Senators Reached Agreement on Immigration Bill

Filed in archive Latin News on May 19, 2007

From the New York Times:

Senate negotiators from both parties announced Thursday that they had reached agreement on a comprehensive immigration bill that would offer legal status to most of the nation's 12 million illegal immigrants while also toughening border security. (...)

At the heart of the bill is a significant political trade-off. Democrats got a legalization program, which they have sought for many years. Republicans got a new "merit-based system of immigration," intended to make the United States more competitive in a global economy.

This brand new "employment-based visa system" will allow 400,000 to 600,000 foreign workers to be admitted to the US each year, in a temporary-worker program.

Representative Xavier Becerra, Democrat of California and a former chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus said the proposal would create "a permanent underclass of imported workers to fill American jobs."

Hum. Underclass of imported workers + more competitive in a global economy... Does that sounds like cheap labor to you? It does for me.

Besides, I don't see how "a permanent underclass of imported workers to fill American jobs" would be that different from how things are right now. Except for the fact that there would be more legal underpaid workers, of course.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy (Massachusetts, liberal Democrat) said on Thursday: "The agreement is the best possible chance we will have in years to secure our borders and bring millions of people out of the shadows and into the sunshine of America."

That's so poetic. I just don't know how much reality there's in it. Time will tell, I guess.

Source: Senators in Bipartisan Deal on Immigration Bill