Immigration reform is central to the CPC’s mission and has long been a top priority for our members. Therefore, we urge you to consider the following principles and look forward to working with you to ensure that they are part of any comprehensive reform:
• Allowing immigrants currently in the United States a pathway to seek earned legal status and citizenship;
• Protecting workers;
• Improving temporary worker programs to better meet the needs of employers and workers;
• Promoting family reunification by alleviating backlogs and waiting periods;
• Eliminating discrimination against same-sex partners and their families;
• Expanding alternatives to detention and creating enforceable detention standards;
• Guaranteeing humane enforcement of immigration law that respects the needs of vulnerable populations, including children and seniors;
• Ensuring immigrant access to higher education;
• Instituting due process reforms; and
• Ending racial profiling abuses through strict statistical reporting.
These enforcement-only approaches are unworkable in reality and often have a pernicious effect on vulnerable immigrant communities.
The problems with our broken immigration system cannot simply be enforced away, nor can they be solved at the state level. Immigration is inherently a Federal issue and only Congress can pass comprehensive reform, which is the only way to truly secure our borders.
A comprehensive solution would deter illegal immigration, ensure effective and humane enforcement and promote legal immigration that will protect and fortify our nation’s economic and national security.http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?ContentID=205&ParentID=0&SectionID=93&SectionTree=93&lnk=b&ItemID=203"Senator Orrin Hatch Releases An Enforcement Only Immigration Bill"http://ndn.org/blog/2010/09/senator-orin-hatch-releases-enforcement-only-immigration-billGOP Senator Orin Hatch released an enforcement only immigration bill yesterday.
Hatch’s bill, Strengthening Our Commitment to Legal Immigration and America’s Security Act, would require participation in key law enforcement programs, clamp down on identify theft, streamline our visa system, track the amount of welfare benefits being diverted to illegal immigrant households, curb serious abuses of our immigration laws and help prevent Mexican cartels from using our national parks and federal lands to grow marijuana and other illegal drugs.
There is virtually nothing in the legislation other then enforcement measures, such as 287 G and Secure Communities.