Nelson A. King
WASHINGTON D.C., United States, Monday May 13, 2013 - The United States Congress has started formal consideration of a sweeping immigration reform bill that creates a “path to citizenship” for an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants, including Caribbean nationals.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to finish work on the bill this week adopting Republican amendments aimed at stronger border security.
The immigration bill requires the US federal government to gain almost total control of the border, authorizing money for drones, Customs and Border Protection officers and prosecution of illegal entries.
Under the bill, new guest worker programmes would be established, particularly for low-skilled workers, and employers would be required to verify the legal status of all employees.
In exchange, Caribbean and other immigrants now in the US without legal status would be eligible for provisional status if they paid fees, fines and taxes.
They could gain legal residency 10 years after the border was declared secure. After 13 years, they would be eligible for citizenship.
The eight senators in the bipartisan group that drafted the bill - four of whom are on the 18-member Judiciary Committee - were successful in fending off changes that would derail the bill.
Immigration advocates and legal experts say no previous Congressional effort to change immigration law has offered such a broad, swift reprieve to immigrants deported by the US.
The bill would give a legal second chance to thousands of Caribbean and other deportees without serious criminal records who have a child, parent or spouse with a green card or American citizenship.
Many deportees brought to the United States before their 16th birthday would be eligible to return as well.
An amendment from Alabama Republican Senator Jeff Sessions, who is among the bill’s most vocal critics, has sought to strip out the deportee reprieve.
But other opponents have welcomed it as a political godsend, describing it as such an overreach that it would make the entire immigration bill easier to defeat.
Some Democrats and immigrant rights groups have pledged to defend the deportee return, characterizing it as an important step in righting a wrong.
“We have had four million people deported since 2002 and close to two million since 2008,” said Angelica Salas, director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.
“This is the only way to reunite families that have been destroyed by our outdated, broken and cruel immigration policies,” she added.
The Senate bill would reduce future deportations by giving millions of immigrants in the United States provisional legal status.
But a Senate aide involved in legislative negotiations says deportees would not be granted an automatic right of return; they would have to apply.
He said Caribbean and other deportees would be ineligible if they had been expelled for criminal reasons, or if they were convicted of a felony or at least three misdemeanors. The waivers would be granted at the discretion of the secretary of homeland security.
Immigration lawyers, however, say that could mean approvals end up being inconsistent, adding that some immigrants would likely not trust the system that had deported them.
“It’s arbitrary. It depends on who picks you up, when, and where they pick you up,” said David Leopold, general counsel for the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
“So who will become eligible or ineligible in terms of illegal re-entry is really luck of the draw,” he added.
