WASHINGTON – The Senate passed an immigration bill Thursday that could provide a path to citizenship for an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants currently residing in the U.S.
The bill would allow immigrants coming into the country illegally to become citizens after completing a 13-year process and completing a number of requirements, including paying taxes and fees, passing background checks and achieving a certain level of English proficiency.
In addition, border security along the U.S.-Mexico border must be bolstered with the addition of 20,000 border agents, the completion of a 700-mile fence and the use of updated surveillance technology.
About 180,000 undocumented immigrants live in Colorado, according to the Pew Hispanic Center’s latest report in 2010. This number declined from the 2007 estimate of 240,000.
The bill will proceed to the House of Representatives and will be addressed after Congress returns July 8 from its Fourth of July recess. Its passage in the House remains uncertain.
Opponents of the bill, which passed 68-32, argued its implementation would be expensive, but reports from the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation said it actually would reduce the federal deficit by $1.1 trillion throughout 20 years.
“The bill would in part pay for itself through visa fees, RPI (Registered Provisional Immigrant) fines and new taxes from new citizens,” said Adam Bozzi, spokesman for Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo.
The Pew Hispanic Center estimated undocumented immigrants made up 4.6 percent of Colorado’s labor force in 2010.
The bill also may spur economic growth within the private sector by “encouraging more foreign entrepreneurs to open businesses in Colorado,” said Mike Saccone, spokesman for Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo.
However, Purgatory at Durango Mountain Resort could struggle to fill 15 summer and winter positions if the bill is passed in the House, a spokeswoman said Thursday.
“It does impact us because we have to go outside this local area to recruit for hard-to-fill positions,” said Kim Oyler, director of communications at the resort.
The ski resort employs foreign workers with a J1 visa when there are no local applicants, Oyler said. A J1 visa is a nonimmigrant visa for people participating in a work- or study-exchange program, according to the State Department.
Undocumented agricultural workers and native-born children of immigrants in the country illegally would be able to become citizens after completing similar requirements over five years under the new bill.
The bill also would increase the number of temporary visas granted to foreign citizens working in agriculture as well as the science, technology, engineering and mathematical fields. Udall pushed the need for more workers in these industries during his speech on the Senate floor Tuesday.
“Jobs in science, technology, engineering and math are growing at three times the rate of other jobs in the United States,” Udall said in the speech. “With that in mind, in spite of high levels of unemployment, nearly 100,000 valuable American-based positions in critical high-tech firms like IBM, Microsoft and Intel, have been left unfilled.”
Bennet and seven other senators, the bipartisan “Gang of Eight,” introduced the bill in April.
Paige Jones is a student at American University in Washington, D.C., and an intern for The Durango Herald. Reach her at pjones@durangoherald.com.
