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Throughout my time in Congress, I have consistently maintained there is a real need for a rational immigration policy built on several important principles. I have weighed past immigration reform legislation against these principles, and have voted against immigration reform efforts that do not meet them. I continue to use them as a guide for consideration of current immigration reform proposals:

First, the United States must commit the resources necessary to have the strongest border enforcement realistically possible. Preservation of the integrity of our borders is essential to immigration policy as well as our national security.

Second, our immigration system must not grant amnesty to those who enter our country illegally or illegally overstay their visas. No person who breaks the law should obtain any benefit toward either permanent legal residency or citizenship as a result of their illegal conduct. This is unfair both to American citizens and to those who have gone through legal channels for immigration to the U.S.

Third, non-citizens must not be afforded the same means-tested, federal benefits available to U.S. citizens. Federal public benefit programs exist as a manifestation of the American aspiration to take care of our own less fortunate. In todays fiscal climate, the solvency of these programs is ill-fated at best, making it nothing less than irresponsible to exacerbate these programs financial constraints by extending eligibility to individuals who are not U.S. citizens.

Fourth, our immigration system must assure that American citizens have the first right to access available jobs. There is significant debate about whether American citizens are losing U.S. jobs to workers from other countries. However, this debate can be resolved by assuring that any jobs made available in a legal guest worker program are first available to U.S. workers. Manageable ways to assure this have already been identified.

Fifth, an efficient and workable guest worker program must be developed that will provide employers with a reliable, verifiable and legal system to identify guest workers who are legally in the country.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Farm Workforce Modernization Act last week, which is not related to the current border crisis. Nevertheless, action on this legislation has understandably made its way into current broader discussions about border security and immigration reform. The Farm Workforce Modernization Act aims to provide needed improvements to the agriculture-labor component of our nations immigration system to provide a more reliable supply of labor to our nations agriculture producers and an improved process for immigrants seeking to work in American agriculture.

As a country, we ask a lot of Americas farmers and ranchers. We count on them for a stable and high-quality food supply, and we expect them to keep delivering more to feed our growing world while facing increasing input costs and rising pressures on the land and water it takes to produce the food we eat.

Despite the uncertainty of the pandemic of this past year and an ongoing farm labor crisis, Idaho agriculture has kept supplying the food and goods needed across our state, country and world. Idahos 24,000 farms and ranches produce 185 commodities, according to the Idaho State Department of Agriculture (ISDA). And, together, the ISDA reports, agriculture and food processing generate 28 percent of Idahos total economic output in sales and 13 percent of its gross domestic product. In fact, Idaho ranks number 5 among all 50 states when it comes to the share of agricultures contribution as a percentage of a states economic output. Unfortunately, this economic engine is under threat as producers have struggled with a lack of available workers and seasonal labor rates that have increased by 25 percent in the past three years due to a flawed federal system. Producers have shared experiences of having no domestic workers apply for openings, even during the height of last years unemployment spike.

We must deal with the insufficiencies of the existing agriculture guest worker program intended to help with labor shortages. This includes addressing the year-round needs of Idahos dairy operations. I have committed to working to produce a Senate solution to bring certainty to hard-working producers and farmworkers who have sustained the nation long before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. As I work on these efforts, I will not support granting those who enter the country illegally any advantage of obtaining a green card, permanent status or citizenship over those who followed the law. Immigration reforms are long past due, and I look forward to the work ahead to fix this part of our broken immigration system for the betterment of Idaho agriculture and the Idahoans and other consumers who rely on its resiliency.

A shortened version of this column originally appeared in the Idaho Press.

Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, has served in the U.S. Senate since 1999. The views and opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of the Independent-Enterprise.

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Ideas for sound immigration reform - Ontario Argus Observer

Norah O'Donnell, anchor and managing editor of the "CBS Evening News," talks immigration, politics, painting and more in a revealing interview with former President George W. Bush for "CBS Sunday Morning," to be broadcast on April 18.

More of the interview will be presented Tuesday, April 20, on the "CBS Evening News with Norah O'Donnell," and Wednesday, April 21, on "CBS This Morning."

O'Donnell visited Mr. Bush and former first lady Laura Bush at their Texas ranch, south of Dallas. There, the 74-year-old opened up about his life after leaving office, his thoughts on the country, his painting and his new book, "Out of Many, One: Portraits of America's Immigrants" (Crown).

In 2006, Mr. Bush gave an Oval Office address on immigration. He told O'Donnell he's ready to re-enter the debate on immigration, including lobbying his own party on the issue.

Here's an excerpt of the interview:

Norah O'Donnell: "Still, nothing's been done."

President Bush: "No, a lot of executive orders, but all that means is that Congress isn't doing its job."

O'Donnell: "Is it one of the biggest disappointments of your presidency, not being "

Mr. Bush: "Yes, it really is. I campaigned on immigration reform. I made it abundantly clear to voters this is something I intended to do."

The Emmy Award-winning "Sunday Morning" is broadcast on CBS Sundays beginning at 9 a.m. ET. "Sunday Morning" alsostreams on CBSN[beginning at 9 a.m. ET and 11:30 a.m. ET] andParamount+, and is available oncbs.comand On Demand.

Be sure to follow us atcbssundaymorning.com, and onTwitter(@CBSSunday),Facebook, andInstagram(#CBSSundayMorning).

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George W. Bush calls not passing immigration reform one of his biggest regrets - CBS News

The COVID-19 pandemic had a dramatic effect on immigration law, disrupting policies that were already shaken up by the Trump Administration during its first three years. Practitioners who advise on immigration law now must keep up with changes wrought by the pandemic as well as near-daily immigration news from the Biden Administration.

For the previous Administration, COVID created the opportunity to significantly curtail legal immigration, says immigration law expert Austin T. Fragomen, Jr., Chairman of the Executive Committee at Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen, & Loewy, LLP and co-author of Fragomen on Immigration Fundamentals: A Guide to Law and Practice, Fifth Edition, available from PLI Press. In a recent article in the PLI Chronicle, Fragomen outlines the immigration actions taken by the Biden Administration in its early days and anticipates changes to come.

An emphasis on prioritizing immigration reform this early in a Presidents tenure is startling, given this topics traditional status as a third rail in American politics, Fragomen observes. Nevertheless, the new administration has forged ahead on issues including DACA, the travel ban, employment and more.

Click to read Fragomens article, What Can We Expect on Immigration from the Biden Administration? For more insights and perspectives for the legal community, visit the PLI Chronicle on PLI PLUS. Visit PLI.edu for immigration-related programs and publications.

Practising Law Institute is a nonprofit learning organization dedicated to keeping attorneys and other professionals at the forefront of knowledge and expertise. PLI is chartered by the Regents of the University of the State of New York and was founded in 1933 by Harold P. Seligson. The organization provides the highest quality, accredited, continuing legal and professional education programs in a variety of formats which are delivered by more than 4,000 volunteer faculty including prominent lawyers, judges, investment bankers, accountants, corporate counsel, and U.S. and international government regulators. PLI publishes a comprehensive library of Treatises, Course Handbooks, Answer Books and Journals also available through the PLI PLUS online platform. The essence of PLIs mission is its commitment to the pro bono community. View PLIs upcoming live webcasts here.

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Immigration Reform During A Pandemic? Biden Administration Comes Out Swinging - Above the Law

In February, President Biden proposed immigration reform legislation that would allow some noncitizens who do not have immigration status to become permanent residents and, ultimately, citizens. Proposed legislation would also make changes to the U.S. asylum system, which provides refuge for those unable or unwilling to return to their home country for various reasons.

As the President and Congress consider immigration reform, we highlight some of our prior work on immigration benefits and enforcement programs and ways to improve them in todays WatchBlog.

Asylum and temporary protected status

U.S. immigration law allows noncitizens to legally seek travel to or remain in the United States, including various forms of humanitarian relief or protection from removal, such as asylum and temporary protected status.

Noncitizens granted Temporary Protected Status are authorized to work in the U.S. as long as their status lasts. However, the documents demonstrating work authorization to employers can expire. DHS gives extensions and has notified people about them in various ways, such as via notices in the Federal Register and mailed letters in some cases. But,not all of DHSs guidance tells employers that these mailed extension letters are acceptable proof of work authorization, and some noncitizens have reportedly wrongly lost their jobs over this. As such, in a 2020 report, we recommended that USCIS update its guidance to consistently identify the ways it communicates extensions of employment authorization.

Immigration enforcement

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducts immigration enforcement actions, including arrests, detentions, and removals of noncitizens for violations of U.S. immigration law. In a December 2019 report, we found that the numbers of arrests, detentions, and removals of noncitizens varied during calendar years 2015 through 2018, and increased overall for the period.

Enforcement and Removal Operations Administrative Arrests, Detentions, and Removals,2015 through 2018

Noncitizens who serve in the U.S. militarysuch as lawful permanent residents who are eligible to enlistmay also be detained and removed from the country for reasons such as controlled substance violations or conviction of an aggravated felony. Available data indicated that approximately 250 noncitizen veterans were placed in removal proceedings from fiscal year 2013 through 2018. In June 2019, we reviewed ICEs process for handling cases of noncitizen veterans. We found that ICE did not consistently follow its own policies for veterans, which may have resulted in removing some veterans without the level of review and approval ICE required.

For more information on the enforcement programs under DHS and our recommendations, check our reports.

More:
US Immigration Laws and Enforcement - Government Accountability Office

Looking into Mexico at the Gateway International Bridge, Brownsville, Tex. (Chandan Khanna, AFP via Getty Images)

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Guillermo Bustos migrated to the United States when he was a child. He spent his formative years in Los Angeles, where he graduated from Huntington Park High School in 2006. Guillermos entire family and life is in California. He was raised by his mother, Maria Bustos, a lawful permanent resident, and his older sister and brother-in-law, who are both US citizens and small-business owners. In 2014, Guillermo was granted Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Obama-era policy that allowed undocumented people who had been brought to the United States as children to get a work permit and avoid the threat of deportation. He was on a path to having a stable documentation status in this country.

But two years later, Guillermo was convicted of a felony for being a passenger in a car that was carrying drugs. Even after serving his sentence, Guillermo now sits in a precarious position: Because of a double punishment written into American immigration law, his conviction bars him from legal status and citizenship, and he now faces permanent banishment from his entire family and the country that he has called home for 20 years. He has been caught in a punitive part of the US immigration system that advocates call the prison-to-deportation pipeline.

When President Joe Biden was elected last year, there was hope that he would put an end to the discriminatory immigration policies of the Trump administration, and perhaps even undo some of the overly aggressive policies of previous administrations, both Democrat and Republican. His administration has canceled Trumps travel bans and reversed the remain in Mexico policy. But so far, the legislation put forward during the Biden administration does little to undo the prison-to-deportation pipeline that has put immigrants like Guillermo in its sights. Perhaps the most significant piece of immigration legislation of the Biden administration to date, the American Dream and Promise Act (HR 6), voted on March 18, 2021, in the House of Representatives, continues the decades-old, bipartisan tradition of targeting immigrant communities with an ever-present specter of deportation. By failing to remove criminalization barsthe parts of our immigration code that make conviction of a whole host of crimes grounds for deportationand expanding the power of the Department of Homeland Security to deny legal status to tens of thousands of immigrants, HR 6 categorically excludes people brought to the United States as children from the opportunity ever to legalize their status. Representatives Jess Chuy Garcia, Pramila Jayapal, Ayanna Pressley, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have put forward amendments to remove these provisions and have gained significant congressional support, but so far they remain in the bill.

As public defenders active in the Public Defenders Coalition for Immigrant Justice, we know that while there is undoubtedly an urgent need to create avenues to legal status for millions of immigrants, HR 6s criminalization bars deepen a dangerous divide in our nations immigration system. With an approach reminiscent of the Clinton administrations punitive tough on crime policies that fueled the mass incarceration crisis and the Obama administrations felons, not families enforcement guidelines that led to the deportation of 3 million people, Congress is yet again defining those who are deserving based on labels applied by the often arbitrary and inequitable criminal legal system. Fueling the jail-to-deportation pipeline with its criminalization bars, HR 6 places the power to withhold citizenship in the hands of the local police and prosecutors who dictate the arrest, charges, pleas, and sentences that the bill would enshrineeven as our nation struggles to deal with the fact that the application of these discretionary powers is deeply informed by ZIP code and skin color.

Despite the growing awareness of the anti-Blackness and racism that plague policing and the criminal legal systems, our immigration protocols rely on those very same systems to define who is worthy of legal status. As with the criminal legal system, HR 6s sweeping and punitive criminalization bars would disproportionately punish poor Black people and other communities of color. For example, the bill bars immigrants from obtaining lawful status, with very limited exception, if they have been convicted at any time in their lives of any three misdemeanors, which include offenses such as jaywalking, disorderly conduct, street vending without a license, shoplifting, and trespass. As public defenders, we know that rap sheets with multiple offenses like these reflect over-policing of impoverished communities, where people are arrested and charged with multiple offenses for one incident, and often held in jail to obtain a guilty plea. In states where ICE courthouse arrests are permitted, many immigrants are pressured into a plea bargain rather than risk ICE arrest, which under HR 6 would render them ineligible for the legal status that would have afforded them the security to pursue trial.

HR 6 also bars any person who has been convicted of a single felony from applying for lawful status. Felonies can include a second shoplifting offense, possession of a small amount of drugs, petty theft, joyriding, and failure to disclose even the most nominal income on a single application for public assistance with their childs food or medical care. Felony convictions already disenfranchise millions of US citizens from voting, and now Congress similarly would disenfranchise immigrants from ever becoming US citizens, even those who have lived in the United States since childhood.Related Article

HR 6 also includes a secondary review process that expands the DHSs power to deny applications under the guise of public safety, a well-known pretext for targeting immigrants with criminal legal system contact. It is inexplicable that Congress aims to give even more power to a federal agency that has woefully flouted the rule of law, openly defied federal court orders, and exacerbated the Covid-19 pandemic throughout the past four years. Congress should not reward the DHSs misbehavior by entrusting it with more power. To the contrary, Congress should recognize that federal immigration agencies enforce civil regulations, yet often employ tactics that leave communities and the public far less safe.

Under this administration, America has an opportunity to lift up immigrant communities by building inclusive pathways to legal status and US citizenship. Now is the time to end the jail-to-deportation pipeline by introducing legislation to help communities and families like Guillermos achieve stability in this country. We urge members of Congress and the Biden administration to reject the criminalization bars in HR 6, and to ensure that all proposed immigration reform, including the US Citizenship Act, does not exclude our countrys most policed and vulnerable communities.

The Public Defenders Coalition for Immigrant Justice includes public defender offices representing noncitizens in criminal and immigration proceedings across the country including Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New York, Oregon, Texas, and Washington.

Link:
Biden Has a Chance to End the Jail-to-Deportation Pipeline - The Nation