Aliens’ path to U.S. citizenship still unresolved

Lawmakers differ on children

WASHINGTON - A perplexing question remains at the center of the current immigration debate in Congress: how to treat people who were brought to the United States illegally when they were children.

Though they are in the nation illegally, many of them cannot remember their birth country and have called America their home as long as they can remember.

“Most of them had zero or little to say about being here,” said U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin, R-Ark.

Like a lot of people on Capitol Hill, Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., calls the children “dreamers” - a reference to Development, Relief and Education for AlienMinors legislation that was first introduced in Congress in 2001 and that would grant them legal status.

“I have a heart for people that exist under a circumstance like this for years and years through no decision and no fault of their own,” Womack said. “My heart bleeds for them.”

Legislation passed by the Senate in July would allow people brought to the U.S. illegally before they turned 16 to apply for permanent residency and citizenship if they have been in the country at least five years, completed high school and some college or served in the military.

In the Senate, Mark Pryor, D-Ark., voted for the bill, while John Boozman, R-Ark., voted against it.

House Republicans have stressed that they would like to pass legislation that secures the nation’s borders before they consider other bills that would confer legal status on foreigners already in the U.S.

But in recent weeks some GOP members, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, have pressed to give special consideration to those brought into the country illegally as children.

Others, including Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican, have adamantly opposed such efforts.

In comments that were condemned by House Republican leaders and members of the Arkansas delegation, King said that for every student who entered the country illegally and ended up a high school valedictorian, there were 100 who crossed the border illegally because they were “hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.”

Arkansas’ four congressmen, all Republicans, said they are struggling with the issue.

“There are a lot of differing opinions in the House, within our conference,” said Rep. Rick Crawford.

Crawford said he didn’t want to punish people who were brought in as children, but he worries that conferring legal status on those people would encourage more people to immigrate illegally.

“We don’t want to incentivize the kind of behavior we’re trying to reform,” he said.

Womack sounded a similar note.

“Where we start getting a little crossways in the discussion, a little sideways, is when we start excusing the behavior of the people who were responsible for the decision to bring them here,” he said.

Crawford, Griffin and Womack declined to say how they would address the status of those brought here at a young age, each saying they would wait to see how legislation develops in House committees.

In June 2012, President Barack Obama gave such foreigners a reprieve when he signed an executive order that stopped, for two years, the deportation of people who crossed the border illegally with their parents.

An estimated 1.4 millionpeople living in the United States met the condition for the reprieve, according to a July 2012 study by the Immigration Policy Center, a pro-immigrant Washington group. To qualify, a person must be under 31 years old and have entered the country before his 16th birthday. The program covers only people here at least five years who have no felonies or “significant” misdemeanors on their record. They must either be in school, have graduated, have received a General Educational Development diploma or have served in the military.

The Migration Policy Institute, a liberal Washington group that studies “the movement of people worldwide,” estimated that 2.1 million people would qualify for a fasttracked path to citizenship under the Senate-passed bill. The number is higher than the number of people who qualify for deferred action, because the Senate legislation would also apply to people older than 30.

In June, each of Arkansas’ four congressmen voted for an amendment to a broader spending bill offered by Iowa’s King. The amendment would strip funding for the deferred-action program and take away the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s authority to use discretion when prosecuting individuals.

Griffin said he voted for the amendment because any changes to immigration policy should be made only by changing the law, passed by Congress.

“The president willy-nilly picks the laws he likes and which ones he doesn’t,” Griffin said. “The executive branch doesn’t make the law, the executive branch is supposed to enforce the law.”

Mireya Reith, director of Arkansas United Community Coalition, a Fayetteville group that supports giving people who came here illegally a path to citizenship, said she wasdisappointed by the Arkansas congressmen’s votes on the King amendment.

She said she had met with Crawford, Griffin and Womack, each of whom had expressed a desire to make an accommodation for the “dreamers.”

“They’re not backing with their votes the sympathy they expressed to us,” Reith said.

Arkansas’ Congressman Tom Cotton declined an interview request through a spokesman.

On Thursday, his spokesman Caroline Rabbitt said Cotton was “out of pocket.” Asked where he was, Rabbitt replied: “That’s none of your business.”

In a subsequent telephone call, Rabbitt declined to say on the record where Cotton was, but provided a quote on the immigration debate that she attributed to Cotton.

“As with all matters related to immigration, I want to respect the rule of law, take no steps to encourage more illegal immigration, and treat justly those foreigners who’ve waited patiently to immigrate legally,” he said.

Reith said Cotton had not given her an indication of his position.

“Our other three congressman expressed their sympathy” with the situation of children brought here illegally, she said. “He’s hesitant to speak on that issue.”

On the Alice Stewart Radio Show, which airs in central Arkansas weekdays at 6 a.m. on KHTE, Cotton fleshed out some of his thoughts on the issue.

On July 15, apparently referring to the deferred-action program, Cotton slammed Obama for issuing “blanket amnesty for a group of illegal immigrants, many of which includes hardened gang members and criminals.”

As they face the 2014 elections, Republicans are “torn” between solely focusing on border-security measures and on providing a path to citizenship for those here illegally, said Ron Mortensen, a fellow with the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington group that favors tougher immigration laws.

Mortensen said many Republicans feel that they have to provide a path to citizenship for people brought here as children in order to attract Hispanic voters.

“They think they have to do this to win elections,” he said. “There’s a political imperative.”

However, Mortensen said that when children who were brought here illegally enter the workforce, they often used fake identification to get a job.

“That’s document fraud and forgery, which is a felony,” he said.

Mortensen said those children’s parents have put them in a difficult position. He said he opposes allowing the children a fast-track to citizenship because it would let those transgressions go unpunished.

Mayra Esquivel, a 22-yearold student at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith, said she wants to become a citizen in order to contribute to this country.

Born in Mexico, Esquivel was taken to Fort Smith as a 3-year-old.

She didn’t learn about her legal status until she tried to get a driver’s license but couldn’t provide the necessary documentation. Later, she was turned down for college scholarships because she was in the U.S. illegally.

“I thought, basically, ‘I have no future,’” she said.

With her family’s support, Esquivel has been putting herself through college. Because of the deferred-action program, she now has a job at the Women’s Crisis Intervention Center in Fort Smith and wants to go to medical school at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

She doesn’t understand why some lawmakers don’t want to allow her to get citizenship.

“What are they scared of?” she said. “We are Americans. All we want to do is give back to this society that gave us so much.”

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 07/29/2013

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