Where Are You, Immigration Reform?

Below's an eensy beentsy, teensy weeny article I wrote yesterday for my work.  Because 1.)  I have nothing else to post here momentarily, and 2.) I know, I just know, Dear Reader, that YOU want to know what happened to immigration reform.

In this climate of paralyzed government, bitter political infighting, widespread domestic economic fears, and unrelenting international crisis particularly in Syria, immigration reform, an issue at front and center as recently as this past summer, seems to have gotten lost.  Comprehensive immigration reform has been an objective of the immigrant community, advocates, and pro-immigrant organizations for a long time now, like for over a decade.  In 2004, I began immigration-related work.  My boss at the time swore up and down, left and right, in circular fashion, in figure eights, that immigration reform was imminently around the corner.  Many years and many failed attempts at passing meaningful laws like the Dream Act later, the struggle for a comprehensive immigration reform package that would brilliantly renovate our currently dysfunctional, unwieldy system is still ongoing.  On June 26, 2013, the United States Senate passed the “Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013” (S.744).  Like any legislative effort mounted at bringing about comprehensive immigration reform might be, it is a monstrosity of a bill.  As it’s a long-awaited monstrosity, it’s thus deserving of our encouraged, detailed attention.  In its “Summary and Analysis” of the BSEIMA / S.744, produced last April, the National Immigration Law Center states that, “[T]he bill would provide a road to citizenship for approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants and overhaul the family immigration system.  The bill also would create stringent border enforcement and deportation measures, and ramp up workplace enforcement by mandating that employers use an electronic employment verification system (E-verify).”

The most important, or at least the most collectively gratifying, aspect of the Senate’s BSEOIMA / S.744 bill is the provision putting forth a potential pathway to United States citizenship for the approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants living here.  To this end, the bill creates “Registered Provisional Immigrant” status (RPI). RPI status is not tantamount to that of a “legal immigrant”.  RPI is a gray category in between being undocumented and being an immigrant lawfully allowed to reside in the U.S.  However, the greatest benefit received by immigrants by coming out of the shadows and accepting RPI status is that the status comes with the ability to legally work here in the U.S.  In essence, if not in name, an individual granted RPI is allowed to be here under the law, to work and thus reside, even if individuals with RPIs are not lawful permanent residents.

To qualify for RPI status, an individual has to be able to prove he/she meets certain criteria, as follows:  He/she arrived to the United States on or before December 31, 2011, he/she has maintained continuous presence up until the date of application for RPI status, he/she must have settled any all federal tax liability, he/she must not have been convicted of a felony or three or more misdemeanors, and he/she cannot have previously been on any lawful status.  The grant of RPI status to any qualifying individual is dependent upon the implementation of particular border security measures.  Before any individual can be granted RPI status, the Department of Homeland Security has to certify that the border security strategy encapsulated in the bill has begun.  Further, after the border security strategy begins and RPI status is allowable, the Department of Homeland Security has to announce whether and when border security measures are substantially put into place in accordance with the bill.  Only after the Department of Homeland Security confirms that certain border security measures have been put into place, and after and individual has held RPI status for ten years, can individuals with RPI status go forward and apply for their lawful permanent residence (LPR) or “greencard” status.  After three years of holding LPR or “greencard” status, an individual can apply for U.S. citizenship.  The path is a thirteen year stretch from RPI status to U.S. citizenship.  

Essentially, the matter of legalizing the 11 million undocumented people has to happen as steps subsequent, and then concurrent, to the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to beef up border security.  If the threshold border security measures are not reached, say for instance because there is not enough funding, ostensibly the 11 million individuals striving to sort out their undocumented status cannot get very far, procedurally, in their aim to legalize and ultimately gain U.S. citizenship.

The substantively robust Senate’s BSEOIMA / S.744 bill includes various other notable provisions that:

• Expedite the process towards U.S. citizenship for so-called Dreamers,

• Eliminate certain family visa categories such as the category that allows U.S. citizens to sponsor their foreign national siblings for a greencard,

• Eliminate the Diversity Visa Program,

• Create the V and W visas that allow family members to enter the U.S. to reside here while awaiting his or her greencard and creates a new worker program for low-skilled workers respectively,

• Require all employers to utilize the federal government’s employment eligibility verification system, i.e. E-Verify

• Give more protection to immigrant workers who may suffer workplace abuse, and provisions that expand grounds of inadmissibility and removability,

• Eliminate country-specific limits on employment-based immigrant visas, which have caused enormous backlogs for applicants from large countries like China and India, and

• Raises the annual H-1B non-immigrant specialty employment visa cap, raises H-1B wage requirements, and requires employers to make significant efforts to recruit U.S. workers in order to submit an H-1B petition.  The current H-1B visa cap of 65,000 (the number of H-1B visas available annually) is replaced with a cap that fluctuates between 115,000 and 180,000 based on a market escalator formula that considers employer demand and unemployment data.

Summer felt like a promising time for the possibility of immigration reform legislation to finally make it to the President’s desk.  Sadly, momentum seemed to wane dramatically with the heightened violence in Syria and our government’s deliberations over whether to intervene.  And we all know what happened after that, the government shut down owed to the fiscal snafu.  Even in this atmosphere of debt ceiling uncertainty and stock market drops, however, a few of our leaders on Capitol Hill are responding obdurately to the trend of letting immigration reform fall away from grasp yet again.

On October 2, 2013, in the midst of Democratic and Republican fisticuffs over how to reopen the government, Democratic leaders within the U.S. House of Representatives released their proposed legislative treatment of immigration reform.  According to Mike Lillis, writing for TheHill.com on October 2, 2013, “The sweeping proposal, which largely mirrors the bipartisan package approved by the Senate in June, is designed to keep the immigration issue in the headlines and intensify the pressure on GOP leaders to bring a reform bill to the floor.”  Lillis further notes, however, that Speaker of the House John Boehner (R – Ohio) “has already rejected the Senate’s approach to immigration reform and is not expected to act on the similar plan from House Democrats.”  Earlier this year when immigration reform appeared to be a more popular subject, the Republicans in the House issued grumblings and complaints about the Senate’s BSEOIMA / S.744 bill, citing that the border security measures included were not strict enough.  There were also rumors, or at least predictions, that any reform effort ultimately produced by the U.S. House of Representatives would exclude U.S. citizenship and perhaps only provide a path to legal permanent residency (LPR status) at best.

The tragedy of not addressing the dire need for immigration reform is multi-fold.  Not only is allowing the 11 million undocumented immigrants to come out of the shadows and procure work lawfully a humanitarian imperative, but doing so would boost our economy according to many credible studies.  Therefore, by not successfully tackling immigration reform now, we stand to serve the enormous immigrant community an injustice while simultaneously sabotaging our nation’s chance to take advantage of a movement that would substantially advance its economic recovery.  This was going to be our year for reform.  Finally.  But with each passing day that we inch towards 2014 the likelihood shrinks and takes our hopes with it.  To answer the question of where is immigration reform?:   Much like a longsuffering, frustrated driver in the District of Columbia whose car sits idle behind a long line of cars, many traffic calamities, and a juggernaut of pedestrians and cyclists, immigration reform sits idle, trapped behind a long line of issues, many political debacles and a clash of ideologies and political pandering.