From Oh Law:
06/22/2013: Outline of Corker-Hoeven Amendment Considered a Breakthrough for
Bi-Partisan Compromise of CIR 2013
As we reported yesterday, this newly introduced bill is known to be a
product of back-of-the-room Republican compromise that is accepted by the
Senate Democratic leaders. This compromise requires, 10 years after
enactment, all five of the following conditions to be met before a Green
Card status could be granted to the legalized provisional immigrants:
(1) The Department of Homeland Security, after consultation with the
Attorney General, the Secretary of Defense, the Inspector General of the
Department, and the Comptroller General of the United States (GAO), has
submitted a Comprehensive Southern Border Security Strategy to Congress that
includes minimum requirements for each sector along the border as
identified by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol and the plan has been deployed
and is operational.
(2) The Border Patrol has deployed, maintained, and stationed 20,000 border
patrol agents on the southern border in addition to the 18,500 agents
already stationed there. This means an agent every 1,000 feet along the
southern border.
(3) An additional 350 miles of fencing has been completed (in addition to
the 350 miles of fencing already on the ground).
(4) The mandatory employment verification system has been fully implemented
for all employers.
(5) The mandated electronic entry/exit system has been fully implemented at
all international air and sea ports of entry within the United States where
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers are currently deployed.
Why is it a big deal? The foregoing compromise may substantially delay for
the legalized provisional immigrants to attain an unconditional permanent
resident status and eventual naturalizaed U.S. citizen status, but the delay
is a bargain for Republicans to accept these provisional immigrants'
opportunity for naturalization. Until this compromise, the path to
citizenship for the legalized immigrants has been known to be the "core"
issue underlying their opposition to the CIR 2013. Implicit in this give-and
-take is the Democrats' acceptance to share power with the Republicans for a
prolonged period of time by delaying these 11 million legalized immigrants'
opportunity to become U.S. citizens and their right to vote in the
elections. Assuming that substantial number of these legalized provisional
immigrants would be Hispanics and pro-Democrats, politically, this bargain
is considered a big gain for the Republicans, next best to the option of
totally barring them from becoming U.S. citizens. Readers may recall this
reporter's assessments at the beginning of the initiation of CIR 2013
legislation process that sharing of power between the Republicans and the
Democrats should be the key to the compromise for a successful passage of
CIR in 2013. VOILA!!
