IN THE wake of the senseless bombing at the Boston Marathon, the Bipartisan “Gang of Eight” introduced The Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, S.744, in the US Senate. The measure, which had been in the works for many weeks, was brought forward and Congressional hearings continue, notwithstanding opponents’ attempts to use the bombing as a distraction to impede its progress. Sponsors, however, warn against using the bombings as an excuse to diffuse this long-overdue legislation and that improvements to the current system called for in the bill would in fact assist law enforcement in preventing such tragedies in the future.
As Senate hearings continued on Monday, April 22, 2013, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) raised the specter that opponents of immigration reform had begun “to exploit the Boston Marathon bombing,” and declared further,”[l]et no one be so cruel as to try to use the heinous acts of these two young men last week to derail the dreams and futures of millions of hardworking people.” Echoing these sentiments and recognizing that any immigration reform bill could actually decrease the potential for domestic terrorist attacks, House Speaker Boehner, R-Ohio, stated unequivocally that “I’m in the camp of, if we fix our immigration system, it may actually help us understand who all is here, why they’re here, and what legal status they have.”
With its balanced approach, S-744 would protect the US from terrorist attacks from outside the US, while creating a system to legally register the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US, allowing law enforcement to monitor their whereabouts and protect the country from within. S-744 demands that a Border Security” effectiveness rate” of 90 percent be attained within 5 years of enactment among other thresholds, prior to allowing any of the “legalization” provisions of the law to take effect. The Bill makes clear that no undocumented immigrant’s status may be adjusted to “Registered Provisional Immigrant” (RPI) status until the Border security measures are implemented.
The Senate’s bill sets forth several straightforward criteria for a person to become an RPI. First, an applicant must establish his continuous physical residence in the US from a date prior to December 31, 2011 through the date of filing and adjudication of the application. Those who have been convicted of any felony, aggravated felony or three or more misdemeanors are ineligible, as are those who have been convicted of offenses under foreign law, voted unlawfully in the US, or are inadmissible to the US under current criminal, national security, public health or morality grounds.
After 10 years, a person granted RPI status may apply for adjustment of status to Lawful Permanent Resident (Green Card) status Green Card status under the “Merit Based Visa” provision of S-744, which awards lawful permanent residents status to individuals based on their education, employment background and length of residence in the US. To be eligible under this program, an RPI must also establish that he has maintained continuous physical presence, paid all applicable taxes since becoming an RPI, maintained regular employment and demonstrate a knowledge of English, basic history and civics of the US. S-744 also protects those who have been waiting patiently under the current system by barring any such adjustment of status of RPI’s until such time that visas have become available on all family and employment-based petitions filed prior to its enactment.
S-744 also completely overhauls the current legal immigration system, which has been described as “broken” and “unsustainable” with its multi-decade backlogs and confusing requirements. First, the bill completely eliminates the current family and employment-based backlog, relying on the “Merit Based Visa” system described above. Second, the new system will expand the definition of “immediate relatives,” for whom visas are unlimited, to include spouses and children of Green Card holders, in addition to parents, spouses and children of US Citizens. The bill will repeal the current 4th preference category, which allows US Citizens to petition their siblings. Only two family -based “preference” categories will remain, covering unmarried adult children and married adult children filing before age 31; and unmarried adult children of green card holders.
S-744 represents a compromise, arrived at after careful deliberation by the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” senators, who have been both individually and collectively at the center of the immigration debate for years. The hard work and dedication these Senators have invested in S-744 should be recognized and praised as a common-sense approach to fix decades-old infirmities in the US immigration system. As Senator Leahy warned, the necessity for this overdue reform should not be in any way diminished by the unspeakable acts of two-misguided extremists, or any other acts of terror designed to undermine our freedom and American way of life.
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Daniel P. Hanlon is a California State Bar Certified Specialist in Immigration and Nationality Law and a principal of Hanlon Law Group, PC, located at 225 S. Lake Ave., 11th Floor in Pasadena, California; Tel. No. (626) 585-8005. Hanlon Law Group, PC is a “full-service Immigration Law firm.” E-mail: [email protected] and www.hanlonlawgroup.com.
