J's Cafe Nette

The immigration bill that is now before the Senate is being tweaked a bit.

I’m going to quote from an AP story that is on Fox News.com.

A proposed immigration overhaul narrowly survived several strong Senate challenges Wednesday, but it suffered a potentially deal-breaking setback early Thursday.

Shortly after midnight, the Senate voted 49-48 to end a new temporary worker program after five years. The vote reversed the one-vote outcome on the same amendment — offered both times by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. — two weeks ago. Six senators switched their votes, reflecting the issue’s political volatility.

The temporary worker program is crucial to many business groups, and the bill’s backers vowed to try on Thursday to undo the damage. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said he or his allies would slightly reword Dorgan’s amendment and hope for a change of heart by one or more senators who “don’t want to kill the bill.”

Dorgan, who contends that immigrants take many jobs Americans could fill, said no one in the debate “is talking about the impact on American workers.”

“There are a lot of people here who want jobs and can’t find jobs, and find downward pressure on their incomes,” Dorgan said.

That sounds reasonable to me and I fail to see how protecting jobs for Americans can be a deal breaker unless there really are jobs Americans won’t take.

If given a choice I wouldn’t bend over in a hot field all day picking produce or stay in the sun reaching up to pick fruits. I have, however, seen lots of what appear to be immigrants, whether legal or not, working on good-paying construction jobs.

They do a lot of brickwork, which is a good paying job, but backbreaking work also, they frame houses and that’s not easy work in the heat, they do landscaping and I know Americans will do that because my landscaper has three crews and all are Americans.

Cooking at restaurants and doing maid work in hotels is probably not the preference of most Americans, but if someone needs a job it seems he or she doesn’t have the luxury of choosing what comes along and expecting to be the CEO of the company on the first day.

A lot of well-off Americans use illegals to be the care givers for their children.

This all begins to sound like slavery to me. They are good enough to watch our children, cook for us, clean for us, cut our lawns and plant flowers, but they’re not good enough to become legalized citizens.

They first had turned back a Republican bid to reduce the number of illegal immigrants who could gain lawful status. They later rejected two high-profile Democratic amendments.

One would have postponed the bill’s shift to an emphasis on education and skills among visa applicants as opposed to family connections. The other, offered by Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., would have ended a new point system for those seeking permanent resident “green cards” after five years rather than 14 years.

All three amendments were seen as potentially fatal blows to the fragile coalition backing the bill, which remains under attack from the right and left. The bill would tighten borders, hike penalties for those who hire illegals, and give many of the country’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants a pathway to legal status.

While the Dorgan amendment marked the biggest setback for the bill’s advocates, there were others. They failed to defeat a Republican proposal to give law enforcement agents access to rejected visa applications, which could lead to the arrest and deportation of some illegal immigrants who otherwise might escape detection.

They also failed, by a 64-33 vote, to block a provision by Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., making English “the national language.” Opponents called the measure demeaning and said they would try to kill it during House-Senate negotiations.

English as a national language sounds fine to me, as I’m tired of having to push 1 if I want English. Hispanic immigrants should be expected to learn to speak, read and write in our language while keeping their native tongue and traditions at home.

As John McCain mentioned the other night when the question of English was brought up, many Indian tribes are protected from that and are able to have their own languages spoken and written for them on official documents. What happens if Congress passes an all-English bill and doesn’t consider the exceptions we already have? Will the Native Americans be required to speak English as their first language?

The Senate voted 51-46 to reject a proposal by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, to bar criminals — including those ordered by judges to be deported — from gaining legal status. Democrats siphoned support from Cornyn’s proposal by winning adoption of a rival version that would bar a more limited set of criminals, including certain gang members and sex offenders, from gaining legalization. The Senate backed that amendment 66-32.

Cornyn’s amendment should have passed. It just makes common sense. Technically, all illegals are “criminals” for entering the country illegally, but if you allow those who have no other criminal history to stay and work their way to future citizenship, what’s the problem with barring criminals from entering the country?

The Senate also rejected a proposal by Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., that bill supporters called a “killer amendment.” It would have delayed the bill’s shift in favor of attracting foreign workers with needed skills as opposed to keeping families together. Menendez won 53 votes, seven short of the 60 needed under a Senate procedural rule invoked by his opponents.

Menendez’s proposal would have allowed more than 800,000 people who had applied for permanent legal status by the beginning of 2007 to obtain green cards based purely on their family connections — a preference the bill ends for most relatives who got in line after May 2005.

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., a chief advocate of the bill, said most of the visa applicants Menendez wanted to help are so far back in line that it would be decades before the Homeland Security Department could process them. The Senate adopted Kyl’s alternative, which would retain the family preference status for applicants who might win approval by 2026 under the department’s projections.

While I hate to see families broken up are we talking about immediate families or extended families? We don’t need every aunt, uncle and cousin three generations back to get in because he or she has a distant relative who managed to get past the barriers and get into the country.

By focusing on the more skilled workers and professionals we are making sure our own economy doesn’t fail and making sure these people can care for themselves. That makes sense to me.

Bringing in unskilled laborers and their families puts a huge drain on our economy and forces ten or fifteen people to live in an apartment meant to house four or five at the most. That drives down property values in the neighborhood and you can see where all of that leads.

Cornyn prevailed on another matter opposed by the grand bargainers, however. His amendment, adopted 57 to 39, would make it easier to locate and deport illegal immigrants whose visa applications are rejected.

The bill would have barred law enforcement agencies from seeing applications for so-called Z visas, which can lead to citizenship if granted. Cornyn said legal authorities should know if applicants have criminal records that would warrant their deportation.

Opponents said eligible applicants might be afraid to file applications if they believe they are connected to deportation actions. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said in an interview that Cornyn’s amendment was “not a deal-killer” but would have to be changed in House-Senate negotiations.

Self-explanatory and I fail to see how this could be a deal-breaker.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico wanted to allow workers to come for six consecutive years. The Senate voted 57-41 to reject the amendment, retaining the bill’s call for most guest workers to go home for a year between each of three two-year stints.

The Senate also rejected an amendment by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., to change the Z visa program whereby illegal immigrants could gain lawful status. DeMint proposed requiring them to buy high-deductible health plans to be eligible for visas.

The one-year timeout is reasonable.

Jim DeMint is my senator, but why does he want the Z visa holders to get high deductible health plans instead of getting low deductible health plans with a higher premium, if that’s what they want and can afford?

There must be more to it than what the AP is saying. Otherwise it just sounds like a punishment clause. Insurance that would actually pay expenses would take the burden off the American tax payer to pay for more indigent cases.

As we can see, this is not an easy topic, and it might not make it through Congress after it goes to the House and they tinker with it.

The bottom line, is it is the best chance we have to get any kind of immigration reform. We have to take what we can get now and work on it constantly until it’s better, but no one can expect to get 100% of what they want on this bill, and getting even 30% is a start.

Controlling the borders is the most important thing, but are we willing to shoot and kill people for trying to make it to our country because they are illegal? I’m not. They are still human beings and if you’ve ever been to Tijuana you know the poverty you see there is third world.

If you want to see some real thought on this topic and some great comments without anyone fighting over it head over to The Anchoress’ site and take a look at the posts and comments on this post and on this post.

The posts alone are worth the read, but the comments are exceptional and well-mannered. The Anchoress wouldn’t have it any other way, as she is a lady through and through.

Tweet This Post

3 Responses to “Immigration Bill Status in Senate”