Photograph by John Moore/Getty Images

Dominican immigrants pose for photos after becoming American citizens at a special Valentine’s Day naturalization ceremony for married couples on Feb. 14, 2013 in Tampa, Florida.

There’s a lot of optimism and happy talk from President Barack Obama and lawmakers on Capitol Hill these days about the prospects of pushing through a bipartisan immigration rewrite this year. Yet among those tasked with hashing out such a compromise, there’s also a hefty dose of realism about the difficulty of that job.

Staffers grinding away on the plan made a private plea today to Latino elected officials not to abandon the legislation once it’s unveiled, warning them that it would be a compromise that wouldn’t fully please either side. It’s an acknowledgement that, even as momentum gathers behind an immigration revamp, the challenges that have undermined past efforts remain.

It would take “Armageddon” to derail the effort this time, Enrique Gonzalez III, immigration counsel to Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida told a group of Latino elected officials at a private briefing today, according to two people present.

Still Gonzalez, who Rubio recently brought on board to spearhead his immigration efforts, also warned that the measure won’t be perfect and exhorted those present to get behind it anyway, according to attendees, or risk seeing it collapse as a similar effort did in 2007.

The comments came at a luncheon sponsored by the National Association of Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund and the people described them on condition of anonymity since it was declared “off the record.”

The session also featured an aide to another of the Senate’s bipartisan gang of eight on immigration, Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, as well as to two staffers to House members working on a parallel effort, Democratic Caucus Chairman Xavier Becerra of California and Republican Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida. All were bullish about their chances of reaching an agreement, and the Republicans described a sea change among lawmakers in their party they said gave them hope.

Indeed, Republicans have moved off their opposition to allowing a path to legal status for the 11 million undocumented immigrants estimated to be living in the U.S., after their party’s 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney drew only 27 percent of the Hispanic vote compared witho Obama’s 71 percent. Yet some prominent lawmakers, including House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, are still against allowing them to eventually gain citizenship — a central demand of Obama, congressional Democrats and advocacy groups.

Insiders are already warning that longtime proponents of an immigration overhaul may not get everything they want. Attendees said Menendez’s chief counsel, Kerri Sherlock Talbot, asked Latinos at today’s briefing to remain united behind the legislation even though it would be a “centrist bill” and a compromise, knowing it would be “the best we can do.”

Original post is Immigration Authors: Optimism, Caution by Political Capital.

Photograph by U.S. Customs and Border Protection via AP

A silver Jeep Cherokee that suspected smugglers were attempting to drive over the U.S.-Mexico border fence is stuck at the top of a makeshift ramp near Yuma, Arizona.

Eight senators, four Democrats and four Republicans, today will announce a comprehensive framework for an overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws, including a “road-map” to citizenship for some of the 11 million undocumented immigrants already in the U.S.

This is where a real movement for reform started the last time, in 2007, in the Senate.

Now, as then, the most daunting obstacle, is the House — where many Republicans have drawn a line against what they view as amnesty for law-breakers.

Now, however, Republicans are confronting a more pressing challenge for the party: Regaining lost footing among a fast-growing constituency, the nation’s Latinos, who gave 71 percent of their support in November to President Barack Obama’s re-election. Senators such as John McCain of Arizona, who figured prominently in the 2007 movement for immigration reform but became more cautious about the issue as he sought the White House in 2008, say sentiment is shifting toward an acknowledgment that something must be done about millions of people who have settled, established families and become working members of the economy.

“What’s changed is that there is a new appreciation on both sides of the aisle — including maybe more importantly on the Republican side of the aisle — that we have to enact a comprehensive immigration reform bill,” McCain said on ABC News’ “This Week.”

“We can’t round up millions of people and deport them,” Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, one of the senators proposing the plan and a rising star in the Republican Party, wrote in an opinion piece for the Las Vegas Review-Journal that was published online yesterday. “What we have now is de facto amnesty.”
See Lisa Lerer’s full report on the bipartisan immigration plan at Bloomberg.com.

And read the full outline that will be released by Sens. Chuck Schumer, John McCain, Dick Durbin, Lindsey Graham, Bob Menendez, Marco Rubio, Mike Bennet, and Jeff Flake today at 2:30 pm EST, here:

“Bipartisan Framework for Comprehensive Immigration Reform”

“We recognize that our immigration system is broken. And while border security has improved significantly over the last two Administrations, we still don’t have a functioning immigration system. This has created a situation where up to 11 million undocumented immigrants are living in the shadows. Our legislation acknowledges these realities by finally committing the resources needed to secure the border, modernize and streamline our current legal immigration system, while creating a tough but fair legalization program for individuals who are currently here. We will ensure that this is a successful permanent reform to our immigration system that will not need to be revisited.
Four Basic Legislative Pillars:
o Create a tough but fair path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants currently living in the United States that is contingent upon securing our borders and tracking whether legal immigrants have left the country when required;

o Reform our legal immigration system to better recognize the importance of characteristics that will help build the American economy and strengthen American families;

o Create an effective employment verification system that will prevent identity theft and end the hiring of future unauthorized workers; and,

o Establish an improved process for admitting future workers to serve our nation’s workforce needs, while simultaneously protecting all workers.

I. Creating a Path to Citizenship for Unauthorized Immigrants Already Here that is Contingent Upon Securing the Border and Combating Visa Overstays

 Our legislation will provide a tough, fair, and practical roadmap to address the status of unauthorized immigrants in the United States that is contingent upon our success in securing our borders and addressing visa overstays.

 To fulfill the basic governmental function of securing our borders, we will continue the increased efforts of the Border Patrol by providing them with the latest technology, infrastructure, and personnel needed to prevent, detect, and apprehend every unauthorized entrant.

 Additionally, our legislation will increase the number of unmanned aerial vehicles and surveillance equipment, improve radio interoperability and increase the number of agents at and between ports of entry. The purpose is to substantially lower the number of successful illegal border crossings while continuing to facilitate commerce.
 We will strengthen prohibitions against racial profiling and inappropriate use of force, enhance the training of border patrol agents, increase oversight, and create a mechanism to ensure a meaningful opportunity for border communities to share input, including critiques.

 Our legislation will require the completion of an entry-exit system that tracks whether all persons entering the United States on temporary visas via airports and seaports have left the country as required by law.

 We recognize that Americans living along the Southwest border are key to recognizing and understanding when the border is truly secure. Our legislation will create a commission comprised of governors, attorneys general, and community leaders living along the Southwest border to monitor the progress of securing our border and to make a recommendation regarding when the bill’s security measures outlined in the legislation are completed.

 While these security measures are being put into place, we will simultaneously require those who came or remained in the United States without our permission to register with the government. This will include passing a background check and settling their debt to society by paying a fine and back taxes, in order to earn probationary legal status, which will allow them to live and work legally in the United States. Individuals with a serious criminal background or others who pose a threat to our national security will be ineligible for legal status and subject to deportation. Illegal immigrants who have committed serious crimes face immediate deportation.

 We will demonstrate our commitment to securing our borders and combating visa overstays by requiring our proposed enforcement measures be complete before any immigrant on probationary status can earn a green card

  Current restrictions preventing non-immigrants from accessing federal public benefits will also apply to lawful probationary immigrants.

 Once the enforcement measures have been completed, individuals with probationary legal status will be required to go to the back of the line of prospective immigrants, pass an additional background check, pay taxes, learn English and civics, demonstrate a history of work in the United States, and current employment, among other requirements, in order to earn the opportunity to apply for lawful permanent residency. Those individuals who successfully complete these requirements can eventually earn a green card.

 Individuals who are present without lawful status – not including people within the two categories identified below – will only receive a green card after every individual who is already waiting in line for a green card, at the time this legislation is enacted, has received their green card. Our purpose is to ensure that no one who has violated America’s immigration laws will receive preferential treatment as they relate to those individuals who have complied with the law.

 Our legislation also recognizes that the circumstances and the conduct of people without lawful status are not the same, and cannot be addressed identically.

o For instance, individuals who entered the United States as minor children did not knowingly choose to violate any immigration laws. Consequently, under our proposal these individuals will not face the same requirements as other individuals in order to earn a path to citizenship.

o Similarly, individuals who have been working without legal status in the United States agricultural industry have been performing very important and difficult work to maintain America’s food supply while earning subsistence wages. Due to the utmost importance in our nation maintaining the safety of its food supply, agricultural workers who commit to the long term stability of our nation’s agricultural industries will be treated differently than the rest of the undocumented population because of the role they play in ensuring that Americans have safe and secure agricultural products to sell and consume. These individuals will earn a path to citizenship through a different process under our new agricultural worker program.

II. Improving our Legal Immigration Syste m and Attracting the World ’s B est and Brightest

The development of a rational legal immigration system is essential to ensuring America’s future economic prosperity. Our failure to act is perpetuating a broken system which sadly  discourages the world’s best and brightest citizens from coming to the United States and remaining in our country to contribute to our economy. This failure makes a legal path to entry in the United States insurmountably difficult for well-meaning immigrants. This unarguably discourages innovation and economic growth. It has also created substantial visa backlogs which force families to live apart, which incentivizes illegal immigration.

 Our new immigration system must be more focused on recognizing the important characteristics which will help build the American economy and strengthen American families. Additionally, we must reduce backlogs in the family and employment visa categories so that future immigrants view our future legal immigration system as the exclusive means for entry into the United States.

 The United States must do a better job of attracting and keeping the world’s best and brightest. As such, our immigration proposal will award a green card to immigrants who have received a PhD or Master’s degree in science, technology, engineering, or math from an American university. It makes no sense to educate the world’s future innovators and entrepreneurs only to ultimately force them to leave our country at the moment they are most able to contribute to our economy.

III. Strong Employment Verification
We recognize that undocumented immigrants come to the United States almost exclusively for jobs. As such, dramatically reducing future illegal immigration can only be achieved by developing a tough, fair, effective and mandatory employment verification system. An employment verification system must hold employers accountable for knowingly hiring undocumented workers and make it more difficult for unauthorized immigrants to falsify documents to obtain employment. Employers who knowingly hire unauthorized workers must face stiff fines and criminal penalties for egregious offenses.

 We believe the federal government must provide U.S. employers with a fast and reliable method to confirm whether new hires are legally authorized to work in the United States. This is essential to ensure the effective enforcement of immigration laws.

 Our proposal will create an effective employment verification system which prevents identity theft and ends the hiring of future unauthorized workers. We believe requiring prospective workers to demonstrate both legal status and identity, through non-forgeable electronic means prior to obtaining employment, is essential to an employee verification system; and,

 The employee verification system in our proposal will be crafted with procedural safeguards to protect American workers, prevent identity theft, and provide due process protections.

IV. Admit ting New Worker s and Protecting Workers’ Rights

 The overwhelming majority of the 327,000 illegal entrants apprehended by CBP in FY2011 were seeking employment in the United States. We recognize that to prevent future waves of illegal immigration a humane and effective system needs to be created for these immigrant workers to enter the country and find employment without seeking the aid of human traffickers or drug cartels.

 Our proposal will provide businesses with the ability to hire lower-skilled workers in a timely manner when Americans are unavailable or unwilling to fill those jobs.

 Our legislation would:

o Allow employers to hire immigrants if it can be demonstrated that they were unsuccessful in recruiting an American to fill an open position and the hiring of an immigrant will not displace American workers;

o Create a workable program to meet the needs of America’s agricultural industry, including dairy to find agricultural workers when American workers are not available to fill open positions;

o Allow more lower-skilled immigrants to come here when our economy is creating jobs, and fewer when our economy is not creating jobs;

o Protect workers by ensuring strong labor protections; and,

o Permit workers who have succeeded in the workplace and contributed to their communities over many years to earn green cards.

Original post is Immigration ‘Road-map:’ Bipartisan Senators Proposing a Path Today by Political Capital.

Photograph by J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton takes her seat on on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Jan. 23, 2013, prior to testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the deadly September attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

Updated at 11:05 and 11:20 am EST

Hillary Clinton is taking what could be her final public stage for a few years, today facing questions about what she knew and when she knew it about the attacks on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, that claimed the life of the American ambassador.

She stands, if not in the eyes of Republicans ready to grill her today, high in the eyes of the American public:

Sixty seven percent of Americans view the soon-retiring secretary of state in a favorable light, according to an ABC News/Washington Poll released today  – “numerically a new high in her long career in the public spotlight,” ABC notes.

That puts her, in context, on a higher platform than Vice President Joe Biden, viewed favorably by 48 percent.

The outgoing secretary of state also outperforms the vice president in intensity of sentiment in the poll run by Langer Research  Associates. More than twice as many Americans see Clinton “strongly” favorably as those who see her strongly unfavorably – 35 versus. 14 percent - while Biden breaks even, 22 versus. 23 percent, in this measure.

Which is not a bad place to be for a politician who has served as the nation’s chief diplomat for four years, served as a senator from New York for a term and first lady in the White House for two terms — a politician widely regarded as the Democrat best positioned to make a bid for the presidency in 2016, should she decide to accept the mission.

It’s unlikely that Clinton’s appearances before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this morning and House Foreign Affairs Committee this afternoon will do anything to change that ranking in public opinion — as her successor, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, prepares for his Senate confirmation hearing tomorrow.

Senate Committee Chairman Bob Menendez of New Jersey today told the departing secretary, making her last major appearance before the committee (she will return tomorrow to introduce Kerry for his confirmation hearing): “You have changed the face of America abroad… the most traveled secretary in history.”

“I know you will not go gently from the world stage,” Menendez told a smiling Clinton at the start of the first hearing on Capitol Hill this morning.

And his words proved prescient.

Clinton dismissed three of the most pointed criticisms of her handling of the episode after the attack as only an outgoing secretary might address the Senate:

“What difference, at this point, does it make?” Clinton sharply asked Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, probing about what was known at the time of the circumstances surrounding the attack.

And to Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican and 2008 nominee for president who has been most outspoken in his criticism of the Obama administration for its handling of the affair, Clinton calmly said: “We just have a disagreement.”

Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, said his problem with the Benghazi affair is that people responsible for a failure of security haven’t been fired: “I would have relieved you of your post.”

“With your leaving, you accept culpability for the worst tragedy since 9/11,” Paul told Clinton, criticizing her for not seeing warning-cables beforehand. “It was a failure of leadership not to be involved. So, I think it’s good that you’re accepting responsibility, because no one else is.”

“I am the secretary of state,” she said, and the independent investigation of Benghazi was conducted impartially and outside of the political realm. “I believe in taking responsibility.”

Original post is Hillary Clinton Not Going ‘Gently From the World Stage’ by Political Capital.