Immigration reform advocates see good, bad in Senate bill

In a 62-36 vote, the Senate adopted a bill that would give illegal immigrants a chance to legalize their status, create a guest worker program for about 1.5 million farmworkers, add 370 miles of new triple-layered fencing along the Mexican border and increase the number of visas for both skilled and unskilled workers.

The bill also would expand the Border Patrol, create additional detention facilities for illegal immigrants, increase penalties to employers who hire illegal workers and deport illegal immigrants who have been convicted of a felony or three misdemeanors.

Los Angeles Cardinal Roger M. Mahony in a May 25 statement praised the bill’s provisions to allow many of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country a path to citizenship and to provide a temporary worker program and improve family reunification policies.

"But the bill also contains provisions that are unnecessarily punitive in nature, and will not help to fix our nation’s broken immigration system," he said. "Objectionable provisions include mandatory detention along the border, and an expansion of the expedited removal of asylum seekers.

"The construction of a 370-mile-long wall and the deployment of National Guard forces along our border with Mexico incorrectly applies a military solution to a problem that is socioeconomic in nature," he said.

Bishop Gerald R. Barnes of San Bernardino, Calif., chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Migration, said in a statement that, while the U.S. bishops’ conference "does not agree with each and every provision in the Senate-passed bill, we applaud its comprehensive approach and believe it contains many of the elements necessary to help solve the problems associated with our country’s current immigration system."

In his statement Cardinal Mahony said the church would redouble its efforts to press Congress for legislation "that is just, fair and humane" and to convince all members of Congress that they should oppose "unnecessarily harsh and punitive provisions that will do little to nothing to help our nation achieve meaningful immigration reform."

He also said he would oppose "a final bill that comes out of the House-Senate conference committee if it removes or significantly weakens the legalization provisions of the Senate bill, including the path to citizenship."

Bishop Barnes encouraged the House and Senate to work together for a final bill that simplifies and streamlines the path to citizenship for people who are in the country illegally, as the Senate version does. He also listed a temporary worker program with an option for permanent residency and changes in the family based immigration system as among elements the U.S. bishops support.

The Senate bill must now be reconciled with one passed by the House in December. That bill focuses entirely on enforcement and includes no provisions for legalizing people already in the country or to put legal immigration in reach of more people. It would make being in the country illegally a felony; it currently is a violation of civil law.

The House bill also would criminalize the act of aiding someone who is in the country illegally; would require all U.S. employers to verify workers’ legal status; make drunken driving a deportable offense; build fences along 700 miles of the Mexican border; and make detention mandatory for people in various categories who are caught trying to enter the country illegally.

Father Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA, said in a May 26 statement that the Senate bill is "a positive step toward enhancing our nation’s security, while putting undocumented workers and their families on a path to lawful permanent residence and citizenship."

He said he’s deeply concerned about the bill’s "harsh and punitive enforcement provisions" that would deny due process rights to immigrants and "even harm immigrants currently in the United States illegally."

Frank Sharry, director of the National Immigration Forum, an immigration policy organization representing more than 250 member groups, called the Senate bill a "historic bipartisan breakthrough."

He praised a bipartisan Senate coalition that fought back efforts to make the bill more punitive and to "gut the legalization programs."

Among the bill’s elements Sharry lauded were those that would allow an estimated 8.5 million undocumented immigrants and their families to legalize their status over the next six to eight years; reunite close relatives whose applications have been held up because of problems with the system; create legal channels for future immigration; put undocumented farmworkers on a path to earned legal status; and allow undocumented students the same chance at a college education as their legal peers.

He said it also includes "robust enforcement measures, including a smarter employer verification system than what we have today."

But, Sharry said, some provisions "will harm legal immigrants, asylum seekers and others we should be seeking to protect."