The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.60/No.20           May 20, 1996 
 
 
Senate Passes Bill Limiting Rights  

BY BRIAN WILLIAMS

WASHINGTON, D.C. - With virtually complete bipartisan agreement, the U.S. Senate passed a bill May 2 further attacking the rights of immigrants to live and work in the United States. The bill, approved by a 97-3 vote, targets the rights of both undocumented workers and immigrants with legal papers.

This proposed legislation nearly doubles the number of Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) Border Patrol cops. An additional 4,700 INS agents would be hired over the next five years, augmenting the current 5,175-member force. In addition, INS detention centers would expand the number of their beds to at least 9,000, a 66 percent increase over current capacity.

Government officials would be given new authority to conduct wiretaps on those they say are suspected of smuggling immigrants and using false documents. The legislation also authorizes the INS to spend an additional $12 million on physical barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border south of San Diego, including triple fences and high-tech detection devices.

The senators also mandated the INS to test several pilot programs that allow employers to tap into an automated national database to obtain confidential information on the legal and financial status of those seeking work. Congress would eventually adopt one of these programs, to be tried first in states with large numbers of immigrants, in what would amount to the creation of a national ID card.

"We have stuff in there that has everything but the rack and thumb-screws for people who are violating the laws of the United States," stated Republican senator Alan Simpson, the bill's chief sponsor.

Democratic senator Edward Kennedy hailed the bill, saying it "makes it much harder for illegal aliens to falsify job applications."

President William Clinton welcomed the bill as an endorsement of his administration's "comprehensive immigration strategy," which he said was making "historic progress" in cracking down on undocumented immigrants at the border and at the workplace.

Republican presidential candidate Robert Dole praised the bill as a "long overdue" effort to toughen enforcement of U.S. "sovereignty." "We cannot remain a great country and fail to control our borders," he stated.

The Senate bill makes undocumented workers ineligible for most government benefits, except certain services like emergency medical care and some nutrition programs.

Immigrants with legal papers would also be cut off from a variety of health-care and welfare programs by requiring that any income earned by those sponsoring an immigrant must be counted in determining whether the individual qualifies for any means-tested assistance. To sponsor an immigrant a person must earn at least 125 percent of the poverty level.

Except for pre- and postnatal nutrition and school lunch programs, an immigrant under the Senate bill could not receive public benefits until he or she had worked and paid taxes for 10 years or had become a naturalized U.S. citizen.

If an immigrant received any means-tested federal assistance for more than 12 months in their first five years in the country, the person would be subject to deportation.

"Even programs which are available for undocumented immigrants, such as immunizations and emergency medical and disaster relief services, would be denied to legal immigrants under this bill," stated Raul Yzaguirre, president of the National Council of La Raza.

Before reaching President Clinton's desk, the Senate bill must be reconciled with a version approved by the House of Representatives in March. The House bill contains many provisions similar to the Senate's, but includes further restrictions on asylum-seekers and allows state governments to deny public education to children who are undocumented immigrants.

A May 7 editorial in the New York Times praised the Senate's measure as a "sensible" immigration bill. "Those people whom immigration law excludes should be kept out as effectively as possible," the editors wrote. "The Senate has come up with a bill that can help do that. The House should drop its unacceptable education and asylum provisions and go along."

Separate legislation in the Senate to reduce legal immigration has been set aside for this year.

Brian Williams is a member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 27 in Landover, Maryland.  
 
 
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