The amendment, which was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee in a 13-5 vote, will see departure terminals at major US airports – including JFK, LaGuardia and Newark Liberty – equipped with high-tech systems for fingerprinting foreign nationals and scanning their passports and visas. Introducing the new law will take time, as 10 of the biggest US airports – accounting for 70 percent of international travel – will have the immigration tracking system installed within two years; the 20 other airports will have six years to refurbish their departure areas. Currently, foreigners are only required to submit their fingerprints when entering the United States. Not tracking exits is “a hole in the system,” said Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), one of the amendment’s proponents. “Biometric data provides the government with certainty that travelers (and not just their travel documents) have or have not left the country,” the Senator’s office said in a statement, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. The new departure procedure is being introduced in order to prevent foreigners from overstaying their visas. Overstays have become a pressing issue in the US – 40 percent of an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants arrived through now-expired visas.Advocates for the provision cite the recent high-profile case of Azamat Tazhayakov. A Kazakhstani, Tazhayakov was a friend of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a Boston Marathon bombing suspect, and was charged with obstruction of justice after he allegedly attempted to dispose of possessions belonging to Tsarnaev. Tazhayakov reportedly entered the United States in January on an invalid visa.However, human rights activists have voiced concerns about “the effect it will have on peoples’ privacy rights as well as concerns about selective enforcement ,” Jacqueline Esposito of the New York Immigration Coalition said in an interview with news channel NY1.“We don’t want to see a situation where only people from particular countries may be fingerprinted or other racial profiling taking place ,” Esposito added.An earlier proposal by House Republicans suggested that all of the country’s air, sea and land ports should use biometric tracking for foreigners leaving the country. Apart from fingerprinting, the proposed tracking would have included facial recognition and iris scans. The plan, with an estimated cost of $25 billion, was eventually rejected as too expensive.The immigration reform bill was approved on Tuesday by the Senate Judiciary Committee, much to the satisfaction of President Obama, who had declared the bill a second-term priority. Apart from tightening border controls, it also contains a new program for low-skilled foreign labor, and makes it easier for US firms to hire programmers and engineers from abroad, raising the annual limit of visas for these professions from 65,000 to 180,000. The full Senate will vote on the sweeping legislation next month. … Read More
Think tank sparks conservative in-fighting with contested immigration report
A US political battle raged Monday over the cost of Senate-proposed immigration reform, with a conservative think-tank warning the plan to legalize 11 million undocumented workers would soar to $6.3 trillion. The Heritage Foundation, in a report released shortly before amendments are proposed to…
New Colorado law grants in-state tuition fees to immigrant students
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) is expected to sign into law a measure allowing undocumented high school graduates to pay in-state tuition rates. The Associated Press reported that Hickenlooper will sign the bill on Monday, making Colorado the 14th state to do so. Undocumented students were…
Report: Immigration ‘black hole’ forces hospitals to fly patients home unconscious
Immigration advocates are concerned that the implementation of the Affordable Health Care act will bring with it an increase in “medical repatriation,” the practice of hospitals flying undocumented immigrants to their native countries, often while they are unconscious, the Associated…
‘Gang of 8′ immigration proposal includes 5-year citizenship process for DREAMers
Undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. would have a 13-year process toward citizenship, but younger immigrants could apply to become citizens in as little as five years as part of the immigration proposal designed by the Senate’s “Gang of 8″ and released late Tuesday….
Gang Of Eight To Drop 1,500 Page Immigration Reform Bill Hours Before Only Hearing
The notorious Gang of Eight U.S. Senators are expected to drop their immigration reform bill just hours before the only hearing on the topic. … Read More
Hundreds of thousands might be left out of immigration reform
The legislation, which is expected to be introduced in the Senate next week, would prohibit all undocumented immigrants who arrived in the US after Dec. 31, 2011, from applying for legal status, an unnamed Senate aide told the Associated Press.The conditions proposed by the bill have not yet been released, but the unnamed Senate aide claims that they would strike a harsh blow against hundreds of thousands of the 11 million immigrants who live in the US illegally.Additionally, the bill would only allow undocumented immigrants with a clean criminal record and financial stability to be granted a path to citizenship. Those who arrived in 2012 or later, those who are poor, or those who can’t prove that they arrived before the cutoff date will be unable to apply for legal status.The conditions could prove problematic for those who have been illegally in the US for years, but can’t prove it due to their lack of documents. Without such papers, illegal immigrants are often also unable to find well-paying jobs, and would therefore have a harder time proving financial stability. The new provisions that are allegedly outlined in the legislation may serve as a disappointment for hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, as well as immigrant rights groups. The conditions of the bill, which were negotiated upon by a bipartisan group of senators, four of which are Democrats and four of which are Republicans, is more likely to pass due to the collaborative effort by both parties.“All issues that rise to the member level have been dealt with,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY, told AP in a statement. “All that is left is the drafting.”Due to immense pressure from the Republican negotiators, the legislation harshly tackles illegal immigration both in the workplace and in regards to the path to citizenship. It would require all employers to verify their workers’ legal statuses and increase border security. Illegal immigrants who qualify and apply for the 13-year path to citizenship could receive provisional legal status. The federal government would also create a new visa program allowing up to 200,000 low-skilled workers into the country each year to serve in low-paying industries, holding jobs as janitors, construction workers, nursing home attendants and other occupations.Proponents of the measure claim that it would put most immigrants on a path to citizenship – but some opponents argue that hundreds of thousands would be excluded – and it is the excluded individuals that are likely to enter the spotlight as the bill moves through Congress.The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing on the legislation for next Wednesday and will likely introduce the bill for a vote during the first or second week of May. … Read More
