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Remember, remember always that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.Franklin Delano Roosevelt, addressing the Daughters of the American Revolution, April 1938

Americans ambivalence about immigration has increased as millions of undocumented immigrants began arriving in the U.S. following the passage of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, signed into law by President Ronald Reagan.

Today the country faces a growing problem on the Southern border that was exacerbated when the Trump administration instituted the zero-tolerance policy and separated some 4,000 children from their migrant parents. The inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security reported that the governments records were so poorly kept that no one knew where hundreds of these children were located. One of President Bidens goals is to find and return them to their parents.

The Department of Homeland Security has acted, but Congress must also. It has in the past, and it must do so again now. Quickly. The iconic example is the bill signed in November 1986 by President Ronald Reagan, the Immigration Reform and Control Act. At the time of its enactment, the president noted that it was the most comprehensive reform of our immigration laws in over 35 years.

The law, an effort by Republicans and Democrats, achieved three goals: a path to citizenship for the undocumented in the country as of 1982, economic sanctions on employers who failed to determine the immigration status of their workers, and authority to enforce immigration laws. The measure passed the House, 238-173, and the Senate, 63-24.

The president supported a path to citizenship. He noted that the legalization provisions in this act will go far to improve the lives of a class of individuals who now must hide in the shadows, without access to many of the benefits of a free and open society. Very soon many of these men and women will be able to step into the sunlight, and ultimately, if they choose, they may become Americans.

The problem is that today is not 1986. Rifts between Republicans and Democrats over the past 20 years have forestalled any compromise on a wide-ranging package of bills.

In his 2007 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush, like Ronald Reagan, advocated comprehensive immigration reform. He supported increased border security and holding employers accountable for hiring undocumented migrants. But he went farther, in his words, to say, People who have worked hard, supported their families, avoided crime, led responsible lives, and become a part of American life should be called in out of the shadows and under the rule of American law. In other words, they must be offered a path to citizenship.

The bill died in the Senate, killed by the filibuster despite the bipartisanship of its main supporters: Senators Ted Kennedy (D., Mass.), John McCain (R., Ariz.), John Kyl (R., Ariz.), and Harry Reid (D., Nev.).

President Obama too attempted, and failed, at immigration reform. In 2012, he signed an executive order authorizing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to defer action against the children of undocumented migrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. He supported the bill crafted by the so-called Senate bipartisan Gang of Eight that contained a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants over 13 years and additional billions of dollars for border security. It handily passed the Senate, but the House never took it up.

The problem at the Southern border has grown over the past several months as increasing numbers of people flee poverty, violence, and disease in their native lands. The Trump administration ended the Reagan/Bush/Obama attempts to reform immigration with no plan except to close the border and build a fence.

The opportunity is there, as the Biden administration has proposed the comprehensive U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, even as the president turns back migrants seeking asylum but allows unaccompanied minors to remain. But the lack of bipartisanship has forced the administration to break up the bill for now, leaving only a few items: protecting the Dreamers, those brought to the U.S. by their parents when they were children whom President Obama protected in 2012, and granting temporary safety to migrant workers in need of humanitarian protection. The House passed these modest proposals on March 18, and they now go to the Senate. Passage would bring great relief to many people on this Island.

No doubt the border needs greater security, but those who have long lived, worked, and contributed to the American economy need protections and a way to contribute to the success of American democracy. The bill Ronald Reagan signed back in 1986 remains the standard of bipartisanship that proves that democracy is workable. As he put it, the law has truly been a bipartisan effort, with this administration and the allies of immigration reform in the Congress, of both parties, working together to accomplish these critically important reforms.

Jack Fruchtman, who lives in Aquinnah, taught constitutional law and politics for more than 40 years.

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Immigration reform: Long overdue - Martha's Vineyard Times

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Joe Biden wants Congress to act on immigration reform to speed up green cards for Indians

US President Joe Biden wants Congress to act on an immigration reform that it would allow Indian doctors and other professionals to expeditiously get their green cards, according to his spokesperson Jen Psaki.

"He believes that there should be faster processing, that our immigration system is broken at many levels," she said at a briefing on Wednesday. "He is eager to for Congress to move forward with action there."

She was replying to a question about a demonstration by Indian doctors in the US who had been in the frontlines of the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic asking for the elimination of country quotas for green cards that would enable them to get permanent residence status faster.

Asked about the delays in processing work authorisation for spouses of those holding H1-B and L1 visas, Psaki said: "The reason we want to push for action on immigration (legislation) on the (Capitol) Hill is to move forward with expediting the processing and doing that on several levels, including a number of the visas." "That's part of the reason why we think that's such an important piece to move forward on."

Indian doctors held a demonstration outside Congress last week demanding the removal of the country quotas to expedite their green cards,

Last month, Democrats introduced a comprehensive immigration reform bill in Congress that would remove the country quotas for green cards. While spouses of citizens are not restricted by the quotas, all other countries except for Canada and Mexico are each allowed only 26,000 green cards each year and this has created a huge backlog for applicants from countries like India, while some nations do not use their full quota.

According to the State Department, Indians with advanced degrees whose immigration applications were approved in 2009 and skilled workers and professionals whose applications were okayed in 2010 are still waiting for their green cards. Those wait times are only for those whose applications are already approved, and it could run to centuries for those in the immigration queue.

The immigration reform bill faces an uphill battle because Republicans demand that it include stringent restrictions on illegal immigration and the backing of some members of that party would be required in the Senate.

Earlier, legislative action to remove country caps failed in the last Congress because the Senate and House of Representatives versions of the bill had differences that were not reconciled in time and it lapsed. The Senate in December 2020 and the House in 2019 had passed the separate versions of the bill.

H-1B visas are for professionals and L-1 visas are for those transferred by their companies to the US. Their spouses had been allowed to work in the US under a regulations introduced by former President Barack Obama, but his successor Donald Trump had tried to ban work authorisation for them.

In its first week in office, the Biden administration killed Trump's effort and continued to make the spouses, most of them Indian women, eligible to get work permits.

The San Jose Mercury reported last month that the Citizenship and Immigration Service had attributed the work authorisation "delays to 'Covid-19 restrictions, an increase in filings, current postal service volume and other external factors'". The newspaper added that the agency said that it had redistributed workloads and staff were working extra hours to reduce the delays.

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Joe Biden wants Congress to act on immigration reform to speed up green cards for Indians - India TV News

SALT LAKE CITY As a surge of people flow to the U.S. from Mexico, a bipartisan collection of politicians, business leaders and university administrators in the Intermountain West Friday called on Congress to end decades of inaction on comprehensive immigration reform.

Sound immigration solutions, they say, would help states, including Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and Utah, rebuild and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic while powering the regions biggest industries such as construction, agriculture, hospitality and tourism.

Its always been amazing to me that immigration policy is never framed in what it actually is, which is U.S. economic policy, said Michael Crow, president of Arizona State University. Federal immigration reform is essential to the success of the United States.

The American Business Immigration Coalition Intermountain Chapter held a virtual summit focused on unlocking the areas economic potential through bipartisan immigration reform.

The coalition promotes commonsense immigration reform that advances economic competitiveness, provides companies with both the high-skilled and low-skilled talent they need, and allows the integration of immigrants into our economy as consumers, workers, entrepreneurs and citizens.

Speakers included Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, Arizona Democratic Sens. Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema, Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., GOP Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis. Business leaders and university administrators from Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and Utah also participated in the conference.

The Intermountain area is home to about 2.5 million immigrants who pay $18 billion in federal and state taxes each year, according to the American Immigration Council. Together, their economic impact in the region is close to $80 billion per year.

On Thursday, the U.S. House passed the Dream and Promise Act and the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, two bills that would provide a path to citizenship to millions of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program recipients, temporary protected status holders and agricultural workers without permanent legal status. The bills now head to the Senate for consideration.

While some of the panelists at the summit lauded the passage of those measures, most called for an overhaul of an immigration system they all agree is broken.

All these bills are important, but we cannot give up until weve passed broad reform. We cant afford another 10 years of Washington doing nothing like this. Our broken system is really great for politicians who use immigration as a political wedge, and we understand that. It is terrible for the country and terrible for our future, Bennet said.

Derek Miller, president of the Salt Lake Chamber, said bringing together people from both sides of the aisle, especially elected officials, is the most important step toward resolving the issue.

Youve heard it said a number of times already that our immigration system is broken. That may be an understatement. In Utah, we believe that its more than just broken, that its actually upside down and backward, he said.

On one hand, we dont have a secure border that allows us to keep bad actors out, Miller said. On the other hand, we dont have a fully functioning immigration system that allows enough individuals who want to be in this country to be here in order to contribute, to benefit from our economy, to contribute to the economy and also enrich the fabric of our multicultural society.

Bob Worsely, a former Republican Arizona state senator and American Business Immigration Coalition board member, said the 35-year political war over immigration needs to end.

We need our politicians to stop bickering about brown, Black, Asian or whatever immigrant under some fantasy of unsustainably low migration rates to protect white majorities in America, he said.

The U.S. needs immigrants to help feed the economy, Worsley said. The number of illegal immigrants will drop when there are legal paths to cross the border to work in America.

Romney said he is deeply troubled by the current situation at the U.S. border with Mexico.

Droves of people, including many young children, are making the dangerous trip to enter our country illegally. The huge volume of migrants is overwhelming our customs and border protection people, and theres no question that we need to ensure compassionate care for these children as a result of the crisis at the border, he said.

But, he said, the U.S. needs to do more to address the factors driving illegal immigration, starting with securing the border with a physical barrier and making E-Verify a web-based system that allows businesses to confirm the eligibility of their employees to work in the U.S. permanent and mandatory.

The program is required for all federal employees and some government contractors. About half of U.S. states, including Utah, require employers to use E-Verify. As of May 2019, there were 863,528 employers using E-Verify, accounting for about 14% of U.S. businesses.

Romney favors a merit-based legal immigration system that gives people credit for English fluency, trade or technical skills, advanced degrees and personal savings. Illegal immigration, he said, undermines fairness and order.

Aspen Skiing Co. President and CEO Mike Kaplan said the Colorado ski resort relies on international employees and international tourists, both of which have been hard to come by this season. He said hes about two workers away from having to close a restaurant this spring.

Despite aggressive hiring efforts and high unemployment, Aspen has been unable to become fully staffed this year. It employs about 4,200 people in peak season.

I looked ahead and go, Wow, whats going to happen next year when we anticipate a big snapback in demand, he said. Where are we going to get that staff that allows us to function? I really dont know.

Bennet, who co-sponsored the Dream Act in 2009 and 2017, said theres no reason immigration reform shouldnt be bipartisan.

In Colorado, which is divided in thirds among Democrats, Republicans and independents, he said he frequently hears that businesses dont have the skilled labor that they need. Immigration, he said, is about staying competitive in the 21st century.

Our crazy immigration policy that we have right now serves really no ones interest except for China in the sense that it makes us less competitive, he said.

Crow said immigration, innovation and education make up an integrated immigration strategy, and the U.S. cant be successful without them.

What we need to explain to the American people that this is the way we grow the economy, the why. What is immigration for? he said. And then explain to people that were going to work definitively to make sure that this is positively disruptive, not negative disruption, which is the present way that people are thinking about this.

Here is the original post:
How immigration reform may unlock economic potential in the West - Deseret News

US President Joe Biden wants Congress to act on an immigration reform that it would allow Indian doctors and other professionals to expeditiously get their green cards, according to his spokesperson Jen Psaki.

"He believes that there should be faster processing, that our immigration system is broken at many levels," she said at a briefing on Wednesday.

"He is eager to for Congress to move forward with action there."

She was replying to a question about a demonstration by Indian doctors in the US who had been in the frontlines of the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic asking for the elimination of country quotas for green cards that would enable them to get permanent residence status faster.

Asked about the delays in processing work authorisation for spouses of those holding H1-B and L1 visas, Psaki said: "The reason we want to push for action on immigration (legislation) on the (Capitol) Hill is to move forward with expediting the processing and doing that on several levels, including a number of the visas.a

"That`s part of the reason why we think that`s such an important piece to move forward on."

Indian doctors held a demonstration outside Congress last week demanding the removal of the country quotas to expedite their green cards,

Last month, Democrats introduced a comprehensive immigration reform bill in Congress that would remove the country quotas for green cards.

While spouses of citizens are not restricted by the quotas, all other countries except for Canada and Mexico are each allowed only 26,000 green cards each year and this has created a huge backlog for applicants from countries like India, while some nations do not use their full quota.

According to the State Department, Indians with advanced degrees whose immigration applications were approved in 2009 and skilled workers and professionals whose applications were okayed in 2010 are still waiting for their green cards.

Those wait times are only for those whose applications are already approved, and it could run to centuries for those in the immigration queue.

The immigration reform bill faces an uphill battle because Republicans demand that it include stringent restrictions on illegal immigration and the backing of some members of that party would be required in the Senate.

Earlier, legislative action to remove country caps failed in the last Congress because the Senate and House of Representatives versions of the bill had differences that were not reconciled in time and it lapsed.

The Senate in December 2020 and the House in 2019 had passed the separate versions of the bill.

H-1B visas are for professionals and L-1 visas are for those transferred by their companies to the US.

Their spouses had been allowed to work in the US under a regulations introduced by former President Barack Obama, but his successor Donald Trump had tried to ban work authorisation for them.

In its first week in office, the Biden administration killed Trump`s effort and continued to make the spouses, most of them Indian women, eligible to get work permits.

The San Jose Mercury reported last month that the Citizenship and Immigration Service had attributed the work authorisation "delays to `Covid-19 restrictions, an increase in filings, current postal service volume and other external factors`".

The newspaper added that the agency said that it had redistributed workloads and staff were working extra hours to reduce the delays.

Continue reading here:
Biden wants immigration reform to speed up green cards for Indians - WION

The U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, introduced by Democrats in mid-Febuary, would establish and eight-year path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants. The multi-faceted bill would broaden the roads to legal immigration, reduce visa backlogs, and more.

The politicians behind these measures, either by co-authoring legislation or by raising awareness, clearing up misconceptions and more, are Latino officials. Whether it be because they share ties with immigrantstruggles via family history, or they represent districts, states, or cities with higher demographics of immigrants or Latinos.

However, it quickly became clear that optimism would come up short regarding the Biden-backed bill because even with a tied Senate, it would still need to garner bipartisan support to pass. While the future of the large-scale bill doesnt look great, the package laid the groundwork for what needs to be done, in a targeted way over time.

Bidens comprehensive immigration bill slated for the foreseeable future, but there is the opportunity to focus on multiple, targeted bills instead of the entirety of Bidens vision.

Thats exactly what happened recently with two separate bills that passed the House last week.

The American Dream and Promise Act would establish a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and DREAMERS brought to the U.S. as children. The House will also vote on the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which would create a pathway for temporary status for undocumented workers in the agricultural industry. The bill outlines a way for them to work to become a permanent resident.

The Dream and Promise act was introduced this year by Latina U.S. Representatives Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA) and Nydia Velazquez (D-NY), along with Yvette Clarke (D-NY). It later passed the House in March.

In the Senate, Alex Padilla, the first Latino Senator from California told the Los Angeles Times that while comprehensive immigrationreform is a priority, especially in a Democratic Senate and House, piecemeal fixes are acceptable.

With an evenly divided Senate, anything that has a chance of passing will have to be bipartisan at a time when the two parties can barely agree on anything, said Padilla

He told the Times that especially now, with widespread coverage and political rhetoric over the unaccompanied minors at the southern border, even Republicans who are interested in changing immigration laws now say they are leery about supporting minor reforms once seen as possible.

The targeted approaches are more feasible.

Padillas own bill, the Citizenship Essential Workers Act introduced by Reps. Joaquin Castro and Ted Lieu would create an expedited pathway to citizenship for the over 5 million undocumented essential workers who kept Americans healthy, fed, and safe during the COVID-19 pandemic.

From a different angle, reps like Chuy Garcia (D-IL) and Veronica Escobar (D-TX) are advocating for what needs to be done within the aspects of targeted legislation that have left out key elements. They are also fighting against misinformation while all eyes are on the Southern Border.

Garcia indicated to AL DA that the American Dream and Promise Act, while substantial, needs to do more to over-criminalized migrants, and in the future, similar legislation must remove provisions that make it harder for them to gain access to citizenship pathways.

These harmful provisions will deny immigrant youth, who would qualify for protections under H.R. 6, a better future. Mistakes committed as a child, or baseless allegations should not derail someone's life, he said.

He went on to say this is why he reintroduced the A New Way Forward Act to roll back immigration laws that result in racial profiling, disproportionate incarceration and deportation with Latino, Black, and Asian communities, and family separation.

In terms of misinformation, Escobar is on the front lines of the migrant crisis at the border, highlighting that it is not only a crisis on that front, but also in the way that it is presented in the media, without prior context of the root causes, and without the reality of the humanitarian crisis at hand.

Americans must finally acknowledge that the real crisis is not at the border but outside it, and that until we address that crisis, this flow of vulnerable people seeking help at our doorstep will not end anytime soon, she wrote on Twitter.

These smaller moves, while not always based on legislative action, are what will immediately work to reform immigration.

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Latinos in Congress are pushing targeted immigration reform while Biden's bill is tabled - AL DIA News