DEEPA FERNANDES
Fernandes is author of the book Targeted: National Security and the Business of Immigration and has closely followed the existing guest worker program that began after Katrina. She said today: “The so-called ‘guest worker’ provisions of the bill serve only to benefit big business. Witness the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast, an unambiguous example of exactly how this H2B guest worker program is legalizing the outright exploitation of immigrant labor. Immigrants lose and U.S. workers lose.”
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KIRAN AHUJA
PRISCILLA HUANG
Ahuja is executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum. Huang is policy and programs director for the group. Huang said today: “Although the proposal offers a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, the process could take up to 13 years and would require the head of household to return to his or her home country and pay over $5,000 in fines and fees. The plan would also establish a temporary-worker program, but fails to offer a path to permanent legal residency for these workers.

“The Senate ‘compromise’ also includes a plan to replace most family-based immigration categories with a merit-based system that would award points based on educational achievement, technical work experience and English fluency. The proposal would eliminate adult children and sibling categories, and place a cap on the number of visas available for citizens to bring in their parents. This is a significant departure from our current system where family reunification has been a core value of the United States’ immigration system since 1965.”
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858