Really? Seriously? Wow.
Not the most erudite comment I’ve ever made but that’s what I’m reduced to facing this week’s Amendmentpalooza. Wow.
I’m looking at the breakdown of proposed amendments to the Senate immigration reform bill (S. 744). AILA National is conducting careful analysis of the hundreds of amendments, figuring out how they would impact our new favorite reading choice, the “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act.”
In digging through the 300 amendments proposed by Democrats and Republicans alike, they have found some doozies. These potential poison pills should be required reading for any immigration attorney, and, for that matter, any business owner and especially for any resident of several states from whom the Senators hail who proposed these outlandish amendments.
This is a bipartisan bill. That already requires compromise on both sides, but accepting the following amendments wouldn’t be compromising, it would be putting nails in the coffin of a decent immigration bill and burying America’s future with it.
Apparently gutting the legalization process sounds good to several Senators. Taken together the provisions would essentially ensure that pretty much no one qualified for permanent status—oh, and if Sen. Cruz has his way, no one who was ever willfully unlawfully present would ever get citizenship. Nope, they’re unworthy. I’m just surprised that there wasn’t a Scarlet Letter amendment in there too, forcing legalized immigrants to wear an “A” for Amnesty for the rest of their lives.
Businesses would get a pretty harsh wake-up call too, per Sen. Grassley, who would play havoc with the business immigration policies to the extent that American businesses seeking to hire foreign talent—the kind that leads to American jobs and global competitiveness—would be shut out. At some point, you make an immigration category so difficult that no one will apply. On the upside, I guess we wouldn’t need to hold an H-1B lottery ever again.
There is amendment after amendment that would roll our immigration policy backward instead of moving it forward, to prevent families from being reunited, and to throw more money at ineffective border security measures, rather than investing in enforcement that will actually make our country safer. Oh, let’s not forget the amendments that would gut due process and eliminate training for DHS agents in things like civil rights.
Don’t get me wrong—a few stalwart Senators from both sides are offering potentially good amendments, to reunite families, ensure a more inclusive legalization process, and make our immigration system better. How many of those might be included in any final bill is anyone’s guess. Again, this is a bipartisan, compromise process so no one will be completely happy but the flip side is that with a decent bill, no one will be entirely disappointed either.
Some things require compromise, but worthless amendments that only serve to destroy the workable framework that the Senate “Gang of Eight” and their staff have built have no place in this process. If you’re in one of the states with a Judiciary Committee member, or have a client from that state, get calls in to your Senators, email their offices, reach out to contacts you made through AILA’s National Day of Action or in-state meetings. Reach out to local reporters to talk about what is wrong with some of these amendments and why even proposing them is an overt effort to derail immigration reform that our nation desperately needs. Your voices—and the voices of your clients—need to be heard, but they won’t be, unless you speak out.
