Senators reject biometric tracking in immigration reform

A traveler uses a biometric scanner at the George H.W. Bush Intercontinental Airport in 2008. (Dave Einsel/Getty …

A bipartisan group of senators voted against adding a biometric system to the sweeping immigration reform bill that would ensure people on tourist, student and other temporary visas leave the country when they are supposed to. The failed amendment was one of the most controversial additions to the bill considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee at Tuesday's hearing.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, a Republican from Alabama, backed the amendment that would have required the government to use fingerprints and other biometric data to track visitors when they leave the country at airports and other ports of exit. Democrats, including Sens. Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin, argued the system would be too expensive to implement. It was voted down 6-12, with two Republicans joining the 10 Democrats in opposing it. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina who helped draft the original bill, said he opposed the amendment because the government hasn't shown "the will or the desire" to implement the system, and he doubted including it in the bill would change that.

Despite some conservative opposition to the immigration bill, attempts to significantly alter the bill have failed in the committee mark-up process so far.

The current immigration reform bill seeks to legalize most of the 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the country and prevent future illegal immigration though an employment verification system and more border security measures. About 40 percent of the unauthorized immigrants currently in the country entered legally and then overstayed their visas, which Sessions argued raises national security concerns.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Congress passed a bill mandating that the government institute a biometric tracking system for people on temporary, nonimmigrant visas such as for tourism. Twelve years later, the system still hasn't been implemented due to cost and other complications.

The Department of Homeland Security estimated it would cost up to $6.4 billion to implement a biometric tracking system in the nation's airports, according to a report in USA Today. It's unclear how much it would cost to install similar technology in the country's land ports, where nearly 80 percent of people enter the United States.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said at the hearing that he was concerned that requiring the biometric system would delay the citizenship process for the 11 million unauthorized immigrants who will benefit from the bill. The amendment said none of those immigrants would be able to apply for citizenship before the biometric system was put in place. The current bill lays out a 10-year waiting period for citizenship for the group.

A spokesman for Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida and a member of the "Gang of Eight" that drafted the bill, told The Hill he was "disappointed" with the vote, and that he would try to reintroduce it once senators begin debating the bill on the Senate floor.

Another rejected amendment, introduced by Sessions on Tuesday, sought to significantly reduce future legal immigration. Sessions argued it would help the American economy to keep legal immigration numbers down. All of Sessions' colleagues on the committee, Republican and Democrat, voted against the measure.

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At NYC May Day rally, calls for a more liberal immigration reform bill

Protesters hold up signs criticizing the current immigration reform bill on May 1, 2013 in New York City. (Goo …

One might imagine that activists at the pro-immigrant, pro-labor May Day rally in New York City would be happy about the bipartisan immigration reform bill currently in the Senate. But signs and activists at Wednesday's rally called the current draft bill an "unjust" plan that will leave out too many immigrants in its legalization scheme and focus too much on increased enforcement at the border.

One popular sign at the rally featured the face of Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, behind barbed wire. The words: "No to Schumer and the Gang of 8," in Spanish—referring to the eight senators who hashed out the plan.

Activists said the immigration compromise—which trades stricter enforcement of current laws for a 13-year path to citizenship for most of the nation's 11 million unauthorized immigrants—is unjust and unacceptable.

The rally was part of 85 May Day demonstrations taking place in Los Angeles, Chicago, Phoenix and other cities pushing for immigration reform and labor rights. They drew thousands of protesters, according to organizers.

"I speak for most immigrants when I say the gang of 8 is doing a bill that will give us almost nothing," said Carlos Canales, a community organizer from Freehold, N.J. "It's going to end up to be an elitist immigration reform."

Canales said he's organizing a hunger strike in front of Schumer's New York office in the coming weeks to urge him to change the bill to address criticisms from the left. Canales objects to the requirement that immigrants who want to be legalized must prove they've been employed since December of 2011 to qualify. He said many unauthorized immigrants will have trouble proving employment because they work in more transitory jobs that don't keep records.

A Schumer spokesman, Max Young, said the bill has drawn "wide support among prominent Latino and pro-immigration organizations." And an organizer of the May Day rallies, Ben Monterroso, stressed that "there's so many good things in the bill," even if activists have some concerns.

"Senator Schumer is working with the length and breadth of the Hispanic community to pass an immigration bill that accelerates family reunification and that sets a path to citizenship that gets all eligible 11 million people out of the shadows and into legal status as quickly as possible," said Young.

Other activists at the rally said they object to the way the bill will shift the legal immigration system to prioritize skill- and employment-based visas. Under the current proposal, visas for adult siblings of U.S. citizens will be eliminated, and a cut-off age for applying for green cards for adult children will be instituted.

Christina Chang, an advocacy associate for the Korean American group Minkwon Center for Community Action, said she does not believe the current bill is unjust, but that she hopes it changes substantially in the coming weeks. "It's a fundamental change from a family-based immigration system to one that's merit based," Chang said.

Her group also believes that immigrants could end up waiting 20 years or longer to become citizens under the bill, if lawmakers continue to make the process contingent on the U.S.-Mexico border meeting certain security standards.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on the bill May 9. Advocates believe it will be introduced on the Senate floor by May 25.

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Can Talk Radio, Again, Derail Immigration Reform? Probably Not

It’s odd standing in the middle of a dozen talk-radio hosts, all broadcasting from the same hotel ballroom. From the outset, it's just a dozen people talking (or ranting) to themselves. But you know hundreds of thousands are listening. Walking down the row of hosts on Wednesday was like strolling through a sliding radio dial on a conservative-only frequency. Snippets of chatter fade in and out:

“Where’s the violence from the tea party?” ... “Has he visited the survivors of Benghazi yet?”...  “And Janet Napolitano’s been lying her ass off.”

The hosts were just a few feet from one another, separated by red-velvet curtains in the hotel just blocks from the Capitol. It didn’t seem impossible for one broadcaster’s voice to be in the background of another’s show.

This was the Federation for American Immigration Reform’s seventh-annual “Hold Their Feet to the Fire,” radio row. Forty-six conservative talk-show hosts, from media markets across the nation, came to this hotel to discuss (or eviscerate) the bipartisan immigration reform bill that was unveiled 2 a.m. Wednesday. The bill seeks to give a path to legal residency and eventual citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country, provided that certain border-security conditions are met. 

Roy Beck, founder of NumbersUSA, a group that seeks to bring immigration to pre-1965 levels, comes every year. This year, he was making the rounds to 10 radio stations.

“It’s a little bit like being at a day labor site,” he said, describing the event.

“Or like speed dating?” I asked.

“It is like speed dating, that’s true,” he said. “But it is like a day labor site, you’re just there. The little pickup truck drives by. Drives real slowly. And I go, 'I’m available! I’m cheeep!'"

FAIR provides a corral of guests like Beck—heads of interest groups, border-town sheriffs, ranchers, and some congressional representatives (Marco Rubio made an appearance Thursday)—available for the radio show’s disposal. While FAIR doesn’t mandate the hosts talk to anyone in particular, the forum allows for a consistent message. And their intentions are clear: “Our view is that we would like to know as much about this proposal as possible, and we would like to defeat it early on,” FAIR President Dan Stein said.

Related Story: Who Are the 11 Million Undocumented Immigrants?

Sheriff Paul Babeu of Arizona is one of more popular guests in the stable. Babeu—you may recall—provided one of the more interesting side stories of the 2012 election. He stepped down from cochairing Romney’s campaign in Arizona and eventually his congressional bid after allegations that he had threatened a former male lover with deportation. He has denied this.

In uniform, with big gold “SHERIFF” pins on his shirt collars, he said he was scheduled to talk to 30 radio hosts. As a sheriff in a county near the Mexican border, he has become a totemic critic of the Homeland Security Department. “What we want out of this is a secure border that protects our state, protects our country,” he said. “As recent as this week that we had large groups of 100-plus [border crossers] that we haven’t seen for years. That’s a clue that the reason what’s happening is because of the prospect of amnesty, the prospect of a path to citizenship."

His voice, his opinion as a border-area sheriff, would reach hundreds of thousands. “Literally I can go from one interview to the next,” he said, “Talk to somebody in Alabama, talk to somebody in Virginia, and then talk to somebody in Phoenix. You can’t do that normally. Now we have a nucleus to get this information out in a coordinated effort.”

***

There’s a bit of déjà vu here. Or a least a déjà vu FAIR would like to recreate. In the summer of 2007, such a coordinated effort among talk-radio hosts killed a George W. Bush-backed, bipartisan immigration deal that was gaining momentum in Congress.

“The conservative hosts really did make a crusade,” Mark Jurkowitz, a media researcher with Pew, said. “It’s hard to quantify how many [senators’] votes were changed in 2007, I don’t know. But I do know the talk hosts—and probably no one more so than Rush Limbaugh—are very capable of motivating their listeners to make calls about a certain issue.” (Limbaugh was not present at the FAIR event. It was mostly regional outlets.)

During the lead up to the vote in the Senate, immigration was the No. 1 story across mediums. It amounted to 9 percent of the news hole, a slightly higher share than the burgeoning presidential race. But conservative talk radio took it to the next level—immigration made up 31 percent of their coverage.

Trent Lott, the Republican Senate whip in 2007, received a lot of those calls from talk-radio listeners. "I've had my phones jammed for three weeks,” he told The Washington Post at the time. “Talk radio is running America,” he lamented after the bill’s defeat. “We have to deal with that problem.”

But it’s not 2007. There’s a growing libertarian bent in the Republican Party, a bent that might favor a freer flow of labor. Then there’s Marco Rubio, a "Gang of Eight" member and rising conservative star. While his legislation is not finding favor among the talk-radio hosts, he still holds their respect.

And while Pew no longer collects week-by-week data on news coverage, it doesn’t take a survey to know immigration is not the top story. That was apparent just walking around the broadcast stations. Much of the talk was about Boston.

“Obviously the attention is going to be there and should be there,” Helen Glover, a Rhode Island-area host (and former Survivor contestant) said. “It’s a balance, because we’re so close to Boston, it needs to have equal amount. We try to weave them both in at the same time.”

“I’m afraid [immigration] is going to be subdued,” she said.

And then, it was like a talk news broadcast for one.

“As Rahm Emanuel said, never let a good crisis goes to waste.... Does this mean you go ahead and start this discussion now without giving Boston the respect it deserves? It’s not the time to be putting this information out, or god forbid, scheduling hearings.”

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NHCLC Applauds Proposed Senate Immigration Reform Bill

We Are Inches Away from Crossing the 'Jordan' of Reform

WASHINGTON, April 17, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, the nation's largest Christian Hispanic organization, the Hispanic Evangelical Association, and NHCLC President, Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, applaud the proposed Senate bill on immigration reform.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120912/CL72800LOGO )

Rodriguez will join Senator Marco Rubio and the bipartisan Senate "Gang of Eight" in a press conference in Washington, D.C on Thursday, April 18, 2013, as they outline their proposed immigration reform bill. The Senate introduced legislation, which serves to solve the immigration reform process, at 2 a.m. this morning (http://www.schumer.senate.gov/forms/immigration.pdf).

Rev. Rodriguez, praising this movement and momentum for reform, said, "Engaging a biblical narrative as a metaphor, the immigration cause no longer resides in the Egypt of political apathy or the desert of inevitable deportation. Today, this just cause stands before the 'Jordan' called reform. With prophetic courage, spiritual fortitude and political will, we will cross into the promise land of integration thus protecting our values, borders and dream.

"Ironically the same issue that once polarized our nation now serves as a conduit for bipartisan collaboration. Now is the time."

Today, on the same day that the Senate introduced immigration reform legislation, hundreds of evangelical congregants and leaders from over 24 states descended upon Washington, D.C. for the first-ever national "Evangelical Day of Prayer and Action on Immigration Reform." Dr. Carlos Moran, Board Member, National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and NHCLC Immigration Spokesperson is one of several leaders speaking at this event in D.C, many of whom believe the Unites States is on the verge of a major and much anticipated breakthrough on immigration reform.

Dr. Carlos Moran, said, "As Evangelicals, as born again believers, as the spiritual heirs to the mantles of Billy Graham and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we affirm our conviction that it is the time to reconcile border security with security of our values; values that include faith, hope and charity. Values that prompt us to worship our Lord and welcome the stranger. For at the end of the day, passing immigration reform is not, as Rev. Samuel Rodriguez reminds us, about advancing the agenda of the donkey or the elephant. Immigration reform is about living out the agenda of the lamb."

Rev. Wilfredo "Choco" DeJesus, profiled along with Rev. Rodriguez's description of the Latino Reformation in the April 15th TIME magazine feature story, and Pastor of New Life Covenant Church, NHCLC Vice President and NHCLC Illinois Chapter Director, said, "Comprehensive Immigration Reform is long overdue. As long as a pathway to citizenship remains at the heart of this bill I remain hopeful that undocumented families will be offered the opportunity to stay together and not be torn apart by our current broken immigration system. These families are woven into the fabric of our daily lives – their children attend school with our children, they worship and are active in our churches, they are contributing members of our society. As a pastor and NHCLC Vice President of Social Justice, I will continue to advocate and stand for the millions of undocumented families that deserve a pathway to citizenship as the word of God instructs me to do."

ABOUT THE NHCLC  
The National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, the nation's largest Christian Hispanic organization, is the Hispanic Evangelical Association unifying, serving and representing millions in the Hispanic Born Again Community-including Puerto Rico-via 40,118 member churches by reconciling the vertical and horizontal of the Christian message through the 7 Directives Including Family, Life, Compassionate Evangelism, Stewardship, Justice, Education and Youth.

TO BOOK an INTERVIEW or SPEAKING ENGAGEMENT with REV. SAMUEL RODRIGUEZ
Matti Stevenson • 719.360.0586 • mattistevenson@nhclc.org

SOURCE National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference

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New York politics: scared straight or ripe for reform?

By Edith Honan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - When Attorney Preet Bharara brought two corruption cases against New York state politicians this week, accusing some of selling their votes and another of trying to bribe his way onto the ballot, he challenged the political class to clean up the system.

Some political veterans worry any reforms are destined to fail, and that only a federal prosecutor like Bharara can crack down on crookedness.

Asked if this week's cases could be the straw that breaks the camel's back in the state capital Albany, former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was quick to respond: "No, this camel's very strong."

Over the last seven years, 31 New York state office holders have been convicted, censured, or otherwise accused of wrong-doing, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

"There need to be enough cases made so that people realize the likelihood of being caught increases," Spitzer, also a former state attorney general whose political rise was tied to his challenges of Wall Street corruption, told Reuters. "And that at the end of the day is going to be what changes the system."

In 2006, Spitzer captured the governor's mansion in a landslide victory after campaigning that "Day One, Everything Changes." His aggressive efforts at reform were cut short two years later, when he resigned amid a prostitution scandal.

Citizens Union Executive Director Dick Dadey said there was a "crime wave of corruption" in Albany and in New York City but he is hopeful the cases will lead to reforms.

"I very much hope that this is the thread that is being pulled out of the sweater and will unravel everything," said Dadey, whose group has long pushed for more transparency.

Bharara, the chief federal prosecutor in Manhattan, brought charges against state Senator Malcolm Smith on Tuesday, accusing him of a plot to buy a spot on New York City's mayoral ballot. New York City Councilman Daniel Halloran was charged with accepting bribes to set up meetings between Smith and two Republican party leaders, who were also charged.

Lawyers for both men said they will fight the charges.

Two days later, Assemblyman Eric Stevenson was charged with accepting more than $22,000 in bribes in exchange for helping four businessmen establish a network of senior daycare centers in the Bronx. He too plans to fight the charges, his lawyer said.

"Federal prosecutors and federal agents are doing everything we can to proactively attack the corruption problem. And it's time for others to step up also," Bharara said.

Experts worry reformers will step back, not up.

"The state government really breeds a culture where it's all about the money," said Bill Mahoney of the New York Public Interest Research Project.

"Every single week in Albany there's a dozen fundraisers within a block of the state capitol, and as soon as legislators finish voting on a bill, they walk over to a fundraiser and get checks from the people who told them to vote a certain way on that," said Mahoney.

"A LACK OF WILL"

While Illinois and Louisiana may have the greater reputation for corruption, New York has its own colorful history, best exemplified by William "Boss" Tweed, who built a Democratic Party political machine in mid-19th Century New York City that held power until Republican Fiorello La Guardia was elected mayor in 1933.

The culture of Tweed's Tammany Hall machine persists. State lawmakers are now more likely to be ousted from office because of criminal or ethical issues than defeated in a general election, according to the New York Public Interest Research Group.

Advocates of reform also cite weak campaign finance laws and limitations on prosecutors as impediments. New York has the highest contribution limits of those states that set limits, for example allowing an individual donation per election cycle of almost $17,000 to a state senator.

This week, Citizens Union released a series of reform proposals including giving the state attorney general the power to pursue public corruption and election law violations, rather than leaving such enforcement to local law enforcement. The group also called for instituting nonpartisan elections in city races and passage of comprehensive campaign finance reform.

Bharara said corruption was to be expected given "a lack of transparency, a lack of self-disclosure, a lack of self policing, a lack of will, and a failure of leadership."

Governor Andrew Cuomo - the former state attorney general who came into office in 2011 on a reform platform - has said he intends to take up a campaign finance reform bill this year.

Cuomo won plaudits for an ethics reform bill passed in his first year, but was criticized for declining to wield his veto power after state lawmakers drew up self-serving electoral boundaries during the once-a-decade redistricting process.

This week's charges could encourage bold action from a shamed legislature said Larry Norden, deputy director at the Brennan Center. "Politically, I think this has the potential to have an impact in a way that previous scandals have not."

Still, reformers say that, without overwhelming pressure, lawmakers are unlikely to curb their own powers or to make it easier for investigators to monitor their activities.

For example, good government groups have long decried the existence of large pots of undefined money, set aside for infrastructure spending in the state or for local initiatives in New York City. In the cases brought this week, Halloran is said to have offered to redirect City Council member funds in exchange for money, while prosecutors say Smith boasted of money outside the budget that is "always around."

And yet, the existence of those funds creates enormous power for leaders who can dole them out.

Watchdog groups and political analysts also hope to empower state and local prosecutors to do more.

"In a well-functioning state, this would be done at the local level and not at the federal level," said Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor who worked under Giuliani and is now a law professor at Columbia University.

"I'm one of those who thinks that having overlapping jurisdictions, particularly for white-collar crimes, are a good thing," Richman said. "They lead to competition."

(Editing by Daniel Trotta and Tim Dobbyn)

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