WASHINGTON – Sen. Michael Bennet and the rest of the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” formally introduced their immigration legislation Thursday afternoon at a news conference.
The senators, from border and landlocked states, sought to portray the 844-page bill as an across-the-aisle approach to comprehensive reform.
The bill tries to balance border security, economic opportunity and a modernization of the immigration system. It includes a controversial pathway to citizenship that some Republicans say is basically a massive “amnesty” program.
The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold hearings today and Monday on the proposal.
The Gang of Eight is made up of Bennet and Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz.; Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.; Marco Rubio; R-Fla., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; Bob Menendez, D-N.J.; and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
All of the senators spoke at the news conference – Rubio and Menendez finished their remarks in Spanish – alternately praising each other and the bill, which they said was a big step toward reform while also a work in progress.
“This bill is incredibly important to people of my state,” Bennet said at the news conference.
Bennet highlighted what he called two “incredibly essentially American ideas” during his address: a commitment to the rule of law and a vision of the United States as a nation of immigrants.
“I would argue that it’s those two ideas working together – unlike in any other country in the world – that decade after decade from our founding, has enabled every generation of Americans to invent the future,” Bennet said. “And now it’s our time, in the 21st century, to decide whether we are still up to that task.”
Support for the bill already is being put to the test. Two Republican senators held a dueling news conference with law-enforcement officials to bash the bill’s security provisions.
However, McCain, anticipating opposition to a controversial provision offering a path to citizenship, defended the bill.
“Yes, we offer a path to citizenship to people who didn’t come here legally,” he said. “They’re here, and realistically there is nothing we can do to induce them all to return to their countries of origin.”
This is not Bennet’s first foray into bipartisan immigration reform. He launched the Colorado Compact in December with former U.S. Sen. Hank Brown, R-Colo., to bring Coloradans’ ideas about the issue to Washington.
“I want to thank the people in Colorado who told me about how the broken immigration system is affecting their lives and their work,” Bennet said at the Gang of Eight news conference. “The peach growers on the Western Slope of Colorado, the cattle ranchers on the Eastern Plains, the people working in our high-tech fields, the people that were the DREAM-ers when I was superintendent of the Denver Public Schools.”
For Colorado, the bill could affect the high-tech and agriculture sectors with changes to existing nonimmigrant visa programs as well as entirely new nonimmigrant visa categories.
The legislation would establish a new agricultural guest-worker visa program that includes worker protections as well as a streamlined process, according to a Democratic Policy and Communications Center summary of the bill.
The bill also creates an INVEST visa that would be available to foreign entrepreneurs who want to start companies and create jobs in the United States. The entrepreneurs would need to have $100,000 in investments from an accredited investor, venture capitalist or government entity, according to a summary obtained by The Durango Herald.
This three-year visa could be extended if the business has created at least three jobs and generated at least $250,000 in annual revenue for the previous two years, according to the summary.
The INVEST visa is similar to the StartUp Visa Act, which was reintroduced in January by Flake and Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo.
“I plan to carefully study the Gang of Eight proposal to ensure that it fixes our broken immigration system, secures our borders and provides certainty for businesses, families and workers,” Udall said in a statement. “But the inclusion of the StartUp Visa Act is a good foundation for the bill.”
In Denver, state lawmakers have gone a long way this year toward repealing strict immigration laws the Legislature passed in 2006.
Any day now, Gov. John Hickenlooper is expected to sign a bill granting in-state tuition to Colorado high school graduates who crossed the border illegally with their parents.
Also on Hickenlooper’s desk is a bill repealing a 2006 law against “sanctuary cities,” which required city police to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. The federal Secure Communities program makes the law redundant, sponsors said. Police supported the bill, too, saying they have a hard time building trust with people when they are feared as immigration agents.
And finally, senators are considering a bill to allow people who immigrated illegally to get Colorado driver’s licenses.
Herald Denver Bureau staff writer Joe Hanel and The Associated Press contributed to this report. Stefanie Dazio is a student at American University in Washington, D.C., and an intern for The Durango Herald. You can reach her at sdazio@durangoherald.com.
