Some highlights of the White House’s draft plan:
Under the plan, undocumented workers could apply for three-year work visas, which the plan dubs “Z” visas. They would be renewable indefinitely but renewal would cost $3,500 each time.
The undocumented workers would have legal status with the visas, but to get a green card, making them legal permanent residents, they’d have to return to their home country, apply at a U.S. embassy or consulate to re-enter legally and pay a $10,000 fine.
$10,000 fines? Are they insane? This is going to effectively allow a certain class of immigrant to stay (the nice, rich, educated, whiter ones the Republicans like) and force the rest to either hide or leave. Why on earth would they pay $10k only to have to leave and reapply? They know how hard it is to get a visa in their countries. Why would they risk the chance that they’d lose all of that money?
A plan to make more green cards available to skilled workers by limiting visas for parents, children and siblings of U.S. citizens and one that would prohibit temporary workers from bringing family members is one of the plan’s more controversial provisions.
“President Bush said family values don’t stop at the Rio Grande. Evidently they do,” said Kevin Appleby, director of Migration and Refugee Policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The STRIVE Act (Security Through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy), a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill introduced by Representatives Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ), would create a new guest worker program (H-2C visa). The program would permit foreign national workers to enter the United States to work for three years, with a possible three year extension.
The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and the American Nursery & Landscape Association (ANLA) enthusiastically welcomed the unveiling of the STRIVE Act. Immigrant rights activists said a comprehensive immigration reform bill called ‘The Strive Act’ tough, but long overdue
