An immigration reform measure that appeared to die in the Senate on Thursday could return next month, Sen. Ken Salazar, one of the measure’s chief architects, said today.
At a press conference at his Denver office, the Colorado Democrat said Senators would turn their attention to the energy bill next week, but that he is hopeful they will return to immigration reform in July.
“Failure on immigration reform is not an option,” he said. “For this Congress and Washington not to deal with immigration reform is an abdication of responsibility.”
If action is not taken now, Salazar said, immigration reform may have to wait up to five years.
Other Senators and lawmakers are optimistic as well.
“It’s one of those issues that needs to be addressed,” said Colorado’s Republican Senator Wayne Allard. “It is important we get back on the bill to see if we can’t resolve this issue that is facing immigrants and businesses and Colorado families. The sooner we get to it the better.”
Salazar said he called the White House Friday for Presidential help in raising the support needed to move the bill to a vote.
“The President will be helpful to us in getting men and women in the U.S. senate in line to get this bill through,” he said.
Instead of trying to restart the immigration bill Congressman Tom Tancredo said the government should begin to enforce existing immigration laws.
“It’s a shame that Senator Salazar, President Bush and others seem to be so tone-deaf on this,” Tancredo said in a statement. “The American people are dead-set against amnesty and no amount of slick repackaging or creative euphemisms are going to change that.”
For those who brand the bill as a blanket “amnesty” Salazar said, “They haven’t read the bill, they don’t want to fix the problem, they want to play politics.”
Salazar lauded the bill for its security measures and for its offer of legalization to undocumented immigrants. He pointed to provisions that created 27,500 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention beds and to stiff fines and 8-year waiting period for undocumented immigrants to become legalized.
Former Governor Dick Lamm, who has been a vocal critic of illegal immigration, supported amnesty in 1986 but says it’s a mistake to talk amnesty now without first gaining control of the border, which he estimates could take up to 3 years and not just 18 months as allotted in the bill.
Once that is accomplished some sort of phased in legalization might work. Lamm recommends starting with those who have been in the U.S. more than a decade.
“You don’t do that until you are sure you have enforceable borders,” he said.
The Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition would like the bill to eventually include legalization for undocumented workers and their families, worker protections and a path to citizenship for future immigrant workers, family reunification and continued family based immigration.
“We’ve had four raids in Colorado in four months, we have children without their parents and families that are separated,” said Julien Ross, coordinator of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition. “The issue is not going away and it’s the responsibility of our policymakers to fix our broken immigration system in a humane and just way.”
