Bill would set an 8-year path to residency

Report: Bill would set an 8-year path to residency

By ALICIA A. CALDWELL | Associated Press – 15 hrs ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is circulating a draft immigration bill that would create a new visa for illegal immigrants living in the United States and allow them to become legal permanent residents within eight years, according to a report published online Saturday by USA Today.

President Barack Obama's bill would create a "Lawful Prospective Immigrant" visa for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. The bill includes more security funding and requires business owners to adopt a system for verifying the immigration status of new hires within four years, the newspaper said.

USA Today reported that the bill would require that immigrants pass a criminal background check, submit biometric information and pay fees to qualify for the new visa. Immigrants who served more than a year in prison for a criminal conviction or were convicted of three or more crimes and were sentenced to a total of 90 days in jail would not be eligible. Crimes committed in other countries that would bar immigrants from legally entering the country would also be ineligible.

Those immigrants facing deportation would be eligible to apply for the visa, the newspaper reported. Immigrants would be eligible to apply for a green card within eight years, if they learn English and U.S. history and government, and they would later be eligible to become U.S. citizens.

Last month a bipartisan group of senators announced they had agreed on the general outline of an immigration plan. For his part, Obama has said he would not submit his own legislation to Congress so long as law makers acted "in a timely manner." If they failed, he said, "I will send up a bill based on my proposal and insist that they vote on it right away."

Clark Stevens, a White House spokesman, said Saturday that Obama still supports a bipartisan effort to craft a comprehensive immigration bill. "While the president has made clear he will move forward if Congress fails to act, progress continues to be made and the administration has not prepared a final bill to submit," he said in a statement.

Sen. Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican who has been crafting immigration legislation, derided the draft bill as described by the newspaper as "half-baked and seriously flawed" and said it was disappointing because it repeats what he called failures of past legislation. He also said the White House had erred in not seeking input from Republican lawmakers.

"If actually proposed, the president's bill would be dead on arrival in Congress, leaving us with unsecured borders and a broken legal immigration system for years to come," Rubio said in a statement.

Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, described the draft bill as a "very moderate" proposal. While the path to citizenship was welcomed by Noorani, he said not enough attention was being paid to future immigration.

"Commonsense immigration reform must include a functioning immigration system for the future," Noorani said in a statement. "Reform does not begin and end with citizenship and enforcement alone."

http://www.alipac.us/f19/meteor-sparks-rumors-conspiracy-theories-russia-272910/

Rubio in English … and en Español … on immigration

May 18, 2010 ·

http://blog.reidreport.com/wp-conten...bio2-times.jpgThe two Marco Rubios.

Doth Marco speak with forked tongue on immigration? Es posible …
From Naked Politics:

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio, speaking on Spanish-language television Monday night, said he supported a change to Arizona’s controversial immigration law — and not necessarily the law itself.
“The law, how it is now, do you support it, yes or no?” Maria Elvira Salazar asked on Mega TV’s Maria Elvira Live.
“I don’t support states taking this into their own hands,” Rubio replied. “I think this needs to be dealt with at the federal level. What I support is the change they made to the law, because that improved the law.”
Earlier this month, the conservative website Human Events asked Rubio if he would have voted for the changed version of the law. “The second one that passed hit the right note. Yes,” he said.

Read more: UPDATE: Rubio to Spanish-language TV: I support change to Arizona immigration law...but not law itself? | Naked Politics

Rubio has been all over the map on the Arizona “show me your papers” law, first trying hard to say nothing, then opposing it (and even saying it could turn Arizona into a police state), then supporting it, and now apparently kind of not supporting it, but supporting “the change.” And this isn’t even the first time he’s said one thing to English-language reporters and quite another to Spanish-language media, on this very issue. Clearly, he’s trying hard to preserve his viability with Latino voters, who wouldn’t be out of bounds for thinking he’s stabbing them in the back on immigration in order to curry favor with the right, which didn’t used to trust him on the issue. And he’s using a right wing anathema — bilingualism — to do it. Now, it seems that Rubio has found a formula: saying one thing to los blancos, y una otra cosa to fellow Latinos. Will that fly? (And not for nothing, but isn’t that exactly what the right accuses Muslims of doing on the subject of terrorism vs. “freedom fighting?”)


Rubio in English … and en Español … on immigration : The Reid Report

The "lawful prospective immigrant" (which would be immediate) visa is the amnesty, not the green card. Notice how the media is focusing on the largely meaningless "8 year wait for the green card" angle -- ignoring the most important fact about the instant amnesty whether they would have the green card or not.

Just say NO, to this and Rubio's similar amnesty scheme.