Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Immigration Roundup: The Republican “Brand” Problem

by Laura D. Francis

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In the words of Dan Restrepo of the Obama campaign, “Republicans have a huge brand problem right now among Latinos.”

But it’s not just the Democrats who think so. Speaking alongside Restrepo at a Dec. 10 event sponsored by ImmigrationWorks USA, Alfonso Aguilar of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles admitted that most mainstream Republicans “remained silent” on immigration while allowing “a small group within the GOP to hijack this issue.”

That same sentiment was expressed Dec. 4 by a coalition of largely conservative leaders who converged on Washington, D.C., to work on a strategy for passing comprehensive immigration legislation next year. They, along with a growing number of other prominent Republicans, are attempting to take back their party from those whose message has been focused on hard-line, enforcement-centered immigration policy.

The call for “comprehensive immigration reform” already has been taken up by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), among others.

Graham admitted on CBS’s Face the Nation that “self-deportation’s not going to work,” and went as far as saying that he supports a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants as long as they pay back taxes, pay a fine, learn English, and get in “the back of the line” behind immigrants who are here legally.

Republicans made an immigration legislation push the week of Nov. 26, this time getting House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith’s STEM bill (H.R. 6429) to pass the House on a 245-139 vote. An earlier attempt to pass the bill on suspension of the rules failed because it couldn’t garner the two-thirds supermajority it needed.

But once again the process fell apart Dec. 5—this time in the Senate—because of what House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) earlier called the bill’s “poison pill”: ditching the diversity visa lottery program in exchange for new visas for science, technology, engineering, and math graduates.

Both Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) complained that Republicans refused to just add STEM visas without taking them away from other categories of immigrants.  Lofgren accused the Republicans of taking that step to “satisfy anti-immigrant organizations who have long lobbied to reduced levels of legal immigration.”

Outgoing Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) and John Kyl (R-Ariz.) also introduced the proposed ACHIEVE Act (S. 3639), a DREAM Act alternative that would grant renewable work visas to young, undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children. But United We Dream, an organization led by the very immigrants the bill is targeting, said the bill isn’t enough because it doesn’t include a path to citizenship.

But the Federation for American Immigration Reform--which seeks lower levels of immigration--Dec. 10 warned that the GOP's effort to court the Latino vote could backfire and cause Republicans to lose their base. FAIR said those in the party who want more immigration and "amnesty" for undocumented immigrants in fact are capitalizing on Republicans' 2012 election losses "to push their agenda in a time of uncertainty." In fact, FAIR pointed out, polls taken of Latinos shortly before the election rate the economy as the number one issue in that community, "making passage of amnesty legislation a false solution to Republicans' problem of failing to attract Latino voters."

All eyes are on 2013 now to see which path the GOP takes.

In Other News:

• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Dec. 3 held that an immigrant who overstayed his visitor visa couldn’t adjust his status to permanent resident based on a labor certification application filed before April 30, 2001, because he wasn’t the original worker the company filed the application for. Because his name was substituted after that date, he did not meet the requirement, the court said.

• U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services launched the Entrepreneur Pathways website, the first product of the agency’s Entrepreneurs in Residence program that is directly aimed at the public. According to USCIS, the website helps foreign entrepreneurs who want to start a business in the United States figure out how to navigate the immigration process.

• American Farm Bureau Federation Director of Congressional Relations Kristi Boswell Nov. 28 revealed the federation’s proposed farmworker program that is intended an alternative to the H-2A low-skilled, agricultural guestworker program. Key features include administration by the Agriculture Department and a “portable visa” that would allow farmworkers to travel from employer to employer as long as they show a “commitment to agriculture.”

• Various groups are challenging the denial of driver’s licenses to beneficiaries of the deferred action for childhood arrivals (DACA) program in Arizona, Nebraska, and Michigan, arguing among other things that they need to be able to drive in order to work. Arizona is facing the most direct attack—a lawsuit was filed Nov. 29 in federal district court over that state’s policy.

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