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January 6, 2004 Last night the White House held a late evening press conference describing its immigration proposal that will be formally presented today by the President. As calculated and shaped by the White House, the reporting by the press has been very favorable and generous in its interpretation of the substance of the White House proposal. How the press reports on the story today and tomorrow and advocates’ reaction is critical for many reasons. The White House has an interest in portraying the proposal as being very generous. The reality may be quite different. In any event, it is important to portray the proposal for what it is; any confusion in the press will be magnified in the communities we serve. We have not seen the details of the proposal. The fact that the President is making this announcement is an acknowledgement that our immigration system is broken, and that merely enforcing broken laws, as the restrictionist elements of the President’s party would have us do, does not work. However, what we now know about the White House proposal is that it is not the right solution. In receiving several descriptions from reporters and others sources, below are a few key observations about the measure: The White House Proposal Does Not Provide a Path to Permanent Status for Undocumented Immigrants in the US - The White House proposal is a guest worker program. Workers who participate in the program may receive a three year work visa. (It is not clear if the visa is renewable.) At the end of the life of the visa, those who participate will not have the option of applying for permanent residency. In fact, it appears that the only options people will have will be to return to their home country or revert to an illegal status. What the program seems to be creating is a permanent underclass of workers, or a path to removal from the U.S. The White House Proposal Fails to Fix our Limited and Broken Immigration System - The proposal is only about temporary workers. It may permit potentially millions to register for a temporary work permit. It won’t change the limited and already oversubscribed employment immigration categories. What this means is that participants in the program will NOT have a means to apply for permanent status at the program’s end. It is disingenuous to claim that the White House is offering a solution to our broken immigration system unless it also updates our immigration laws to accommodate the millions of workers who have been working in the U.S., contributing to our economy, and desire to become fully and legally integrated into our society. The Proposal Does Not Change Existing Family Categories—The White House proposal does not address the backlogged family-based immigration categories that have cause family members to be separated for 5 to 10 years or sometimes even longer. Immigrants and their family members who are separated because of our outdated immigration system will remain separated or will be in the U.S. in illegal status.
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