Tackling immigration

A Senate panel today begins the hard slog toward an overhaul of immigration policy -- the goal that Congress punted during the Bush administration and the issue that animated the rank-and-file during last year's Republican presidential primaries.

The Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship will hold a hearing titled, "Comprehensive Immigration Reform in 2009: Can We Do It and How?"

Advocates hope it is the first step to a change that includes a path to citizenship for some of those already in the country illegally.

"For far too long, our state and local governments have been plagued by an out-of-date and broken federal immigration system. Now more than ever, Congress must take the necessary steps to reform our immigration system in a way that honors our laws, rewards honesty and hard work, and fosters economic prosperity," Benjamin Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Law Foundation, said in a statement.

"The upcoming hearing marks a new day in the conversation on immigration. Rather than dwell on the problems of our broken system, we will hear a discussion that focuses on solutions....This is a discussion that must take place throughout the country because resolution of our immigration crisis will require all sectors of American society to work together to create an immigration system that works for our nation."

The National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization, also praised the hearing. “For far too long, we have allowed a bullying minority to block the road to solutions and seed intolerance, yet recent elections have demonstrated that Americans want leaders who will solve tough problems, including immigration,” Janet Murguía, NCLR president and CEO, said in a statement.

The group wants the overhaul to include: Getting the 12 million undocumented people in our country to come forward, obtain legal status, learn English, and assume the rights and responsibilities of citizenship; creating smart enforcement policies that uphold national security; cracking down on unscrupulous employers and take away their incentives for hiring undocumented workers; widening legal channels that reunite families and allow future needed workers to come to the U.S. with the rights and protections that safeguard our workforce and prevent the dramatic increase in deaths along the border; and enacting proactive measures to advance the successful integration of new immigrants into our communities.

Pressed on the issue during his news conference Wednesday night, President Obama confirmed his support for comprehensive reform, but said that his administration must lay the groundwork first -- most notably improving border security so Americans are confident that illegal immigrants won't flood the country.

"We can't continue with a broken immigration system. It's not good for anybody," Obama said. "It's not good for American workers. It's dangerous for Mexican would-be workers who are trying to cross a dangerous border. It is putting a strain on border communities who oftentimes have to deal with a host of undocumented workers, and it keeps those undocumented workers in the shadows, which means they can be exploited at the same time as they're depressing US wages."

He said he expects to convene a working group "to start looking at a framework of how this legislation might be shaped. In the meantime, what we're trying to do is take some core -- some key administrative steps to move the process along to lay the groundwork for legislation, because the American people need some confidence that if we actually put a package together we can execute."

"If the American people don't feel like you can secure the borders, then it's hard to strike a deal that would get people out of the shadows and on a pathway to citizenship who are already here, because the attitude of the average American is going to be, 'Well, you're just going to have hundreds of thousands of more coming in each year.' On the other hand, showing that there's a more thoughtful approach than just raids of a handful of workers -- as opposed to, for example, taking seriously the violations of companies that sometimes are actively recruiting these workers to come in -- that's again, something that we can start doing administratively," Obama continued.

"So what we want to do is to show that we are competent in getting results around immigration, even on the structures that we already have in place, the laws that we already have in place, so that we're building confidence among the American people that we can actually follow through on whatever legislative approach emerges. I see the process moving this first year, and I'm going to be moving it as quickly as I can."

UPDATE: As part of the administrative changes, the Department of Homeland Security issued policies today that put more emphasis on going after employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants, though it will still continue to arrest illegal workers.

The Bush administration was criticized by advocacy groups after a series of large raids that resulted in the arrests of about 6,000 workers last year.

"This is a good first step in realigning enforcement priorities," the Immigration Policy Center said. "However, DHS's ability to truly focus on abusive employers is limited by the fact that our current immigration system doesn't provide immigrants or legitimate employers the protections and tools they need to comply with the law. Rather than trimming around the edges, real reform must involve an overhaul of the entire system to ensure that enforcement of our immigration laws is effective, fair, and humane."