Photograph by John Moore/Getty Images

Immigrants take the oath of U.S. citizenship at a naturalization ceremony held at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), office on May 17, 2013 in New York City.

With Kathleen Hunter

As the Senate Judiciary Committee resumes its markup today of immigration legislation, Congress faces obstacles of its own making in its efforts to overhaul the system.

Florida Republican Marco Rubio, a member of the bipartisan Senate team that wrote S. 744, has said that he supports a biometric data proposal designed to toughen border security — a plan that Democrats call a poison pill.

The Judiciary Committee’s chairman, Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy, may offer a measure that would give foreign nationals in same-sex marriages with U.S. citizens the same benefits as heterosexual couples, which Rubio and other Republicans have termed a deal-breaker.

While the Senate is advancing comprehensive legislation –which would offer a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants already in the U.S., toughen border security and provide for temporary workers — House leaders plan to offer a series of stand-alone bills. They include one on border security and others on temporary-worker programs that fall short of President Barack Obama’s call for a far-reaching plan.

There are lawmakers on both sides of the debate who probably don’t even want a deal, said Mario Lopez, president of the Hispanic Leadership Fund and former executive director of the House Congressional Hispanic Conference.

“Some Republicans just don’t want reform at all and are happier with the status quo,” said Lopez, a Republican. “There’s also a certain segment of the left that doesn’t want to solve the issue. They’d like to set it up so that what happened in 2007 happens again.”

Read the whole story here.

Original post is Partisan Obstacles Threaten Immigration Revisions by Political Capital.

Photograph by Joe Klamar/AFP via Getty Images

People march through the streets of Oxnard, California, for immigration reform and to honor the legacy of Cesar E. Chavez, founder of the United Farm Workers of America, on March 24, 2013.

At the rose-adorned grave-site of Cesar Chavez, co-founder of the National Farm Workers Association, widow Helen Chavez had one wish for the visiting President Barack Obama.

“I would like to make sure and request that you get immigration reform passed,” she said at that encounter last fall, according to Arturo Rodriguez, a longtime associate of the late farmworkers’ leader and now president of the United Farm Workers, recounting Obama’s reply: “He said, `You know what, Mrs. Chavez, I promise you I will get that done.”’

While the Obama White House hasn’t taken the public lead on an immigration bill shaped by a bipartisan group of senators working its way through the Judiciary Committee — wary that any bill with Obama’s name on it will become a target for Republican opposition — the president has blessed the bill as within the bounds of the sort of comprehensive legislation he wants: Offering a path to citizenship for some 11 million undocumented workers already in the U.S., while securing the nation’s borders and instituting a sensible program of guest-worker visas for lower- and higher-skilled workers alike — including farmworkers.

During negotiations over the farmworker provisions of the bill led by Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California and Republican Marco Rubio of Florida, the UFW’s Giev Kashkooli says, the Obama administration’s Departments of Homeland Security, Agriculture and Labor were instrumental in guiding which one of the many proposals on the bargaining table would work and which ones wouldn’t. The agencies provided good “technical assistance,” he said, “on what was possible and what was not possible.”

At the center of the farmworkers’ concerns in what could be the most significant immigration legislation in a generation is the provision enabling those who have toiled in American fields without legal residency to seek a path to citizenship, Rodriguez says. At least 800,000 and as many as 1.1 million families  stand to benefit from that, he says.

“We’re very optimistic and very hopeful,” Rodriguez said today, at a breakfast sponsored by Bloomberg Government in Washington. “We developed what I believe is a very important step… to ensure that they gain legal status,” he said. “They’ve earned the right to be able to do that in this country.”

Today, as the Democratic-run Senate Judiciary Committee continues work on amendments to the bipartisan bill, the Republican-run House Judiciary Committee is taking testimony on far more limited legislation involving the guest farmworker program. House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, the bill’s sponsor, has spoken out against a path to citizenship for the undocumented, and is more interested in specific legislation enhancing border security and amending the guest-worker visa programs.

Yet the House’s bill is worse than limited, Rodriguez maintains. As Bloomberg’s Alan Bjerga reports on Rodriguez’s remarks, it represents a throw-back to the 1940s and 1950s, he says — evoking the Bracero program in place from 1942-64. Prompted by a need for manual labor during World War II, the agreement between the U.S. and Mexico permitted Mexican citizens to take temporary farm work in the U.S. Initially, 10 percent of their pay was deducted for savings accounts that many of the workers never saw. A Labor Department employee in 1964 called it “legalized slavery.”

“We can’t afford to go back in history,” Rodriguez said.

Negotiations in the House among another bipartisan group of lawmakers for broader legislation along the lines of the Senate bill are reported at a near-impasse. Yet, “there’s too much momentum at this point,” Rodriguez suggests. “I don’t think Congress can afford to ignore this anymore.”

On Oct. 3, one month before his reelection, Obama traveled to Nuestra Senora Reina de la Paz – Our Lady of Peace — in Keene, California, resting place of Cesar Chavez and home of the union he led until his death in 1993. The president declared 105 acres a national monument to be managed by the National Park Service. He visited Chavez’s grave with his widow and declared the farmworkers’ movement a “story of determined, fearless, hopeful people who have been willing to devote their lives to making the country a little more just and a little more fair.”

In November, Obama won 71 percent of the Hispanic vote, which helped him defeat Republican Mitt Romney.

The narrative of the immigration debate under way in Washington suggests that Republicans ultimately will align with Democrats on a long-sought revision of U.S. law because it is in their political self-interest to avert another drubbing.

Yet will passage of an immigration bill repair the Republican Party’s torn relations with Latino voters, following a campaign in which deportation of the undocumented drove the party’s primary contests?

“It’s hard to say what the dynamic would be — how it would change peoples’ thinking,” Rodriguez said. “We’re like everybody else out there,” he said, suggesting that the public at large will thank Congress for taking action on what everyone knows is “a broken immigration system” — and look askance at failure.

Original post is Immigration Bill: Promise with a Prayer by Political Capital.

Photograph by Ryan Anson/Bloomberg

Immigrant workers package freshly-picked organic persimmons in Santa Cruz, California.

Bill Landreth bought a second tractor as Berries by Bill Inc. sold more melons, sweet corn and strawberries.

He also expanded to 200 the acreage of his Newport, Arkansas, farm devoted to the fruits and vegetables, though that’s where the growth will end. After that, he runs out of workers.

“We could do more, but I’m not sure we could harvest more because of the labor,” Landreth said as his tractor moved slowly through plowed rows with workers following behind, transplanting seedlings into freshly turned earth.

Landreth and other farmers in Arkansas, the nation’s 15th-biggest crop-producing state, say they would like to take advantage of the push by advocates such first lady Michele Obama and health professionals to get Americans to eat more fruits and vegetables. Those crops take more workers to plant and harvest.

That has him watching debate on immigration that resumes today in Congress, hoping for relief. Farmworker visas were among the final details resolved last month in bipartisan negotiations among a group of U.S. senators on a compromise bill. In the House, lawmakers backed a larger guest-worker program in a plan late last month.

See the full report at Bloomberg.com.

Original post is Too Few Hands for Hand-Picked Fruit? by Political Capital.

Photograph by Craig F. Walker/The Denver Post via Getty Images

Lead by Mayor Michael Hancock, Anna and Fran Simon are the first couple to take part in a civil union ceremony at the Webb Building in Denver , on May 1, 2013.

The two Democratic members of a bipartisan Senate immigration group who sit on the Judiciary Committee are refusing to say whether they’d vote to add protections for same-sex couples to the measure.

“I’m not going to get into speculatives,”  Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, said today when asked whether he’d vote for an amendment proposed by the panel’s chairman, Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy.

Leahy wants to add a provision requiring that foreign nationals married to a same-sex U.S. citizen be treated equally to those married to a citizen of the opposite sex. Republicans in the eight-member Senate group, opposing the measure, say it would cause them to pull their support for the bill.

“Our four Republican colleagues feel very strongly, those in the Gang of Eight, that if this is in the bill, they would not be able to support it,” Schumer said. “Our four Democratic colleagues, including myself, believe that this is not just another issue, but an issue of discrimination. So how we resolve this remains to be seen.”

Schumer said he “would like very much to see” Leahy’s provision added to the bill, “but we have to have a bill that has support.”

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the other Democratic member of the Senate group who sits on the Judiciary panel, similarly would not say earlier this week if he would back the Leahy amendment if it comes to a vote in the committee, which Democrats control by a two-seat margin.

Schumer today said supporters of Leahy’s amendment who don’t want to sink the overall immigration bill face a “conundrum.”

“This one is something I worry about all the time,” he said.   “I’m a good sleeper, but I wake up in the morning thinking of these things.”

Original post is Schumer: Same-Sex Marriage ‘Conundrum’ for Immigration Bill by Political Capital.

Photograph by Sam Hodgson/Bloomberg

A man stands in Tijuana, Mexico, beyond the U.S.-Mexico border fence from San Diego, California, on March 21, 2012.

That messaging thing remains a problem for Republicans talking about immigration.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of the sponsors of the bipartisan immigration bill under debate today, maintains that he was not calling Mexico a “Hell hole.”

“It’s not a Hell hole,” Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, one of the most outspoken critics of the bill, said at the Senate Judiciary Committee. “There are some great things going on in Mexico.”’

“You’re right,” Graham replied. “I wasn’t slandering Mexico. I was just talking about all the places people want to leave for whatever reason.”

It started with Graham saying:

@grahamblog: “The problem is we cant have everybody in the world living in a hell hole coming to America.”

— Kate Hunter (@Kate_HunterDC) May 9, 2013

@grahamblog Clarifies “Hellhole” remark “I wasn’t slandering Mexico. I was just talking about all the places people want to leave.”

— Kate Hunter (@Kate_HunterDC) May 9, 2013

Now that that’s settled, the Judiciary Committee is plowing ahead with amendments.

Original post is Mexico No ‘Hell Hole,’ Graham Adds by Political Capital.

Photograph by John Moore/Getty Images

Mexican immigrants work on a housing construction site on May 3, 2013 in Denver, Colorado.

A Social Security Administration analysis says the Senate’s bipartisan immigration proposal would boost U.S. tax revenue, create jobs and increase the gross domestic product over the next 10 years.

Stephen Gross, chief actuary for the agency, says the bill would have a “substantial positive effect” on the economy, in a letter to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican who helped draft the legislation and requested the analysis.

The analysis, released today, may aid backers of the legislation, which has been criticized by opponents as a drain on the U.S. economy. A report released earlier this week by the Republican-leaning Heritage Foundation said that creating a path to citizenship for about 11 million undocumented immigrants now in the U.S. would cost taxpayers $6.3 trillion over five decades.

According to the Social Security Administration, the bill would add more than $275 billion in revenue to Social Security and Medicare, increase the gross domestic product by 1.63 percent and add more than 3 million jobs over the next decade.

The Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow plans to begin considering hundreds of amendments to the legislation.

“The timing couldn’t be better,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of immigrant-rights group America’s Voice in
Washington. “It’s a game changer.”

Original post is Social Security Report ‘Game-Changer’ for Immigration Bill by Political Capital.

Photograph by Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

A Facebook Inc. logo.

Facebook is getting disliked by environmental groups and progressive organizations such as Moveon.org in response to ads being run by affiliates of a group created by Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg.

Moveon, Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters are among the organizations that said today they would not advertise on Facebook for at least two weeks.

Zuckerberg’s group, Fwd.us, was set up to promote a rewrite of U.S. immigration laws. It also funds Democratic-leaning and Republican-leaning organizations, each with their own boards of directors, running issue ads in support of senators who back new immigration laws.

The commercials, though, highlight other issues beyond immigration as they try to show supporters of overhauling immigration in a favorable light.

An ad praising Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, features him criticizing President Barack Obama for not approving construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which environmentalists say will increase the use of fossil fuels blamed for global warming. An advertisement backing Sen. Mark Begich, an Alaska Democrat, applauds him for supporting oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Former Sen. Russell Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, said Fwd.us has “chosen a strategy that’s condescending to voters and counterproductive to the cause” of enacting a new immigration law.

Sarah Feinberg, a spokeswoman for Facebook, declined to comment.

Original post is Facebook Disliked: Environmentalists Challenge Ads for Senators by Political Capital.

Photograph by Mic Smith/AP Photo

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, center, speaks with voters, Joan Cobb, at left, and her father Harold Turner, at right, and reporters at Orlando’s Pizza in Daniel Island, S.C., on May 6, 2013.

Count Mark Sanford as a vote against expanding background checks for gun-buyers.

Count Sanford as a vote against the immigration bill from a bipartisan group of senators.

That’s if the vote-count in South Carolina’s special congressional election today goes the way of the former governor, a Republican whose tenure was marred by an extramarital affair with an Argentine, or Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch, sister of Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert — in a district that leans heavily Republican, but where the latest public opinion polling showed a race to0 close to call.

Sanford says he wants this contest settled on the issues. He credits a recent debate with his Democratic opponent for bringing some of those issues to the fore — his opposition to “Obamacare” versus his opponent’s support, and more.

He is counting on those issues trumping the tale of the Appalachian Trail, in which the former governor’s office in 2009 told the public he had gone hiking when he actually had gone abroad.

“We finally began to talk about issues” as opposed to his background, going back to 2009, he said this morning in an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” The hosts said Colbert had been invited for an Election Day interview as well, but declined. “In essence we’ve had a conversation here at home, not only about my strengths and weaknesses,” he said, but also about his belief in protecting taxpayers.

“We’re all going to make mistakes in life,” Sanford said of his own. “We all have feet of clay.” Responding to co-host Mika Brzezinski’s question about how the public can trust him going forward after the Appalachian-Argentinian episode, Sanford turned the question on her: “I guarantee you’ve made some personal mistakes in your life.”

If elected, the former governor and congressman was asked, how would he vote on the background check bill that failed to get 60 votes in the Senate.

“I’m a big Second Amendment person,” Sanford said. “I would have voted no.”

On the immigration bill that Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and others are advancing in the Senate: “ think we could learn from history,” he said, pointing to the last major revision of immigration law in 1986 when 3 million undocumented immigrants were legalized with a promise of better border enforcement. The nation needs to start with enforcement first, he said — “I would not support the bill in its present form.”

(That bill, in its present form, requires the Department of Homeland Security to develop and enact a plan for 90-percent effectiveness in security of the highest-risk border sectors before any of the 11 million undocumented already in the country are granted new legal rights.)

Asked how he is feeling about this five-month contest after a crowded party primary, being outspent by the Democrat and forced into a close contest in a district that should be an easy walk for a Republican, Sanford said: “Worn out. All those things you feel at the end of a campaign,” he said. “You get ultimately to the day of judgment… You feel a mixture of calm… And worn out.”

Original post is Sanford ‘Worn Out’ on ‘Judgment Day’ by Political Capital.

Bloomberg’s Heidi Przybyla reported he would last week.

.@jimdemint: Proposed #immigration reform bill would cost U.S. trillions of dollars in the long term. #ThisWeek

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) May 5, 2013

In 2007, the last time Congress attempted to overhaul a system permitting millions to live undocumented in the U.S., the Heritage Foundation predicted costs in the trillions — costs borne by the nation’s public assistance and safety-net programs. Under its new president, the former Republican senator from South Carolina, Heritage will reprise that line of attack.

“The study you’ll see from Heritage this week presents a staggering cost of another amnesty in our country,” DeMint said this morning on ABC News’ “This Week,” based on the “detrimental effects long-term” of government benefits that would eventually go to the millions offered a path to citizenship under the reform legislation currently being considered. “There’s no reason we can’t begin to fix our immigration system so that we won’t make this problem worse. But the bill that’s being presented is unfair to those who came here legally. It will cost Americans trillions of dollars. It’ll make our unlawful immigration system worse.”

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the Cato Institute and others already have weighed in with a countervailing argument: The benefit to the economy of millions of people finding a potential path to citizenship and with that the tax revenue generated by legal employment.

DeMint today is reiterating what Heritage’s Mike Gonzalez said last week as Bloomberg’s Washington bureau reported on all this: He fully supports legal immigration — but not the “amnesty” that comes with offering 11 million undocumented people a path to citizenship. In the 800-page bill that a bipartisan group of senators has advanced — and which the Senate Judiciary Committee will start examining on Thursday — DeMint warns of another behemoth that nobody is really reading. Like “Obamacare.”

Gang of Eight immigration bill is just like #Obamacare. @jimdemint asks Americans to read the bill. #ThisWeek

— Heritage Foundation (@Heritage) May 5, 2013

.@jimdemint: If people read the bill, it will be blocked. #ThisWeek

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) May 5, 2013

Heritage will have to contend with another senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, who is taking the Holtz-Eakin path to passage of the immigration bill with fellow senators of both parties. And still other Republicans will find their party riven along a line which some of them say is essential to the party’s future, re-engaging with Hispanic voters who helped re-elect President Barack Obama. That line runs between Florida’s Marco Rubio, one of the co-sponsors of the bill, and Texas’sTed Cruz, a freshly minted DeMint kind of senator.

That line will be drawn bright this week, as Heritage, and the bill, take the stage.

Original post is Jim DeMint’s Sugar-Free Taste of Immigration Bill: ‘Like Obamacare’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Joshua Roberts/Bloomberg

President Barack Obama during a meeting with Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the Amir of Qatar, unseen, in the Oval Office of the White House on April 23, 2013.

One hundred days into his second term as president, today, April 30, President Barack Obama has plenty to talk about at a White House news conference.

Including what hasn’t happened at home — where his fervent pleas for new gun controls following the killing of 20 schoolchildren in Newton, Connecticut, in December have gone unheeded in Congress.

And what hasn’t happened in Syria — where the president warned months ago of a red-line not to be crossed, the use of chemical weapons by a government under siege by rebels, and now the U.S. concludes “with varying degrees” of confidence that a chemical agent, sarin gas, has been deployed.

One thing has happened: The Senate is underway with a debate over immigration, focused on precisely the sort of comprehensive reform that Obama is seeking — a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants already in the U.S., an overhaul of visas for the low-skilled and high-skilled alike, and tougher border security going forward.

It may not be the past 100 days so much on people’s minds today, as it is the next 100.

The president will field questions from reporters at the White House at 10:15 am EDT.

Original post is Obama: 100 Days In, Red Line Deadline? by Political Capital.