The bipartisan Senate group that has been working for months to craft an agreement on immigration legislation, and had hoped to present their proposal this week, have now said that they will roll out their comprehensive immigration bill next Tuesday. The bill from the so-called “gang of eight”–four Republicans and four Democrats–is expected to serve as a template for immigration reform. The Senate proposal will be introduced in the Senate Judiciary Committee, potentially next Wednesday, and will likely begin to be amended and voted on the week of May 6. From there, the bill would move to the Senate Floor. The bill is expected to be close to 1,500 pages.
The Senators have said that there are no issues left to resolve in person, and no more negotiating sessions were planned. Remaining details were left to aides, who were at work completing drafts of the bill. “All issues that rise to the member level have been dealt with,” Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a statement. “All that is left is the drafting.”
After months of arduous closed-door negotiations, prospects for the legislation brightened in the Senate when a deal was struck behind closed doors on wages for foreign farm laborers working in the United States. Farm workers already here illegally would get a faster path to citizenship than other immigrants, and another new visa program would allow tens of thousands of new workers into the country to work on the nation’s farms. The farm worker portion of the bill was seen as the last major piece to be negotiated before the senators could introduce the legislation.
A visa program for high-tech workers now capped at 65,000 per year would nearly double, and foreigners getting advanced degress in math, technology, science, and engineering from U.S. institutions would more easily qualify for permanent residence. And, another visa program for low-skilled workers would ultimately allow up to 200,000 workers per year into the country.
Significant details of the landmark legislation are already known, but not all. The bill is expected to provide a 13-year path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million immigrants now living in the United States illegally. But this would be contingent only after a new southern border security plan is in place. To obtain provisional legal status, immigrants would have to pay fees, fines, and taxes, undergo a criminal background check, and meet some requirements for showing they have been physically present in the country so that recent arrivals would not qualify.
The bill would require all employers to verify the legal status of their workers, and a new electronic entry-exit system would be created at all airports and seaports for tracking holders of temporary visas. The legislation would also call for surveillance of 100 percent of the U.S. border with Mexico and apprehension of 90 percent of people trying to cross in certain high-risk areas.
Mindful of the pitfalls of previous immigration reform efforts when amendments by supporters and opponents in 2007 helped kill a bill in the Senate, the “group of eight” have discussed banding together to oppose any amendments to the core provisions of the legislation to avoid significant changes to the bill. The group is concerned that if one provision is amended, the entire bill will fall apart because the deal is building on a comprehensive plan with each piece carefully negotiated.
The delay this week is important because President Obama is insisting on a comprehensive immigration reform measure that could be approved by the Senate and House in time to sign it into law by the end of 2013. The president is currently supporting the efforts of the Senate group but is insisting he will stop forward with his own proposal if the senators do not deliver a plan by spring.
In the conservative-led House, a bipartisan group is also drafting an immigration bill, though timing of its release in not known. Many conservative House members remain opposed to citizenship for immigrants who have been living in the United States illegally.
