February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The Times, which, like all New York papers, would have a significant percentage of its readership born overseas, opined that the “bipartisan immigration proposal” in Congress deserved the support of President Bush, “who has been promising action on immigration for years.”
To some of the more grizzled veterans of the immigration issue, the idea of “action on immigration” is bordering on oxymoron status at this stage.
But in fairness to President Bush, he was gearing up for little activity on the issue in his first term. Then came Sept. 11.
Closing in four years on, the immigration issue has gone well beyond its bandage stage indeed. Major surgery one way or another is indeed required. Nevertheless, this patient could be hanging out in the emergency room waiting area for a while yet.
At least the reform debate has started though the senate, where it had its naissance, is in a state of partisan chassis. To put it mildly, this was not an ideal moment to present even a well thought out bipartisan proposal.
Still, there has been enthusiastic applause from reform advocates for the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act of 2005.
Margie McHugh, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition described the bill as a “win-win” proposal.
“The overwhelming demand for reform can no longer be ignored. If President Bush and other lawmakers support security, economic prosperity, hard work and family values, they should join this bipartisan reform effort so boldly initiated by senators McCain and Kennedy,” McHugh said in a statement.
This may be so within in the world of immigrant advocacy and lobby groups.
But immigration is one of those issues that make politicians very skittish.
It is the level of demand for change in the Senate and House of Representatives, not in advocacy offices, that will determine what happens next.
First up, those who want to see reform, those who desperately need it to get through their daily lives, should be thankful that this is not an election year.
If it was, and the immigration debate started to nudge up against November, the less certain Senate members would drop tools, run to their corners and the bill would sink out of sight.
The flipside of this is that the kind of urgency that an election would inspire in the more fervent advocates of reform will be a reduced factor this non-election year.
Add to this the present partisan rancor, and you have a recipe for some serious long fingering.
The Kennedy/McCain bill has been referred to the Judiciary Committee. A check on the Senate website will show that McCain’s name is listed as the primary author.
Ted Kennedy is down as a co-sponsor along with fellow Democrats Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Ken Salazar from Colorado. The GOP co-sponsors are Sam Brownback from Kansas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
There’s a fair geographic spread in that bunch, but together they only amount to six out of one hundred senators.
The Judiciary Committee has eighteen members and is chaired by Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. The Other GOP members are Orrin Hatch, Charles Grassley, Jon Kyl, Mike DeWine, Jeff Sessions, John Cornyn, Tom Coburn and the aforementioned Brownback and Graham. The Democrats are Patrick Leahy, Joe Biden, Herbert Kohl, Dianne Feinstein, Russell Feingold, Charles Schumer, Richard Durbin and Ted Kennedy.
There’s a lot of experience in this group, and not a little sympathy in favor of reform.
But not all their discussions — assuming they are talking to each other at all — will be focused on the bill crafted by McCain and Kennedy.
Observers in Washington are of the view that the immigration reform debate will only really get underway when President Bush throws his dollar into the mix.
The president’s immigration ideas will be delivered to the Senate by a Judiciary Committee member, possibly Cornyn from Texas or Kyl, who, like John McCain, is from Arizona, a state where immigration is a red-hot issue in and out of elections years.
Kyl has tended to favor a reduction in legal immigration and will probably lean more in favor of the president’s temporary work visas idea rather than so-called earned legalization.
Once a Bush proposal is in the ring, the horse-trading will begin. And it could extend beyond one issue. The dealing will likely involve gives on immigration if there are gives on other issues, not least social security.
In the end, and again assuming that the senators remain even remotely civil to one another, there should be an agreed compromise.
This is the easy part. Whatever about the threats to old-fashioned collegiality in the Senate, there is far less of it anyway in the House of Representatives, where the most trenchant opposition to any reform of immigration law is to be found.
The House version of the new bill is in the hands of Reps. Luis Gutierrez, Jim Kolbe and Jeff Flake. There is also another fairly comprehensive bill being floated in the House by Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas Democrat.
The House, like the Senate, has a Republican majority and the bulk of opponents there will be composed of members of that party.
Colorado’s Tom Tancredo, head of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, will be at the epicenter of this group. Suffice it to say, Tancredo’s idea of reform is starkly different to that espoused by the sponsors of the new bill.
Unlike the Senate, where his longevity, connections, friendships and deal-making skills are legendary, Ted Kennedy’s name carries a lot less weight in the House.
Indeed, it could amount to a ball and chain in the immigration reform context. McCain and other Senate Republicans will need to provide a counter weight to such negative sentiment once both houses of Congress start to negotiate any eventual compromise legislation.
All in all, it can be said the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act of 2005 has more than a snowball’s chance in hell — but it’s far from a done deal in a Congress that lately looks like a legislative purgatory.