THE US immigration system is broken and is in need of a major overhaul. After one generation and since 1986, that may soon be coming, with the approval of the Gang of Eight’s comprehensive immigration reform bill by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In a 13-5 vote by members of the democratic-controlled panel, the bill will now go to the Senate floor for deliberation, debate and decision.
If the Senate passes the bill, it will create a 13-year pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants, who are in the United States.
The legislation also creates a new program for low-skilled foreign labor and would permit highly skilled workers into the country at far higher levels than is currently the case.
The plan also requires the government to take costly new steps to secure the border and to guard against future illegal immigration.
Good news for Filipino WWII vets
This development is long overdue and has become a significant Memorial Day gift for veterans — especially for our Filipino World War II (WWII) vets who fought alongside the US military.
As Balitang America reported, children of Filipino WWII veterans can now be reunited with their loved ones, sooner if this bill is signed into law.
The Filipino Veterans Family Reunification Act (an amendment to the far reaching immigration overhaul) was unanimously approved without debate by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Balitang America’s Pinoy Panawagan Legal Counsel and Board President, Veterans Equity Center (VEC) explained that the visa petitions of sons and daughters of Filipino WW II veterans will be exempt from the numerical limitation making the visas immediately available irrespective of their priority dates or dates of filing.
“Our community owes Sen. Mazie Hirono a debt of gratitude for introducing this amendment to the bigger immigration reform act. Granting immediate visas to the families of our veterans is the least we can offer after more than half a century of struggle for recognition,” Atty. Tancinco said.
Hirono reminded the members of the committee of the invaluable courage and contribution of the Filipino WW II veterans. She emphasized the importance of the amendment.
In her presentation, Hirono said that because of “decades long of backlog in the immigration system many veterans have to leave their golden years without being reunited with their loved ones. We need to remedy this by passing the amendment.”
The American Coalition for Filipino Veterans (ACFV) estimates that 20,000 visas could be issued to the sons and daughters of Filipino WW II veterans if the bill is enacted. Even the families of all qualified veterans who have already died would benefit from the act.
As Don Tagala reported on Balitang America, Democratic Senator Richard Durbin recognized the sole Filipino-American WW II veteran present in the committee hearing in Washington DC.
96-year-old Celestino Almeda stood up and was thanked by senators. Manong Celestino gave them a salute despite his difficulty in hearing and walking.
Despite this great development, however, Atty. Lou Tancinco reminds the Filipino community to continue to work together for the passage of the comprehensive immigration bill.
“This is a major step taken by Senator Hirono. But for this bill to evolve into law, we need to contact our legislators to support the amendment during the debate by the full chamber.”
Bad news for LGBT, siblings and married children of US citizens
This is what many kababayans had been following, ever since the Republican senators in the Gang of Eight made public their plan to eliminate visas for siblings of US citizens and for adult married children over age 30, to provide more employment-based visas for highly-skilled workers.
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) had proposed an amendment that sought to preserve these categories. Unfortunately, this proposal was voted down.
Another amendment, which aimed to provide a limited number of visas for these relatives (only in cases of extreme hardship to the US citizen sponsor) was also rejected.
But the vote that caused a lot of stir among civil rights advocates is the one which denies Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) couples the same rights and benefits accorded to heterosexual couples.
The immigration reform bill might have moved closer to the possibility of being enacted into law, but for this to happen, Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) needed to pull his amendment, which would have allowed foreign-born partners in same-sex, binational couples to petition for a green card.
Republicans in the Committee, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, insisted the amendment would kill immigration reform — giving Democrats not much choice.
“You’ve got me on immigration, you don’t have me on marriage,” Graham said, threatening to abandon his own bill. “I just can’t tell you more directly. If you want to keep me on immigration, let’s stay on immigration.”
There are about 40,000 binational same-sex couples in the United States, but if Leahy did not withdraw his amendment, more than 11 million undocumented immigrants would have not gotten the chance to have a pathway to citizenship through this bill.
Around 267,000 of these undocumented immigrants are reported to be LGBTs.
Another Democrat in the Committee, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), said if it came down to opposing the same-sex couple amendment or killing the whole bill, he’d have to do the former.
But as Huffington Post reported, the LGBT activists say they will continue to support the bill, pointing out aspects of the Gang of Eight’s legislation that are worth fighting for.
“Immigrants come in all shapes and forms. Is it too much to ask to be looked at as a full human being, as an undocumented immigrant who happens to be gay?,” said undocumented Fil-Am journalist and immigration reform advocate Jose Antonio Vargas.
“That’s what I find so frustrating in this whole process,” Vargas lamented. “But I support this bill. This is not a perfect bill but we need to move forward and this is a bill that gets us forward. So let’s go forward.”
This sentiment is echoed by David Leopold, former president of the American Immigration Lawyer Association (AILA) when I interviewed him on Balitang America.
He shared his insights on the compromises lawmakers had accepted in order to pass the comprehensive immigration reform bill.
“This bill is not perfect. There are things in this bill that I don’t like. There are provisions that people who oppose immigration reform don’t like. But we are not going to let what is ‘perfect’ be the enemy of the ‘very good.’ This is a very good bill.”
But the big question remains: should the Senate pass this legislation, would the Republican-led House of Representatives support it? Would it be able to give a pathway to citizenship for more than 11 million undocumented immigrants?
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Gel Santos Relos is the anchor of TFC’s “Balitang America.” Views and opinions expressed by the author in this column are are solely those of the author and not of Asian Journal and ABS-CBN-TFC. For comments, go to www.TheFil-AmPerspective.com, https://www.facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos
