Thread: Gut-and-amend bill seeks 'safe harbor' for illegal immigrants

August 23, 2012

Gut-and-amend bill seeks 'safe harbor' for illegal immigrants
With only days left before the California Legislature adjourns for the year, lawmakers are breathing new life into a failed initiative campaign calling for creation of a five-year program to allow undocumented workers to live and work openly in the state.
Senate Bill 901 was gutted and amended this week by Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes, D-Sylmar, to propose the "safe harbor" plan for up to 2 million undocumented immigrants.
The bill's contents previously set guidelines for a program that pays owners of high-polluting vehicles to retire them.
The immigrant "safe harbor" measure needs approval by both houses before the Legislature adjourns Aug. 31, after which Gov. Jerry Brown would decide its fate by vetoing it or signing it into law.

"It shows that we're a compassionate state, a state that's willing to take the lead on a difficult issue, immigration, which Washington has failed to address for nearly a quarter century," Ben Golombek, Fuentes' spokesman, said of SB 901.
The safe harbor program would not be a pathway to amnesty, citizenship, voting rights, a driver's license or any other benefits, Golombek said.
But Barbara Coe, founder of the nonprofit California Coalition for Immigration Reform, said that providing worker rights to undocumented immigrants is a "slap in the face" to native-born Americans and to legal immigrants.
"Of course it offends me," Coe said of the new bill.
"Federal immigration law mandates immediate deportation of illegal aliens -- end of subject," she said. "Enforce the law."
Fuentes' bill is meant to assist California residents who are not documented immigrants but have lived in the state since 2008, have not been convicted of a felony, are not members of a terrorist organization, and are willing to undergo a background check and to pay a fee for administration of the safe harbor program.
SB 901 could generate $325 million in new California income taxes by giving participants the green light to seek employment, Golombek said.
The program could not be implemented unless the federal government agrees not to spend time or money apprehending, detaining or deporting its participants, SB 901 would require the governor to seek such concessions from the president and federal immigration officials.
Fuentes and other supporters launched a petition drive last December to place the safe harbor program before voters, but they failed to obtain the 504,760 voter signatures needed to qualify for this year's November ballot.
Fuentes received the final word only a few weeks ago that the safe harbor program could be created through legislation, without a statewide vote, which prompted the gut-and-amend of SB 901 so late in the legislative year, Golombek said.



Posted by Jim Sanders


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"It shows that we're a compassionate state, a state that's willing to take the lead on a difficult issue, immigration, which Washington has failed to address for nearly a quarter century,"
It shows that you are NOT a compassionate state if you are placing a foreigner above your owned damned citizens! You sir, should be fired!

The safe harbor program would not be a pathway to amnesty, citizenship, voting rights, a driver's license or any other benefits, Golombek said.
The benefits of being able to live and work here is a benefit that should not be allowed!

"Fuentes' bill is meant to assist California residents who are not documented immigrants but have lived in the state since 2008, have not been convicted of a felony, are not members of a terrorist organization, and are willing to undergo a background check and to pay a fee for administration of the safe harbor program."
No, absolutely not. There is no excuse for these illegals to be here for any reason. It is ridiculous that these people have been here raping the system all these years at the expense of the American citizen. You want a safe harbor? Save citizens their damned jobs and get rid of all the illegals that don't belong here!

Posted: 08/23/2012 03:56:45 PM PDT
San Bernardino Sun

Last winter, a Southern California lawmaker launched a petition drive to place an initiative before state voters. Its name was innocuous: The California Opportunity and Prosperity Act. Its aim was not: It would have allowed undocumented immigrants to live and work in the state without the threat of deportation.

Not surprisingly, the initiative failed to win enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, and that should have been the end of that.

It wasn't. This week, Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes revived the effort to give as many as two million undocumented immigrants "safe harbor" in the state. In this year's most maddening abuse of the "gut and amend" method of slipping controversial laws through the capitol in the final days of a legislative session, the Democrat from Sylmar has turned a state Senate bill about vehicle pollution into a bill to make life easier for illegal residents.

It's a totally underhanded way to address the complicated problems with immigration laws. Fuentes' fellow legislators should reject it. If they don't, Gov. Jerry Brown must veto it.

Fuentes had told The Sacramento Bee the proposed ballot measure was a "moderate, common-sense approach" to immigration reform, and his spokesman told the newspaper this week that the effort "shows that we're a compassionate state." Both said it's a reaction to the federal government's failure to enact comprehensive immigration reform.

The state's voters should be the judge of all that. Or, if such a significant change in such an important policy is to be considered in the Legislature, it should be done with time for public input and careful thought, not in the frenzy of the last week of the 2012 session.

Some specifics: The new Senate Bill 901 would apply to undocumented immigrants who have lived in California since 2008. It would exclude convicted felons and suspected terrorists. People would have to go through background checks and pay fees. And they'd have to pay income taxes.

Fuentes' office says taxing the newly "legal" workers would create $325 million in state revenue. (Politicians think they can sell anything these days if it creates revenue or jobs.)

The "safe harbor" program would require some cooperation from the federal government. Under the bill, The Bee reports, the governor would be required to ask the feds not to go after the affected immigrants.

In one aspect, Fuentes and activists who support the measure are right: The federal government has been irresponsible in not establishing immigration policy to slow the flow of undocumented residents while satisfying industries' need for migrant workers, and to deal seriously with those who flout our borders while dealing fairly with families that include both illegal and legal immigrants.

Inaction in Congress has prompted states to try making up their own policies. Some are more harsh, notably Arizona's SB 1070. Some are more lenient, as this would be.

Californians rejected this proposal once by declining to sign enough petitions to put it on the ballot, and supporters of the idea should have gotten the message then. Lawmakers and the governor had better deliver it again in no uncertain terms.

`Safe harbor' law isn't the kind of immigration reform California needs - San Bernardino County Sun