Self-petition added back to bill
Allowing workers to apply to stay was dropped Wednesday.
By DENA BUNIS
The Orange County Register
A group of men travel along a border road outside of Sasabe, Mexico, on Wednesday en route to a drop-off spot where they begin the trek on foot to cross illegally into the United States near Arivaca, Ariz. President Bush plans to visit the Arizona border today to promote his new immigration and border control policies.
(AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
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WASHINGTON – The Senate reversed itself early this morning and passed an amendment to the proposed immigration reform bill that would allow guest workers to self-petition to stay permanently in the United States after working here for four years.
By a 56-43 vote, lawmakers changed their minds from less than 24 hours ago, when they voted 50-48 to eliminate the self-petition provision from the 600-page bill being considered by the Senate this week and next.
Sen. Edward Kennedy D-Mass., one of the co-authors of the comprehensive immigration measure, authored the amendment that made the change today. Kennedy added a provision to the bill that would require the Labor Department to certify that there are no American workers "able, willing, qualified and available" to do the job that the guest worker seeking a green card is filling.
That change in his original guest worker plan was enough to change the minds of five of the senators who Wednesday supported stripping the self-petition provision from the bill.
Kennedy said his amendment would "restore the ability of H-2C workers to obtain a green card without being dependent on the generosity of their employers. The self-petition feature of our temporary worker program is innovative and essential to their labor rights, and all Americans lose if it is eliminated from this bill."
But Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who authored the amendment that passed on Wednesday, disagreed.
"For every other category of visa, there has to be some form of employer sponsor," Cornyn said.
Cornyn has authored an alternative guest worker provision, which would require guest workers to at some point go back to their home country instead of being eligible for a green card.
"When you invite guests into your home, you expect that at some point they might actually leave," he said. Cornyn is expected to try to get his guest worker plan, co-authored by Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., passed as an amendment to the Senate bill.
The Senate will continue dealing with other amendments today, including one by Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., that would declare English as the official language of the United States.
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