Our immigration system is broken and needs reform. Effective immigration policy must include comprehensive border security and comprehensive immigration reform. We must secure our borders against real threats of terrorism, and we must protect U.S. workers, while preserving the basic freedoms and founding principles that are the bedrock of our nation. As Congress continues to craft comprehensive immigration reform legislation, we must address reform realistically, stem the tide of illegal immigrants entering the country and be fair to those who are here legally.
I believe it is vital to ensure our borders are secure. To this end, I voted in favor of an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2007 Defense Appropriations Act (P.L.109-289) that appropriated $1.83 billion to construct 370 miles of triple-layered fencing and 461 miles of vehicle barriers along the southwest border of our country. I also supported an amendment to the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief (P.L.109-13) that provided $390 million to hire an additional 650 border patrol agents, 250 immigration investigators, and 168 immigration enforcement agents and deportation officers, as well as to fund an additional 2,000 detention beds for immigration enforcement purposes. Earlier this year, I supported the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (P.L.111-5), which provided $40 million for competitive grants for equipment and local law enforcement assistance along the Southern border.
I believe any successful immigration reform efforts must protect U.S. workers. For this reason, in 2007, I voted in favor of an amendment to the Fair Minimum Wage Act that bars employers who violate immigration laws by hiring undocumented workers from receiving federal government contracts for up to 10 years. This legislation was included in the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans’ Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act (P.L. 110-28), which was signed into law on May 25, 2007. It is important to ensure that employers hire only those legally eligible to work and that employees are treated fairly.
In 2006, I supported a number of worker protection amendments to the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act. I voted in favor of an amendment that would have established a true prevailing wage for all occupations to ensure that U.S. workers’ wages are not lowered as a result of the guest worker program, and I supported an amendment that would have required employers to make good faith efforts to recruit U.S. workers first. The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, which I supported, was passed by the Senate by a bipartisan vote of 62-36, but was not passed by the House of Representatives prior to the adjournment of the 109th Congress.
It also is necessary for immigration reform legislation to remove the ‘magnet’ that has attracted millions of people to cross the border illegally. We should not provide amnesty; instead, we should permit currently undocumented workers to earn the right to obtain legal status over a long period of time, under restrictive conditions, including being required to pay fees and back taxes. These individuals would be required to apply through the same immigration process as everyone else and to take their place in line behind all those whose applications are pending.
I am hopeful this Congress will be able to work to pass comprehensive immigration reform. I will continue to work with my colleagues in the Senate to craft effective solutions to address our nation’s immigration problems. Without a comprehensive approach to immigration reform, our current problems with illegal immigration will likely continue.
Thank you again for contacting me.
Sincerely,
Carl Levin
(U.S. Senate, D-Michigan)
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December 20, 2009
LETTERS, OPINIONS, & COMMENTARY
Posted by sherrie1690 under Commentary, Information, Letters, OpinionsLeave a Comment
December 17, 2009
Analysis: Obama won’t break
new ground at summit
talks at critical time
Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, arrives at the
Obama, like most world leaders, is constrained by tough politics at home. And that makes it tougher for the summit to produce meaningful pollution cuts.
U.S. officials stressed Wednesday that when Obama travels to the climate conference in Denmark this week he won’t bring anything to the talks beyond Washington’s already stated goals: to commit to reducing greenhouse gases by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 and to pay a “fair share” into a $10 billion fund to help developing countries deal with climate change.
Developing countries have called on the United States and Europe, which are responsible for most of the greenhouse gases that have gone into the atmosphere in past years, to make much deeper cuts in the short term — by at least 34 percent from 2005 emission levels by 2020. Those are reductions far beyond what members of Congress — even those supporting climate legislation — say they will accept.
“We don’t want to promise something we don’t have,” Todd Stern, chief of the U.S. delegation to the climate conference, told reporters this week in Copenhagen. He said he did not anticipate any change in the U.S. commitment.
Said Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., a co-author of a climate bill already passed by the House: The president “is not going to go further. … The words he is going to use are the same words he has been using for the last two weeks.”
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, too, kept a tight hold on expectations for the summit. Noting that there are remaining disagreements among delegates, he said the president “is hopeful that his presence can help” produce “a strong operational agreement, even as we work toward something even stronger in the future.”
For Obama, it’s something of a juggling act: On the one hand he wants to present a strong case to the world that after eight years of relative inaction by the Bush administration, the United States is ready to tackle the climate issue head-on, but he is also fully aware of the political and economic realities back home.
Stern and other administration officials have said frequently they do not want to repeat the mistake of Kyoto, where the United States was key in hammering out a climate accord, only to see President Bill Clinton decline to submit it to the Senate for ratification for fear of it being rejected. Later it was discarded altogether by President George W. Bush.
Any emissions reduction targets — and commitments to financing — will have to be backed up by a Congress that is skittish about passing new mandates for heat-trapping gases in the midst of a recession and is concerned that other countries that don’t follow suit will outcompete the U.S. in a global marketplace.
But Obama is not alone in facing conflicting domestic and international priorities.
China has refused to even discuss actually reducing its current greenhouse gas pollution because that would go contrary to the country’s rapid pace of economic growth. It says it will cut emissions as a percentage of future economic growth but has balked at international verification and monitoring, calling that a threat to its sovereignty. Instead it prefers to act as its own watchdog on compliance.
Likewise, India, wanting to protect its future economic growth, announced it would commit only to slowing the growth of its greenhouse emissions and not accept a legally binding target.
Obama has said his commitment at Copenhagen would mirror legislation already before Congress, calling for 17 percent reduction in pollution by 2020 and 80 percent by mid-century. But even that target has been denounced by Republicans as a “jobs killer” that would lead to higher energy costs. Democrats from states with energy-intensive industries are complaining, too.
Opinion polls have shown people have limits on how much they want to pay to solve the problem.
A recent AP-Stanford University poll revealed that while three-quarters of respondents said they support action to address climate change, just as many said they would oppose the plans considered by Congress and backed by Obama if they raised their electricity bills by $25 a month. A majority — 59 percent — wouldn’t support any action if it meant electricity would cost $10 more.
Even Democrats who support climate legislation have warned the White House against committing to something at Copenhagen that Congress can’t deliver — while some Republican lawmakers have urged Obama to reject mandatory emission cuts altogether.
In Copenhagen, Stern, the U.S. delegation head, declared: “Our commitment is tied to our anticipated legislation. We don’t want to promise something we don’t have.”
At the same time, administration officials said — and are arguing in meetings in Copenhagen — that the U.S. is doing more to reduce the climate change threat than getting legislation passed by Congress.
In recent days, the White House has choreographed a series of announcements and events in Washington designed to highlight those efforts — from tax breaks for renewable energy manufacturers to the president visiting a home remodeling store to declare it is “sexy” to better insulate your home.
The White House distributed a memo noting that the economic recovery program contains $80 billion to help promote clean energy development including money for renewable energy projects, nuclear power plants, more fuel efficient motor vehicles and commercial development of carbon capture technologies to be used at coal burning power plants.
It was a message designed for both Copenhagen and domestic consumption.
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EDITOR’S NOTE — Dina Cappiello and H. Josef Hebert cover environmental and energy issues for The Associated Press. White House Correspondent Jennifer Loven contributed to this report.
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Opinion
___________________________________________________________________
December 18, 2009
Making universal broadband service
a reality
This week, the Obama administration took its first step toward making high-speed Internet service available to everyone in America. It announced millions of dollars in grants and loans for broadband service in underserved communities across the country. But it didn’t act alone and that’s an important point. States kicked in. So did the private sector.
The Internet is as fundamental to US economic growth and productivity in this century as the telephone, electric power, and the National Highway System were in the last. The Web is both the dial tone and transport system of the modern age – connecting people and ideas and opening a path to markets and services around the world.
Until this year, though, the federal government has been largely absent from the delivery of fast Internet service. That’s been the work of the private sector – the cable, satellite, and telecom companies. They’ve done a good job. Some studies show that nearly 90 percent of US households now have access to broadband.
But the private sector can’t do it all. Companies only go where there’s profit, which means that many poor neighborhoods, and rural and tribal areas don’t have access to a high-speed Internet connection. Once a leader in the Internet, the US ranks 15th in broadband market penetration. And compared with a country such as Japan, the average Internet speed in the US is a tenth as fast.
It’s time for the federal government to get involved, and this year, it did. Congress provided $7.2 billion of Recovery Act money to help reach the goal of universal, affordable broadband access. Wisely, it also required matching funds from states to augment this assistance.
This week, Vice President Biden announced the first recipients of the stimulus funds: $183 million to poor and underserved areas in 17 states, from Appalachian Georgia and rural Maine to native American areas in southwest Alaska. Other public funds and the private sector are contributing $46 million.
Congress has also required the Federal Communications Commission to come up with a National Broadband Plan, due in February. From a preliminary report released this week, the FCC looks to be on the right path. It says competition should be a “guiding principle” of any plan, because competition drives innovation and provides consumer choice. It also recognizes limited government funding and says federal help will have to be “leveraged with private sector investment.”
That seems to be the reality of the 21st century. The federal government simply doesn’t have the money to expand the Internet in the way it built Interstate highways or electrified rural areas. And government can’t always know which Internet technology to support. But there’s also no denying that universal, high-speed Internet service is as essential to American competitiveness as universal phone service has been.
Broadband for all will have to be a public-private partnership for now.
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