Copland and Brenner

Table of Contents

1. Mayday Marchers: Flexing Muscle over a Dead Horse?
2. Update: FY 2007 H-1B Filings
3. The ICE Man Cometh: Ipso Facto, IFCO’s Big Problemo

1. Mayday Marchers: Flexing Muscle over a Dead Horse?

   By now, most people have read the newspaper and magazine reports, or seen the images via television or computer: hundreds of thousands of immigrants and their supporters marched on May 1 in dozens of U.S. cities. Generally stated, their goal was to call attention to efforts for comprehensive immigration reform (“CIR”) and oppose harsh measures passed by the House of Representatives in December 2005.

   In Chicago, approximately 400,000 people participated; in Los Angeles the estimate was more than half a million. In Denver, a crowd of about 50,000 showed up where only hundreds had been expected. In addition to marches, the day saw rallies, a boycott on making purchases, church services, absenteeism from work or school, human chains, vigils, and speeches. The question is, to what end? Many have questioned whether the May 1 marches will help or harm the goal of CIR. At this writing, Congress remains at a standstill.

   Readers may recall that at press time for our last edition, we wrote that Congress remained deadlocked on legislation, pointed out that amendments to the proposed bill presented a problem, and noted that it was still possible for the Senate to pass a comprehensive bill before the Easter recess. We know now that the Senate failed to do so but what, exactly, caused the failure?

   For those interested in all the details, the Congressional Record may be viewed online at http://thomas.loc.gov/r109/r109.html. For those lacking the time or inclination to do so, a sampling of remarks during Senate debate on April 7 tells the story. In essence, the issue of whether to consider amendments represented an insurmountable hurdle to consideration of the substance of the bill. When the Senate commenced its April 7 debate, seven amendments were immediately on the table, including one that would “demonstrate respect for legal immigration by prohibiting the implementation of a new alien guest worker program until the Secretary of Homeland Security certifies to the President and the Congress that the borders of the United States are reasonably sealed and secured.” It is unclear how or when such certification could be accomplished.

   Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), Minority Leader, voiced concern regarding amendments at the outset that morning:

   “The committee bill that was reported from the Judiciary Committee on a bipartisan vote is a bill that virtually all Democrats support. We now are past that piece of legislation and on what we call the Martinez substitute. Virtually all Democrats support the Martinez substitute. I thought yesterday morning we were going today to be able to pass this important legislation….But as the day went on, things didn't work out as well as we had anticipated.

   “In the Senate, there are different ways of conducting filibusters. One is to have people stand and talk for long periods of time. The other is the ability Senators have, if they wish, to filibuster by virtue of amendment.

   Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) noted that such stalling has historically involved both parties: “Senate procedures are arcane and complicated. I would not begin to try to explain them now. But the conclusion is that you can use the rules to avoid having votes come up, if you want to do it. It is called filling the tree. Republicans on this immigration bill have been stymied from offering amendments. But at the same time, on other bills, on prior days, Democrats had been stymied from offering amendments. So it is a matter of bipartisan blame.”

   Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) said:

   “The saddest part of it is this: Across America, millions of people are living in fear, living in the shadows, people who have come to me in tears because their children's future is at stake, people who have come to me crying because their mothers came to this country from Poland years ago and never filed the right papers and are technically illegal. These people wanted us to do something, to achieve something in the Senate, and we have failed. We have failed because the Senate Republican leadership will not say to its own membership: There is a limit as to how far you can take us with these debilitating amendments.

   “Last night, the Senate Republican leader said all we want is about 20 or so amendments. With 20 amendments and second-degree amendments, we would eat up a week of time just on the Republican amendments, and there is no promise it would end there.

   “….It is time for us as a nation to have comprehensive immigration reform with enforcement--enforcement on our borders and enforcement in places of employment--but also to give a legal pathway to those good people who want to be our fellow citizens, who want to share this dream in America.”

   As to substance, reflecting on the trifurcated compromise approach reached by the GOP on April 5, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said: “My concern is by developing the three tiers of individuals, as the Martinez plan does, that you create a much more complicated scenario in terms of enforcement and therefore run the risk that it cannot be carried out well, particularly for those here for less than 2 years--who are in the millions. They simply disappear into the fabric, once again, of America, and you have the same problem all over again.”

   Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said:

   “Those in the second tier who are required to go home and re-enter through a legal channel won't go home. Why would they if their neighbors are getting citizenship? They will hold out for their reward. They will wait for Congress to pass another amnesty bill. We are sending a bad signal. We are saying some can get amnesty and some cannot.

   “I know my colleagues say this isn't amnesty, but it is….Yes, an alien has to pay $2,000 to come out of the shadows….I have said it before, and I repeat is now: $2,000 is chump change. These same people probably paid a smuggler $15,000 to get them across the border. We are selling citizenship.

   “…With a wink and a nod, Uncle Sam would turn America's historic welcome mat into a doormat trampled upon by millions and millions of illegal immigrants.”

   Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) stated:

   “What is at stake is not just our security but our humanity as well. We can't set that aside. We vote today on our security but also on our humanity. We cast a vote on what Congress will do about Sheila, an undocumented immigrant originally from Cork, Ireland, who has lived on Cape Cod for the last 10 years. She left Ireland due to the economic depression. Now her whole life is here in the United States. Her citizen brother is fighting in Iraq. But upon petitioning for her, he found he had a 15- to 20-year wait. Sheila listened to her grandfather's funeral through a cell phone because she wasn't able to travel to Ireland. A talented musician, she has worked and paid taxes for the past decade as a carpet cleaner and a secretary.

   “We vote today about what to do about William, who came to Massachusetts 14 years ago from Guatemala to make a better life for his family. He is a factory worker who has paid taxes for the past 14 years. He has a 7-year-old son, David, with cerebral palsy. David is severely blind, disabled, and can't walk. William is his sole provider.”

   Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) appears unfazed by the abject misery of life in such circumstances: “This bill is a dead horse, in my view. It should be rejected because amendments have not been allowed, and it should be rejected most importantly because it does not do what it purports to do.”

   Certainly, a bill that is “dead” cannot do what it purports to do. But there are millions of “Sheilas” and “Williams” illegally present in the U.S.A. There is also Amadou Ly, an 18-year-old East Harlem high school student. As noted in The New York Times on May 2, Amadou was a team participant in the national robotics competition in Atlanta, Georgia last month. Amadou - an overstay from Senegal since age 13 – “had no government-issued identification to board a plane, no way to attend the college that had accepted him, and only a slim chance to win a two-year battle against deportation.” As reported earlier by the Times , since he could not join his teammates on the plane, Amadou disclosed his situation to school authorities who then arranged for his 18-hour train ride to Atlanta.

   With each passing day, the Sheilas, Williams and Amadous in America suffer the crushing consequences of an immigration system that has grown increasingly punitive since 1996. Obviously, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 do and should resonate in connection with legitimate issues of border and national security. Critics of “amnesty” include President Bush, whose April 24 press release on CIR states that “[f]or the sake of justice and the sake of border security, the President firmly opposes amnesty.” But the position of “amnesty” critics ignores the reality that there is no way to remove, or even identify, the millions of illegally present aliens. The reality of an underclass, unidentifiable 11 million undocumented aliens in the U.S.A. is crying out for a practicable solution that can be developed only by our elected representatives in Washington.

2. Update: FY 2007 H-1B FilingsOctober 1, 2006 will commence the federal government’s fiscal 2007. As of May 2, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services advised that it had approved 3,907 H-1B petitions for FY2007, with 8,806 pending, for a total of 12,713. The number of H-1B visas available worldwide is 58,200, with 6,800 additional H-1B visas set aside for Chile and Singapore. For advanced degree H-1B cases, 898 have been approved with 1,460 pending, for a total of 2,358. The advanced degree total number of visas available is 20,000.
3. The ICE Man Cometh: Ipso Facto, IFCO’s Big Problemo

   On April 20, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) issued a news release stating that it was unveiling a comprehensive immigration enforcement strategy for the nation’s interior. The strategy represents the second phase of the Secure Border Initiative, which is a “multi-year plan to secure America’s borders and reduce illegal migration.” One of the three goals of the strategy is to “build strong worksite enforcement and compliance programs to deter illegal employment.”

   Indeed. That same day, ICE issued another news release, regarding its arrests the day before of nearly 1,200 “illegal alien IFCO employees” at 40 of its facilities in 26 states. Seven current or former managers were also arrested. The ICE release states that its actions were “part of an ongoing criminal investigation of IFCO’s Pallet Management Services division” that began in February 2005. It was then that “ICE agents received information that IFCO workers in Guilderland, NY, were witnessed ripping up their W-2” forms, and “an IFCO assistant general manager had explained that these workers were illegal aliens, had fake Social Security cards and did not intend to file tax returns.”

   According to the release, a government affidavit alleges “that IFCO officials transported illegal aliens to and from work; paid rent for the housing of illegal alien employees; and deducted money” from their paychecks for these expenses. Further, the affidavit alleges that after IFCO officials knowingly hired an illegal alien, they “reimbursed this person for obtaining fraudulent identity documents for other illegal alien employees; used the person to recruit other illegal workers; and advised the person and other illegal alien employees on how to avoid law enforcement detection.”

   The seven managers are charged with conspiring to transport, harbor, and encourage and induce illegal aliens to reside in the U.S.A. for commercial advantage and private financial gain under Title 8, USC Section 1324(a). If convicted of the conspiracy charge, the penalty could include as much as ten years in prison and a fine of $250,000 “for each alien with respect to whom the violation takes place.”