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Category: Justice Content: March 9, 2007 Dear President Bush and Members of Congress, As the debate on immigration reform begins in earnest in the 110th Congress, the undersigned organizations urge you in the strongest possible terms to enact workable comprehensive immigration reform this year. Our message is simple: get it done, do it right, and make it work. Immigrant workers and families are desperate for real reform, as are American workers who want a level playing field and decent employers who want a legal workforce. State and local governments are frustrated that politicians in Washington produce more talk than action on a priority only federal policy makers can realistically address. The public is tired of partisan posturing and finger pointing. They want their leaders to lead, to solve tough problems on a bipartisan basis, and to produce results, not excuses. Workable comprehensive immigration reform is the solution. Enforcement-only efforts have not worked in the past and will not work in the future. Rounding up or attempting to force out 12 million undocumented immigrants is neither feasible nor desirable. Most undocumented immigrants live in families, most have been here for more than five years, and as workers they fill one out of every 20 jobs in the United States. Fixing our broken immigration system requires a broader approach, a strategy that aims to replace an unregulated, chaotic, and abusive system with a controlled, limited, and legal system. Attached are principles that have long guided our work. These will continue to serve as our anchor during the upcoming legislative debate and as the basis for assessing legislative proposals. Our principles are about restoring the rule of law, providing a path to earned citizenship, protecting immigrant and American workers alike, reuniting families, respecting due process, and helping newcomers become new Americans while helping the communities in which they settle. This combination enacted together will work to bring immigrants out of the shadows and under a realistic regulatory regime. An effectively reformed immigration system will serve national interests by supporting economic growth, social mobility, strong families, labor rights, civil rights, political rights, and law and order. On one particular component the future flow of needed workers we want to make our position clear. The undersigned organizations oppose new guest worker programs. Instead, we support new worker visas with an earned path to citizenship. Work-and-return guest worker programs that tie workers to individual employers and compel workers to leave the country when their short-term visa expires simply will not work. When the immigration status of workers and their right to stay in the country depends on an employer, the resulting imbalance of power inevitably fosters exploitation. This, in turn, undercuts the wages and working conditions of native-born and immigrant low-wage workers alike. What we do support is a break the mold new worker visa program, one that guarantees needed immigrant workers renewable long-term visas, full labor rights, the right to change jobs, wage protections, the right to join a union, the right to be with close family members, the protection of constitutional rights, and the realistic option of a path to earned citizenship. We also believe that workable comprehensive immigration reform must serve the interests of native-born workers. In addition to eliminating the perverse effects of our broken immigration system on native-born workers, we need to address the needs of unemployed or underemployed American workers by strengthening the reach and effectiveness of job programs and anti-discrimination measures in order to improve skills training and access to jobs. Finally, let us never forget that the immigration reform debate is about real people. Undocumented immigrants live in our communities, have loving families, work hard, pay taxes, and believe deeply in the American Dream. They bus tables, clean buildings, cook food, care for children, tend gardens, tend to the elderly, construct houses, clean hotel rooms, pick crops, produce food, and so much more. They have voted with their feet to be here. Many have risked their lives in the process of getting here. And far too many have died horrible deaths in the desert seeking only a better life for their families. Immigrant workers and families want to be here with legal immigration status. Requirements that include paying a fine, studying English, and going to the back of the line are not a problem as long as the process is workable and there is a line for earned citizenship to get into. And that line cannot keep people in legal limbo or create huge backlogs that would deter people from coming forward or from becoming new Americans. Immigrants in the U.S. want to be accepted and recognized for their contributions, and are fully prepared to assume both the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. The signs in last year's marches said it so well and so powerfully: We Are America. But this debate is also about who we are. As a nation, we are at our best when we overcome us vs. them fears to forge unity out of our diversity. As a nation we are at our best when we live up to the ideals of opportunity for all, equal treatment under the law, and basic fairness. As a nation, it is time to solve this problem with a smart and practical comprehensive immigration reform bill that will make our country stronger, safer, and prouder. Undersigned organizations including JALSA