Senators: Don’t let Boston terror derail immigration deal

WASHINGTON - Efforts to rewrite U.S. immigration law shouldn’t be derailed by the Boston Marathon bombings in which two immigrants are suspected, several senators said Friday.

People shouldn’t “jump to conclusions” and “conflate” the events in Boston with the immigration proposal, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said at a hearing on the plan in Washington.

Second-ranking Senate Democrat Dick Durbin said the bipartisan immigration bill introduced this week would enhance national security.

The proposals to offer a path to citizenship for illegal aliens, tighten border security, require employers to verify the identity of their workers, and track visitors’ visas are important to increasing security in the U.S., Durbin of Illinois said on Bloomberg Television’s Political Capital With Al Hunt, airing this weekend.

“First, we’re going to make a dramatic investment in our border with Mexico,” Durbin said. “Secondly, everyone, the 11 million people who were basically living in the shadows in America, have to come forward, register with the government, go through a criminal background check. That will make us safer.”

The lawmakers spoke as police were searching for a 19-year-old naturalized citizen from Kyrgyzstan suspected in the Boston bombings, after a second suspect - his brother - was killed in an overnight battle.

“How can we beef up security checks on people who wish to enter the United States? How do we ensure that people who wish to do us harm are not eligible for benefits under the immigration laws, including this new bill before us?” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the immigration bill.

Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, co-sponsors of the immigration bill, said in a joint statement that some have suggested the situation in Boston was a reason to delay the legislation.

“The opposite is true: Immigration reform will strengthen our nation’s security by helping us identify exactly who has entered our country and who has left,” McCain and Graham said.

Schumer said that asylum and refugee programs in the U.S. have been strengthened over the past few years. If homeland security officials determine more changes are needed to boost security, he said he’s “committed” to making them.

Judiciary Committee chairman Sen Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said Americans are concerned about the immigration system even in a week when this “horrible, terrible tragic news” has taken the public’s attention.

Grassley said, “Given the events of this week, it is important for us to understand the gaps and loopholes in our immigration system.”

“While we don’t yet know the immigration status of people who have terrorized the communities of Massachusetts,” when officials find out it will help “shed light on the weaknesses of our system,” including the need to bolster security checks, Grassley said.

An earlier effort to rewrite immigration law under President George W. Bush was delayed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and ultimately failed in 2007.

Durbin said the quick law enforcement response to the Boston bombings shows the improvements made since 2001.

“We learned a bitter lesson that day when we lost 3,000-plus innocent Americans, and we started making dramatic investments in intelligence-gathering, as well as law enforcement, hoping to protect America from anything like that ever happening again, knowing how tough a challenge that would be in such an open society,” Durbin said.

Information for this article was contributed by James Rowley, Julianna Goldman, Kathleen Hunter and Phil Mattingly of Bloomberg News.

Front Section, Pages 3 on 04/20/2013

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