Advocacy Update
July 2007

LIRS Continues Comprehensive Immigration Reform Advocacy
By Eric Sigmon, LIRS Policy Advocate, and Suzie Lee and Susan Yao, LIRS Legislative Interns

LIRS continues to advocate for comprehensive immigration reform that meets four basic principles: promoting family unity, safeguarding human rights and worker rights, ending marginalization, and providing a path to permanence.

This spring a group of senators led by Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ) worked with White House officials to craft the bipartisan Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Reform Act of 2007. But the proposal, released in May, was not the fair and humane immigration bill we had hoped for. On the plus side it included a chance for legal status for many of the 12 million undocumented immigrants currently in the United States and a reduction of family visa backlogs, but its negative provisions included an unworkable temporary worker program; punitive fines and “touchback” requirements in the earned legalization program; increased detention capacity; and, worst of all, a dramatic shift from America’s time-honored family-based immigration visa system toward an untested merit-based point visa system. The bill dismantle four of five family visa categories.

LIRS worked in coalition with faith-based partners and immigrant advocacy groups to improve the legislation. We helped champion a pro-family amendment introduced by Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ). We supported an amendment by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to incorporate the Unaccompanied Child Alien Protection Act of 2007 into the bill, and organized an advocates’ letter in support of an amendment by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) providing for alternatives to detention and expansion of the legal orientation program in detention centers. Unfortunately, the family amendment failed, but the children’s amendment and the detention reform amendment were incorporated into the Senate bill by unanimous consent. Even if the Senate bill fails in the end, establishing a unanimous endorsement of an issue can be an important step toward achieving ultimate passage of legislation.

The media served an important role in our outreach efforts. LIRS President Ralston Deffenbaugh spoke to a packed room of reporters at a press conference, broadcast on C-SPAN, in support of the Clinton amendment. LIRS, in partnership with Bishops Gerald Mansholt, Michael Keys and Stephen Bouman of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), also submitted four op-ed commentaries calling on the Senate to amend the bill to put families first. Two op-eds appeared in the Kansas Wichita Eagle, one in The Anchorage Daily News, and another in Christian NewsWire. The ELCA’s Immigration Ready Bench, a group of bishops committed to using their role as prominent faith leaders to speak out on behalf of vulnerable newcomers, helped spread the message across 65 synods nationwide. LIRS made calls and sent faxes, e-mails and printed materials to engage bishops, synod network members and other supporters in the immigration debate.

Based on the four principles, LIRS decided to oppose the Senate bill unless it is fundamentally improved. By the time this article appears, a somewhat revised version of the bill either will have passed the Senate with action continuing in the House, or will have been defeated with no further action likely this year. In either case, LIRS remains committed to achieving workable and comprehensive reform.

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