As the Republican Party remains deeply divided on the immigration issue, the Senate will begin debating a “broad revision of the nation’s immigration laws” today or tomorrow. There are growing signs that “conservatives are ready to compromise on efforts to offer illegal immigrants new avenues to lawful employment.” The WaPo reports that “There may be as many as a dozen Republicans backing the Judiciary Committee bill in the full Senate.” And the NY Times reports that the Republican split on the immigration issue reflects the nation’s struggle.”

It is almost as if they are looking at two different Americas.

This morning, Senator Edward M. Kennedy delivered remarks on the Senate floor outlining his bipartisan plan for immigration reform. The debate on the McCain-Kennedy bill is expected to begin today or tomorrow morning.

On Monday, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill by a vote of 12- 6, that includes the main provisions of the McCain-Kennedy immigration reform bill: a guest worker program for foreign workers that provides an opportunity for earned legalization and a program for the 12 million undocumented workers in the United States that would allow for earned legalization. Senator Kennedy believes that providing a path to citizenship is the only way to break the cycle of illegality.

Today, Kennedy addressed the false charge of amnesty that immigration restrictionists are making about his bill. “No one is advocating amnesty. The challenge before us is too important to base our decisions on short-term political expediency or to be intimidated by demagogues,” Senator Kennedy said. “Those who are charging amnesty would have us build higher and longer walls at the border. They would have us further restrict migrants’ legal rights and make these hard working men and women not just subject to deportation, but also to time in US prisons for the “crime” of living and working in this country. They would go much farther, actually making felons of people like Cardinal Mahoney and tens of thousands of other clergy and social workers who offer counseling or humanitarian support to undocumented immigrants.”

Kennedy’s guest worker measure creates a new temporary visa to allow foreign workers to enter the US. The visa is valid for 3 years, and can be renewed one time for a total of 6 years. It contains strong labor protections for all workers, visas for family members, a path to permanent residence and citizenship and a flexible market-based cap, beginning at 400,000.

Under the McCain-Kennedy plan for the 12 million undocumented workers already in the United States, they can apply for temporary status for six years, must demonstrate past work history, pay a 2 thousand dollar fine, undergo rigorous background and security checks, learn English and American civics, make good on back taxes, and satisfy additional criteria. Then if they wait until everyone already waiting their turn is processed through system they can apply for a green card. It is not amnesty, as opponents of the measure contend, rather it would give immigrants an incentive to come forward and an opportunity to earn legal status.

The McCain-Kennedy bill, which was introduced last May, is the only bipartisan reform measure and has earned broad and diverse support because of its common sense plan to strengthen border protection and enforcement while reflecting our best values as a nation — of fairness, equal opportunity, and respect for the law. It has the strong backing of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce along with other business groups, labor unions such as SEIU, religious leaders and Hispanic advocacy groups. The bill’s co-sponsors include Senators Graham, Brownback, Lieberman, Salazar, Obama and Martinez.

Below are Senator Kennedy’s remarks, as prepared for delivery and made available to The Democratic Daily:

FLOOR STATEMENT BY SENATOR EDWARD M. KENNEDY ON COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM

We gather here today to begin debate on our effort to correct a great historic wrong.

For decades, this country has tuned a blind eye to the plight of the stranger in our midst, and looked away in indifference as undocumented immigrants have been exploited at the workplace and have been forced with their families to live in constant fear of detection and deportation.

We have ignored the tough conditions endured by the undocumented, and the harmful ripple effects undocumented employment has on some US workers. For decades Congress has failed to take sensible steps to end undocumented immigration, and some of our policy choices have even contributed to the current crisis.

We first confronted this problem directly in 1952, passing a law known in the parlance of the time as the “Wetback bill,” which made it a crime to harbor or abet undocumented immigrants. But at the same time, over the vigorous objections of President Truman, Congress carved out the Texas Proviso—so called because it was drafted by agricultural producers from that state—which made it legal to employ undocumented immigrants. This decision protected the “economic pull factors” which have sustained illegal migration since that time.

In 1961 the Edward R. Murrow documentary Harvest of Shame directed the nation’s attention to the miserable conditions under which migrant farm workers toiled to bring cheap fruit and vegetables to our table. Congress responded by terminating the deeply flawed Bracero guest-worker program, and strict limits were imposed for the first time on labor migration from Mexico. These changes to our immigration policy were well-intentioned, but with hindsight their result was predictable: by ending legal migration, but allowing employers to bid for immigrant labor, Congress all but guaranteed a generation of undocumented immigrants would emerge.

Since that time, economic disparity between the United States and its neighbors increased, globalization made travel in and out of the United States easier, and two whole generations of foreign workers and US employers came of age in an economic system organized around illegal migration.

In truth, Congress has done little since then to confront this problem. In 1986 we passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, but IRCA’s employer sanctions provisions have never been enforced. Rather than confront the structural causes of undocumented immigration, Congress has repeatedly attacked the symptoms of this disease: building more fences and placing more agents at the U.S.-Mexican border, and imposing more restrictions on immigrants’ legal rights. These blunt enforcement tools have not quenched employers’ thirst for immigrant workers, and they have not given families the tools to be reunited with their loved ones. Instead, enforcement-only approaches have driven immigrants farther into the desert and deeper underground.

For decades, we tolerated undocumented immigration because it seemed like a win-win exchange: employers and consumers were given access to cheap labor and low-cost goods and services; but Congress was not required to make politically difficult decisions about expanding legal low-skilled immigration.

But of course, undocumented immigration has not been cost-free—far from it. And recent changes make continued indifference to this crisis impossible:
Undocumented immigrants now live in every state in the nation, and whole sectors of the economy—from construction, to food services, to health care, to agriculture—depend on undocumented workers to stay in business.

Labor and business alike now demand a system in which workers’ rights are respected and in which workers are no longer vulnerable to deportation. Millions of US citizens now demand a system in which their husbands and wives and parents and children and neighbors can plan for the future. And the continued health of the American economy demands a system in which all of these workers join the formal labor force and pay their taxes.

US relations with Mexico and other countries of origin have also changed. In 1965 when the foundation for our current system was put in place, Mexico was an authoritarian state and barely a top ten US trade partner. Now Mexico is a flourishing democracy, a partner in the North American Free Trade Agreement, and our number two trade partner in the world. Over 300 million legal border crossings occur between the United States and Mexico each year, and trade across the border totals 650 million dollars a day. Yet this relationship and our broader regional interests are jeopardized by the humanitarian crisis at the border and by the exploitation of immigrants within the United States. President Bush is traveling to Mexico this week, and the crisis of undocumented immigration—including the enormous strain it places on our partnership with Mexico—will be at the top of the agenda.

And of course the 9/11 attacks remind us that undocumented immigration creates a crisis of insecurity. America spends billions of dollars tracking entries and exits at our ports of entry, but we have no idea about the identity of millions of immigrants already living among us. The vast majority of these undocumented immigrants are honest and hard working, but our national security requires that we identify and monitor those who are not.

We all agree that the time has come for Congress to act, but how shall we do so?

Fundamentally, we must choose between two alternatives.

Some would have us build higher and longer walls at the border. They would have us further restrict migrants’ legal rights and make these hard working men and women not just subject to deportation, but also to time in US prisons for the “crime” of living and working in this country. They would go much farther, actually making felons of people like Cardinal Mahoney and tens of thousands of other clergy and social workers who offer counseling or humanitarian support to undocumented immigrants.

Yet the United States lacks the resources of the political will to actually remove all 11 million undocumented immigrants among us—doing so would cost $240 billion dollars; it would wreak havoc with our economy; and it would destroy millions of American families. Nor, in a global economy, do we truly have the desire or the capacity to build an impenetrable wall around ourselves.

The idea that blunt enforcement will disrupt this deeply entrenched system of undocumented immigration flies in the face of history and of economics. Rather, this enforcement-only approach would simply replicate the policy failures of the past. Down this road lie further undocumented immigration, further insecurity, further economic polarization, and further exploitation of the poorest and most vulnerable among us.

We propose an alternative approach. We propose to end this system of exploitation and to right this historical injustice. We believe that immigrants, like women and like African Americans before them, have rights in this country; and the time is ripe for a new civil rights movement. We believe that a nation of immigrants rejects its history and its heritage when millions of immigrants are confined forever to second-class status; and that all Americans are debased by such a two-tier system.

The time has come for comprehensive immigration reform.

Our opponents believe blunt enforcement can solve our current crisis. We believe that the culture and infrastructure of illegality can only be disrupted, and our security and prosperity can only be assured, through a three pronged approach.

First, we favor smarter and tougher enforcement through greater reliance on technology, better screening at our consulates abroad, more international cooperation on migration enforcement and on tracking terrorist mobility, and more efficient screening at US worksites.

Our national security and our immigration control efforts are both weakened when we fail to distinguish b n the millions of undocumented immigrants making vital contributions to our economy and the handful of extremists who would enter the United States to do us harm. How can we seriously consider diverting our scarce resources to building a fence along the border? This is a 19th century solution to a 21st century problem. The focus on the border will not prevent undocumented immigration; almost half of all undocumented immigrants enter through legal channels, and others will always find ways to go over or under or around a wall. More importantly, a U.S.-Mexican border fence does nothing to help us identify and track terrorists who would almost certainly choose other strategies for entry, including the use of fraudulent or legitimate documents, or entry anywhere along our unguarded northern border or coastline.

Second, in an economy which depends on immigrant labor, we favor the creation of legal opportunities so that all American workers have the right to labor with dignity and to the protection of our laws. More opportunities must be created for workers and families to obtain green cards through our permanent visa system. And the 400,000 or so undocumented immigrants now joining our workforce each year must be offered access to temporary visas and to a spot in the formal economy when employers cannot find US workers to take these jobs.

Our temporary worker program differs in fundamental ways from failed approaches of the past. We include robust wage guarantees to ensure that temporary workers will not depress the wages and working conditions of American workers; and we back up these guarantees with strong complaint procedures and protection for whistle-blowers. We believe guest-workers must not be tied to a single employer, but rather must have the right to vote with their feet by changing jobs when employers would exploit them. And we believe workers must have the right to adjust to permanent status if their situation changes and they choose to remain in the United States.

Third, immigration reform will be fundamentally incomplete without a plan for bringing the undocumented immigrants already among us out of the shadows and into legal status. Our national security requires the United States to know who resides in our country. Our economic prosperity requires that undocumented immigrants—five percent of all workers in the United States—join the legal economy. Countless American families want their undocumented relatives to have the opportunity to become legal residents. And all our other enforcement efforts will be undermined if millions of Americans still lack legal status.

One million immigrants rallied in communities across the country last week, and the crowds included thousands of families waving American flags and celebrating America as their adopted homeland. They aspire to citizenship, and America will be strengthened when they obtain it.

No one believes in amnesty for these immigrant workers and families, but we do believe in giving them a chance to earn legal status and ourselves a chance to right these historical wrongs. All undocumented immigrants deserve this chance, but only those who pay stiff fines, work for six year, pay their taxes, learn English, and pass a civics test will be permitted to remain in the United States.

By heritage and history, America is a nation of immigrants, and we are proud of that heritage and history. We’ve welcomed immigrants as workers and members of our communities for decades, but for decades we have denied them legal status. They’ve been victims of an unfair system—living in fear of deportation, vulnerable to exploitation at the worksite, unable to invest in their own futures. It would be even more unfair, after so many years, to uproot these hard-working undocumented Americans from their jobs and families, evict them from their homes, and deport them to nations where they have no longer have ties.

Today we embark on a historic debate, and we have an opportunity to correct these historic wrongs. I look forward to the coming debate. Together, let us move forward, not backward, on genuine immigration reform.

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