IMMIGRATION BILL MOVING IN SENATE
Immigration reform is moving
forward in the Senate this month. On March 2nd, the Senate Judiciary Committee
(the committee in charge of immigration legislation) had its first hearing on the immigration bill recently drafted by Senator
Specter. In the coming weeks, the Senators will debate this bill and offer amendments. The bill, as it currently stands, too closely mirrors the punitive enforcement provisions
of HR 4437, passed by the House in December. It criminalizes the status of being
undocumented and includes criminal penalties to those who “facilitate” the illegal entry of people, which, because
of the broad nature of this provision, poses a concern for non-profit organizations and churches who serve undocumented people. While Senator Specter’s bill does provide a temporary worker program, there
is no opportunity for temporary workers to adjust their status to legal residents at the end of their term. In addition, Senator Specter’s bill allows for eligible undocumented individuals in the US
and working on January 4, 2004 to apply for “non-immigrant
conditional worker status” but there is no path to legal residency or citizenship.
This status is concerning because it may create a permanent underclass. We
need your help to move a better immigration bill forward!
ACTION NEEDED:
Please write to your Senators
and Representatives to urge them to support comprehensive immigration reform. Updated
letters can be found at our action website.
It is especially important
for you to write, if your Senator is a member of the Judiciary Committee: Specter (R-PA), Hatch (R-UT), Leahy (D-VT), Grassley
(R-IA), Kennedy (D-MA), Kyl (R-AZ), Biden (D-DE), DeWine (R-OH), Kohl (D-WI), Sessions (R-AL), Feinstein (D-CA), Graham (R-SC),
Feingold (D-WI), Cornyn (R-TX), Schumer (D-NY), Brownback (R-KS), Durbin (D-IL), and Coburn (R-OK).
On Friday, the NY Times carried
a great editorial against the House immigration bill that featured a wonderful statement of solidarity from Cardinal Roger Mahony of
Los Angeles.
HOUSE BUDGET COMMITTEE VOTE THIS WEEK
The House Budget Committee
is preparing to mark-up its version of the congressional budget resolution this week. As in previous years, advocates expect
it to closely track the President’s budget, which deeply cuts human services programs, sharply increases military spending,
and provides additional tax breaks for the most affluent Americans. While the
budget resolution doesn’t specify funding levels for every program, it sets the overall spending limits for year and
a number close to what the President proposes will force the kinds of cuts his budget included (http://www.gsadvocacy.org/pres_bud07.html). Many moderate members of Congress are deeply unhappy about the potential for deep
budget cuts and your advocacy can support them in demanding a better budget!
ACTION NEEDED:
1) Write your Representative
and urge him/her to oppose the cuts included in the President's budget and support more just budget priorities. A NEW sample letter is provided on our action website for you to edit and send.
2) Please send us any information
about the impact of budget cuts on your community or the clients you serve. Personal stories about families hurt by cutbacks
in social services or programs unable to continue help us make our advocacy efforts even more powerful. Similarly, if you
have a great success story that you would like to share - how a program helped a client or how funding allowed your agency
to start an innovative or successful new program, please send them to us. We
have an online submission form at http://www.gsadvocacy.org/submit.html or you can e-mail them to me at aprevost (at) gsadvocacy.org.
The obligation to "love our neighbor" has an individual dimension,
but it also requires a broader social commitment to the common good. We have many partial ways to measure and debate the health
of our economy: Gross National Product, per capita income, stock market prices, and so forth. The Christian vision of economic
life looks beyond them all and asks, Does economic life enhance or threaten our life together as a community?
- U.S. Catholic Bishops, Economic Justice for All
