For Immediate Release Contact: Javier Dominguez

June 5, 2007 (202) 833-6130 ext. 14

The Senate has continued the debate on the Senate floor for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, and will resume voting on critical amendments by the end of the week. While Sen. Reid has proposed to invoke cloture on the Senate floor no later than Wednesday, pivotal amendments are still expected to be taken up.

LULAC opposes the current Senate Immigration bill, however it is important that your Senators hear from you as they vote on crucial amendments that could make or break the delicate compromise. To read more about LULAC’s initial statement, please visit http://www.lulac.org/ or click here.

Since the start of the debate over one-hundred amendments have been filed, but yet, few have been voted on. LULAC is urging the Senate to improve the current compromise, otherwise S.1348 will do nothing to fix our broken immigration system, and will continue to separate families, exploit workers, and revert people back to the shadows.

How You Can Make the Difference?

Call your Senators, alert them to amend S.1348! Final cloture vote is imminent. They must hear from you before it is too late. Click here to connect to your Senators!

Urge them to vote on the following amendments:

Vote ‘Yes’

#1194. Menendez-Hagel family backlog reduction amendment. This amendment changes the backlog reduction deadline from May 2005 to January 1, 2007. It will ensure that 833,000 applicants who are sponsored by a legal permanent resident are given their fair opportunity to reunite with their loved ones and family members.

#1183. Clinton-Menendez-Hagel family reunification amendment. This amendment reclassifies the spouse and unmarried children (21 and younger) of legal permanent residents as ‘immediate relatives’ thereby exempting them from more delays and visa caps.

Dodd amendment. This amendment increases the annual cap of Green Card for parents from 40,000 to 90,000, thereby alleviating some of the damage done to the family reunification system. Current law has an indefinite number of green cards for parents. This amendment also extends the parent visa to 180 days, renewable for three years, rather than the currently proposed 30 days.

Vote ‘No’

#1170 McConnell Voter ID amendment. This amendment requires voters to obtain a government issued photo ID to be allowed to vote. This amendment would act as a ‘poll tax’ and could consequently create racial and ethnic discrimination among polling booths and dissuade people to vote. It serves no purpose on an immigration reform bill.

1184 Cornyn Aggravated Felony amendment. This amendment would eliminate the majority of the undocumented population from participating in the earned legalization program. It expands the class of aggravated felony crimes and makes them retroactive as well, including rendering anyone who used a fraudulent social security card ineligible for legalization.

#1151. Inholfe English as the Official Language amendment. This unnecessary amendment will permanently establish English as the nation’s official language. This will hinder written communication between the US federal government, its citizens, and multilingual communities.

#1248. Ensign Tax Penalty amendment. This amendment denies all tax credits to legalizing workers who are currently paying their back taxes. Inclusively, it also forces them to pay higher taxes than other Americans, making it unaffordable for them to pay it all off, thereby preventing many from obtaining legal status.

#1197. DeMint Health Coverage Requirement amendment. This amendment requires that all Z-Visa applicants acquire and maintain their health coverage through high deductible health plans. Due to the increased cost of health coverage of private programs, this requirement will eliminate all the Z-Visa applicants that cannot afford health coverage.

#1234 & #1235. Sessions Earned Income Tax Credit amendments. These amendments will deny earned income tax credit for all legal immigrants. They would be forced to pay higher taxes until they have adjusted to legal permanent status. Sessions #1235 imposes a five year bar on earned income tax credit for virtually all legal immigrants as well. These amendments will not only affect those individuals who are applying for legal status, but also on legal current permanent residents, and victims of human trafficking and domestic violence that have already been admitted legally into the country.

The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) is the oldest and largest Hispanic civil rights organization in the United States. LULAC advances the economic condition, educational attainment, political influence, health and civil rights of Hispanic Americans through community-based programs operating at more than 700 LULAC councils nationwide

Received 5/7/07 via email.