| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Senate Bill Would Allow 103 Million Immigrants In Next 20 Yrs |
| 2006-05-15 |
| think it's crowded and overtaxed now? EFL - RTWT If enacted, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (CIRA, S.2611) would be the most dramatic change in immigration law in 80 years, allowing an estimated 103 million persons to legally immigrate to the U.S. over the next 20 years—fully one-third of the current population of the United States. Much attention has been given to the fact that the bill grants amnesty to some 10 million illegal immigrants. Little or no attention has been given to the fact that the bill would quintuple the rate of legal immigration into the United States, raising, over time, the inflow of legal immigrants from around one million per year to over five million per year. The impact of this increase in legal immigration dwarfs the magnitude of the amnesty provisions. In contrast to the 103 million immigrants permitted under CIRA, current law allows 19 million legal immigrants over the next twenty years. Relative to current law, then, CIRA would add an extra 84 million legal immigrants to the nation’s population. The figure of 103 million legal immigrants is a reasonable estimate of the actual immigration inflow under the bill and not the maximum number that would be legally permitted to enter. The maximum number that could legally enter would be almost 200 million over twenty years—over 180 million more legal immigrants than current law permits. Immigration Status To understand the provisions of CIRA, largely based on a compromise by Senators Chuck Hagel (R–Nebraska) and Mel Martinez (R–Florida), it is useful to distinguish between the three legal statuses that a legal immigrant might hold: Temporary Status: Persons in this category enter the U.S. temporarily and are required to leave after a period of time. Near-Permanent, Convertible Status: Persons in this category enter the U.S. and are given the opportunity to “adjust” or convert to legal permanent residence after a few years. Legal Permanent Residence (LPR): Persons in this category have the right to remain in the United States for their entire lives. After five years, they have the right to naturalize and become citizens. As naturalized citizens, they have the constitutional rights to vote and to receive any government benefits given to native-born citizens. A key feature of CIRA is that most immigrants identified as “temporary” are, in fact, given convertible status with a virtually unrestricted opportunity to become legal permanent residents and then citizens. Another important feature of both CIRA and existing immigration law is that immigrants in convertible or LPR status have the right to bring spouses and minor children into the country. Spouses and dependent children will be granted permanent residence along with the primary immigrant and may also become citizens. In addition, after naturalizing, an immigrant has the right to bring his parents into the U.S. as permanent residents with the opportunity for citizenship. There are no numeric limits on the number of spouses, dependent children, and parents of naturalized citizens that may be brought into the country. Additionally, the siblings and adult children (along with their families) of naturalized citizens and the adult children (and their families) of legal permanent residents are given preference in future admission but are subject to numeric caps. An out-of touch Senate needs to hear from you. Sen Frist? |
| Posted by:Frank G |
| #2 grrr |
| Posted by: 2b 2006-05-15 21:09 |
| #1 Little or no attention has been given to the fact that the bill would quintuple the rate of legal immigration. There is simple explanation as to why there has been no attention paid to this fact. This is the first independent analysis to numerically determine the demographic impact of S.2611. In fact, there hasn’t even been a single Senate hearing to discuss this issue. Up to this point, there has been only one hearing since introduction of the bill. And that short hearing on overall economic impact was only intermittently attended by a fraction of the judiciary committee. But none of panelists had even read the 600+ page bill and all agreed the topic of was so broad that their testimony couldn’t really address specifics of the underlying bill. That means the economic impact of social services, both federal and state, has not even been discussed. Yet just 2 weeks ago there were plenty of Senators, of both parties, willing to go along with Democrat leader Reid’s push to vote without offering a single amendment. If this bill ends up with Senators saying the old “It’s not perfect but…” you know they have once again screwed middle class Americans for the sake of expediency. |
| Posted by: DepotGuy 2006-05-15 19:14 |