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In 2013, the Senate passed a bipartisan -- do you remember that word? -- immigration reform bill that provided a pathway for undocumented immigrants to earn their way to citizenship.

The bill included tough new border security measures along the Mexican border: More fencing and thousands of more border patrol agents.

That negotiated legislation, which passed on a 68-32 count, garnered 14 Republican votes.

People like McCain and Rubio and Graham and Flake and Corker and Hatch and Ayotte.

The pathway would be no easy road; the requirements could have taken 13 years to fulfill.

But Republicans buried the bill in the House where bipartisan legislation generally goes to die.

Now, the Senate too is hopelessly split by partisanship and party, and the White House no longer is open to immigration reform.

In view of today's sharp division and fiery rhetoric, it's startling to recall there was such an opportunity just four years ago.

Lincoln Catholic Bishop James Conley spoke up powerfully about illegal or undocumented immigrants in an op-ed published in the Catholic Southern Nebraska Register this weekend and posted on Facebook.

"Our immigration system is broken because overhauling it would require that political leaders on all sides put aside partisan posturing and incendiary rhetoric in order to reach meaningful and comprehensive agreements," the bishop wrote.

"Surely, our government, in wisdom and creativity and human decency, can find just means of addressing the crime of illegal immigration without severing marriages, sending children to foster care and returning people to situations of abject hopelessness," he wrote.

"Surely, if America is truly great, it can respond to these challenges with ingenuity and virtue and charity," Conley stated.

"I stand in solidarity with immigrant families living in fear of what might be coming for them.

"I stand in solidarity with American citizens looking for real security instead of political showmanship and rhetoric.

"I stand in solidarity with those politicians and law enforcement agents working to find fair and humane solutions to complex problems.

"I stand in solidarity with those living in poverty or danger seeking some promise of safety and opportunity for their children.

"As Catholics," he wrote, "we must continue to call for real, comprehensive, safe and just immigration reform.

"But we cannot accept the panacea of mass detention and deportation," Conley wrote.

Guessing the end game at the Legislature.

Who can tell how this ends?

Tax cuts -- property and/or income -- remain the explosive political issue.

Rural interests appear to be drawing a deep line in the sand this time, calling for an undivided focus on meaningful property tax reduction.

Hanging in the air, whispered in text messages but undeclared, is the possibility -- but not the certainty -- of political consequences if that does not happen.

Legislative seats are in play next year and so is the governorship and rural Nebraska dominates statewide Republican primary elections.

Sen. Ben Sasse's remarks to a Lincoln Chamber of Commerce coffee gathering last week were the latest reminder of how gifted this guy is.

In introducing him, Chamber executive vice president Bruce Bohrer described Sasse as "a walking think tank."

Sasse walked the crowd through a broad sweep of history, centered on the present and cast an eye on the future, all of that delivered seamlessly and with hardly a pause.

The top headlines from JournalStar.com. Delivered at 11 a.m. Monday-Friday.

It was the kind of performance that challenges all of us to up our game.

Police officers did a professional job of keeping a lid on the demonstration that confronted Sen. Deb Fischer in Lincoln last week.

They respected the right of assembly, calmly and patiently talked protesters out of the Grand Manse building after they became disruptive and were blocking the hall, and did so with no threat or show of force.

No confrontation; no escalation; no injuries, no arrests; noisy, but no harm done: that's an A-plus in crowd control.

Jane Kleeb was featured on MSNBC during the election of a new Democratic national chairman in Atlanta on Saturday.

Kleeb, the new chair of Nebraska's Democratic Party, supported Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, who lost in a narrow contest with Tom Perez.

"We are in the streets, energized and progressive," Kleeb said, and Ellison would have been the bridge to connect activists with the party apparatus.

Kleeb told MSNBC she is ready to work with Perez.

"Of course," she said. "But it's his responsibility to build a bridge, not mine."

* A view from the west in this paragraph in the North Platte Bulletin about a town hall meeting with Sen. Mike Groene: "It turned out there was no need for law enforcement even though some Groene critics from eastern Nebraska were said to be in the audience."

* Baseball is in the air.

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Don Walton: Immigration reform was within reach - Lincoln Journal Star

Will immigration reform stifle recruitment of foreign talent? New York Post If enacted, the sweeping immigration measures including cutting back on coveted professional HB-1 visas for prized workers could undermine productivity and income statements in US financial services, Street executives say, as talented ... and more »

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Will immigration reform stifle recruitment of foreign talent? - New York Post

The Trump administration this week released a new set of orders that could greatly increase the number of deportations of undocumented immigrants in the United States.

The White House has tamped down suggestions that the guidance will lead to massive deportations, but immigrant communities have been greatly alarmed.

Here are 5 questions surrounding the immigration guidance from Trumps Department of Homeland Security.

What happens to the dreamers?

DHS says the rules dont touch Obamas Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA), which allows high-achieving immigrants who were brought to the country illegally as kids to remain and work without threat of deportation.

In a conference call with congressional officesTuesday, officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said DACA beneficiaries wont be pursued, per se, but if a DACA recipient happens to be in the vicinity of another apprehension, that DACA recipient may be apprehended, a Democratic aide saidThursday, relaying ICEs message.

Theres no priority if everyone is prioritized for removal, the aide said.

At least one such case has already occurred this month in Seattle, where Daniel Ramirez Medina, twice enrolled in DACA, was detained by ICE agents who had come to his home to arrest his father. Ramirez has since sued.

Stephen Legomsky, former chief counsel of at DHSs Citizenship and Immigration Services branch, said its anyones guess what the Trump administration will do with DACA.

DHS could end new enrollments but continue the program and renew existing work permits when they expire after two years.

Terminating the program and revoking unexpired work permits seems unlikely, Legomsky predicted, because of the legal steps that would be required.

With more than 700,000 current DACA-holders, that process would be extremely labor-intensive, said Legomsky, now a professor emeritus at Washington University School of Law.

But Trump is getting plenty of pressure from conservative hardliners to kill the program altogether. And his newly appointed attorney general, former-Sen. Jeff SessionsJeff SessionsDem 2020 hopefuls lead pack in opposing Trump Cabinet picks Five tough questions for Trump on immigration Issa: Sessions should recuse himself from any Russia probes MORE (R-Ala.), was among its fiercest critics.

Are deportations about to spike?

The new DHS rules, by empowering immigration officials to remove virtually anyone in the country illegally while encouraging the help of local law enforcers, create the potential for a massive spike in deportations. But theres disagreement about what the practical effect of those changes will be.

One restricting factor mentioned by all sides is that DHS simply doesnt have the funding to find, process and remove 11 million people.

Still, Democrats and other immigration reform advocates who howled when Obamas deportation numbers rose to a record-setting 435,000 in 2013 fear the figure will jump much higher under Trump.

Thats largely because the new rules broadly expand the definition of criminality meriting prioritization to include, not only those convicted of crimes, but also those charged or having committed acts which constitute a chargeable criminal offense. That could mean that anyone admitting after-the-fact to even minor crimes say, driving without a license could quickly become a target.

Democrats also think Trumps rhetoric suggests muscle could be placed behind the orders.

While former President George W. Bush also established rules dictating that those merely charged with a crime were prospective ICE targets, he didnt express an intent to deport 11 million people, the Democratic aide said.

The way the Trump administration operates, they want big numbers. They want to show big things, huge things.

Roy Beck, head of NumbersUSA, which advocates for a reduction in immigration, said that while Trump is pushing a very accelerated and assertive deportation effort, theres no indication the administration is interested in mass round-ups. He expects the focus to be on those who have already been through removal proceedings, but not yet deported, and those who have been convicted of crimes. Combined, Beck puts that number at around 2 million.

You could do mass deportations very easy. You just start going to the various day-labor cites in any city and you could just sweep up busloads, he said. But I do not believe thats going to be happening.

I think that well be lucky to see 500,000 people removed this year, Beck added. Its not that easy, when youre not doing mass roundups.

Will Congress fund ramped-up enforcement efforts?

Funding has constantly limited the scale of the governments enforcement efforts, and the trend will almost certainly persist under Trump.

Indeed, ICEs 2016 budget was $5.9 billion, of which $3.2 billion was dedicated to enforcement and removal operations figures that still stand as part of the current continuing resolution (CR).

Republicans last year proposed a slight uptick in 2017 spending for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to cover, among other things, 100 new enforcement priority officers. But that figure pales to the 10,000 new ICE officers Trump wants to hire subject to available resources, the DHS memo clarifies.

The CBPs overall budget of $11.3 billion comes nowhere near the funding needed to perform mass deportations. A 2015 analysis conducted by the American Action Forum, a conservative think tank, estimated the cost to apprehend, detain, process and deport 11 million people would run between $400 billion and $600 billion.

Lawmakers could face pressure to give Trump the resources he needs to make good on his deportation promises, but they will also hear from fiscal hawks who want to rein in deficit spending under a unified GOP government.

Will Mexico cooperate?

Trumps bellicose approach has soured relations between the U.S. and Mexico which could cripple the administrations deportation strategy, which leans heavily on the cooperation of its southern neighbor.

A key part of Trumps plan involves returning migrants who cross the southern border, regardless of their nationality, back to Mexico to await hearings on their asylum claims. Such cases have spiked in recent years as violence and corruption in Central America have prodded thousands of migrants northward.

Legomsky said Mexico has no legal obligation to accept the return of the many deportees from elsewhere, and even deporting Mexicans puts a proof-of-origin burden on U.S. officials.

Since many arrive without identification, [Mexico] could legitimately refuse to accept many individuals whom the U.S. asserts but cant prove are Mexican nationals, he said.

The administration acknowledged in the ICE conference call that DHS does not now have the right to push deportees into Mexico, said the Democratic aide familiar with the conversation. And Mexican leaders have threatened to raise their concerns with the United Nations.

I want to say clearly and emphatically that the government of Mexico and the Mexican people do not have to accept provisions that one government unilaterally wants to impose on the other, Luis Videgaray, Mexicos Foreign Minister, saidWednesday.

AThursdaymeeting between Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, DHS Secretary John Kelly and Mexican officials did not seem to thaw the ice.

Trump has vowed to use a renegotiation of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to force Mexicos hand. But Legomsky warned that Mexico has similar leverage to retaliate, both by adopting punitive import taxes on U.S. goods and by scaling back law enforcement efforts that have stemmed the flow of drug and human trafficking to the U.S. border.

Given the anti-American sentiment that Trump has already whipped up in Mexico, and the additional anger that mass deportations would engender, any or all of those retaliatory measures are politically realistic, he said.

Will it backfire on Republicans?

A tough law-and-order approach to immigration was the ballast of Trumps successful presidential run, and the effort to make good on his campaign promise has energized the conservative base. The strategy is particularly appealing in the white, working class communities that have suffered disproportionately from globalization and flocked to Trumps vow to put Americans first.

But there are also risks for the Republicans who embrace a strict enforcement strategy, especially if its seen to dismantle families within a growing ethnic electorate. Democrats have won the Hispanic vote by an overwhelming margin in the last three presidential cycles, and Republican leaders have scrambled for ways to narrow the divide.

After Obamas resounding win in 2012, GOP leaders drafted an autopsy report which, in part, urged the party to emphasize a tone of tolerance and respect toward Hispanic communities. The study was done at the request of Reince Priebus, then-chairman of the Republican National Committee and now Trumps chief of staff.

Democrats are already pouncing on the new deportation rules as evidence that Republicans have rejected their own advice.

This is not about smart politics for the Republican Party, said the Democratic aide. This is about a small group of ideologues that are trying to ram through an agenda while the Republicans have the House and the Senate and the presidency.

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Five tough questions for Trump on immigration - The Hill

Jersey Vargas, 13, was just starting a long night of homework Wednesday when I asked how school was going.

Everythings fine. Straight As, said the Panorama City seventh-grader, who attends a magnet school and wants to go to Harvard or Yale one day. But math is getting more difficult.

I hadnt spoken to Jersey since I met her three years ago, when shestopped by the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels to meet with L.A. Archbishop Jose Gomez. Not long after that, just 10 years old, she headed to Rome with immigration reform advocates and asked Pope Francis if he could help save her father and millions of others from deportation.

Today, Jerseys father construction worker Mario Vargas may still need a miracle to avoid being kicked out of the country. He was arrested in 2013 in Tennessee and locked up for driving under the influence. He was released on bond several months later, but his deportation was formally begun earlier this month in immigration court.

The family is on pins and needles, said L.A. attorney Alex Galvez, who is requesting that federal officials use prosecutorial discretion and spare Vargas, who has lived in the U.S. without authorization for 17 years. Galvez arguesthat Vargas is a working, law-abiding family man of good character, with the exception of the DUI conviction, and is the primary breadwinner for Jersey and her five brothers and sisters, who are U.S. citizens.

Its hard to predict what will happen as the case moves forward because the Trump administration has sent so many mixed signals. Trump has said hes going after bad dudes guilty of serious crimes, but new deportation guidelines make it appear that the estimated 11 million people in the country illegally could all get the boot.

I think Trump is absolutely right to go after hard-core criminals. But I wonder how many taxpayers want to invest in prosecuting and shipping Mario Vargas back to Mexico, or to begin rounding upand deporting millions more like him. If Trump is such a great businessman, why doesnt he produce a breakdown on the costs and benefits, including the impact on the economy, wages and the price of goods?

Mario Vargas and countless others came north because of the relentless U.S. demand for labor. If that bothersTrump, why is he so timid about the bad hombres in the construction, agriculture, hospitality and banking industries, all of whom rely on and profit from illegal immigration? His schtick, instead, is to bully poor people who fled corruptionand crime to find work and provide for their families.

I checked back with Archbishop Gomeztoo, and he said if he had the chance, he would offer a simple piece of advice to Trump.

Get to know these people.

I was celebrating Mass at Saint Helensin South Gate and I was thinking, This church is packed, said Gomez. A lot of these people may not have documents, but theyre wonderful people. They come to church. Theyre hard-working. They pay taxes. They have nice families. I mean, these are good people, and I thought, Mr. Trump needs to come to St. Helens in South Gate to see how wonderful these people are.

He should get to know thewhole city, Gomez said.

We have Mass in 42 languages in Los Angeles, he said. This is the United States of America.

If someone in the U.S. illegally commitsa really bad crime, Gomez said, hes not opposed to deportation. But for someone like Jerseys father, he said, deportation for a relatively minor offensewould betoo severe.

Honestly, for me, the penalty is not proportionate to what happened, he said.

As he interprets Trumps immigration policy, Gomez said, any person in this country whos undocumented is considered a criminal. For me, that doesnt respect those basic principles I talkabout the dignity of the human person, the unity of the family.

I hear from a lot of readers, I told Gomez, who disagree. They want stricter border enforcement. Illegal is illegal, they say, and those who crash the border shouldnt be allowed to stay here while others wait in line for legal entry.

If youre skilled, said Gomez, the wait is much shorter. If youre a laborer, youll stand in line forever, no matter how great the demand for your work.

What about the Ten Commandments? I asked. If youre here illegally, doesnt that mean you broke the 9th Commandment thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor?In other words, thou shalt not lie. (Has Trump been to confession lately?)

First of all, no matter what, the Catholic Church is going to protect our brothers and sisters, Gomez said. And the 1st Commandment is to love God and love one another. If its a situation where someone lies were going to be there for them, just as Jesus was always taking care of sinners.

Gomezs vision of immigration reform would include secure borders, penalties and possibly community service requirements for those who came without authorization, and a system that allows for the regulatedmovement of people into and out of the country as dictated by labor needs.

People are so afraid. Theyre really nervous, Gomez said. Its so sad to see little kids, like Jersey and others, thinking, I dont want to go to school because when I come home, maybe my parents will be gone.

If Jerseys father is deported, either the family will follow, and our public investment in the kids will be wasted before they become taxpaying contributors. Or the kids will stay, without their breadwinner, and taxpayers could be on the hook.

To Donald Trump, I would tell him to please stop judging us, because its like judging a book by its cover, Jersey told me.

Outwardly, at least, she has an unbound sense of optimism, and shes not giving up on Trump becoming more understanding. Maybe, she said, hell build bridges and not walls.If so, He could go down as one of our greatest presidents.

steve.lopez@latimes.com

Get more of Steve Lopez's work and follow him on Twitter @LATstevelopez

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Trump needs to stop terrifying immigrant families and consider the real cost of mass deportations - Los Angeles Times

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Posted: Feb 25, 2017 12:01 AM

Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) and Senator David Perdue (R-Georgia) unveiled a bill titled, "the Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment (RAISE) Act," on February 7th. This bill seeks to limit legal immigration to "637,960 in its first year and to 539,958 by its tenth year-a 50 percent reduction from the 1,051,031 immigrants who arrived in 2015." According to Senator Cotton's officialwebsite,the Act aims to achieve the reduction of legal immigration by doing the following:

Other than eliminating the visa lottery program, which I support wholeheartedly, the bill does nothing new to fundamentally change our legal immigration system (restricting the number of visas isn't a new approach). For example, it seeks to reform family-based immigration by maintaining some preference while eliminating other preferences. The question we should ask is: why does the government need to set preference categories at all?

The preference system was first installed through the immigration Act of 1952 and further enhanced by the Immigration Act of 1965,which gave preference to family-reunion for relatives of U.S. citizens and permanent residents (a.k.a.green card holders) in the order of unmarried children under 21 years of age, spouses, parents, children older than 21, siblings and extended family members. One obvious flaw of thishierarchyis that itfavors the old (parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents) and the young (children younger than 21 years of age) but discriminates against the most likely productive ones (people 21 years old or older, and siblings of U.S. citizens and permanent residents). Thus, thissystem gives preference to people who are more likely to become financial dependents rather than economic contributors. Empirical evidence shows that after we started admitting immigrants mainly on a family reunification basis in 1965, wealsoopened up the welfare system to immigrants.By keeping the preference for children younger than 21 while eliminating preference for siblings, the RAISE Act does nothing to fix this problem.

The right approach is to totally eliminate the preference hierarchy. U.S. citizens and green card holders should have the freedom to decide which family members they want to bring to the U.S. We should make it clear that the sponsors themselves have to be financially responsible for whomever they bring into our nation for at least 5 years (after 5 years, a green card holder can apply for U.S. citizenship) and restrict access to social welfare benefits to U.S. citizens only. As long as we "build a wall" around our welfare system, we as nation shouldn't dictate which family members that the U.S. citizen and green card holders want to bring.

The RAISE Act seeks to codify the number of refugees we bring in on annual basis to 50,000. Historically, the quota for refugees has been set by the U.S. president on annual basis and hasfluctuated from as low as 30,000 to as high as 200,000. It gives the executive authority and flexibility to react to refugee crises as the result of world events on a timely basis. If we codify the refugee quota in an immigration law, we will lose such flexibility. Therefore, I'd rather see the power of determining the annual quota of refugees remain with U.S. president.

Let's not forget that in addition to the refugee program, our current immigration system has a separate category for asylum-seekers.There is noquotaon the number of individuals who may be grantedpermanent residency throughasylum in a given year, and there is no clear definition of what constitutes persecution.Asylum seekers have been subjected to far less scrutiny than refugees.Consequently, this is a program thathas been riddled with fraud and the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)has called for additional actions from the Department of Homelandto address the fraud risk in the asylum program specifically.Yet, the RAISE Act fails to address it. The right approach is tocombine refugees andasylum seekers into one humanitarian program under one quota that set by U.S. President on annual basis and is subjected to a uniform screening standard. This willallow immigration agents to focus on vetting security threats among applicants.

What I found the most troubling with the RAISE Act is that it assumes it will "help raise American workers' wages" by reducing legal immigration drastically. This is an old and beaten- path that we as a nation tried and failed. The last time the United States severely limited its legal immigration was through the 1921 Emergency Quota Act, which capped legal immigration to 350,000 annually.In 1922, the U.S. received only 309,556 new immigrants, compared with 805,228 the prior year.other more influential causes that have had held American workers back, which have nothing to do with immigration.

For example, automation is a far bigger threat to American workers than immigration. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, recentlypointed outhow automation has already disrupted car-based transportation and he relayed concerns that autonomous technology will have severe impact on American workers--"Twenty years is a short period of time to have something like 12-15 percent of the workforce be unemployed." He said.

To truly help American workers to get employed and have better wages, Senator Cotton and Senator Perdue need to focus on issues such as education reform, which will help Americans equip themselves with knowledge and skills that employers desire. If the Senators want to eliminate something, let's eliminate ruinous and job-killing laws and regulations such as the minimum wage requirement and occupation licensing requirements.

While I believe the RAISE Act is a flawed bill, I do share bothSenator Cotton and Senator Perdue's concern for the legal immigration system. A good immigration reform bill should focus on simplification and emphasize skill-based immigration sowe will ensure a win-win situation for both our nation and the new immigrants. If they are willing to listen, there aregood ideasout there on how to fix our broken immigration system.

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The RAISE Act Takes a Flawed Approach on Immigration Reform - Townhall