Opponents of CIR Fight Back

If proponents of comprehensive immigration reform were under the impression that recent legislation was a signal of victory, a New York Times article published this morning should temper those expectations and serve as an important reminder that the fight for fair and just reform is nowhere near won.

The article is alarming for several reasons. First, it highlights an all too familiar tactic employed by opponents of CIR, which is to create obstacles and poison pill disincentives that dissuade conservative house members from voting for reform. Second, it reiterates that every effort will be made to slow down the legislation’s progress by proposing numerous amendments designed to undermine the fundamental aspects of the Bill. Third, it mentions a controversial Report released by the ultra conservative Heritage Foundation that estimates the taxpayer cost as high as $6.3 trillion.

The strategies mentioned above are calculated and effective and meant to derail the momentum behind the recent legislation. Moreover they are supported by powerful interest groups who want to see comprehensive immigration reform fail. These groups are motivated, mobilized, well funded, and prepared for a dirty fight.

Therefore, those of us who support CIR must be prepared for the same. We must be mobilized, motivated, and under no illusion that the battle has been won. Now more than ever we need to write our elected representatives and convince our neighbors to do the same. We need to organize from the grass roots all the way up to the White House. The fight is on and your voice is your weapon. Make sure yours is louder than theirs.

Time for a Change

Soon the “Gang of 8” will introduce its much anticipated immigration bill. It’s difficult to put into words exactly what this legislation, and it’s great potential, mean to me. But if I had to choose one word, it would be something akin to gratitude. Maybe gratefulness. Thanks. Or maybe relief.

Relief for the young woman who was brought to the United States at age 2 by her parents. Carried across the desert to a better life. Labeled “illegal” and treated as such by people and institutions unable to understand the human element. Yet educated, kind, successful, and hardworking. Not knowing any other life but this one. And until now, having no choice but to remain a slave to draconian immigration laws and potential punishments.

Relief for the mother who worked and lived in the United States for 16 years to support her four children. Forced to come to this country by a husband who abused her. Brave enough to leave him behind. And then alone. Without assistance from anyone. The epitome of a resilient, hardworking, self-reliant, individual. The same mother who was then jailed, extradited, transferred, detained, fined, denied bond, and separated from her family for an entire year. Put in prison. Because she paid her taxes using a social security number that she believed belonged to no one. A misdemeanor.

I’ve not been involved in this work for long. But every day I hear one of these stories. And when one is too many, every day feels like a million. And so I feel grateful that there are people with real power fighting to change these very inhuman, often malevolent, and extremely hypocritical laws.

Here are just a few of the provisions highlighted in an outline of the newly released legislation:

• Undocumented persons who entered the U.S. prior to December 31, 2011 and maintained continuous physical presence since that time will be able to adjust their status to that of a legal, Registered Provisional Immigrant (RPI);
• Spouses and children of people in RPI status can be petitioned for as derivatives of the principal immigrant;
• After 10 years, aliens in RPI status may adjust to Lawful Permanent Resident Status through the same Merit Based System everyone else must use to earn a green card;
• People in DREAM Act Status and the Agricultural Program can get their green cards in 5 years and DREAM Act kids will be eligible for citizenship immediately after they get their green cards; and
• The bill eliminates the backlog for family and employment-based immigrants.

It’s true that many people oppose this new legislation, stuck in the mire of misconception that the laws of this country must be obeyed at all cost. To those people it should be reiterated that the pathway to citizenship is not easy. It will be expensive, it will take many years, and it will  apply only to upstanding citizens. RPI’s will not be eligible for government benefits, all back taxes must be paid, and serious fines will be levied. Punishment achieved for those who demand it. Equality for those who deserve it. Undocumented immigrants want to get right with the law. This legislation gives them that opportunity. If it were your family, you’d want the same chance.

Everyone needs reform

In the local paper, the most popular user comments tend to be those that insist on strict enforcement of immigration laws against those who are undocumented. After all, these users proclaim, “They BROKE the LAW,” they are “ILLEGAL no mater WHAT country they came from.”

What most of these users are actually calling for (or at least hoping for) is a wide ranging, cattle-car style deportation, which incidentally is not what “enforcing the law” would actually look like. Enforcing the law would mean issuing each undocumented immigrant a Notice to Appear before an Immigration Judge for a series of hearings to determine legal status and available relief, if any. As it turns out it’s up to a judge, and not an online commenter, to determine someone’s legal status and future prospects in the US.

These procedures are already taking several years, sometimes more. Adding 11 million undocumented immigrants to the Immigration Court docket would be, well, a boondoggle.

Most importantly, there is a screaming inconsistency behind these calls for “upholding the law.” As the saying goes, it takes two to tango, and that certainly goes for illegal immigration. Employers who hire undocumented immigrants are also breaking the law, but calls for strict enforcement against apple growers and dairy farmers are simply hard to come by. This outrage imbalance should give us pause.

But even if someone should call for strict enforcement against all parties, both employers and employees, they are quite frankly ignoring the real world in which we live. We happen to live in the real world, where deporting 11 million people is physically, economically, and legally impossible. The real world, where in our local economies actually depend on the labor provided by undocumented folks. The real world, where families are woven together with no regard for each individual’s “legal status.”

If past legislation had appropriately dealt with labor needs, we likely wouldn’t be having this debate. But here we are, with an immigration system that makes legalization nearly impossible, and an economy that demands immigrants. We cannot curb the need for immigrants over night, so that leaves us with no choice but to dive head first into reforming the broken immigration system.

Tell Your Story

President Obama wants to hear your immigration story. Your voice clearly does make a difference. Help shape comprehensive immigration reform. Tell your story here:

http://www.barackobama.com/stories/

A Call to Action

Our country has a rich history of cruel and irrational laws. In 1958, Mildred and Richard Loving’s home was raided by police. Richard, a white man, and his wife, an African American, had recently married in violation of Virginia’s anti-interracial marriage laws. They were charged with a felony and faced up to five years in prison. Their conviction was later overturned by the Supreme Court in the landmark case Loving v. Virginia. 

 

These types of cases are now glaringly antiquated. When the lower court judge in Loving says that “God did not intend the races to mix,” we rightly cringe at his misguided worldview. 

 

Spotting the injustices that currently surround us is markedly more difficult, however, not impossible. 

 

Let me tell you about two of the women I met this week at the Yakima County Jail. They were arrested earlier this week during an immigration raid. They are being accused of working with false papers. 

 

Both women are in their early twenties. One has a small baby at home, and the other has two young daughters. They both came to the United States when they were about 10 years old, a choice that most certainly was not their own. Neither one of these women has any prior criminal history. Their lives are dedicated to work, family and church. 

 

As a community we welcome their hard work, while scorning and criminalizing their existence. This kind of hypocrisy has no place in modern society. 

 

Setting aside the moral argument for a moment, do these “enforcement” efforts make sense in a town that’s awash with guns, drugs, and gangs? When all is said and done, tax payers will have spent literally hundreds of thousands of dollars prosecuting dishwashers and busboys for, well, working. 

 

Please take a moment to get involved, even if it’s by doing something as simple as tweeting your congressman or senators. As a community we can continue to correct misguided laws and anti-immigrant perceptions by working together as advocates for the oppressed.

How to Help

A recent immigration raid in Yakima, Washington highlights the absurdity of our current laws and enforcement mechanisms. Above all it highlights the hypocrisy of a community that benefits daily from the work and contributions of undocumented immigrants while criminalizing and turning its nose up at their very presence. One day after President Obama delivered an inspiring speech on immigration reform, ICE officers rained down on over 20 undocumented immigrants throughout Yakima, arresting them and placing them in government custody.

So who are these folks? Nefarious drug dealers, human traffickers? Surely there is justification for the use of heavily armed SWAT teams, right? As it turns out, the people who were arrested are being accused of working with fake papers, nothing more.

Last night I had the opportunity to interview four of the arrested immigrants. They have been here since 1997, working, paying taxes, and going to church. Between them there are a couple of speeding tickets, but no other criminal history whatsoever. Each one has been separated from their US Citizen children, and each family is now scrambling to figure out how to survive. These people were not involved in any way in a criminal enterprise. They were dishwashers and busboys, earning money to feed their children.

Even the staunchest of enforcement-hawks must stop and question this allocation of resources. Tax payers will no doubt have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for the arrests and prosecutions in these cases when all is said and done, money that might have gone towards our schools, roads, or even the investigation of actual crimes.

These folks need advocates, now more than ever. Luckily, there are a number of ways you can help:

1. Call, write, or tweet your senators and representatives and encourage them to support the President’s plan for comprehensive immigration reform.

2. Organize peaceful protests or marches in your community to show solidarity with the immigrant community.

3. Contact your local police and ICE offices to let them know you expect them to prioritize their enforcement efforts.

4. Educate yourself and spread the word. This case is only one of thousands of examples of how the current system is broken. Tell your friends and families about the injustices happening in your communities, and encourage them to get involved.

Together we can make a difference.

Highlights from Nevada

Here are a few highlights from President Obama’s speech on immigration reform delivered yesterday in Nevada:

Pathway to Earned Citizenship:

• Provisional Legal Status (Deferred Action for undocumented persons living in the U.S.)
  • Biometrics
  • Criminal background checks
  • Fees and Penalties
  • No welfare or other federal benefits
  • Agricultural workers and childhood arrivals included
• Lawful Permanent Residence (more strict than previous requirements)
  • Pay back taxes
  • Additional criminal background checks
  • Register for Selective Service
  • Additional fees and penalties
  • Learn English and civics
  • 5 years conditional residency prior to citizenship eligibility
• DREAMers
  • Expedited path to citizenship
    • Two years college OR
    • Two years honorable service in the military
• Judicial Review
  • Available when provisional LPR status denied or revoked

Streamlining “Legal” Immigration (dealing with the line):

• Eliminating Backlogs in Family Sponsored Immigration
  • Recapture unused visas
  • Temporarily increase annual visa numbers
  • Raise existing country caps from 7 to 15 percent
  • Treat same-sex families like all other families and provide applicable visas
  • Revise current unlawful presence bars to provide broader discretion to waive bars in cases of hardship
• Better Address Humanitarian Concerns
  • Streamline immigration law to protect vulnerable immigrants
    • Victims of domestic violence
    • Victims of human and sex trafficking
    • More opportunities and less stringent requirements for asylum seekers