
One would let them stay in the country for up to five years if they apply within six months and pay fines that start in the second year at $2,000 and rise by that much each year. But they would have to leave the country at the end of five years. They could then apply to return to the country as permanent residents or guest workers. As guest workers, they could work in 2-year intervals for up to six years, but must leave for a year between each 2-year period.
The other would let them stay up to six years after clearing a background check and paying a $1,000 fine. If they pay all their taxes and don't get into trouble, they could apply for permanent residency without having to leave. Critics call this approach amnesty, saying it's unfair to immigrants who get in line to come to the United States legally.
President George W. Bush supports giving temporary legal guest worker status to illegal immigrants who have jobs and providing them with a path to becoming permanent residents and naturalized citizens. They couldn't get in front of legal residents already in that process.
WASHINGTON -- From the corridors of Capitol Hill to cities across the nation, people are passionately debating immigration -- at least the illegal part. Almost entirely unnoticed is that the Senate may be poised to hike legal immigration in dramatic fashion.
Some estimate that bills pending in the Senate could double the nearly 1 million green cards handed out yearly, granting legal permanent residence.
The United States, which already welcomes more legal immigrants than any other country, would see major increases in green cards under both immigration proposals being debated in the Senate. The bills also would add tens of thousands of temporary visas for workers, from the high-tech industry to medically underserved areas.
Advocates say it's time Congress expanded a green card quota so miserly that it keeps some would-be residents trapped overseas as long as 22 years before they're reunited with their relatives in the United States.
But others question the drive to increase legal immigration, particularly as the Senate is considering legalizing the nation's 11 million-plus illegal immigrants and creating a guest worker program to bring in 400,000 more foreigners every year.
"There has never been a public opinion poll that indicates Americans want more immigration," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, which opposes higher immigration. "Obviously, if the public were asked ... they'd say no to doubling legal immigration."
Just 17% of Americans favor increasing legal immigration, while 40% say it should be decreased, according to a Pew Hispanic Center poll released Thursday. Thirty-seven percent said they believe the current level is appropriate, pollsters found.
But tackling illegal immigration without increasing legal immigration would be a recipe for trouble, said Doris Meissner, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute who headed the Immigration and Naturalization Service under former President Bill Clinton.
"You really have to expand legal immigration, otherwise you're just creating a whole other bottleneck in the system in the future," she said. That's in part because newly legal immigrants in many cases would try to bring relatives from abroad, and if legal pathways don't exist, illegal immigration would begin anew.
Krikorian and others critical of increased immigration quotas accuse congressional leaders of flying below the radar when it comes to their efforts to boost legal immigration.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, the Tennessee Republican who has crafted one of the two immigration bills on the Senate floor, has stressed the border-control and enforcement aspects of his bill -- not his proposed increase in legal immigration.
Likewise, there's been little focus on the virtually identical legal immigration changes in a competing bill that the Senate Judiciary Committee approved last week.
The way the bills are worded, it's impossible to figure how much they would increase legal immigration. Judiciary Committee Republican aides say the legislation would add 500,000 to 550,000 green cards each year.
That estimate is far too low, said Rosemary Jenks, director of government relations for Arlington, Va.-based Numbers USA, which is lobbying against what she said would "by far" represent the biggest increase in legal immigration in U.S. history.
"It's huge, huge, huge," she said. "I'm estimating it would double legal immigration."
In 2004, the most recent year for which U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has provided figures, 946,142 green cards were issued -- two-thirds for family reunification.
The Senate bills would greatly increase family-sponsored green cards, now capped at 480,000 annually, by exempting the spouses, children and parents of U.S. citizens from the total. That is expected to add about 260,000 green cards annually.
The bills also would boost employment-based green cards from 140,000 annually to 290,000, and would exempt applicants' spouses and children from the cap. Foreign students would be placed on a faster track for green cards.
And the Judiciary Committee bill would, for seven years, permit an unlimited number of green cards for nurses, physical therapists and others in jobs where the Labor Department says workers are in short supply.
Jeanne Butterfield, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association in Washington, welcomed the Senate legal immigration proposals, pegging their rises at 550,000 to 650,000 green cards annually.
While acknowledging that the numbers "seem like a big gulp to people," she noted that legal immigration, as a percentage of the total population, would remain below the historic highs of the 1890s and 1910s. And many of the green cards would go to people already in the country, she said.
"It represents, I think, an understanding on the part of these congressional leaders that our economic system and our social fabric need to be adjusted to take account of 21st-Century realities," Butterfield said.
