Thread: Obama Will Seek Citizenship Path in One Fast Push

By JULIA PRESTON
Published: January 12, 2013
The New York Times


Luke Sharrett for The New York Times
Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York has been writing a bill with colleagues of both parties.

WASHINGTON — President Obama plans to push Congress to move quickly in the coming months on an ambitious overhaul of the immigration system that would include a path to citizenship for most of the 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, senior administration officials and lawmakers said last week.


Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida has been working on his own bill.

Mr. Obama and Senate Democrats will propose the changes in one comprehensive bill, the officials said, resisting efforts by some Republicans to break the overhaul into smaller pieces — separately addressing young illegal immigrants, migrant farmworkers or highly skilled foreigners — which might be easier for reluctant members of their party to accept.

The president and Democrats will also oppose measures that do not allow immigrants who gain legal status to become American citizens one day, the officials said.

Even while Mr. Obama has been focused on fiscal negotiations and gun control, overhauling immigration remains a priority for him this year, White House officials said. Top officials there have been quietly working on a broad proposal. Mr. Obama and lawmakers from both parties believe that the early months of his second term offer the best prospects for passing substantial legislation on the issue.

Mr. Obama is expected to lay out his plan in the coming weeks, perhaps in his State of the Union address early next month, administration officials said. The White House will argue that its solution for illegal immigrants is not an amnesty, as many critics insist, because it would include fines, the payment of back taxes and other hurdles for illegal immigrants who would obtain legal status, the officials said.

The president’s plan would also impose nationwide verification of legal status for all newly hired workers; add visas to relieve backlogs and allow highly skilled immigrants to stay; and create some form of guest-worker program to bring in low-wage immigrants in the future.

A bipartisan group of senators has also been meeting to write a comprehensive bill, with the goal of introducing legislation as early as March and holding a vote in the Senate before August. As a sign of the keen interest in starting action on immigration, White House officials and Democratic leaders in the Senate have been negotiating over which of them will first introduce a bill, Senate aides said.

“This is so important now to both parties that neither the fiscal cliff nor guns will get in the way,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, a Democrat who is a leader of the bipartisan discussions.

A similar attempt at bipartisan legislation early in Mr. Obama’s first term collapsed amid political divisions fueled by surging public wrath over illegal immigration in many states. But both supporters and opponents say conditions are significantly different now.

Memories of the results of the November election are still fresh here. Latinos, the nation’s fastest-growing electorate, turned out in record numbers and cast 71 percent of their ballots for Mr. Obama. Many Latinos said they were put off by Republicans’ harsh language and policies against illegal immigrants.

After the election, a host of Republicans, starting with Speaker John A. Boehner, said it was time for the party to find a more positive, practical approach to immigration. Many party leaders say electoral demographics are compelling them to move beyond policies based only on tough enforcement.

Supporters of comprehensive changes say that the elections were nothing less than a mandate in their favor, and that they are still optimistic that Mr. Obama is prepared to lead the fight.

“Republicans must demonstrate a reasoned approach to start to rebuild their relationship with Latino voters,” said Clarissa Martinez de Castro, the director of immigration policy at the National Council of La Raza, a Latino organization. “Democrats must demonstrate they can deliver on a promise.”

Since the election, Mr. Obama has repeatedly pledged to act on immigration this year. In his weekly radio address on Saturday, he again referred to the urgency of fixing the immigration system, saying it was one of the “difficult missions” the country must take on.

Parallel to the White House effort, Mr. Schumer and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Republican, have been meeting with a group of at least four other colleagues to write a bill. Republicans who have participated include John McCain of Arizona, who has supported comprehensive legislation in the past; Jeff Flake, also of Arizona, who is newly elected to the Senate; and Mike Lee of Utah. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida participated in one meeting last month.

Democrats in the meetings include Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat; Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Michael Bennet of Colorado.

Basic tenets for the bill, Mr. Schumer said, were that it would be comprehensive and would offer eventual citizenship for illegal immigrants who follow a prolonged process to correct their status.

“This is a bottom line,” Mr. Schumer said in an interview on Thursday. “The Democrats have made it clear we will not accept a bill without a direct path to earned citizenship.” He said senators from both parties had been “pleasantly surprised” at how rapidly the talks had proceeded.

Mr. Rubio, a Cuban-American who has emerged as a star in his party, is making immigration one of his primary issues. He has advocated taking changes in pieces, arguing that lawmakers will get better results if the politically and practically tangled problems of the immigration system are handled separately.

Mr. Rubio has been preparing a bill that would provide legal status specifically for young illegal immigrants, known as Dreamers, who came to the United States as children.

Mr. Rubio said Thursday that the piecemeal approach was “not a line in the sand” for him. But he said he would insist that any legalization measure should not be unfair to immigrants who played by the rules and applied to become residents through legal channels.

His proposals would allow illegal immigrants to gain temporary status so that they could remain in the country and work. Then they would be sent to the back of the line in the existing system to apply to become permanent residents, without any special path to citizenship.

Mr. Rubio said he hoped to rally Republicans to support changes. Speaking of Latinos, he said, “We are going to have a struggle speaking to a whole segment of the population about our principles of limited government and free enterprise if they think we don’t want them here.”

In the Republican-controlled House, the future of a comprehensive bill remains unclear.

Representative Phil Gingrey, a Georgia Republican who follows immigration issues, said he remained opposed to “amnesty of any kind.”

He said that the Obama administration had been lax on enforcement, and that he would “continue working to secure our borders and enforce existing immigration law.”

But groups backing the overhaul say they are bigger and better organized than in the past. Last month, the labor movement, including the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and other sometimes-warring factions, affirmed a common strategy. Last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said it would work with labor, Latino and church organizations to pass the overhaul this year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/us...pagewanted=all

Marco Rubio's amnesty-lite immigration plan vs. Obama's amnesty plan

miamiherald.com

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has proposed a pragmatic amnesty-lite plan that would allow the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States to earn a pathway to legal residency (as opposed to a path to citizenship).

Rubio released some general points about his proposal Wednesday to the Wall Street Journal for a Saturday story -- a day after before Rubio spoke Thursday to the New York Times as it was reporting out a comprehensive immigration plan that President Obama plans to push. That Times story appeared Sunday.

Obama's plan would give illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship. And it would be one big bill. Rubio, who says illegal immigrants should pay a fine and have clean criminal records, has called for a more piecemeal approach, although he told the Times that it's not a "line in the sand." He's working on at least three or four bills. Note: Rubio is not opposed to people earning citizenship once they're on the pathway to legal residency.

"Under Rubio's approach, qualifying undocumented immigrants would be given visas to stay in the US," spokesman Alex Conant said. "Then, after a certain amount of time and after doing a bunch of other stuff (like paying back taxes, etc.), they could then earn ability to apply for permanent residence, just like any other legal immigrant. They would have to get to back of line, but permanent residence is first step towards naturalization."

Just how this would all work is unclear. There's no legislation. That's a reflection of Washington's culture, which rewards talk more than action. Rubio is a good talker. Relative to that, Rubio's record as a doer is more wanting (but then he's in the minority and has been in the Senate for two years).

Meantime, Rubio has garnered favorable, national attention for his proposals in the past without having to provide anything on paper. So there's little incentive for him to change now. Also, putting something on paper before you build consensus is a good way to lose on an issue.

In some ways, Rubio's latest proposal is a replay of his DREAM Act alternative for illegal immigrants who raised in the United States who were brought here as kids. Rubio released no formal plan or bill there, either. The Obama Administration aped the measure via executive action. And then Rubio dropped the measure with little fanfare. He got the good press and no blowback. Welcome to DC. Conant said that Rubio plan was "tabled.... since it had no chance of passing after Obama's EO removed urgency and inflamed partisan politics" The politics are more toxic for Rubio.

Despite what Republicans will say, it's members of their party who have stopped immigration reform in 2006 and with the scuttling of the DREAM Act, which Rubio essentially voted against. Still, Democratic-leaning unions aren't big fans of immigration reform.

But things could be different now. More galling than amnesty: losing major elections. And Republicans, after seeing Hispanics flock to President Obama, have probably had enough of losing on this issue.

Alex Leary at The Buzz made this hand-dandy bullet list of Rubio's plan culled from the journal story:

• Any overhaul, he says, needs to "modernize" legal immigration. America caps the number of visas for skilled workers and favors the relatives of people already here. "I'm a big believer in family-based immigration," he says. "But I don't think that in the 21st century we can continue to have an immigration system where only 6.5% of people who come here, come here based on labor and skill. We have to move toward merit and skill-based immigration."
• He says the U.S. can either change the ratio of preferences for family-based immigration or raise the hard cap on people who bring investment or skills into the country. He prefers the latter, noting that the U.S. doesn't produce enough science, math and engineering graduates to fill the open posts in high-tech. He says this number can be adjusted to demand: "I don't think there's a lot of concern in this country that we'll somehow get overrun by Ph.D.s and entrepreneurs."
• At the other end of the skill and wage scale, most of the 1.6 million agricultural laborers in America are Hispanics, the bulk of them illegal immigrants. American produce couldn't be picked without them. The number and type of visas provided through a guest-worker program would have to be sufficient to address this pressing need. From Georgia to Washington state in recent seasons, unpicked fruits and vegetables have rotted in the fields. He'd look to increase the number of visas for permanent or seasonal farm workers. "The goal is to give American agriculture a reliable work force and to give protection to these workers as well," Mr. Rubio says. "When someone is [undocumented] they're vulnerable to being exploited."
• Initially, the illegal migrants now in the U.S. would mostly "avail themselves" of the guest-worker system, says Mr. Rubio. "Just the process to come here to legally work in agriculture is very difficult and very expensive. It doesn't work well. So that alone encourages illegal immigration."
• Politically hardest is the question of the up to 12 million illegals currently here. Mr. Rubio's proposal allows for adults who overstayed their visa or sneaked in to come into the open."Here's how I envision it," he says. "They would have to come forward. They would have to undergo a background check." Anyone who committed a serious crime would be deported. "They would be fingerprinted," he continues. "They would have to pay a fine, pay back taxes, maybe even do community service. They would have to prove they've been here for an extended period of time. They understand some English and are assimilated. Then most of them would get legal status and be allowed to stay in this country." The special regime he envisions is a form of temporary limbo. "Assuming they haven't violated any of the conditions of that status," he says, the newly legalized person could apply for permanent residency, possibly leading to citizenship, after some years—but Mr. Rubio doesn't specify how many years. He says he would also want to ensure that enforcement has improved before opening that gate. The waiting time for a green card "would have to be long enough to ensure that it's not easier to do it this way than it would be the legal way," he says. "But it can't be indefinite either. I mean it can't be unrealistic, because then you're not really accomplishing anything. It's not good for our country to have people trapped in this status forever. It's been a disaster for Europe."
• Mr. Rubio repeatedly says his plan "is not blanket amnesty or a special pathway to citizenship." The illegals wouldn't jump any lines, "they'd get behind everybody who came before them." No one would be asked to leave the country to qualify, but the requirements he sets out merely to get a working permit are "significant." "In an ideal world we wouldn't have eight, 10 million people who are undocumented," he says. "We have to address this reality. But we have to do it in a way that's responsible."
• Mr. Rubio makes an exception for the over one million younger illegals. Along the lines of the Dream Act that stalled in Congress last year, he says people who came here unlawfully with their parents should be accommodated "in a more expedited manner than the rest of the population" to gain a way to naturalize.

Marco Rubio's amnesty-lite immigration plan vs. Obama's amnesty plan | Naked Politics

Read more here: Marco Rubio's amnesty-lite immigration plan vs. Obama's amnesty plan | Naked Politics

ADDED TO ALIPAC HOMEPAGE News with amended title ..

http://www.alipac.us/content/obama-w...ast-push-1275/

Related ..

Immigration Reform's Latino Leaders Warn 2014 'May Not Look Too Pretty' For Opponents

Marco Rubio: Riding to the Immigration Rescue (outlines his amnesty scheme)

http://www.alipac.us/f12/nyt-report-...-milli-270335/

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