PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS BATTLE OVER MAJOR IMMIGRATION PROPOSAL

This week saw a series of dramatic confrontations over immigration as the election grew closer and Congress had yet to pass numerous appropriations bills that must be passed before the members can return home to campaign.  At the end of last week, Democrats, backed by the White House, planned to insert the Latino Immigrant Fairness Act (LIFA) in the funding bill for the Commerce, Justice and State Departments (CJS bill).  On Monday, the White House rejected a proposed compromise on LIFA put forward by Republican leaders in Congress.  The Republican proposal, written by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Reps. Henry Bonilla (R-TX) and Lamar Smith (R-TX), would have provided relief for about 400,000 immigrants who arrived in the US before 1982 and were eligible for but wrongly excluded from the 1986 amnesty, whose court cases were then terminated by a provision of the 1996 immigration law.  Called the Legal Immigration Family Equity Act, it would have also granted special visas to people with pending green card applications so that they could visit family members in the US while their application in processed.  It would not have restored section 245(i), to which Rep. Smith has expressed strong opposition.

On Wednesday the President again issued a statement that he would veto the CJS bill if it did not include LIFA.  Democrats have the votes to sustain a veto.  However, while speaking with reporters it seemed Clinton might be backing off from this hard-line stance, saying “we’ve made some real progress and the Republicans have come some way toward our position on this.  I don’t think it’s enough and I hope we can do more.”  Actions the rest of the week, however, indicated that the President remained firm in his commitment to LIFA.

In response to this veto threat, Republicans did seem to give some ground.  Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said that negotiations could still be conducted about the inclusion of immigration amendments in the appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education.  On Thursday the House sent a version of the CJS bill (which was incorporated into the bill to fund Washington, D.C.) to the Senate that included the Republican immigration compromise, which the Senate will vote on Monday.  Clinton continued to maintain his threat to veto the bill.

In an attempt to avoid this veto, negotiations are being conducted about what immigration provisions to include in the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education funding bill.  Hopefully Congress will wrap up its business next week and we will have positive news to report.
 
Along with LIFA, the administration is also seeking to restore food stamp and health care benefits for legal immigrants.  In a statement released last week, Clinton referred to his promise made in 1996 when he signed federal welfare reform legislation to amend some of the provisions of the law he was signing.  According to the statement, “now it is time to restore benefits to legal immigrants.”  This effort is also facing a battle, as important House leaders, including Bill Archer (R-TX), the Chair of the Ways and Means Committee, which oversees funding legislation, and Lamar Smith (R-TX), the Chair of the Immigration Subcommittee.

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