Thread: House members push for immigrants' rights

http://www.projo.com/news/content/pr...5.51490d7.html
House members push for immigrants' rights
The members of Congress were at Brown University last night as part of the school's commemoration of Latino History Month.
01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, April 25, 2006
BY SCOTT MacKAY
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Four Hispanic members of the U.S. House joined Rhode Island Representatives Patrick Kennedy and James Langevin at a Brown University forum in calling for legislation to allow immigrants in the United States illegally to earn an avenue to legal residence.
The four members of Congress -- Democrats Raul Grijalva of Arizona, Grace Napolitano and Loretta Sanchez, both of California, and Republican Ileana Ross-Lehtinen, of Florida -- all denounced what they called the "punitive" approach on immigration taken by House Republicans and said they hoped that a compromise measure sponsored by Senators John McCain, R-Arizona, and Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., would become law.
"In the Senate, there was some lucid thinking," said Napolitano. "You need to realize you have every kind of immigrant from all over the world in America, especially those who look like us, brown."
Most Hispanic immigrants work hard, pay their bills, stay out of trouble and support their families, the Hispanic House members said, and want what other generations of immigrants have achieved -- good jobs, stable families, economic, religious and political opportunity.
The recent marches in favor of immigrants rights that occurred across the nation in the past few weeks have been beneficial, said Grijalva. "All we've been hearing is Lou Dobbs ranting on TV and Bill O'Reilly ranting on TV and the radio talk shows saying, 'Build a wall, deport them all, take them out of school.' "
"I feel the marches were good and productive and came at a necessary time," said Grijalva.
The members of Congress came to Brown as part of the university's commemoration of Latino History Month. Langevin introduced the panel, which was moderated by Prof. Tony Affigne of Providence College, a 1976 Brown graduate who said he was one of the few Hispanic students on the campus at that time.
Under the McCain-Kennedy measure, immigrants in the United States illegally would be allowed to apply for legal residence after undergoing criminal background checks, paying back taxes, and learning English.
Patrick Kennedy is the son of Sen. Edward Kennedy and a scion of one of the nation's best known Irish-American families. Kennedy said some of the opposition to any amnesty program for Hispanic immigrants is "about discrimination."
No one seems to get all that upset, Kennedy noted, when Irish students overstay summer work permits and remain in the country illegally. "There are a lot of Sullivans, and O'Neills, and Kennedys . . . who overstay their visas."
But Americans do not get so uptight about Irish or Italian immigrants, said Kennedy, whose great-grandfather, John F. "Honey" Fitzgerald, was Boston's first immigrant mayor.
Kennedy scored President Bush's administration and House Republicans for backing guest-worker programs aimed at keeping wages down for American workers. "They like the wages lower than they would otherwise be," said Kennedy. "Every American wants those jobs, if they pay enough."
Representative Sanchez said Kennedy was correct only to a certain degree. She said it is true that some American citizens shun jobs immigrants will take solely because of low pay.
But other jobs have such low status or are so difficult that only immigrants seem to want them. For example, Sanchez said, in her California district, there are decent-paying jobs at nursing homes taking care of Alzeheimer's patients that only newly arrived immigrants from Vietnam and Mexico seem interested in.
Sanchez said she hears constituents say, "The Mexicans should go home so my kid can get a job."
When she mentions that there are plentiful jobs taking care of nursing home patients at $9.40 per hour, these same people say, "Well, you don't really expect my kid to be wiping old people's butts."
smackay@projo.com / (401) 277-7321

Well with the name Patrick Kennedy it says it all.

It is nice to see them flip floping on the issue. It seems that they feel the illegal ones here should stay but that it is bad to bring in more workers legally because it depresses wages. They should think that one through.