IMMIGRATION MATTERS: Politics Trumped Substance in Senate

Congress has now recessed for two weeks, and it is unclear whether any progress will be made when members return to Washington, DC on April 24th.
author Butterfield
The need for meaningful reform of our nation’s immigration laws is crystal clear. The politics of immigration in an election year should be crystal clear too. But the view is very cloudy from Capitol Hill.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a very harsh and punitive immigration bill—the Sensenbrenner Bill—last December. That bill would criminalize and make felons of every single undocumented person in the United States, whether they crossed the border illegally or came on a valid student visa and dropped a class and fell out of status. It would also criminalize every single priest, lawyer and community service provider who aided an undocumented immigrant in any way. These two provisions have sparked outrage around the country, as millions march in the streets to say “We are not criminals” and as major religious and community organizations say “humanitarian assistance is not a crime.”

The Senate took up the debate at the end of March. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a marathon set of meetings and, finally, on March 27th, passed a bill out of Committee on a 12-5 vote that was far-reaching with both enforcement and legalization provisions.

The Senate bill would have provided a path to permanent legal status for 12 million undocumented persons in the United States, created a new temporary worker program for another 400,000 per year, reunited families by clearing lengthy family backlogs, provided nearly 500,000 new permanent visas (“green cards”) per year for families and employment-based immigrants, provided much-needed reform to our agricultural worker program, and provided a path to legal status for undocumented children who graduate from high school and want to go on to college.

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