AFTERMATH OF THE PRESIDENT'S ANNOUNCEMENT ON IMMIGRATION

from the National Immigration Forum
[1-26-04]

In general, advocates reacted to the President's announcement on January 7th by praising the fact that he acknowledged that our immigration system is broken, and by pointing out that the principles he outlined fall short of what is needed to fix the system. In his principles, the President seemed to all but preclude a path to permanent residency for the undocumented. For those who have built equities here, the prospect of being sent back and losing everything in three years, in exchange for gaining three years (or possibly more) of legal work, might not seem the best bargain. The President said that the undocumented would not be precluded from applying for permanent residence "in the normal way." However, there are currently only 5,000 visas available per year for so-called "other" workers--those who are not required to have special skills or degrees (the number will rise to 10,000 per year once the NACARA backlog is cleared up). To put things in perspective, if the undocumented were to try to go through that channel, it would take about 800 years--or about the same amount of time as has passed since the fall of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade.

The President did say that he would "work with Congress" to raise the annual number of green cards available, but he did not indicate by how much. The American Immigration Law Foundation calculated that to provide enough additional immigrant visas for one-third of the estimated 8 million undocumented immigrant workers in the U.S. over the next three to seven years, we would need to raise the "unskilled" worker quota from 5,000 to 500,000 for five years. "Per-country" ceilings would have to be lifted for Mexico and perhaps other countries.

While advocates for immigrants generally have been critical of the President's proposal because it does not go far enough in providing opportunities for undocumented workers, that criticism has been mild compared to the reaction from the other side. Anti-immigrant advocates have been crying amnesty, and people have been so incensed that, according to press reports, they have been flooding the office of Rep. Tom Tancredo, the loudest anti-immigration voice in Congress, to run for President against Mr. Bush.

Reaction from immigrants themselves has been mixed, according to press reports. Some are skeptical that Mr. Bush will push for a reform of immigration laws, noting that he has made promises before that they are still waiting for him to keep. On the other hand, there have been reports that immigration lawyers and others have been flooded with calls from immigrants who want to know about the program and how they can sign up. Even if legislation ultimately passes and it includes no path to permanent residence, there may be a fair number of people who will sign up. People in general are short-term thinkers, and the prospect of deportation three years down the road may be something to worry about later.

President and White House officials reiterate opposition to green cards

At this time, however, with no specific proposal from the President, it is hard to say what would be the shape of a specific legislative proposal that would satisfy the White House. A White House spokesperson at a recent event sponsored by the Cato Institute strongly emphasized the President's opposition to the temporary worker program leading to green cards. On the other hand, she repeated the President's desire to "open the queue" on the green card line. In his State of the Union address on January 20, the President reiterated his opposition to "amnesty," but said that his temporary worker program would "preserve the citizenship path for those who respect the law, while bringing millions of hardworking men and women out from the shadows of American life." He did not mention an increase in legal immigration channels.

Meanwhile, we are expecting that other bills will be introduced that will more completely fix the broken immigration system. We will report on those as they are finalized and introduced.




For more information, contact:
Elenora Giddings Ivory,
PC(U.S.A.) Washington Office,
110 Maryland Avenue, NE, #104,
Washington, DC 20002.
202-543-1126, fax 202-543-7755.
Email eivory@ctr.pcusa.org