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Immigration Reform Proposals May be More Bluster than Reality

Door County attorney Luca Fagundes said the Gang of Eight’s immigration reform proposal “went in one ear and out the other” of most people working in the immigration field. Photo by Len Villano.

When a bipartisan group of immigration reform-minded senators, known collectively as the Gang of Eight, announced earlier this year that they were crafting a bill to deal with the U.S.’s illegal immigration dilemma, a lot of people paid attention.

President Obama commended the group’s efforts and asked for a bill to be sent to him as soon as possible. The media ran with the story, saying 2013 could finally be the year that comprehensive immigration reform gets passed.

But for those already working in the field of immigration, like Door County attorney Luca Fagundes, the announcement was nothing special.

“It went in one ear and out the other,” said Fagundes. “It’s not actionable; it couldn’t ever be real legislation. As important as everybody thought it was, it was nothing.”

The reason it was nothing, according to Fagundes, is that the logistics of the Gang of Eight plan simply don’t add up. While the senators’ proposal that undocumented immigrants be sent “to the back of the line,” behind those that have already begun legally working towards getting a visa, may sound fair, it would just add more people to a waiting list that’s already far too long.

According to the State Department’s visa bulletin for February 2013, the department is currently processing family-sponsored visa applications that reach as far back as June 1989. The line for employment-based visas extends as far back as November 2002, depending on which category a person falls in.

“If you tell people now that you’re going to set this up, but they have to wait 30 years before everybody else gets [a visa]…then it’s meaningless,” said Fagundes.

The other non-starter in the Gang of Eight’s proposal is the senators’ assertion that illegal immigrants seeking to apply for legal status would have to pay their back taxes.

“Logistically it would be a nightmare,” said Fagundes. “The issue is that these people have been paying taxes – taxes are being withdrawn from their paychecks. So if they’ve been paying taxes under a bogus Social Security number that hasn’t been crediting any account, do they get credit for that? And then the risk is…are they going to be subject to fraud charges?”

Fagundes said President Obama’s reform proposal, which was leaked to USA Today earlier this month, is a much more actionable document. It would create an entirely new “Lawful Prospective Immigrant” visa status that the nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants could apply for, and it would only require that applicants pay an unspecified fine of some sort rather than back taxes.

“You’d get a work permit and you’d be able to get a Social Security number for the purposes of filing taxes,” said Fagundes. “The most important thing about having the Social Security number is that people would then be able to obtain a driver’s license. That would solve a lot of problems because that’s a huge issue in rural areas like Door County.”

The Republican members of the Gang of Eight have criticized the White House’s proposal on two grounds mainly, the first being that creating a new visa status allows illegal immigrants to jump the line and get ahead of those who have already applied for legal status through the current system.

But Fagundes said that, at least in his experience, many of those who are in the line are already living here illegally, meaning they’d just be jumping themselves.

“A lot of the people in line could apply for this,” said Fagundes.

The other main criticism of the President’s plan has been its lack of emphasis on beefing up border security before offering an easier pathway to citizenship. Fagundes understands the argument that the border should be beefed up, but still wonders if the effort required to increase border security would result in enough of a decrease in illegal immigration.

“You put up a wall, okay great, people are going to be going over the wall. Are you going to man it, are you going to keep drones overhead? The costs involved are insane,” said Fagundes. “People are going to keep trying and getting across one way or another.”