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Immigrants lobby for fair reform

These coming weeks will be busy ones for our city's immigrants and their advocates.

They are planning an intense lobbying campaign to make sure that New York's elected officials throw their full weight behind the immigration reform initiative recently introduced by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), along with Reps. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.).

"The overwhelming demand for reform can no longer be ignored," said Margie McHugh, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, an umbrella policy and advocacy organization for over 160 groups.

Billed as the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act, the bipartisan proposal is a welcome departure from the politics of fear and prejudice espoused by people like Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), creator of the controversial Real ID Act.

"If President Bush and other lawmakers support security, economic prosperity, hard work and family values," McHugh added, "they should join this bipartisan reform effort initiated by Senators McCain and Kennedy."

The McCain-Kennedy bill actually recognizes that undocumented immigration will go on unless channels for needed workers are opened. With that reality in mind, it creates a worker visa program for those who might seek to come to the U.S. in the future.

"The bill represents a historic opportunity to fix our country's antiquated and inadequate immigration system," said Héctor Figueroa, SEIU Local 32BJ secretary-treasurer. The union has 75,000 members, the majority of them immigrants.

The bipartisan proposal enables hardworking immigrants who live and work in the U.S. and pay their taxes to apply for permanent legal status, creating a road to permanent residence and eventual citizenship.

"By creating a path to citizenship, and providing legal status to the million of undocumented workers [in the tristate area] who today contribute to our economy," Figueroa added, "the bill is a major step toward aligning our immigration laws with today's labor market realities."

Unlike earlier proposals and visa programs, the bill allows workers to change employers and provides them with the full protection of labor laws against wide-scale employer abuses.

It also has provisions to support English language, civics education and citizenship promotion, making it easier for immigrants to be integrated into their communities.

The act also increases significantly the number of workers who can legally enter the U.S. each year and steps up border and interior enforcement.

By calling on the federal government to clear the current visa backlog, the proposal also seeks to find a way to end the years of painful separation family members experience under the current legal immigration system.

"Immigrant families have suffered from years of separation under our current immigration system, and this bipartisan bill prioritizes family unity and recognizes how valuable that is to our country," said Margaret Chin, deputy executive director of Asian Americans for Equality.

In the current anti-immigrant climate, the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act could be a first step toward recovering the country's tradition of welcoming into its fold hardworking newcomers and their families - and by doing so, becoming stronger.

Our elected representatives in Washington should do everything in their power to make it happen.

aruiz@nydailynews.com

Originally published on May 22, 2005