Immigration Bill Would Add Visas for Tech Workers
By Carolyn Lochhead
The San Francisco Chronicle, March 10, 2006
Buried in the Senate's giant immigration bill -- hardly noticed amid a fierce debate over a guest-worker program for unskilled laborers -- are provisions that would open the country's doors to highly skilled immigrants for science, math, technology and engineering jobs.
The provisions were sought by Silicon Valley tech companies and enjoy significant bipartisan support amid concern that the United States might lose its lead in technology. They would broaden avenues to legal immigration for foreign tech workers and would put those with advanced degrees on an automatic path to permanent residence should they want it.
The measures include nearly doubling the number of H-1B skilled-worker temporary visas to 115,000 -- with an option of raising the cap 20 percent more each year. H-1B visas were highly controversial in the Bay Area when their numbers reached a peak of 195,000 in 2003.
Congress had increased the visas during the late 1990s dot-com boom, when Silicon Valley complained of tech-worker shortages, although native-born engineers complained that their wages were undermined by cheap labor from India and China.
With the tech crash and the revelation that some of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers had entered the country on student visas, the political climate for foreign workers darkened, and Congress quietly allowed the number of H-1B visas to plummet back to 65,000 a year.
The cap was reached in August -- in effect turning off the tap of the visas for 14 months. A special exemption of 20,000 visas for workers with advanced degrees was reached in January.
'We're in a bad crunch right now,' said Laura Reiff, head of the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, a business umbrella group backing more immigration. 'We are totally jammed on immigrant visas, the green card category, and totally jammed on H-1B visas. You can't bring in tech workers right now.'
Alarm in Washington has shifted from student hijackers to U.S. competitiveness. Indian and Chinese students face brighter prospects in their own booming economies, and the fear now is that they no longer want to come to the United States.
The new skilled immigration measures are part of a controversial 300-page bill by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., now being rewritten by the committee with the goal of reaching the Senate floor by the end of the month.
Other provisions include a new F-4 visa category for students pursuing advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or mathematics. These students would be granted permanent residence if they find a job in their field and pay a $1,000 fee toward scholarships and training of U.S. workers.
Labor certification rules also would be streamlined for foreigners holding the desired advanced degrees from a U.S. university. Immigrants with advanced degrees in the desired fields, as well as those of 'extraordinary ability' and 'outstanding professors and researchers,' would also get an exemption from the cap on employment-based green cards and slots for permanent residence.
'The U.S. is educating these people,' said Kara Calvert, director of government relations for the Information Technology Industry Council, a tech industry group. 'This allows these students to remain in the U.S. and contribute to the U.S. economy.'
The provisions for highly skilled workers enjoy support in both parties in the Senate and in the Bush administration after a raft of high-profile studies have warned that the United States is not producing enough math and science students and is in danger of losing its global edge in innovation to India and China.
Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy echoed many in the tech industry at a conference in Washington on Wednesday when he warned that if skilled immigration is not expanded, 'There will be a great sucking sound of innovation out of the U.S.''
Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr suggested at a technology summit last fall that the United States 'should staple a green card to every kid, every foreign national that graduates with a degree in engineering and science, so that they stay here. Imagine innovation in America without Andy Grove, without Jerry Yang, without Sergey Brin -- Hungarian, Chinese, Russian. These immigrants have contributed enormously to innovation and our well-being.'
But House Republicans are cool toward any increase in legal immigration, including skilled workers, and are at sharp odds with the White House. They passed a bill in December to crack down on border enforcement, calling for construction of a 700-mile fence on the border with Mexico.
House Republicans omitted skilled immigration from their 'Innovation and Competitiveness Act,' released with much pomp last week, prompting House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, to blast the proposal as doing nothing 'to ensure that the best and brightest from around the world are able to contribute to innovation in the United States.'
Nor has Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, shown much enthusiasm for more skilled workers, preferring her own plan for a guest-worker program limited to agriculture. Feinstein questioned the tech proposals in an interview last week.
Her stance has angered California's high-tech business community. Industry officials said CEOs from California and across the country have pleaded with Feinstein to no avail. They complain that she is ignoring the technology industry, which they contend is vital to the state's economy, but is willing to provide amnesty to 900,000 Mexican farmworkers, most of whom work in California.
Opponents of broadening immigration for skilled workers said doing so would defeat efforts to get more Americans interested in science, math, engineering and other technological fields.
'It sends the message to students in those fields now, why bother if you're going to have a hard time getting a job in the U.S. because we're importing workers in those fields who are working for less than it would take to hire an American worker,' said Caroline Espinosa, spokeswoman for NumbersUSA, a group opposed to expanding immigration.
NumbersUSA estimated, using Department of Education figures, that 250,000 nonresident aliens are studying math, science, engineering and related fields in the United States.
Homeland Security to Probe Fraud Reports
By Erica Werner
The Associated Press, March 7, 2006
Washington (AP) -- A government inspector general will investigate reports of fraud and sloppy procedures within the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency's new director said Tuesday.
The allegations range from employees skipping required fingerprint checks on applicants and issuing duplicate green cards, to more serious accusations of bribery and undue influence by foreign governments. Many of the complaints originated with a whistleblower who took them to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.
In a meeting with reporters, USCIS Director Emilio Gonzalez said he forwarded Grassley's complaints, raised in a letter last month, to the Department of Homeland Security inspector general, who agreed to investigate. Citizenship and Immigration Services is part of DHS.
But Gonzalez, who was confirmed by the Senate in December, downplayed some of the complaints and dismissed others.
'Coming to the U.S. is probably the greatest prize in the world and people will do whatever it takes to get here,' Gonzalez said. 'So that there's fraud out there? I assume there is. Is this something that's rampant and something we don't have a handle on? I think that's probably going a bit too far.'
Gonzalez also disputed Grassley's claims of sloppy procedures including skipped fingerprint checks, duplicate residency cards, missing files and failures to serve notices to appear on criminal aliens. 'I do not think that those allegations are correct,' he said.
Grassley's letter raised concerns that criminals or potential terrorists could take advantage of the problems. He said his office had heard of bribery of employees and of high-level employees being paid by foreign governments to grant or deny immigration benefits to nationals of that country.
The senator said he was concerned that Gonzalez's agency was focused on 'customer service' to the detriment of homeland security matters.
The agency is under pressure to get through a backlog of immigration applications, but Gonzalez insisted security concerns come first. He said he wasn't aware of employees getting rewarded for fast processing of applications with days off and other benefits, as alleged by the whistleblower, Michael Maxwell.
Maxwell resigned last month as director of the Office of Security at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and sought whistleblower protection, claiming retaliation for telling lawmakers of security problems.
'I genuinely believe you can have the backlog reduction plan and you can have security,' said Gonzalez. 'The minute you can't have them both then you err on the side of security.'
Gonzalez also said his agency would be ready to handle an influx of new applications if Congress approves a guestworker immigration program. That was a turnaround from his confirmation hearing in October, when he said the existing system wouldn't be able to handle such a program.
Immigration Debate May Drag Out
By Dena Bunis
The Orange County Register, February 27, 2006
Washington -- If immigration reform were a game of chess, the first gambit would have taken place in December when the House passed its border security bill. But the pieces will really start to move on Thursday when the Senate Judiciary Committee holds its first meeting on the subject.
And like any game between grandmasters, this one could take a while. Those who have been watching the preliminaries believe it could be years.
'I really do think that this is probably a longer debate than simply this Congress,' said Doris Meissner, who was the commissioner of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service under President Clinton. 'The critical step right now is to have a credible alternative on the table so that it can be a productive debate.'
What Meissner is talking about is an alternative to the only immigration legislation that has emerged from the 109th Congress - a House bill that cracks down on illegal immigration through a series of enforcement measures.
But according to the White House and a bipartisan group of senators, that measure won't do the job. President Bush and senators on both sides of the aisle say the nation's immigration system is broken and needs an overhaul. That opinion is also held by the powerful Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who Friday unveiled a 305-page immigration bill that combines enhanced enforcement, a new guest-worker program and a way for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants here now to work legally.
Specter's measure combines features of the House bill, a measure authored by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and another one introduced by Republican Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Jon Kyl of Arizona. If the Senate does pass something this year, it would set up a confrontation with the House.
Those who vehemently oppose any guest-worker program, like Rep. Ed Royce, see their ace in the hole as an equally powerful House Judiciary Committee Chairman, Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis. The enforcement bill that passed the House was a combination of a homeland security measure and Sensenbrenner's ideas. And Royce believes Sensenbrenner could win the day in conference, particularly with a committed House GOP leadership. 'I feel confident that the vast majority of the Republican House conference do not want to see an amnesty, they want to see enforcement first,' said Royce, R-Calif.
Royce won't rule out supporting a limited temporary guest-worker program later if he can be convinced that tougher border and interior enforcement measures are starting to work.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., said he wants to see the issues handled separately so he can vote for enforcement and against a guest-worker measure. And while he acknowledges that there may be significant support among the GOP for a temporary worker program, he believes that would hurt the party in the long run.
'They may win a legislative victory today and then lose the war by turning off so many American voters that Republicans lose the next election because 10 percent of the Republican voters will just sit home and not go out and vote,' said Rohrabacher.
McCain, in a conference call with reporters last week on the eve of his nationwide tour to sell his immigration bill, believes if given the information, voters will agree with him, especially about the issue of illegal workers already here.
'We believe that sending them back is something that is not only not humane, but not possible,' he said.
Public opinion polls on this issue are paradoxical.
A Time magazine poll in late January indicated that 63 percent of respondents believe illegal immigration is a serious or extremely serious problem. And 83 percent said providing social services for illegal immigrants cost taxpayers too much.
At the same time, 76 percent of those polled said illegal immigrants should be able to earn citizenship and 73 percent favored guest-worker registration for illegal immigrants already here.
Those seeking more restrictive immigration policies have gotten increasingly politically involved. So far no congressional or gubernatorial race has turned on immigration. But Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist's 25 percent showing against John Campbell in the 48th Congressional District special election and GOP primary campaigns in several other border states in 2004 were contentious enough and drew enough media attention to have made political analysts take note. The Minuteman Project has organized patrols at the border to highlight illegal immigration.
Experts who have followed this issue for decades say they have never seen such emotionalism and rancor.
'It's going to be an extraordinary debate filled with fear and guilt and racism and xenophobia,' said Alan Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming. As chairman of the immigration subcommittee, Simpson was one of the authors of the 1996 immigration bill designed to tighten the immigration system.
'Everybody is talking about it,' Simpson said. 'That's the difference. Now you've got meatpacking plants, chicken plants. All of them using the undocumented.'
Meissner said when she was commissioner, a handful of states were the major stakeholders in the issue: California, New York, Florida, Illinois, Texas and Arizona.
'Now it's Nebraska, it's North Carolina, it's Iowa, it's Nevada,' she said. 'It is many parts of the country that have just not been accustomed to immigration. And what they are encountering most is illegal immigration because that's where the jobs are.'
On the face of it, those lobbying for a comprehensive answer seem to hold most of the power: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has made this their No.1 issue. They are including how House members voted on the immigration bill in their rating system, with those who voted for it getting an unfavorable score on that bill.
And while Bush has been silent so far on exactly which bill he'd support, he has made it clear he wants Congress to go beyond the House measure.
'Do I want him to do more from my viewpoint?' McCain said of Bush. 'Probably. What I think he is going to do is weigh in as this debate evolves, as we move closer to the floor of the Senate.'
Seized With Heavy Hand at Border, for Paperwork Errors
By Nina Bernstien
The New York Times, February 10, 2006
One is a second grader in Manhattan. Over the protests of his American mother, immigration officials have been trying to deport him ever since he returned from a brief visit to his native Canada without the right visa. Another is an Irish professor of literature invited to teach at the University of Pennsylvania last month. He was handcuffed at the Philadelphia airport, strip-searched, jailed overnight and sent back to Europe to correct an omission in his travel papers.
Then there are the seven Tibetan monks who were visiting Omaha two weeks ago. After their church sponsor abruptly withdrew its support, their religious visas were revoked and a dozen immigration officers in riot gear showed up to arrest them.
The details in these cases vary, as do the technical visa infractions committed by each of the foreigners. But they all testify to a larger issue looming on the front lines of immigration enforcement: how low-level gatekeepers and prosecutors in the customs and immigration system are using their growing discretionary power over travelers who pose no security risk.
Officials of the Department of Homeland Security have acknowledged that intensified efforts to keep out terrorists since the 9/11 attacks have sometimes led to the heavy-handed treatment of foreigners whose only offense was an inadvertent paperwork error or being caught in a bureaucratic tangle. In memos issued in 2004 and 2005, agency officials encouraged officers to use discretion and legal shortcuts to resolve such cases quickly, saving resources for more important tasks and showing the world a more welcoming face.
But immigration lawyers say the effort is not working. Though there are no statistics on such cases, the lawyers say they are seeing harsher treatment in situations involving paperwork errors or minor infractions. A political climate more hostile to foreigners, fears of being faulted for leniency and a lack of coordination among immigration agencies, they say, are leading officers to go overboard in cases that fit the government guidelines for prosecutorial discretion.
'I'm desperate,' Emily Arroyo, the mother of the second grader, said last week, after prosecutors refused an immigration judge's suggestion that they drop the two-year-old deportation case against her son, José Arroyo Rodas. Instead, they demanded that she buy him a one-way ticket to Canada by next week.
'I'm American — they're making me leave my country, too, because of course I'm not going to let him go alone,' said Ms. Arroyo, a hairstylist raised in Guatemala, who calculates that she has spent $10,000 in legal fees trying in vain to fix José's paperwork problem. But on Wednesday, hours after this reporter asked United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Washington for comment about the case, an agency spokesman, Marc Raimondi, said that prosecutors reviewing the matter had found that it met the guidelines for prosecutorial discretion. 'A dismissal recommendation to the immigration judge is planned,' he said.
Kelly Klundt, a spokeswoman for Customs and Border Protection, which is also part of Homeland Security, said that as its officers process 86 million air travelers a year and enforce 400 different laws, 'there are unfortunately going to be a few instances that do not demonstrate perfect discretion.'
'Achieving a balance of being a welcoming nation and keeping the borders secure is terribly difficult,' she added. 'We are seeking to improve the way we handle all of these types of situations.'
But a case like José's only confirms that without exceptional outside attention or high-level intervention, rigidity prevails, said Diane M. Butler, a Seattle lawyer who heads the American Immigration Lawyers Association committee that works with Customs and Border Protection.
Most officers, she said, 'are trying to do the right thing' but lack training in how to apply discretion. But, in some instances, she added, officers seem newly emboldened by campaigns against illegal immigration to express their resentment of foreigners by denying or delaying entry whenever possible. She said her business clients reported remarks like, ''You're just trying to take jobs away from Americans.' '
Other immigrant advocates say that low-level employees often act out of fear. 'The people on the front line are told that if they make a mistake, their jobs are gone,' said Amy L. Peck, an immigration lawyer in Omaha who heads the association committee that works with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 'So that translates into this rigid — what one could also describe as extreme — policy of turning away and not using discretion in cases that scream for it.'
The Irish professor, John McCourt, 40, said that on Jan. 7, an immigration officer at Philadelphia International Airport initially offered to correct a paperwork omission on the spot if he paid a $265 fine. Professor McCourt said he readily agreed, but five minutes later, the officer returned and said she had changed her mind — 'that I was a university professor and should have known better' and would be sent back the same night.
In an e-mail message, Professor McCourt, a James Joyce specialist at the University of Trieste in Italy, wrote: 'I was told that if I protested I would simply be deported and never be let back.'
At 11 p.m., six hours after his arrival, he was transported in handcuffs to the Montgomery County jail, along with another traveler denied entry, Kerstin Spitzl, a pregnant German woman who says that immigration officers abruptly canceled her visa, insisting that she was planning to violate its terms by working.
Worse than the cold, windowless cells at the jail, they said in separate interviews, was a sense of powerlessness. 'You're scared,' said Ms. Spitzl from her home in Wuppertal. 'You have no rights. You cannot contact nobody, nobody can contact you.'
In Italy, Professor McCourt quickly fixed his paperwork at the American consulate in Florence, and returned to start his classes at Penn a week late. But in New York last week, where he spoke at Fordham University on 'Joyce and Judaism,' he said his experience had confirmed his European friends' worst fears about America.
'At the moment, America is easy to hate,' he said, 'So people say, 'That does it for me. I'm not going to risk that happening.' '
Ms. Klundt, of Customs and Border Protection, said she could not comment on individual cases. But she quoted Robert C. Bonner, who retired as the agency's commissioner in November: 'Isolated incidents of rude and hostile conduct reflect poorly on our agency and our country and they are inconsistent with C.B.P. law enforcement professionalism.'
In an August 2004 memo, announcing an agency 'professionalism initiative,' Mr. Bonner also said: 'Since the overwhelming majority of travelers pose absolutely no threat to our national security, C.B.P. will use discretion to permit entry, whenever the law allows, for individuals that have committed a technical or inadvertent immigration violation, but who otherwise pose no threat whatsoever.'
Guidelines on prosecutorial discretion were also issued last October by the chief counsel to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, William J. Howard, 'to reallocate limited ICE resources to priority cases by dismissing appropriate cases,' like deportation proceedings against people whose applications to stay in the United States, though backlogged, were likely to be approved.
Sometimes the case for leniency is in the eye of the beholder. In the case of the Tibetan monks, Ms. Peck said they had been abandoned without money in Arizona by their sponsor, the Church of Shambhala, because they refused to recognize its leader as the reincarnation of Buddha and Jesus. They traveled to Omaha for Buddhist workshops, unaware that their visas had been revoked, she said. But Mr. Raimondi defended the arrests, saying that the monks had been notified that their visas were revoked, and became 'fugitive aliens' when they left Arizona.
In José Rodas's case, prosecutorial discretion may be the only way to cut through a tangle of law and circumstance — and as of last night, the boy's lawyer, Irwin Berowitz, said he had received no word of the government's change of heart. José cannot automatically derive American citizenship from his mother because she was reared in Guatemala, and his absent father is not American.
A petition to set the boy on the road to United States citizenship has been approved, but obstacles include a two-year processing backlog, his lawyer said. And as long as prosecutors remain opposed, an immigration judge has no authority to dismiss his deportation case.
At one hearing, Ms. Arroyo said, the judge had to take a break to regain her composure after she and José both started crying. 'He kept saying,' Ms. Arroyo recalled, ' 'Mommy, I don't want to leave.' '
Bush asks for more visas for high-tech workers
By Rebecca Knight
The Financial Times (U.K.), February 3, 2006
President George W. Bush, who is touring the country as part of a weeks-long campaign to promote his 2006 agenda, called on Congress yesterday to raise the number of visas that allow companies to fill high-tech jobs with foreign workers.
'The problem is. . . that Congress has limited the number of H-1B visas,' Mr Bush said, referring to the name of the official passport endorsement. 'I think it's a mistake not to encourage more really bright folks who can fill the jobs that are having trouble being filled in America, to limit their number. So I call upon Congress to be realistic and reasonable to raise that cap.'
The H-1B visa, which allows US employers to have access to highly educated foreign professionals, many of whom work in scientific research, medicine and technology, has been a point of contention between business and government over the past two years. High-tech industries battling talent shortages blame the visa programme's low cap on approved new workers.
In 1990 - the year it took effect - the cap was set at 65,000. That number was progressively raised by Congress during the technology boom and hit an all-time high for fiscal years 2001 through to 2003, at 195,000. In 2004, however, the cap dropped back to 65,000 and has stayed there since.
'It's clear we don't have enough workers with math and science degrees and in a workforce of 140m a cap of 65,000 is way too low,' said Randy Johnson, the vice-president for labour, immigration and employee benefits at the US Chamber of Commerce. 'The cap has filled almost immediately over the past two years.'
Sandra Boyd, at the National Association of Manufacturers, the industry body, said that reforms to both the H-1B visa and green card programmes were key to helping US employers maintain their ability to create jobs in the US.
But Richard Elmore, a senior research fellow at the consortium for policy research in education at Harvard University, said the proposed change was little more than a 'stop-gap  measure'.
'I don't have anything against inviting people in but it doesn't address the main problem and that is the fairly major underinvestment in education in this country,' he said. 'We haven't built the talent pool.'
GOP backs Bush on guest-worker plan
By Stephen Dinan
The Washington Times, January 21, 2006
The Republican National Committee voted yesterday to back President Bush's call for a guest-worker program.
Meeting a few blocks from the White House at the Capital Hilton, the umbrella organization of the Republican Party adopted a resolution that calls for continued legal immigration, criticizes illegal immigration and endorses a new work program for foreign workers. However, the resolution states there should be 'no amnesty for those persons presently in the United States illegally.'
'The question is not 'Is there an issue?' -- the question is 'How you deal with it?' and I think we have to deal with it in a comprehensive way -- we don't have to deal with it in a way that's anti-immigrant,' said party Chairman Ken Mehlman, who said the resolution 'reflected where the president was.'
The resolution, adopted by voice vote, was a major victory for Mr. Mehlman and headed off a divisive vote on an alternate resolution that would have put the party on record as opposing a guest-worker program, thus at odds with Mr. Bush.
Randy Pullen, Arizona's committeeman, had gained enough signatures from fellow RNC members to force a vote on a version that specifically opposed a guest-worker program.
But after the pro-guest worker resolution passed Mr. Pullen withdrew his plan from the floor.
'Sometimes you've got to know when you've lost and move on,' Mr. Pullen said afterward. He said he was not pressured to withdraw his resolution. He was the only RNC member to say 'no' during the vote on the pro-guest worker resolution.
He said he has yet to see a guest-worker plan that doesn't amount to amnesty, and said Mr. Bush has his work cut out for him trying to explain how he can craft such a plan.
'The president wants a guest-worker program -- if that's what he thinks needs to be done, he's going to have to articulate to the Republican Party exactly what that plan means. I haven't heard it yet,' he said.
Mr. Mehlman said amnesty 'would mean that people who have broken the law are not punished for breaking the law.'
He said that bills in Congress 'have different definitions,' but said Mr. Bush and the Republican Party oppose amnesty because 'the effect of that would be to say people who have waited in line [that they] have to wait behind people who haven't waited in line.'
Some Republicans have said the president has sent mixed messages on the issue, because in 2004 he said his plan would 'preserve the citizenship path' for illegal aliens.
The House last month passed an immigration-enforcement bill that did not include a guest-worker program. The Senate is expected to take up immigration legislation early this year, and leaders expect it will contain some sort of guest-worker program and possibly a path to citizenship for illegal aliens.
Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado Republican and a major opponent of a guest-worker program, said yesterday's RNC vote signals a tough fight ahead.
'The RNC's failure to pass a get-tough border security resolution shows the extent to which the White House will use strong-arm tactics to secure an amnesty,' he said. 'If this is any preview of what the president will do with the House bill, he should prepare himself for one heck of a fight.'
Mr. Pullen circulated his resolution last year and obtained nine co-sponsors from different states -- enough to bypass the party's Resolutions Committee and force the resolution directly to a full floor vote. Fearing that, other Republicans crafted the pro guest-worker resolution as an alternative.
Saulius 'Saul' Anuzis, committeeman from Michigan, said the specifics of an immigration solution should be left to the lawmakers.
'The president has made it very clear where he wants to go, and I think we as the Republican National Committee owe it to the president and Congress to come up with a resolution that is broad enough and states the principle we stand for, to allow the legislative process to work it out,' he said.
Chamber and 2 Unions Forge Alliance on Immigration Bill
By Rachel L. Swarns
The New York Times, January 19, 2006
Washington -- The United States Chamber of Commerce and two of the country's most powerful labor unions are joining forces to press Congress to pass an immigration bill that would legalize millions of illegal workers, labor and business leaders said this week.
The coalition will include the Service Employees International Union, which has 1.8 million members; the Laborers' International Union of North America, which has 400,000 members; and the chamber, which represents three million businesses.
The groups, which are expected to announce their alliance on Thursday, plan to lobby in Washington and across the country in hopes of influencing members of the Senate, who are expected to take up immigration legislation in coming weeks.
Business and labor officials, who are often at odds over employee legislation, have found common ground on this issue as immigrants have become a rapidly growing share of the workforce. About 11 million illegal immigrants are believed to be living in the country, and the groups are pushing for legislation that would allow them to live and work here legally.
But leaders of the alliance acknowledge that they face a tough fight.
The coalition remains divided over whether to support a broad guest worker plan that would allow hundreds of thousands of new arrivals to work in the United States as temporary employees. The chamber and the service employees' union support the plan, as outlined in a bill by Senators Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, and John McCain, Republican of Arizona. The laborers' union opposes it.
The A.F.L.-C.I.O. also opposes a broad guest worker plan, saying it would result in the disappearance of thousands of permanent jobs with benefits and would lead to the workers being exploited. Many conservatives, who oppose granting legal status to illegal immigrants, say they hope to scuttle the legislation as well.
Still, the coalition partners said they hoped to exert influence on the legislation under consideration by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In December, the House passed a border security bill that would turn the millions of illegal immigrants living in this country into felons, ineligible for any legal status. Randel K. Johnson, the chamber's vice president for labor, immigration and employee benefits, said the coalition hoped to pressure the Senate to take a different path.
'We think it's important to show that we have a united political front here,' Mr. Johnson said. 'The unions tend to bring the Democrats to the table, and we'll bring a good portion of the Republicans. We're standing here, joining forces to tell the Congress that they need to step up to the plate.'
Eliseo Medina, executive vice president of the service employees' union, said the groups also hoped to prod President Bush, who supports a guest worker plan, to push the legislation through Congress. 'We're hoping the president takes some leadership on this issue, which he has not until now,' Mr. Medina said.
The president of the laborers' union, Terence M. O'Sullivan, said he thought the coalition could play a powerful role, even if his union opposed the guest worker plan.
'We will not agree point on point on immigration reform,' Mr. O'Sullivan said. 'But the majority of the major components we do agree upon. And there's strength in numbers.'
The two unions are members of a labor federation created last year, partly under the service employees' union's leadership, as a rival to the A.F.L.-C.I.O. The laborers' union is in both federations.
Officials at the A.F.L.-C.I.O. have already begun urging senators to oppose a guest worker plan. Ana Avendano, associate general counsel of the A.F.L.-C.I.O, criticized the service employees' union for supporting the plan.
'We're turning permanent jobs into jobs that are temporary, staffed by temporary workers,' Ms. Avendano said of the guest worker proposal. 'It's really troubling that any labor union is just sitting back and conceding that this is something that needs to happen.'
Mr. Medina dismissed the criticism. He said officials hoped to improve the guest worker proposal, but in the meantime he said the McCain-Kennedy proposal offered the best hope for providing legal status to immigrants already here and to those who hope to come and work.
'Most times we're on opposite ends of the issue on Capitol Hill, but on this one we are in agreement,' Mr. Medina said of the alliance. 'We agree that to fix this immigration system that is completely broken we need to legalize the people who are here and find a legal way for workers to come in the future.'
'Paperless' system set for visa applications
By Nicholas Kralev
The Washington Times, January 18, 2006
The Bush administration announced plans yesterday for a 'paperless' U.S. visa application system that will enable foreigners to apply for visas electronically and use digital video technology to conduct remote interviews.
The administration also will allow U.S. citizens to use new simplified 'passport cards' instead of regular passports when traveling to and from Canada and Mexico after Jan. 1, 2008.
'We seek to use new information technology to renew America's welcome, making it as easy as possible for foreign visitors to travel to the United States, and to do so securely and safely,' said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
'We seek to create travel documents for the 21st century -- documents that can protect personal identity and expedite secure travel,' she said.
Announcing the initiative at the State Department, both Miss Rice and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff gave assurances that the schemes will not compromise U.S. security by making it easier for terrorists to enter the country.
'We'll have the opportunity to transform our border management, decreasing wait times at ports of entry, and allowing us to focus our resources on that minority of people who pose a threat,' Mr. Chertoff said.
Miss Rice said, 'We must ensure that the security of the visa process remains intact.'
The administration announced last year that a driver's license would no longer be recognized as a secure travel document under Congress' Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, requiring those who enter the United States from Canada or Mexico to carry a passport. The regulation is to take effect at airports on Jan. 1, 2007, and at land crossings on Jan. 1, 2008.
But, fearing massive tie-ups among thousands of people who cross the borders for work or shopping every day, the administration is now proposing a 'travel card system' that would apply only at land crossings.
The Canadian Embassy in Washington said a similar system is not being considered in Canada at this time but did not exclude the possibility.
The paperless visa application process, when implemented, will represent 'the biggest qualitative change' in U.S. visa policy in about 150 years, a senior State Department official said.
Candidates from around the world have been complaining for years about a process that forces them to travel hundreds -- in some cases thousands -- of miles, pay more than $100 and wait in line for hours to apply for visas they may never receive.
The new proposal, to be tested later this year in Britain, will allow applicants who live far from U.S. embassies or consulates to be interviewed via video conference with consular officials.
A senior State Department official said the 'biggest technological challenge' of the remote video interviews is collecting fingerprints -- a requirement since 2003.
The official said that it would take time to implement the new ideas -- noting that some of them may not work -- but that the administration is committed to being 'creative and transparent about what we are doing.'
The State Department said it 'will pilot a fully electronic visa application by December 2006 to expand the collection and use of information.'
To help businesses bring foreign employees and other visitors to the United States, the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security 'are enrolling companies for expedited visa processing,' Miss Rice said.
She also noted that a 'pilot model airport program' will be rolled out this year at Washington Dulles and Houston's George Bush airports.
'The pilot project will include customized public video messages to help foreign travelers move efficiently through the border entry process, and it will feature friendly greeters to assist foreign travelers once they have been admitted to our country,' she said.
Former USCIS Official Sentenced
San DiegoUnion-Tribune
Jan. 14, 2006
The former head of the INS anti-corruption unit at the San Ysidro border crossing was sentenced to three years probation yesterday for lying to an FBI agent investigating a smuggling ring.
Daphiney Caganap, 43, a former South Bay resident now living in Michigan, admitted she lied to the agent when she told him she hadn't dined with a border inspector who was involved with Mexican smugglers.
In return for the guilty plea, prosecutors dropped charges for which she faced up to 36 years. The charges involved allegations she accepted a free hot tub, car repairs and between $20,000 and $30,000 in cash from the inspector, Michael Taylor, and lied about it.
Caganap also agreed to pay a $3,000 fine and resign. She was formerly head of customs and immigration inspections of the Detroit airport.
Taylor of Escondido pleaded guilty to conspiracy to import marijuana and smuggle immigrants and is now serving a 4½-year prison term.
Attorney General Chastises Immigration Judges Following Reports of Improper Conduct, Gonzalez Calls for Review
By Jason Ryan
The ABC News, January 11, 2006
http://abcnews.go.com/US/LegalCenter/story?id=1492671
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has called for a review of Immigration Court proceedings across the United States, voicing concern about 'intemperate or even abusive' conduct.
In two memos sent Monday to immigration judges and the Board of Immigration Appeals, Gonzales said he was concerned about reports that some immigration judges had failed to treat aliens with respect.
'While I remain convinced that most immigration judges ably and professionally discharge their difficult duties, I believe there are some whose conduct can aptly be described as intemperate or even abusive and whose work must improve,' Gonzales wrote to the Board of Immigration Appeals.
The attorney general is instructing Acting Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty and the associate attorney general to conduct a comprehensive review of the immigration court system.
Recently the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago derided Immigration Judge Craig Zerbe for issuing a decision that included a 'lengthy and often inaccurate depiction' of testimony that had been given on behalf of a Tibetan Buddhist seeking asylum in the United States.
The appeals court also found that Zerbe had made a serious geographical error in one of his opinions.
There was also a recent case of a man who fled China after the forced sterilization of his wife and was called a 'horrible father' who was concerned only with his wife's ability to reproduce.
As noted in a recent story in The New York Times, 'a federal judge ordered Qun Wang returned to China. 'He's a horrible father as far as the court's concerned,' Judge Annie Garcy ruled, saying Wang was obsessed with having a son and did not pay enough attention to his daughter, who is disabled.'
Gonzales wrote in his memorandum: 'For the aliens who appear before them, our immigration judges are the face of American justice. Not all will be entitled to the relief they seek. But I will insist that each be treated with courtesy and respect.'
There has been a rise in immigration hearings after 9/11. According to an October review by the National Law Journal, the 9th Circuit Court of Immigration Appeals -- which usually sees half of all immigration appeals in the nation -- saw an increase in immigration cases from roughly 900 in 2001 to 6,000 in 2004.
Critics call Myers unfit for immigration post
By Jerry Seper
The Washington Times, January 6, 2006
The recess appointment of Julie L. Myers to head U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the investigative arm of Homeland Security, has angered critics concerned about her lack of a law-enforcement background.
The 36-year-old former White House special assistant for presidential personnel, whose husband, John F. Wood, is chief of staff to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and whose uncle is Gen. Richard Myers, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was among 17 recess appointments announced late Wednesday by the White House.
'I am sure Mrs. Myers is a very intelligent woman who would make a very fine special agent and would be qualified for that position,' said U.S. Border Patrol Agent T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents all 10,000 of the agency's nonsupervisory agents.
'But, she is not qualified to head the agency,' Mr. Bonner said. 'She has no experience in immigration and immigration is the key component in gaining control of the border.'
A high-ranking ICE supervisor, who asked not to be identified, said Mrs. Myers has 'no credibility within the law-enforcement community,' adding that the agency has 'too many problems to be handed over to someone who needs on-the-job training.'
The official questioned whether Mrs. Myers met the statutory requirement of having five years' experience in both law enforcement and management. ICE supervisors and agents say morale within the agency is low because of budgetary cutbacks, a hiring freeze and lack of a specific mission strategy.
Mr. Chertoff said in a statement that Mrs. Myers had 'consistently demonstrated' she had the 'experience, judgment and determination necessary' to lead the agency.
Mrs. Myers served as chief of staff to Mr. Chertoff when he headed the Justice Department's criminal division. She also was an assistant secretary at the Commerce Department, where she oversaw U.S. export-control laws. She was deputy assistant secretary for money-laundering and financial crimes at the Treasury Department, served as a prosecutor in New York and associate independent counsel for Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth W. Starr.
Included in the recess appointments was Ellen Sauerbrey, prominent Maryland Republican and unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial candidate, to serve as assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration.
Previously Mrs. Myers was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Her nomination was challenged by Democrats, led by Sens. Barbara Boxer of California, Paul S. Sarbanes of Maryland and Barack Obama of Illinois, and women's rights groups over her pro-life and family-planning record.
A recess appointment circumvents the need for approval by the full Senate and the appointees remain on the job until Jan. 7, 2007.
Mrs. Myers' nomination was approved 9-6 in October by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, with six Democrats questioning her qualifications, but the vote was never sent to the full Senate. Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat, placed a hold on the nomination because the White House refused to release a May 2004 e-mail from FBI agents seeking guidance on the questioning of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay.
In written comments to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Mrs. Myers said she supervised 170 employees and a $25 million budget as assistant secretary for export enforcement at the Commerce Department. ICE, created March 1, 2003, has a work force of nearly 22,000 and an annual budget of $4 billion. It is the second-largest law-enforcement agency in the federal government.