immigration and STRIVE:
IF IT were up to the public at large, the estimated 11 to 13 million undocumented immigrants in this country would be eligible to apply for citizenship. That’s the conclusion of a new Gallup poll, which found 78 percent of people in favor of legalization.
(...) First, there’s George W. Bush’s proposal to force a small minority to pay a $10,000 fine to become eligible for citizenship--while the rest are confined to permanent second-class status as guest workers on proposed “Z” visas. Maintaining the three-year Z visa would require payment of a $3,500 fine--and another $3,500 for each renewal, thereby putting the federal government in the role of the labor brokers who extort payments from guest workers in order to get them jobs in the U.S.
(...) Moreover, the guest-worker program wouldn’t begin until after 570 miles of fence is installed on the U.S.-Mexico border.
(...) And like the Bush plan, the STRIVE Act legalization procedures would have to follow the enactment of enforcement measures. STRIVE even incorporates repressive measures from last year’s draconian HR 4437 proposal, known as the Sensenbrenner bill after its House sponsor.
(...) “Congress continues to view immigrants through a national security and disposable worker lens, proposing harsh enforcement while it moves away from permanent, family-based immigration toward temporary worker programs,” wrote Lillian Galedo on the New America Media Web site. “For the aspiring millions who spoke out for immigrant rights last year, this is not the response we wanted.”
(...) Yet many organizations historically committed to immigrant rights also support STRIVE. Grouped in the Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CCIR), the list includes not only NIF, but also UNITE HERE, the Service Employees International Union, the United Farm Workers, the National Council of La Raza, the Center for Community Change and organizations like the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. The CCIR objects to certain aspects of STRIVE, such as the requirement to “touch back” to immigrants’ home countries. But Clarissa Martínez, a spokesperson for the coalition, said the group endorsed STRIVE because “the bill presents the right architecture to deal with this issue.”
(...) “We call this ‘Sensenbrenner Lite,’” Alexis Mazon, a member of the Tucson, Ariz.-based Coalicion de Derechos Humanos (Coalition for Human Rights) and an activist in the Tucson May 1 Coalition, told a reporter. “A lot of the provisions that were in HR 4437 are in HR 1645 [the STRIVE Act]...It is a proposal intended to criminalize the entire immigrant population.