SB 2016-050 - Come Out Of The Shadows Act (Back to House)

[Clyde1998]

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Sponsor - Representative Siren (Ind)

I open up a period of debate on this bill.

[Anna Komnene]

Are the crickets hopping around on tumbleweeds a sign that people want to vote on this?

[LLR]

Are the crickets hopping around on tumbleweeds a sign that people want to vote on this?

I mean, it looks good to me

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I take it the joint session did not resolve this?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Assuming I got my dates right and such, I am assuming that Scott is now the Senior most Senator. My recommendation would be for him to proceed with votes on these Senate bills. Clyde can just sign off afterwards. The rules say Senator appointed by PPT, shall preside in the PPT's absence.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

How in the fck did I miss this for so long.

Anyway, no one was appointed to temporarily fill Clyde's position, to my knowledge, so I think the duties of the TPP go directly to the Vice President, no?

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

How in the fck did I miss this for so long.

Anyway, no one was appointed to temporarily fill Clyde's position, to my knowledge, so I think the duties of the TPP go directly to the Vice President, no?

My understanding is that the most senior senator takes over in the absence of the PPT. From the part of the Senate Rules sent to me by the vice president:

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Has anyone a link to the full Senate Rules? I'm sure there's a loophole somewhere that would allow us to bring this to a vote.

[Leinad]

Anyone have any thoughts/amendments for this?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I will not sign any immigration "reform" bill that doesn't include a fully funded visa entry/exit system. 50% of illegal immigration comes from visa overstays.

1d. While I understand the importance of due process and innocent until proven guilty, if a illegal is presently being prosecuted for a serious crime like murder or something of that nature then they should not be automatically granted anything until the trial is concluded. Certainly not any permanent status or status extending beyond the time of the trial.

5. I am dubious about granting fixed numbers of visas irregardless of the economic situation, especially in low skilled workers where the impacts of the economy have the most impact. Adding a substantial number of workers when the economy is contracting is only going to worsen the labor market for the poorest citizens, including a larger percentage of minority workforce. My preference is to have either a formula pinned to economic indicators or flexibility to the Department of Interior to determine the level based on economic factors.


The real root cause of illegal immigration is the irresponsibility of the government in failing to enforce its laws and constantly putting us in a position having to legalize the next group of illegal aliens. Therefore the priority should be towards ensuring that no future such amnesties are necessary and the appropriate levels of enforcement and legal immigration policies are implemented here to obtain that goal.

That said I am fine with Sections 2 and 3 and would not be opposed to the general goal of Section 1 if properly structured with a Section 4 containing sufficient enforcement.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

First, let's clean this up a bit.

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[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Secondly, I echo the President's concerns, especially as far as felonies are concerned.  This amendment will prevent illegal immigrants from applying for citizenship during any time of criminal prosecution.

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We can talk about what type of formula might be best appropriate for issuing visas.  As for a 'fully funded visa system,' can you be more specific on that, Yankee?  Are you proposing we allocate more funding for ICE?  How much more?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Basically you have a computer system that tracks visa holders. They cards are changed to include biometric data and they are scanned at ports of entry (Airports and harbors). They are scanned when they enter and scanned when they leave (hence entry/exit).

It was passed by Congress in 1996, and signed by President Bill Clinton. He of course failed to implement it. In 2001, some of the 911 hijackers had over stayed their visas leading to the 911 commission including its implementation as one of its recommendations. President Bush and President Obama likewise failed to implement it, despite the Democrats campaigning on implementing the 911 commission report in full, in 2006.

The cost was estimated by the Center for Immigration Studies at just under a billion dollars. I am trying to find another study of the cost.

[Anna Komnene]

The bill does allocate 1 billion for improving border security at points of entry already, so we could probably just add a clause to that saying that includes upgrading equipment to do the visa entry/exit program. 

I did some looking around and found a study from the bipartisan policy center (headed by people like Bob Dole, Olympia Snowe, and Byron Dorgan) that said the reason why it hasn't been implemented isn't for lack of wanting to but because we basically don't have the necessary equipment for exit checks at the Mexican border. (Of course Congress would pass a bill that nobody in government actually knows how to enforce.  ).  So part of the funds for border security in this bill could go to upgrading our equipment and researching to find an efficient way to do that process.  If you think we need more resources to make that upgrade, we could increase the number.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The bill does allocate 1 billion for improving border security at points of entry already, so we could probably just add a clause to that saying that includes upgrading equipment to do the visa entry/exit program.  

I did some looking around and found a study from the bipartisan policy center (headed by people like Bob Dole, Olympia Snowe, and Byron Dorgan) that said the reason why it hasn't been implemented isn't for lack of wanting to but because we basically don't have the necessary equipment for exit checks at the Mexican border. (Of course Congress would pass a bill that nobody in government actually knows how to enforce.   ).  So part of the funds for border security in this bill could go to upgrading our equipment and researching to find an efficient way to do that process.  If you think we need more resources to make that upgrade, we could increase the number.

Yea I ran across that study this morning. Previous reports had been vague but implied basically the same idea, lack of appropriated funds, they just didn't narrow down the specific area. They also generally have been from immigration hard liners, which is why I wanted a more reliable source. The bill does include a similar amount but my concern in this case would be that $700-$800 million would wipe out the bulk of that and not leave enough for border agents, drones and all the other tools that are desperately needed to stop the flow of drugs and guns, as well as illegal immigrants.

So yea, probably more resources to both handle the other stuff and finally and entry/exit system up and running.

[Anna Komnene]

Okay, sounds good.  I added this change to Scott's amendment.  Basically it increases the border security allocation by 800 million for the visa verification program and its infrastructure.

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[Associate Justice PiT]

     How much revenue do we expect the new visa program to generate? That is probably important to hash out before we start committing that money.

[Anna Komnene]

The visa program was NeverAgain's idea and he wrote in the bill that it would bring in over a billion in new revenue.  I'm not sure on the exact number but with the number of visas and considering the bidding for them, it makes sense.

Section 6 of the bill also puts the money generated from fees and fines toward border security, in addition to the worker verification system, worker training programs, and visa backlogs.  If we assume that half of the estimated undocumented population took advantage of this program, that would bring in about 3.2 billion in revenue without even considering the tax liabilities clause.  So I think that there would be sufficient funds from that to supplement the visa program funds if needed.

[Potus]

A path to legalization with fines, back taxes, benefit ban, and English fluency requirement is more responsible than an outright path to citizenship from the get-go. After being legalized, they can get in line for citizenship like everyone else.

Citizenship has become far too watered down. Economic migrants would, and should, be perfectly happy with legal status. Citizenship comes with certain duties to your country, like understanding our national culture, participating fully in our system of government, and respecting social and economic institutions that made us the place everyone wants to go. Citizenship is something that should have significant rigor attached to it.

I'd also like to see immigrant work permits and legal status come with an additional payroll tax to contribute to the solvency of our entitlement programs. An additional 4% payroll tax creates an additional disincentive to substitute immigrant labor for domestic workers. I think it makes sense to dedicate the money to Social Security, as a lot of the money paid in won't be collected on by the immigrant workers, to increase the program's lifespan.

On the DREAM section, if they've worked a job and avoiding paying taxes due to their legal status, they should have to pay back taxes.

There is a pretty big perverse incentive in the "root causes" section. There is already some evidence to say countries south of our border encourage people to come to the United States. The incentive becomes even more profound if the biggest exporters of illegal immigrants become entitled to more foreign aid. That's a big, big perverse incentive that is probably going to lead to changes in governance and worsening conditions for vulnerable populations who already seriously consider immigrating.

I'd also say that low-skilled economic migrants should have some sort of seasonal system. There isn't much of an economic benefit to providing them permanent resident status, however. I would honestly scrap those work visas, tbh. I don't think a lot of our big exporters of illegal immigrants are producing a massive amount of high-skilled workers, either.

E-verify and mandatory immigration checks for work, applying for government benefits, and other things the government the government has influence on would dramatically reduce the incentive for illegal immigration. Less work means fewer illegal economic migrants.


On a broader, completely separable, note, this body needs to get serious about infrastructure investment, a pro-growth tax code, getting real on energy, and a more dynamic education system if you expect the vulnerable populations in our country to compete with a newly amnestied legion of migrant workers.

[Anna Komnene]

Fair point on the root causes section.  I hadn't considered that and it's not really how I intended it to be.  I'll amend it, so that the aid is based on the percentage of undocumented migration *now* and will last for five years, to be re-evaluated at that time.  Though ideally the border enforcement measures combined with visa programs would mean that there wouldn't be much incentive for people to use unofficial channels to immigrate to Atlasia.  That said, I firmly believe that it's essential to improve the economic conditions of these countries or no amount of border security or monitoring will have any effect.  In the grand scheme of things, people will do what they need to do to protect their families, regardless of the cost or risk.  If we don't want people to make those decisions, then we need to make sure they don't want to leave.

The payroll tax might be something we could include if people want to also, but I personally find the spirit behind it unnecessarily discriminatory against migrant people, which is also how I feel about legalization vs path to citizenship (would not support that change).

Legalization and eventual citizenship should actually be the best thing for eliminating the problem of non-competitive wages, as one of the primary reasons why that exists is because undocumented immigrants aren't in a position to accept anything different for fear of reprisal, etc.

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[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I still would like some kind of provision for consideration of economic factors when it comes to the level of low skilled immigration in section 5.

[Anna Komnene]

^

Does anyone have ideas to address President Yankee's concern?  I'm open to suggestions.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Come on, there are a lot of smart people in this Senate. The math couldn't be that complex.

[LLR]

Come on, there are a lot of smart people in this Senate. The math couldn't be that complex.

OTOH, you have smart people. OTOH, you have me.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I think you take it by sector, make a determination by % relative to a base level of immigration depending on the contraction or expansion of that sector.

One of the biggest to consider is construction, which is very volatile, particularly in tough economic times.

[Anna Komnene]

I'm still not really sure, but I'll propose this amendment to keep thing moving along.

Section 5: Addressing Root Causes of Illegal Immigration
1. Countries that account for at least 5% of unauthorized migration at the time of introduction of this bill to Atlasia shall be designated as priority recipients for foreign development assistance for the years of 2017-2021, with their status to be reevaluated by the Secretary of State after that time.
2. An additional 100,000 visas shall be created annually for immigrants from the above countries.
3. A "highest bidder" system will be set up so that whichever employer is willing to pay more for each individual visa will be given them. 50,000 will be given for "high-skilled" workers, and the other 50,000 for lower-skilled workers. This will bring in over $1 billion in new revenue.
4. At the discretion of the Secretary of the Interior, the above visas may be reduced by 10% for each 1% that quarterly GDP growth is below 3%.
4.5. Individuals awarded the above "high-skilled" work visas will be admitted to Atlasia as conditional residents and may petition for permanent resident status after their 3-year visa is up.  Likewise, for "low-skilled" workers, they may apply for permanent resident status after their 1-year visa is up.
5.6. An employer is allowed to refuse to renew an employee's work visa (if they do refuse, the employee must be notified at least 6 months before the visa expires), at which point, the employee (and their family) is able to apply for permanent resident status.