http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/12905381.htm

Posted on Fri, Oct. 14, 2005

Martinez announces bill, attacks restrictions on immigrant rights

GIOVANNA DELL'ORTO
Associated Press

CHAMBLEE, Ga. - Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., the first Cuban-American elected to the U.S. Senate, announced that he and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., the Senate's only black member, will present within two weeks a new immigration bill that would address both the economy's need for labor and the nation's need for more secure borders.

"Immigration is something that we got to get fixed," Martinez told a crowd of Georgia's Hispanic government and business leaders Friday in the northern Atlanta suburb. "First and foremost, we've got to do border enforcement. ... Then we got to have a worker program. There are people that are here that this economy absolutely needs - there's nothing wrong with that."

Citing his experience as a Cuban boy who arrived in the States at 15 and managed to become the first Hispanic lawyer in Orlando, Fla., in the early 1970s, Martinez also attacked attempts to curtail rights - especially to higher education - for immigrants.

"It's shortsighted not to view the education of a future generation of Americans as a priority for all Americans," Martinez said.

The issue is likely to become one of the most contentious when the Georgia Legislature convenes next year. A Republican-backed bill sponsored by state Sen. Chip Rogers, R-Woodstock, is pending in the Georgia Senate that would exclude undocumented immigrants from taxpayer-funded benefits, including in-state tuition at state universities.

"I don't know if I could have finished college if I had paid out-of-state tuition," Martinez said.

Martinez said his and Obama's bill grew out of a series of amendments to one of the two competing bills in the U.S. Senate, the one sponsored by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass. That bill would create 400,000 three-year visas for guest workers and let undocumented workers stay in the U.S. while they apply.

The competing plan, sponsored by Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., would create two-year visas and require that guest workers and illegal immigrants leave the U.S. before they can apply for the chance to work legally in the country.

Martinez said expecting immigrants to turn themselves in is "not realistic." He added that immigrants should be given incentives to get regularized to protect their contribution both to U.S. labor and their home economies - which he put at $53 billion in remissions and private investments.

"Wouldn't it be wonderful if you had a mortgage on a house back home for mother and Dad paid by somebody at a bank here?" Martinez said.

Faced with an estimated 10 million people living illegally in this country, and caught between business leaders who want more workers and conservatives who want to clamp down on the borders, the White House has been leaning toward allowing some illegal immigrants to qualify for guest-worker visas, in line with the McCain plan.