Calls for action at Senate immigration hearing

Sen­ate Judi­ciary Com­mit­tee Chair­man Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., right, talks with the committee’s rank­ing Repub­li­can Sen. Charles Grass­ley, R-Iowa, on Capi­tol Hill in Wash­ing­ton Wednes­day, dur­ing the committee’s hear­ing on com­pre­hen­sive immi­gra­tion reform. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Susan Walsh)

ERICA WERNER

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON — Law­mak­ers who are shap­ing the fate of the mil­lions of peo­ple in the U.S. ille­gally were told by one Wednes­day that it’s time to rewrite immi­gra­tion laws so that they, too, can live the Amer­i­can dream.

“What do you want to do with me?” an emo­tional Jose Anto­nio Var­gas demanded of sen­a­tors. “How do you define American?”

The first Sen­ate hear­ing on immi­gra­tion pol­icy this year pointed toward an emerg­ing bipar­ti­san con­sen­sus that the nation’s 11 mil­lion ille­gal immi­grants should be offered a path to cit­i­zen­ship. But pas­sion­ate divi­sions over the issue also sur­faced as one Repub­li­can decried amnesty and shout­ing pro­test­ers inter­rupted the proceedings.

“You really mean that we’re not going to have enforce­ment, but we’ve got to have amnesty first,” Sen. Jeff Ses­sions, a top Repub­li­can on the Sen­ate Judi­ciary Com­mit­tee, con­fronted the panel’s chair­man, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

Leahy and Home­land Secu­rity Sec­re­tary Janet Napoli­tano rejected the argu­ment that bor­der secu­rity must be the focus before a com­pre­hen­sive immi­gra­tion pack­age or any path­way to legal­iza­tion can be done.

“Too often the bor­der secu­rity refrain sim­ply serves as an excuse,” Napoli­tano said. “Our bor­ders have in fact never been stronger.”

An immi­gra­tion over­haul is a pri­or­ity for Pres­i­dent Barack Obama and law­mak­ers after a bru­tal elec­tion in which vot­ers again elected a divided gov­ern­ment. Democ­rats con­trol the White House and the Sen­ate, while Repub­li­cans hold the House majority.

But for all of the divi­sion and polar­iza­tion in Wash­ing­ton, the hear­ing pro­duced evi­dence of bipar­ti­san agree­ment to fix what all agree is a bro­ken sys­tem — and finally dis­pense with a wrench­ing issue that has bedev­iled law­mak­ers for years.

Var­gas’ tes­ti­mony pro­duced a strik­ing moment in which one of the 11 mil­lion ille­gal immi­grants at the cen­ter of the debate con­fronted the elected offi­cials recon­sid­er­ing the law.

A for­mer jour­nal­ist who acknowl­edged his ille­gal sta­tus in a high-profile piece in The New York Times Mag­a­zine in June 2011, Var­gas recalled his jour­ney to the U.S. from the Philip­pines in 1993. He told law­mak­ers that he never knew he was here ille­gally until he applied for a dri­vers’ per­mit, and that he lived for years in fear until he decided to go pub­lic and start an advo­cacy group. He has so far avoided deportation.

“Too often, we’re treated as abstrac­tions, face­less and name­less, mere sub­jects of debate rather than indi­vid­u­als with fam­i­lies, hopes, fears, and dreams,” Var­gas told com­mit­tee mem­bers. “We dream of a path to cit­i­zen­ship so we can actively par­tic­i­pate in our Amer­i­can democ­racy.” Democ­rats on the panel offered praise and encour­age­ment. Repub­li­cans had lit­tle response.

For Var­gas and oth­ers in his posi­tion the delib­er­a­tions offered some encour­ag­ing signs mixed with unmis­tak­able notes of caution.

Leahy declared in open­ing the hear­ing, “In my view it is time to pass a good bill, a fair bill, a com­pre­hen­sive bill … Too many have been wait­ing too long for fairness.”

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said the focus must be bor­der secu­rity. “I do not believe the bor­der is secure and I still believe we have a long, long way to go,” he said.

Pro­test­ers inter­rupted the hear­ing sev­eral times, with some shout­ing and wav­ing ban­ners against depor­ta­tions, which have increased markedly under the Obama admin­is­tra­tion despite its push to find a polit­i­cal accom­mo­da­tion for many who have been liv­ing in the U.S. Later peo­ple in another group stood and silently turned their backs to the dais where the sen­a­tors sat. They wore signs on their backs read­ing “human rights” and “immi­grant rights.” Leahy chided them for inter­rupt­ing proceedings.

Obama says he is deter­mined to finally make good on his promise to the Latino com­mu­nity to sign into law a com­pre­hen­sive immi­gra­tion bill with bor­der secu­rity, employer enforce­ment, improve­ments to legal immi­gra­tion and a path to cit­i­zen­ship for ille­gal immi­grants already here. Mean­while, a bipar­ti­san group of eight sen­a­tors has been meet­ing to develop a bill by next month that accom­plishes even­tual cit­i­zen­ship for ille­gal immi­grants while also con­tain­ing enough bor­der secu­rity and enforce­ment mea­sures to gain con­ser­v­a­tive support.

The four Democ­rats in the Sen­ate nego­ti­at­ing group met with Obama at the White House on Wednes­day, telling him they were con­fi­dent a bipar­ti­san bill could be agreed to “in the com­ing weeks,” a senior Demo­c­rat said later, speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymity because the meet­ing was pri­vate. A White House state­ment said Obama reit­er­ated his inten­tion to offer leg­is­la­tion of his own if Con­gress fails to act, and told sen­a­tors that con­tin­u­ing to strengthen the bor­der should not be mutu­ally exclu­sive from a path­way to citizenship.

The Sen­ate bipar­ti­san plan makes a path­way to cit­i­zen­ship con­di­tional on bor­der secu­rity first, some­thing on which Repub­li­cans have insisted. Obama’s immi­gra­tion pro­pos­als don’t make that link­age, and it’s emerg­ing as a point of contention.

The bipar­ti­san Sen­ate nego­tia­tors are oper­at­ing sep­a­rately from the Sen­ate Judi­ciary Com­mit­tee, but the com­mit­tee would prob­a­bly vote on any leg­is­la­tion they pro­duce. First, numer­ous thorny issues would have to be solved. Ques­tions Wednes­day touched on how to define bor­der secu­rity, how to struc­ture a future worker pro­gram, how to ensure employ­ers can and will ver­ify the legal sta­tus of their work­ers, and how to craft a path to cit­i­zen­ship that would not advan­tage ille­gal immi­grants over those attempt­ing the process legally.

The action comes in a rapidly shift­ing polit­i­cal envi­ron­ment. Polls find more Amer­i­cans sup­port even­tual cit­i­zen­ship for ille­gal immi­grants and many Repub­li­can lead­ers are com­ing around to the same view after their party’s dis­mal show­ing among Latino vot­ers in the Novem­ber elections.

But, as the hear­ing made clear, deep divi­sions exist within the GOP that could threaten any leg­is­la­tion in the Sen­ate, where Repub­li­cans hold enough votes to stall leg­is­la­tion, or in the House, where major­ity Repub­li­cans are wait­ing to see what the Sen­ate does before tak­ing any action.

Sen. Lind­sey Gra­ham, R-S.C., a Judi­ciary Com­mit­tee mem­ber who is part of the bipar­ti­san “Gang of Eight” work­ing on an immi­gra­tion bill, drew out Napoli­tano about the urgency of quick action on immi­gra­tion legislation.

“Have you ever seen a bet­ter oppor­tu­nity than the moment that exists today to pass com­pre­hen­sive immi­gra­tion reform?” Gra­ham asked.

“No, this is the moment,” Napoli­tano replied.

“Do you agree with me that the pay-offs for the nation are enor­mous?” Gra­ham asked, cit­ing improv­ing the econ­omy and national security.

“I couldn’t say it bet­ter than you just did,” Napoli­tano said.

But not long after, Ses­sions made clear that those who think the time is ripe for will face deter­mined opposition.

“There’s a lot of over­con­fi­dence about this bill,” Ses­sions said. “If it doesn’t really work it’s not going to pass, we’re going to expose it.”

Posted by AP News on Feb 13 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.