Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 21:14:03 GMT Server: WebSitePro/1.1h Accept-ranges: bytes Content-type: text/html Last-modified: Fri, 14 Nov 1997 17:57:18 GMT Content-length: 20964
Immigrant advocacy groups welcomed the moves, which they attribute largely to a desire on the part of Republican leaders to quell perceptions that the GOP is anti-immigrant.
But others accused lawmakers of abandoning their earlier resolve to crack down on illegal immigration, bowing instead to a drumbeat of individual hard-luck stories and heavy lobbying from business, religious and immigrant organizations.
``The rollbacks that we've seen this year are directed at some of the most significant of those reforms'' in the 1996 law, said Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, which contends current immigration levels are too high.
The easing of immigration provisions occurred on two fronts:
A deal worked out by House and Senate negotiators would allow illegal immigrants with green-card applications filed as of Jan. 14, 1998, to remain in the United States while the government processes their paperwork in exchange for a $1,000 fine. More than 1 million people could be helped under this provision, which would replace a 1994 law that expires at midnight Friday. Final passage is expected Thursday night or Friday.
Allowing applicants to remain here pending completion of their paperwork spares them from a key sanction in the 1996 immigration law. Under that law, people found to have lived here illegally can be barred from re-entering for up to 10 years. Illegal immigrants wanting to apply for legal permanent residence after Jan. 14 will have to return to their homelands to do so.
The Senate on Thursday gave final approval to a relief measure for hundreds of thousands of Central Americans who sought safe harbor here in the 1980s from civil wars in their countries. The House passed the same legislation Wednesday, and it now goes to President Clinton for signing.
Nicaraguan and Cuban refugees become automatically eligible for legal permanent residence. Those from El Salvador, Guatemala and Eastern Europe can apply for suspension of deportation under pre-1996 rules, which are less severe. But they still must prove to the government that it would be a hardship to leave.
Some advocates for immigrants accused Republicans of playing favorites with certain Latino groups. Others fumed that Haitian refugees were granted no protection despite a strong push by the Congressional Black Caucus.
Disparate treatment aside, immigrant-rights groups welcomed what they view as a major retreat by Congress from the tough positions staked out a year ago.
``I think there is a recognition that they overreached'' in the 1996 overhaul, said Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum.
Said Abby Price of the U.S. Catholic Conference's Migration and Refugee Services: ``We've made improvements. We've still got a long way to go.''
Others deplored Congress' bending from the strict posture it adopted a year ago.
``Last year, Congress made a show of being tough on illegal immigration because there was an election coming up,'' said Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies. ``This year, the election having passed and the special-interest groups concerned having mounted a very large and very effective lobbying campaign, Congress pulled back.''
From The Los Angeles Times
October 23, 1997
WASHINGTON - Thousands of illegal immigrants with pending "green card" applications received another temporary reprieve Wednesday, as the House extended by two weeks a provision that allows people to pay a $1,000 fine and obtain legal residency while remaining in the United States rather than requiring them to return to their home countries.
The second extension of Section 245(i) of the immigration code came as part of a stopgap spending bill. That measure funds federal agencies through Nov. 7 to avoid a government shutdown, while final details on a series of appropriations bills for the current fiscal year are being worked out.
Sharon Rummery, an official for the Immigration and Naturalization Service in San Francisco, said that unless the agency is advised that President Clinton's signature is on the extension, all local INS offices will be open until midnight tonight.
"We are not going to give out forms or information," she said. "All we are going to do is accept the forms for adjustment of status, and the $1,000 payments. We want to make it possible for the people to get in and file for an adjustment."
Rummery said the number of applicants for the extension had increased dramatically in the past few weeks. "Normally, we get around 45 receipts a day. On Monday, we received 75 applications. On Tuesday, we got 151."
While the extension gives illegal immigrants who have already been approved for a green card another opportunity to pick it up without leaving the country, a showdown on the immigration issue is expected to come next week.
The provision allowing illegal immigrants with pending green card applications to remain here - originally scheduled to expire in September - is particularly controversial because of strict new rules that bar people from re-entering the United States for ten years if they lived here illegally for a year or more, and shuts them out for three years if they were here illegally for six months.
Critics, led by California Republican Reps. Dana Rohrabacher and Brian Bilbray, call Section 245(i) "mordida (bribe) amnesty" - akin to encouraging immigrants to bring government officials to ignore the law. They also say it favors lawbreakers over people who play by the rules.
But backers point to the $100 million to $200 million in annual revenue the Immigration and Naturalization Service collects through 245(i), and argue that forcing people to return to their native lands - and remain there for three or ten years - unfairly splits up families and robs businesses of key employees.
The Associated Press
October 18, 1997
By MICHELLE MITTELSTADT
WASHINGTON (AP) - As of mid-December, U.S. residents who want to
bring foreign relatives to live in the United States will have to
lay their finances bare for Uncle Sam.
Last year's immigration law mandates that citizen or legal alien sponsors of prospective immigrants have earnings exceeding 125 percent of federal poverty levels.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service is publishing interim regulations Monday, effective in 60 days, that require would-be sponsors to show up with their three most recent income tax returns and paycheck stubs or other proof of employment. Those not drawing a salary must prove they have enough assets to support the new arrival for at least five years.
``This income requirement is surmountable but very complicated,'' an INS official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. ``It's going to entail people having to come to the government with a lot more information about who they are and what they're doing here.''
The new rules affect people seeking to sponsor spouses, parents, children or siblings. The family-based visa category normally encompasses about 565,000 applicants annually.
Early estimates suggest the 125-percent poverty threshold could reduce family-based applications by as much as 40 percent. Current poverty levels mean a would-be sponsor in a four-person household would have to make at least $20,062 to be eligible to bring in a relative.
People seeking to sponsor immigrants always have had to fill out a sponsorship affidavit in which they agree the newcomer will not have to be supported by public money.
But lawmakers, irritated that the sponsorship agreement was not enforced, toughened the rules last year and also banned newcomers from tapping into most public benefits for five years after their arrival.
Under the interim INS rules, sponsors must agree to reimburse federal or state government for any welfare or similar need-based public benefits the sponsored alien received.
While supporters of the law say it's only fair that immigrants not become public burdens on arrival, critics contend the new rules mean that only well-heeled Americans will be able to bring in relatives.
``You're going to see an increasing number of hard-working, tax-paying, law-abiding Americans finding that they are unable to sponsor their spouses and their children and their parents merely because they are not wealthy enough,'' said Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, which opposed last year's immigration law as unduly harsh.
In what some are calling a generous interpretation by the immigration service, sponsors will be allowed to count income produced by all wage earners in the household toward fulfilling the 125-percent-of-poverty requirement.
In addition, INS is allowing sponsors to recruit others to jointly share the obligation.
Last month, Congress extended for three weeks a provision allowing the immigrants to remain in the country. That reprieve expires Thursday.
Thousands of immigrants have faced a difficult decision: remain here illegally or leave to secure their green cards abroad. With the application process sometimes taking years, the immigrants would face a lengthy period away from family and jobs if they left the United States.
Critics contend the measure fosters illegal immigration and wrongfully rewards those who broke U.S. laws by entering the country without authorization or overstaying their visas. They also argue it is unfair to those who apply for visas overseas, waiting sometimes years for permission to enter the country.
``Let's end this inside-the-Beltway flimflam that offends all those who respect our laws and play by the rules,'' a leading critic, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., wrote colleagues this week.
But supporters say the provision, first enacted in 1994 and supported by the Clinton administration, benefits only those already eligible for legal residence. And they say it doesn't grant filers preferential status over those who apply abroad.
The Senate has approved a permanent extension. But that approval, which wasn't matched on the House side, is included in an appropriations bill that has yet to be finalized. The House and Senate negotiators who will work out differences in their respective bills have yet to meet.
Congressional leaders will have to decide next week whether to allow another temporary extension of the provision. The earlier extension was included in a stopgap spending bill funding government operations through Thursday. Since Congress remains far from completing its appropriations process, another short-term stopgap bill is expected next week.
Rohrabacher, who threatened to disrupt House consideration of the last stopgap spending bill, has been promised a separate vote on the immigration provision.
The statute doesn't apply to the entire undocumented population in the United States, which now exceeds 5 million. It is targeted at those eligible for legal residence, either because they're already in line for visas or are the spouse or minor child of a U.S. citizen. Parents of adult children who are U.S. citizens also can apply.
Some 345,000 people took advantage of the rule in 1995 and 1996. This year, an estimated 214,000 are applying.
The 420-0 vote, aimed at speeding up the process for people trying to adopt foreign orphans, allows new parents to get vaccinations for the children after they arrive in the United States.
``We have every confidence that these parents will see to the immunization needs of their new children,'' said Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the Judiciary Committee immigration panel.
The immigration reform bill passed by Congress last year requires new immigrants to be vaccinated against communicable diseases such as mumps, measles, hepatitis B and polio before entering the country.
Tuesday's measure would exempt adopted children under 10 years old from that requirement. It still must be considered by the Senate.
The bill is HR 2464.
The Associated Press
October 22, 1997
By MICHELLE MITTELSTADT
WASHINGTON (AP) - Illegal immigrants would receive a two-week
reprieve allowing them to pay a $1,000 fine and remain in the
United States while applying for legal residence under a measure
the House will consider Wednesday.
House Republican leaders agreed Tuesday to seek extension of an immigration statute that expires Thursday. In the face of persistent opposition from some GOP lawmakers, the leaders had to decide whether to include the provision in a stopgap spending bill Congress must pass this week to keep government operations running.
Lawmakers, who have yet to complete the appropriations process for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, were to consider on Wednesday a measure that would fund the government through Nov. 7.
An earlier stopgap spending bill, expiring Thursday, included an extension of the immigration provision, which raised $214 million for the nation's immigration service last year.
Opponents, led by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., contend the statute fosters illegal immigration and improperly rewards people who broke the law by overstaying their visas or entering the country illegally. They also say the measure penalizes people who apply for visas overseas and often must wait years for permission to come here.
But supporters say the provision benefits only those already in position to secure their green card. It also pumps much-needed revenue into the coffers of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, they say.
The statute doesn't apply to the nation's undocumented population, which now exceeds 5 million. It is targeted at those eligible for legal residence, either because they're already in line for visas or are the spouse or minor child of a U.S. citizen. Parents of adult children who are U.S. citizens also can apply.
Some 345,000 people took advantage of the rule in 1995 and 1996. This year, an estimated 214,000 have applied.
Facing possible loss of the provision, thousands have grappled with a difficult decision in recent weeks: Leave the United States to secure a U.S. green card or remain here illegally. With the application process sometimes taking years, they would face a lengthy period away from family and jobs if they left the United States.
The Senate has approved a permanent extension. But that approval, which wasn't matched on the House side, is included in an appropriations bill that has yet to be finalized.
Even as some conservative House Republicans are maneuvering to ensure the provision isn't permanently extended, a prominent conservative activist warned Tuesday that the GOP runs the risk of being branded anti-immigrant for years to come.
``I think it's critically important that Republicans make it clear to the country that they are pro-immigrant,'' Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, said at a Capitol Hill news conference where he and others urged extension of the measure.
The Clinton administration supports continuation of the provision, which was first enacted in 1994. The idea was twofold: Reduce the hardship on foreigners eligible to legalize their status and lessen the pressure on U.S. consulates overseas where immigrants previously applied.
With U.S. consulates facing the possibility of having to shoulder a considerable new workload, the State Department is clearly hoping for a reprieve from Capitol Hill.
``We're pinning all our hopes on the fact that it will be extended,'' said State Department official Edward Odom.
Affidavit of Support Rule Promulgated
INS issued an interim final rule on October 20, 1997 that implements the new
affidavit of support provisions of IIRAIRA. The new affidavits will be required
for all family-based immigrants and all employment-based immigrants who are coming
to work for relatives or for companies where a relative has a significant
ownership interest, deemed by INS to be at or over five percent.
Summary of Affidavit of Support Rule