Senators
Schumer, McCain, Durbin, Graham, Menendez, Rubio, Bennet, and Flake
Introduction
We recognize that our immigration system is broken. And while border security has improved significantly over the last two Administrations, we still don’t have a functioning immigration system. This has created a situation where up to 11 million undocumented immigrants are living in the shadows. Our legislation acknowledges these realities by finally committing the resources needed to secure the border, modernize and streamline our current legal immigration system, while creating a tough but fair legalization program for individuals who are currently here. We will ensure that this is a successful permanent reform to our immigration system that will not need to be revisited.
Four Basic Legislative Pillars:
o Create a tough but fair path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants currently living in the United States that is contingent upon securing our borders and tracking whether legal immigrants have left the country when required;
o Reform
our legal immigration system to better recognize the importance of
characteristics that will help build the American economy and strengthen
American families;
o Create
an effective employment verification system that will prevent identity theft
and end the hiring of future unauthorized workers; and,
o Establish
an improved process for admitting future workers to serve our nation’s
workforce needs, while simultaneously protecting all workers.
I. Creating a Path to Citizenship
for Unauthorized Immigrants Already Here that is Contingent Upon Securing the
Border and Combating Visa Overstays
Our
legislation will provide a tough, fair, and practical roadmap to address the
status of unauthorized immigrants in the United States that is contingent upon
our success in securing our borders and addressing visa overstays. To fulfill the basic governmental function of securing our borders, we will continue the increased efforts of the Border Patrol by providing them with the latest technology, infrastructure, and personnel needed to prevent, detect, and apprehend every unauthorized entrant.
Additionally, our legislation will increase the number of unmanned aerial vehicles and surveillance equipment, improve radio interoperability and increase the number of agents at and between ports of entry. The purpose is to substantially lower the number of successful illegal border crossings while continuing to facilitate commerce.
We will strengthen prohibitions against racial profiling and inappropriate use of force, enhance the training of border patrol agents, increase oversight, and create a mechanism to ensure a meaningful opportunity for border communities to share input, including critiques.
Our
legislation will require the completion of an entry-exit system that tracks
whether all persons entering the United States on temporary visas via airports
and seaports have left the country as required by law.
We recognize
that Americans living along the Southwest border are key to recognizing and
understanding when the border is truly secure. Our legislation will create a
commission comprised of governors, attorneys general, and community leaders
living along the Southwest border to monitor the progress of securing our
border and to make a recommendation regarding when the bill’s security measures
outlined in the legislation are completed. While these security measures are being put into place, we will simultaneously require those who came or remained in the United States without our permission to register with the government. This will include passing a background check and settling their debt to society by paying a fine and back taxes, in order to earn probationary legal status, which will allow them to live and work legally in the United States.
Individuals with a serious criminal background or others who pose a threat to our national security will be ineligible for legal status and subject to deportation. Illegal immigrants who have committed serious crimes face immediate deportation.
We will
demonstrate our commitment to securing our borders and combating visa overstays
by requiring our proposed enforcement measures be complete before any immigrant
on probationary status can earn a green card
Current
restrictions preventing non-immigrants from accessing federal public benefits
will also apply to lawful probationary immigrants.
Once the
enforcement measures have been completed, individuals with probationary legal
status will be required to go to the back of the line of prospective
immigrants, pass an additional background check, pay taxes, learn English and
civics, demonstrate a history of work in the United States, and current
employment, among other requirements, in order to earn the opportunity to apply
for lawful permanent residency. Those individuals who successfully complete
these requirements can eventually earn a green card. Individuals who are present without lawful status - not including people within the two categories identified below - will only receive a green card after every individual who is already waiting in line for a green card, at the time this legislation is enacted, has received their green card. Our purpose is to ensure that no one who has violated America’s immigration laws will receive preferential treatment as they relate to those individuals who have complied with the law.
Our
legislation also recognizes that the circumstances and the conduct of people
without lawful status are not the same, and cannot be addressed identically.
o For
instance, individuals who entered the United States as minor children did not
knowingly choose to violate any immigration laws. Consequently, under our
proposal these individuals will not face the same requirements as other
individuals in order to earn a path to citizenship.
o Similarly,
individuals who have been working without legal status in the United States
agricultural industry have been performing very important and difficult work to
maintain America’s food supply while earning subsistence wages. Due to the
utmost importance in our nation maintaining the safety of its food supply,
agricultural workers who commit to the long term stability of our nation’s
agricultural industries will be treated differently than the rest of the
undocumented population because of the role they play in ensuring that
Americans have safe and secure agricultural products to sell and consume. These
individuals will earn a path to citizenship through a different process under
our new agricultural worker program.
II. Improving our Legal Immigration
System and Attracting the World’s Best and Brightest
The
development of a rational legal immigration system is essential to ensuring
America’s future economic prosperity. Our failure to act is perpetuating a
broken system which sadly discourages the world’s best and brightest citizens
from coming to the United States and remaining in our country to contribute to
our economy. This failure makes a legal path to entry in the United States
insurmountably difficult for well-meaning immigrants. This unarguably
discourages innovation and economic growth. It has also created substantial
visa backlogs which force families to live apart, which incentivizes illegal
immigration. Our new immigration system must be more focused on recognizing the important characteristics which will help build the American economy and strengthen American families. Additionally, we must reduce backlogs in the family and employment visa categories so that future immigrants view our future legal immigration system as the exclusive means for entry into the United States.
The United States must do a better job of attracting and keeping the world’s best and brightest. As such, our immigration proposal will award a green card to immigrants who have received a PhD or Master’s degree in science, technology, engineering, or math from an American university. It makes no sense to educate the world’s future innovators and entrepreneurs only to ultimately force them to leave our country at the moment they are most able to contribute to our economy.
III. Strong Employment Verification
We recognize
that undocumented immigrants come to the United States almost exclusively for
jobs. As such, dramatically reducing future illegal immigration can only be
achieved by developing a tough, fair, effective and mandatory employment
verification system. An employment verification system must hold employers
accountable for knowingly hiring undocumented workers and make it more
difficult for unauthorized immigrants to falsify documents to obtain
employment. Employers who knowingly hire unauthorized workers must face stiff
fines and criminal penalties for egregious offenses.
We believe
the federal government must provide U.S. employers with a fast and reliable
method to confirm whether new hires are legally authorized to work in the
United States. This is essential to ensure the effective enforcement of
immigration laws.
Our proposal
will create an effective employment verification system which prevents identity
theft and ends the hiring of future unauthorized workers. We believe requiring
prospective workers to demonstrate both legal status and identity, through
non-forgeable electronic means prior to obtaining employment, is essential to
an employee verification system; and,
The employee
verification system in our proposal will be crafted with procedural safeguards
to protect American workers, prevent identity theft, and provide due process
protections.
IV. Admitting New Workers and
Protecting Workers’ Rights
The
overwhelming majority of the 327,000 illegal entrants apprehended by CBP in
FY2011 were seeking employment in the United States. We recognize that to
prevent future waves of illegal immigration a humane and effective system needs
to be created for these immigrant workers to enter the country and find
employment without seeking the aid of human traffickers or drug cartels.
Our proposal
will provide businesses with the ability to hire lower-skilled workers in a
timely manner when Americans are unavailable or unwilling to fill those jobs.
Our
legislation would:
o Allow
employers to hire immigrants if it can be demonstrated that they were
unsuccessful in recruiting an American to fill an open position and the hiring
of an immigrant will not displace American workers;
o Create
a workable program to meet the needs of America’s agricultural industry,
including dairy to find agricultural workers when American workers are not
available to fill open positions;
o Allow
more lower-skilled immigrants to come here when our economy is creating jobs,
and fewer when our economy is not creating jobs;
o Protect
workers by ensuring strong labor protections; and, o Permit workers who have succeeded in the workplace and contributed to their communities over many years to earn green cards.
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