Lack of immigration reform threatens California farmers

Growers have difficulty fielding adequate crews to harvest crops; Washington has a shot this year at providing meaningful relief.

George Skelton
Capitol Journal
4:19 PM PST, February 20, 2013

SACRAMENTO — Except for illegal immigrants, no group has more at stake in the national fight over immigration reform than California farmers.

"It doesn't pay to plant a product if you can't harvest it," notes Mark Teixeira of Santa Maria, who says he had to let 22 acres of vegetables rot last year because he couldn't find enough field hands to gather the crop. "That hurts."

As security has tightened along the California-Mexican border, the flow of illegal immigrant labor into the nation's most productive agriculture state has slowed significantly, farm interests say.

"It's very difficult to find crews compared to three or four years ago," reports Greg Wegis, a fifth-generation Kern County farmer who grows cherries, almonds, pistachios and tomatoes, among other crops.

Last year, Wegis had to cancel a cherry pick for lack of labor. "It cost me several thousand dollars."

"Migrant workers are moving to other states that are friendlier and where there's less likelihood of getting harassed and deported," he says.

"Obviously [the feds] are doing a better job at the border. Which is great. But it definitely is putting the squeeze on our industry."

Any time some demagogic politician bellows about rounding up all the illegal immigrants and shipping them back to their own country, it sends chills up farmers' spines.

Roughly two-thirds of the state's crop workers "are not properly documented," says Rayne Pegg, who heads the federal policy division of the California Farm Bureau.

"I'm not proud to say I hire illegal aliens," says Teixeira, whose family has been farming for five generations. "Everyone has to show 'documentation.' But I don't work for [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement]. Bottom line, if I have to verify everyone, I'm not going to be able to harvest my crop."

One federal program designed to allow temporary entry of foreign agriculture workers — called H-2A — fails in California because "it's fraught with bureaucratic nightmares," Pegg says. "The federal government doesn't act timely enough for picking and harvesting."
At the harvest peak last September, California had 453,000 agriculture workers, according to the state Employment Development Department. They averaged about $13 per hour. Most pay is based on a work crew's production.

Some farmers, like Teixeira, pay by the hour — $9 in his case, $1 over the state minimum wage. "We also provide health insurance and a 401(k)," he says. And unlike San Joaquin Valley farmers, Teixeira offers a great climate along the ocean. But he still can't find enough hands for his 800 acres.

"Not just any bozo off the street can come in and harvest produce," he says, noting there's a special skill to, for example, cutting lettuce just right.

"Americans won't take these jobs," asserts Dave Puglia, senior vice president of the Western Growers Assn. "Not even the farmworkers raise their own children to take these jobs. It's hard work. And it's not unskilled labor."

California growers need a more reliable source of labor — one they believe would come from immigration reform. Workers would be here legally, able to move freely from farm to farm and able to cross back and forth across the border without worrying about being jumped by some federal agent.

There are an estimated 2.6 million illegal immigrants living in California, nearly one-fourth of the nation's 11 million total. They represent roughly 7% of the state's population. The vast majority — about 1.8 million — are employed.

A recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found that 72% of likely voters believe that illegal immigrants who have worked in this country for at least two years should be allowed "to keep their jobs and eventually apply for legal status." Only 25% think "they should be deported back to their native country."

Also, 54% feel that immigrants benefit California "because of their hard work and job skills." Conversely, 39% call them a burden "because they use public services.

Ironically, 60% of Republican voters consider immigrants a burden and only 33% see them as a benefit. That's their long-held view. But many big growers are Republican.
And that's ultra ironic because, nationally, it has been GOP politicians — often representing farm belts — who have blocked and politicized immigration reform.

California farmers "are all over their legislators about not helping them," says Tom Nassif, president and chief executive of the Western Growers Assn. "But they don't punish their legislators for not helping them. They should make it clear that they need their support."
In November, Latino voters made it clear to Republican politicians — including presidential candidate Mitt Romney — that they didn't appreciate their immigration views. And that's why farm groups now see the best opportunity in many years for reform.
"I've said, 'Look folks, it's time to deal with this,'" Nassif says.

After Romney made his dumb, right-wing-pandering comment in a debate about the need for illegal immigrants to "self-deport," Nassif was brought in as one of the candidate's agriculture advisors.

"I told him he was going to be in trouble with Latinos if he didn't do something," Nassif recalls. "I advised him to do something about providing a legal workforce. But he felt better served by being more conservative."

We'll soon see whether Republican politicians have learned the political lesson.
If President Obama and Congress "don't come up with something in the next couple of months, the prospects for this year are not very good," says Pegg, who's wired into negotiations. "We'll be getting into the next election season."

There's momentum now. The issue is ripe for harvest.

george.skelton@latimes.com

White House says leaked immigration plan a backup if Congress doesn't act

By Andrew Rafferty, Staff Writer, NBC News

President Barack Obama’s draft immigration proposal is nothing more than a backup plan in case Congress fails to produce comprehensive legislation of their own, a White House official said Monday.

“The administration will be ready to move forward in the event the bipartisan process gets bogged down and is not able to produce a bill,” the administration official said. “But our focus remains on supporting the congressional process.”

The president set off a firestorm Saturday night when USA Today reported it had obtained a draft of the White House immigration plan. Republicans in Congress quickly panned the administration for leaking the proposal with no bipartisan input.

But the White House official said the administration was not “floating anything” and was “surprised” to find out the press had obtained the details. Instead, the official said, the White House was simply preparing for the possibility that the current political climate could cause gridlock that would delay or prevent the president from following through on one of his campaign promises.

“We’ll be prepared in the event that the bipartisan talks going on on the Hill -- which by the way we’re aggressively supporting -- if those do not work out, then we’ll have an option we’re ready to put out there,” White House chief of staff Denis McDonough said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet The Press.”

White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough reiterates key principles in the administration's plan for immigration reform and its potential for passage on Capitol Hill.

But on msnbc on Monday, a former senior adviser to the president, David Axelrod, conceded that the administration likely made an error by circulating the memo to various government agencies and throughout the West Wing. “The mistake there was to disseminate it so widely in the administration that it got leaked, and I’m sure if they could they’d take that back,” he said.

The leak solicited immediate reaction from Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who issued a statement saying the plan would be “dead on arrival” and calling it “a mistake” for the White House to draft a plan without consulting with Republicans in Congress.

Rubio is part of a bipartisan group of senators that announced last month that they had agreed on principles that could pave the way for a bill that would overhaul the nation’s immigration laws. Those tenets include creating a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the country and developing a system to ensure employers don’t hire illegal immigrants.

The White House proposal would allow illegal immigrants to become permanent residents within eight years, as well as create a lawful prospective immigrant visa, require employers to check the immigration status of workers and provide more border security funding.

Since Obama’s re-election in November, fueled by Hispanic voters, the president has renewed calls for comprehensive immigration reform. News of the White House proposal came just days after the president lauded the Senate’s work during last week’s State of the Union address.

“As we speak, bipartisan groups in both chambers are working diligently to draft a bill, and I applaud their efforts,” Obama said. “Now let’s get this done. Send me a comprehensive immigration reform bill in the next few months, and I will sign it right away."

The White House official said the focus “remains on supporting the congressional process” and that after the draft became public late Saturday, members of the administration reached out to senators on both sides of the aisle.

Still, that did not stop Republicans from panning the proposals on the Sunday morning talk shows.

Rep. Paul Ryan, R–Wisc., said on ABC’s “This Week” that the leaked plan “tells us that (Obama is) looking for a partisan advantage and not a bipartisan solution.”

On NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, a member of the group of senators working to craft a bipartisan immigration bill, called on the president to shelve his proposal and allow Congress to continue working on legislation.

“I believe we are making progress on a bipartisan basis,” said McCain. “I believe we can come up with a product.”

And the White House says it is still optimistic that a solution can come from Congress. “The President is pleased by current state of progress being made by bipartisan efforts on the Hill and the Administration looks forward to continuing to work with them,” said the official.

NBC's Shawna Thomas contributed to this report

Obama to announce his immigration reform plan, said to be more liberal than Senate effort

By David Nakamura and Rosalind S. Helderman,

Jan 29, 2013 02:17 AM EST

The Washington Post Published: January 28

The Obama administration has developed its own proposals for immigration reform that are more liberal than a separate bipartisan effort in the Senate, including a quicker path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, people with knowledge of the proposals said.

President Obama is expected to provide some details of the White House plans during a Tuesday appearance in Las Vegas, where he will call for broad changes to the nation’s immigration laws. The speech will kick off a public push by the administration in support of the broadest overhaul of immigration law in nearly three decades.

Obama plans to praise the proposals laid out Monday by an eight-member Senate working group, saying they reflect the core tenets of the administration’s immigration blueprint developed in 2011, a senior administration official said.

But the president’s remarks also are likely to emphasize differences that could foreshadow roadblocks to passage in Congress at a time when both parties say there is momentum for a comprehensive deal.

For example, the Senate proposal would let illegal immigrants obtain legal residency quickly. But it would not allow them to seek full citizenship until border security had been improved and a new system was in place for employers to verify the employment status of workers.

Obama will not endorse such a proposal, the administration official said. The president intends to make clear the need for a more straightforward route for un­documented workers and students to obtain citizenship, reflecting fears among advocates that a cumbersome process would create a decades-long wait for some migrants.

“We see the Senate principles as a centrist set of principles, but we expect the administration to be more detailed to the left,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, a leading immigration advocacy group. “I don’t think it’ll be an immigration advocate’s dream, but it will be a solid left-of-center proposal.”

White House press secretary Jay Carney sought to close the gap between the White House and the Senate group during his daily briefing with reporters Monday, calling the Capitol Hill announcement “a big deal” because it includes a path to citizenship supported by four senators from each party. Similar provisions — opposed by many Republicans who think they would reward lawbreakers over those who come to the country legally — helped doom previous attempts to overhaul immigration in 2007 and 2010.

“This is in keeping with the principles the president has been espousing for a long time, in keeping with bipartisan efforts in the past and with the effort this president believes has to end in a law that he can sign,” Carney said.

He declined to say whether the White House objects to the proposal from the Senate group that would tie citizenship to border security and employment-verification measures. But he noted the administration’s focus on border-security issues, which included deporting nearly 410,000 immigrants in 2012, an all-time high.

The borders “have never been better enforced than they are now,” Carney said.

Months of development

The White House’s immigration plans have been in the works for months. Senior administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations, said the White House has developed specific legislative language spelling out Obama’s proposals. But they said they are not going to make the language public at this point because the administration is encouraged by the Senate group’s progress.

The president also is likely to support treating same-sex couples in which one partner is an immigrant the same as married heterosexual couples — meaning gay and lesbian immigrants in relationships with U.S. citizens could apply for citizenship. Such a provision is almost certain to draw opposition from Catholic and Baptist groups that have been supportive of comprehensive reform.

Immigration advocates said they expect Obama to be forceful in his public remarks Tuesday and offer details that go beyond the blueprint on the White House Web site. But there are risks for the president, who has accused Republicans of opposing his initiatives to avoid giving him political credit.

If Obama’s speech in Las Vegas, in a state with a growing number of Hispanic voters, is too tri­umphant or too hectoring, he could risk alienating Republicans whose support will be necessary, some lawmakers have said. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warned Obama against delivering a “divisive, partisan speech.”

Yet the White House also is mindful that Latino and Asian voters expect him to follow through on an immigration overhaul after failing to achieve it in his first term. Obama had promised to make immigration the key initiative of his second term, but it took a back seat to gun control in the wake of the mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., in December.

Talks without White House

In the meantime, the Senate working group, which had originally targeted its announcement for Friday, moved it up in advance of Obama’s speech. Senate aides said the White House had minimal involvement in the bipartisan talks, preferring a hands-off approach, in part because of failed bipartisan efforts on deficit reduction and other issues.

One White House official said Obama spoke Sunday to Senate Democrats who briefed him on the group’s progress, which came more quickly than the White House expected.

Despite the optimism of Monday’s announcement, senators on both sides acknowledged that they must settle several thorny issues before drafting a bill. They aim to introduce legislation by the end of March.

Democratic aides said the process could receive a boost if Obama champions a framework that provides a smoother path to citizenship. The Senate outline would appear more centrist by comparison, potentially making it easier for Republicans to support. A progressive White House plan would also help prevent the Senate effort from getting pushed much further to the right over time.

Angela Kelley, an immigration expert at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, called the parallel efforts “a healthy competition” between the White House and the Senate.

“The inevitable question for the White House was: How does a legislative initiative get underway?” Kelley said. “To some extent, the senators answered that, so it’s a nice coupling of developments.”

Bipartisan Plan Faces Resistance in G.O.P.

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR

Published: January 28, 2013

GREENVILLE, S.C. — At Tommy’s Country Ham House, a popular spot downtown for politics and comfort food, not much has changed since 2007, the last time conservatives here made it crystal clear to politicians how they felt about what they see as amnesty for people who entered the country illegally.

“What we need to do is put them on a bus,” said Ken Sowell, 63, a lawyer from Greenville, as he ate lunch recently at the diner. “We need to enforce the border. If they want to apply legally more power to them. I don’t think just because a bunch of people violate the law, we ought to change the law for them.”

Six years ago, the intensity of that kind of sentiment was enough to scuttle immigration overhaul efforts led by President George W. Bush and a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, both Republicans.

Now, as a new bipartisan group of eight senators, including Mr. Graham and Mr. McCain, try again — this time with President Obama as their partner in the White House — members of Congress will have to overcome deep-seated resistance like that expressed in the restaurant if they are to push legislation forward.

Republicans are betting that opposition from Tea Party activists and the party’s most conservative supporters will have less impact because of the dire electoral consequences of continuing to take a hard line regarding immigrants. The senators on Monday released a blueprint for a new immigration policy that opens the door to possible citizenship ahead of a Tuesday speech on the subject by Mr. Obama in Las Vegas.

There is some evidence that the politics of immigration may be changing. Sean Hannity, the conservative host at Fox News, said days after the 2012 presidential election that he has “evolved” on immigration and now supports a comprehensive approach that could “get rid of” the issue for Republicans. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a rising star in the Republican Party, is pushing his own version of broad immigration changes — and getting praise from conservative icons like Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed.

But the Republican-controlled House remains a big hurdle. Speaker John A. Boehner on Monday was noncommittal about the emerging proposal, with a spokesman saying that Mr. Boehner “welcomes the work of leaders like Senator Rubio on this issue, and is looking forward to learning more about the proposal.”

Representative Lamar Smith, Republican of Texas and a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, said that “when you legalize those who are in the country illegally, it costs taxpayers millions of dollars, costs American workers thousands of jobs and encourages more illegal immigration.”

And if the lunch rush conversation at Tommy’s is any indication, many Republican lawmakers will soon return home to find their constituents just as opposed to the idea as they were before. Concern about immigration varies regionally. But in many Congressional districts around the country, the prospect of intense opposition carries with it the threat of a primary challenger if Republican lawmakers stray too far from hawkish orthodoxy on the issue.

“The people who are coming across the border — as far as I’m concerned, they are common criminals,” said Bill Storey, 68, a retired civil engineer from Greenville. “We should not adopt policies to reward them for coming into this country illegally. I have all the regard for them in the world if they come through the legal system, but not the illegal system.”

Charlie Newton, a construction worker in the Greenville area, praised the work ethic of Hispanic co-workers, but said he opposes any laws that would provide benefits to illegal immigrants, including help becoming citizens.

“I think we need to help our own people before we keep helping somebody else,” he said.

The president’s proposals are expected to include more border enforcement, work site verification systems that allow employers to check the status of their employees online, and a road map to citizenship for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants now living in the country. Democratic senators could begin work on a bill in the next couple of weeks.

In the Fourth Congressional District in South Carolina, which includes Greenville, the formal arrival of such a plan is likely to anger the constituents of Trey Gowdy, a Republican House member who was elected in the 2010 Tea Party wave and is now the chairman of a key subcommittee that will deal with immigration.

Mr. Gowdy has already taken a hard line, signing on last year to the “Prohibiting Backdoor Amnesty Act,” which aimed to reverse Mr. Obama’s plans to delay deportations for some young illegal immigrants. The congressman will be under pressure to change his mind from the White House and its allies, including groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. But when he goes home to Greenville, Mr. Gowdy may find that his constituents want him to hold firm in his opposition.

“If you had to go find the heartburn, you’d find it in Greenville,” said Katon Dawson, a former chairman of the Republican Party in South Carolina. Mr. Dawson, who supports comprehensive immigration changes, said the matter was likely to become a hot-button issue again, as it was in 2006 and 2007.

“All I’d ever hear is, ‘Why don’t you enforce the laws that we already have?’ And then I’d hear, ‘Why don’t you just build the fence?’ ” Mr. Dawson said, describing the comments he expects to hear again during the immigration debate.

Mr. Gowdy referred questions about the immigration debate to the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Representative Robert W. Goodlatte of Virginia. But veterans of South Carolina politics say the reaction in his district, and others like it across the country, will help determine the fate of the national legislation.

Bruce Bannister, the Republican majority leader of the South Carolina House of Representatives, said much of that response will depend on how the White House and its allies in Washington frame the debate.

“The amnesty provisions that got everybody fired up — I think you’re not going to see states like South Carolina ever support that, even though we recognize that shipping or sending home all the folks that came here illegally is almost impossible,” Mr. Bannister, who represents Greenville, said.

Josh Kimbrall, a conservative radio talk show host in South Carolina, agrees with Mr. Bannister. Mr. Kimbrall supports immigration law changes, but says Republicans like Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain allowed their effort in 2007 to be portrayed in a bad light by opponents.

“It’s how you message it,” Mr. Kimbrall said. “In Greenville, it’s the rule of law. As soon as the word amnesty is thrown in, very few people are willing to go along.”

 

 

 

Bipartisan Framework for Comprehensive Immigration Reform

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.

Immigration Reform Moves Forward In White House Meeting With Hispanic Caucus

Ruby Cramer BuzzFeed Staff

U.S. Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez met Tuesday with Obama administration officials to discuss the path forward on comprehensive immigration reform. Image by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Posted Jan 16, 2013 3:15pm EST

Representative Luis Gutierrez and five other members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus met with White House officials Tuesday in the Roosevelt Room to discuss the administration's plan to move forward on comprehensive immigration reform, the Illinois Congressman, a key figure on the issue, told BuzzFeed.

"It's clear to me from that meeting that they have a plan, they're working, and their team is expanding," he said.

Gutierrez said the discussion surrounded "who goes first" — the Senate, House, or White House — on the push for immigration legislation. "We talked about what the president wants and what his vision is," said Gutierrez. "And I gotta tell you, we're in a good place."

As evidence of the momentum on immigration, Gutierrez compared Tuesday's meeting with one he had in March 2009 — which he found lacking — with the president and White House officials.

"In March 2009, it's like, no, I don't have a plan, I don't have anybody in charge, and I don't have a team of people working on this," said Gutierrez, who was told at the 2009 meeting that the figure heading up immigration would be then-chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

"The chief of staff is in charge of everything. It was like being told there was no one in charge," he said. (Gutierrez declined to the Obama officials present for Wednesday's meeting.)

Cecilia Muñoz, White House Director of the Domestic Policy Council, will likely take a leading role, he said. "Cecilia has been in every meeting I've had with the president. She's been the link," said Gutierrez.

As discussions continue in the House and Senate — particularly around Sen. Marco Rubio, who laid out his immigration plan in the Wall Street Journal last week — a more solid path forward for Congress and the Obama administration would emerge, said Gutierrez, "by the end of February or early March."

Immigration reform will also be a central focus of the president's State of the Union address next month, said the Congressman.

"The president has spoken about it in his last three State of the Unions. You can speak about something without it really being remembered. But something tells me you're gonna remember immigration in this State of the Union address," he said.

The meeting, called Monday, was a show of assurance to immigration advocates in Congress that reform remains a priority despite the administration's recent focus on the fiscal cliff and gun control.

"It's a big priority, and it's gonna be an all-out press," said Gutierrez. "There's a team of people that the White House is working on this. They made clear to us that the team was evolving and expanding."

Immigration Change to Ease Family Separations

By JULIA PRESTON

Published: January 2, 2013

Obama administration officials unveiled rules on Wednesday that will allow many American citizens — perhaps hundreds of thousands — to avoid long separations from immediate family members who are illegal immigrants as they apply to become legal residents.

The rules, announced by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, create a waiver that bypasses an arcane Catch-22 in immigration law. It had presented Americans with the prospect of being separated for up to a decade from immigrant spouses, children or parents who were applying for the legal documents known as green cards.

Until now, the risks for those immigrants of leaving the United States to return to their native countries to pick up their visas, even ones that were already approved, had been so great that countless families decided not to apply, adding to the numbers of immigrants living illegally in this country.

The immigration authorities will begin accepting applications for the waivers on March 3. Administration officials first announced the policy change a year ago, but they have been receiving public comments and making revisions before publishing the final rules.

It is generally straightforward for American citizens to obtain green cards for foreign-born spouses or minor children, and in some cases for parents. But if the immigrants entered the United States illegally, they must return to their native countries to receive their visas from American consulates there. However, under a 1996 statute, once illegal immigrants leave this country, they are barred automatically from returning for at least three and as many as 10 years.

Even immigrants who did not incur any bars to re-entry were often stranded overseas for many months while consulates completed their applications.

With the new rules, Americans’ family members can apply in the United States for a waiver from the bars to re-entry, before they leave to pick up their visas. Officials estimated the time immigrants would have to spend out of the country would be reduced to “a matter of weeks.”

“One of the critical benefits is that the individual will not be separated from the United States citizen family member during the application process,” said Alejandro Mayorkas, the director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that issues green cards.

For immigrants, officials said, having an approved waiver in hand before leaving the country would also eliminate many doubts about whether they would ultimately receive their visas.

“This rule is leaps and bounds better than what we have now,” said Laura Lichter, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “For families that were sitting on the fence, unwilling to subject their loved ones to the uncertainty, now they don’t have to wait.”

Ms. Lichter said many families would still face a hurdle in coming up with the $585 application fee for the waiver.

One American who was heartened by the new rule is Erika Torres, 30. She has been married for six years to a Mexican man who was brought illegally to the United States 24 years ago, when he was 8. Ms. Torres, speaking by telephone on Wednesday, said she and her husband, who have known each other since they were children, now own a home and a winemaking business in Cambria, Calif.

Like many Americans, Ms. Torres said she expected no difficulty gaining legal documents for her husband once they were married. But after learning about the convoluted visa process, she said, “We have waited because we were just terrified of the separation.”

Ms. Torres said her husband would probably have to collect his visa from the American Consulate in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, a city racked by drug trafficking violence. “He would be a prime target for kidnappers,” she said.

“We are a team,” Ms. Torres said, adding that she feared she would not be able to sustain their business without her husband’s help. She said they would apply for a waiver as soon as they became available.

The rules do not give any legal status to illegal immigrants or shortcut the underlying application. In order to receive green cards, immigrants must still show that it would cause “extreme hardship” to an American citizen if they were deported.

“It is a limited change, but a definitely a good step forward in the right direction,” said Randall Emery, president of American Families United, an organization of thousands of Americans with family members who are illegal immigrants.

Ms. Lichter called on Congress to change the law to eliminate the snag created by the automatic bars. “This is a great solution to a problem that should never have existed in the first place,” she said.

A version of this article appeared in print on January 3, 2013, on page A12 of the New York edition with the headline: Immigration Change to Ease Family Separations.