[IMMIGRANT’S LIST reports]  Last week, Congressman Lamar Smith from Texas, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, wrote an Op-Ed in Politico that should make everyone working for immigration reform take notice. Rather than lay out a plan to address the unsustainable immigration system in this country, he uses the words “amnesty,” “illegal-immigrant lobby” and “open-borders crowd” (24 times by our count) to scare readers.

We’ve included the text of the article from Politico.com.  When you read it, do what I did — ask yourself: “Okay, what’s your plan? How do we fix our broken system?”

We concur with immigrant’s List, “Governing means being responsible. But too many elected officials think screaming “AMNESTY” over and over passes for honest debate. They’re loud and they’re going to use every scare tactic in the book to get re-elected. Don’t let them get away with it. With your help, Immigrants’ List will work to elect members of Congress in 2010 who actually want to tackle the problems we face, and who actually want to govern.”

…what do you think?   info@immigrationsolution.net

The subject is definitely alive and well and not going away!

Hoping to jump-start a major legislative drive on immigration reform in the US congress, more than 100 pro-reform House Democrats signed a letter reminding President Obama of his administration’s commitment to overhaul immigration.

The letter was clearly meant to nudge the WH toward engaging an issue it has allowed to languish.  The letter expressed House Dems “commitment to fix our broken immigration system” and cited “strong support for moving forward on fair and humane comprehensive immigration reform this year.”  One of the signees, Rep. Luis Gutierrez, an Illinois Dem, is gearing up to introduce a major immigration reform bill as early as next month.

Immigration advocates and their allies in Congress believe there is a window for immigration reform to pass early next year, before midterm elections complicate the political calculus.

Immigrant advocates know that once health care reform is settled, immigration will compete with other crucial issues including banking regulations and the interrelated climate and energy questions, for political attention.  As always — immigration reform pivots on one sensitive question:  What happens with the nation’s 12 million undocumented immigrants?

For more on this

Today we participated in a very informative conference sponsored by the Immigration Policy Center, the research division of the American Immigration Law Foundation, where they introduced a Special Report that addresses what’s wrong with our immigration system and how to fix it.

This special report looks at the impact our outdated and inefficient immigration system is having on our nation and discusses the failures of the system under two broad categories: structural failure and inadequate responses.

“We are embarking on a new round of immigration reform debates and to accomplish genuine reform, we must understand that immigration is about more than the 11-12 million people living without status in our country” said Mary Giovagnoli, Director of the Immigration Policy Center. “That group is a symptom of our failure to create an immigration system that works for the needs of America. It is time to shift the terms of the debate. We need to begin a discussion about what living without a functional immigration system has done to our nation over the last 20 years. We need to begin to ask the question: how is it in all our interests to reform immigration?”

We link to the Report above and encourage your comments

Today, the New York Times reports that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, USCIS, within the Department of Homeland Security is taking steps to prepare to process the visa applications that would be generated if comprehensive immigration reform with a broad legalization component passes the Congress in the next year. Referring to the expected surge in processing, USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas told the Times, “We are under way to prepare for that.” The following is a statement by Ali Noorani, Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum, a non-partisan, non-profit pro-immigrant advocacy organization in Washington.

The federal government is gearing up to process immigrants into the legal system and onto the tax rolls, which means the Obama Administration is serious about aligning itself to fight for immigration reform before Congress faces voters again in 2010.

We know that lawmakers in the House and Senate are developing legislative proposals and we know the commitment of Democratic leaders and the President to moving reform forward. Just last week, 111 Democrats in the House wrote to President Obama requesting immigration reform action this year. So we feel confident that a comprehensive immigration package will be unveiled this fall and will move forward early next year.

For additional info.

The energy in Washington changes as soon as Congress returns from recess, and this year the air is particularly charged with anticipation of the health care reform debate to come. In the immigration world, we are watching the debate as a barometer of what to expect later in the session when the long-promised Schumer bill is introduced.

The lead Democrat steering an immigration overhaul through the Senate said Wednesday he expects to have a bill ready by Labor Day that is more generous to highly skilled immigrant workers than those who are lower skilled and is tough on future waves of illegal immigration.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Sen. Chuck Schumer said an immigration bill can be done by the end of the year or early next year that works out disagreements between labor and business interests on the flow of legal foreign workers.

“I think we’ll have a good bill by Labor Day,” said Schumer, D-N.Y. “I think the fundamental building blocks are in place to do comprehensive immigration reform.”

We link to the Immigration Impact article.

Too bad that he didn’t get a chance to see comprehensive immigration reform legislation for which he ardently supported the last many years.  Here is a wonderful tour of his life from USA Today

For a timeline of Senator Kennedy’s career

We link to the Primer that discusses CIR, the key elements, what is smart enforcement and more released by the Immigration Policy Center

How many of you picked up on this during the week? Let’s hear your thoughts…

“The longer the healthcare debate drags out not only does it make it harder to get healthcare passed, it makes it harder to get immigration passed,” says Mark Krikorian, executive director of the conservative Center for Immigration Studies.

Immigration Works USA has released its Talking Points today on the essentials that must be in an immigration reform bill for US employers.

Here’s a list of other talking points as well.

What are your thoughts?

As the House begins its August recess today (the Senate goes home next week), Members of Congress are returning home to kiss babies and meet with constituents on a host of issues. We are betting that some of those visits will be about this country’s broken immigration system.

Nothing moves members of Congress more than face-to-face meetings with constituents letting them know what they care about. So in honor of summer recess, the IPC is reminding you of our top resources that can be used when paying a visit to your local legislator.

We link to Immigration Impact