New Senate Immigration Subcommittee holds first
hearing
4/10/01
Washington Office Civil Rights/ Religious Liberties Mailing List
This information is provided by the National
Immigration Forum an immigration policy group in Washington DC.
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On April 4th the Senate Immigration Subcommittee held
its first hearing under the Chairmanship of Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS).
The title of the hearing was "Immigration Policy: An
Overview," and was meant to set the tone for the Committee's work
for this year.
Sen. Brownback's opening statement could hardly have
been more positive. "...legal immigrants bring energy, vitality,
and innovation," the Senator said. "To harness the energy and
vitality of immigrants, we need to improve our current immigration
system." To that end, the Senator touched on issues he intends to
focus on. These include:
Senator Durbin (D-IL), in his opening statement, also
noted a number of problems with our immigration system, and the need for
change. Among other things, he mentioned the harshness of the 1996 law
and the need to restore due process. He noted that fully 75% of the
calls for assistance from his constituents in Chicago are related to
immigration.
Testifying in this hearing were:
Warren Leiden, Berry Appleman & Leiden (and former
Executive Director of AILA)
Stephen Moore, Cato Institute
Jennifer Kenney, PricewaterhouseCoopers
Cecilia Munoz, National Council of La Raza
Karen Narasaki, National Asian Pacific American Legal
Consortium
Elizabeth Dickson, Ingersoll Rand and U.S. Chamber of
Commerce
Some of the highlights from the testimony:
Warren Leiden spoke of the need for updating our quota system, due to
the extensive quota backlogs that have built up in family- and
employment-based immigration. These backlogs are only compounded by
processing backlogs. Together, these backlogs are resulting in the
prospect of lengthy family separation on the one hand, and an incentive
to enter or stay in the US illegally on the other. Other problems that
Mr. Leiden urged the Committee to examine include expedited removal and
the one year deadline on asylum seekers.
Steven Moore spoke of the economic consequences of
immigration. He noted that the current period of high levels of
immigration have coincided with a period of unprecedented prosperity in
the U.S. On balance, immigration has been and continues to be good for
America. He noted that many industrialized countries will be
experiencing difficulties due to their falling birthrates, but that the
U.S. has the "demographic safety valve" of immigration.
Jennifer Kenney, of PricewaterhouseCoopers, spoke of
the problems with implementation of the H-1B program, including long
processing backlogs.
Cecilia Munoz, of the National Council of La Raza,
mentioned four policy topics to be debated this year that are important
from the perspective of Latinos, including reform of the INS to make the
INS more accountable in its services and enforcement; the bilateral
US/Mexico discussions and what form a guest worker program, if any,
might take and legalization of thosealready working in the U.S.;
unnecessary barriers to family unification, including income barriers
and barriers imposed by the more extreme provisions of the 1996
immigration law; and racial profiling.
Karen Narasaki, of the National Asian Pacific American
Legal Consortium, noted that close to 1/2 of the immigrants in the
family-based immigration backlog are Asian. The long family separation
imposed by the backlogs in family-based immigration, she noted, have an
impact in the employment-based arena, as immigrants with job prospects
here may be reluctant to be separated from their families for a long
time, and those who do come may be less productive because they must
deal with separation from their families.
Elizabeth Dicksen, of the manufacturing firm Ingersoll
Rand, spoke of worker shortages in sectors that have not received a lot
of attention by policy makers. Her company has had trouble recruiting,
for example, welders and electricians--skilled occupations for which
there is no category in our employment-based immigration system.
By the end of the hearing, the panelists had laid out
an ambitious list of issues for the Committee to consider. For his part,
Senator Brownback said he looked forward to working with the panelists
and others during the course of his tenure, and he stated his belief
that with some persistence and energy, the Committee will be able to
accomplish some of the changes needed.
