Report: Bill would set an 8-year path to residency
Photo
In this Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2013 file photo, President Barack Obama speaks about immigration at Del Sol High School in Las Vegas. The White House is circulating a draft immigration bill that would create a new visa for illegal immigrants living in the United States and allow them to become legal permanent residents within eight years, according to a report published online Saturday, Feb. 16, 2013 by USA Today. President Barack Obama's bill would create a "Lawful Prospective Immigrant" visa for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States.
WASHINGTON — The White House is circulating a draft immigration bill that would create a new visa for illegal immigrants living in the United States and allow them to become legal permanent residents within eight years, according to a report published online Saturday by USA Today.
President Barack Obama's bill would create a "Lawful Prospective Immigrant" visa for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. The bill includes more security funding and requires business owners to adopt a system for verifying the immigration status of new hires within four years, the newspaper said.
USA Today reported that the bill would require that immigrants pass a criminal background check, submit biometric information and pay fees to qualify for the new visa. Immigrants who served more than a year in prison for a criminal conviction or were convicted of three or more crimes and were sentenced to a total of 90 days in jail would not be eligible. Crimes committed in other countries that would bar immigrants from legally entering the country would also be ineligible.
Those immigrants facing deportation would be eligible to apply for the visa, the newspaper reported. Immigrants would be eligible to apply for a green card within eight years, if they learn English and U.S. history and government, and they would later be eligible to become U.S. citizens.
Last month a bipartisan group of senators announced they had agreed on the general outline of an immigration plan. For his part, Obama has said he would not submit his own legislation to Congress so long as law makers acted "in a timely manner." If they failed, he said, "I will send up a bill based on my proposal and insist that they vote on it right away."
Clark Stevens, a White House spokesman, said Saturday that Obama still supports a bipartisan effort to craft a comprehensive immigration bill. "While the president has made clear he will move forward if Congress fails to act, progress continues to be made and the administration has not prepared a final bill to submit," he said in a statement.
Sen. Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican who has been crafting immigration legislation, derided the draft bill as described by the newspaper as "half-baked and seriously flawed" and said it was disappointing because it repeats what he called failures of past legislation. He also said the White House had erred in not seeking input from Republican lawmakers.
"If actually proposed, the president's bill would be dead on arrival in Congress, leaving us with unsecured borders and a broken legal immigration system for years to come," Rubio said in a statement.
Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, described the draft bill as a "very moderate" proposal. While the path to citizenship was welcomed by Noorani, he said not enough attention was being paid to future immigration.
"Commonsense immigration reform must include a functioning immigration system for the future," Noorani said in a statement. "Reform does not begin and end with citizenship and enforcement alone."
Feb 18, 2013 at 11:38 p.m.
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Why enact more immigration laws when we haven't enforced the ones on the books for the last 20 years? Another joke - this one even bigger than the gun law rhetoric, but less than the recurring Fiscal Cliff debacle.
Feb 18, 2013 at 12:05 p.m.
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janesvillean, in order for your accusation of racism to be valid, you would also have to claim that people who are opposed to illegal immigration are also opposed to legal immigration.
And isn't Mexico, for example, opposed to illegal immigration? And does that make Mexico racist?
Feb 18, 2013 at 12:48 a.m.
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Even if they don't have a legal birth certificate????? hmmmmmmmmm
Feb 17, 2013 at 8:31 p.m.
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""liberal playbook"" Repeating right wing talk radio rhetoric verbatim when talking about another set of opinions is quite funny. Directly from the "Tea party express" playbook. LOLOLOLOL. Realitybytes? Who is telling you what reality is? Youre buying in hook line and sinker.
If the Grand OLD Party subscribers keep buying into the anti-"illegal" immigration montra they will continue to lose the fastest growing part of the population by a growing margin. Keep sticking to your so-called principals (only when it goes along with the rhetoric) and see how that works in national elections. Losing Blacks 95-5 and latinos 70-30 and women 55-45 is not a winning measure, by any stretch. Do you repubs want a president or a senate majority in the next decade? Obviously you don't learn from election results. They are called statistics for a reason. Rhetoric hasnt worked for you to this point, couldn't unseat a very beatable incumbent. What do ou think will happen when an EXTREMELY popular Hillary or even Joe Biden runs next time? Marco Rubio won't be bringing you the Hispanic vote you require, unless ou think that they are stupid people. Keep on keeping on. Remember your supporters(GOP) are getting older and older and less and less.
Feb 17, 2013 at 7:18 p.m.
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janesvillean:
perhaps you forget that those people who came here "illegally" as you put it actually DID break the laws of our soverign nation when they violated our borders. Lawbreakers, by definition, broke the law. So treating people who broke the law as criminals is exactly what we should be doing.
Also, you stated "Immigrants are a source of economic growth, innovation, and labor that renews the American promise for the next generation." Nobody is saying otherwise. Our country was founded on immigration; LEGAL immigration.
You also said "There really is no sensible reason to oppose a path to citizenship for immigrants who have come here to make a better life for themselves and contribute to American society, except the obvious reason: simple racism." You obviously read the liberal playbook. You dont like somebodys policies and go right to calling them a racist.
Feb 17, 2013 at 6:53 p.m.
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Treating people who came here "illegally" as if they are criminals is a way to shoot ourselves in the foot most adroitly. We don't want a declining and aging population like Russia or Italy. Immigrants are a source of economic growth, innovation, and labor that renews the American promise for the next generation. There really is no sensible reason to oppose a path to citizenship for immigrants who have come here to make a better life for themselves and contribute to American society, except the obvious reason: simple racism.
Feb 17, 2013 at 3:57 p.m.
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usaret- I hear if you use E-verify to prove someone is a legal resident against an illegal resident you are fined in Federal Court!! Some Illegal Immigrants have more than one Social Security Number and none of them are theirs.
Feb 17, 2013 at 3:55 p.m.
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Ok so lets worry about Citizenship when we already have a path in place but we have been operating without a budget for how many years now? Dave Ramsey is right when he says we need to live within our BUDGET! Wait we are STILL WITHOUT ONE!! LET'S WORK ON THAT FIRST???
Feb 17, 2013 at 3:39 p.m.
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There already IS a path to citizenship.
Feb 17, 2013 at 1:47 p.m.
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To sum it up: Rewarding criminals & criminal activity.
Feb 17, 2013 at 11:36 a.m.
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Do not reward some one that has not obeyed the law right from the start
Feb 17, 2013 at 11:31 a.m.
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Allowing business's to verify a person's status? OMG!!!! Seems that business's that do that now are condemmed for doing that.
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