'Gang of Eight' immigration bill draws mixed reviews

Story originally appeared on USA Today.

WASHINGTON — When Roy Beck finally saw the details of an immigration deal brokered by a bipartisan group of senators on Tuesday, the outspoken opponent of granting legal status to the nation's unauthorized immigrants had a hard time finding the right words to express himself.

"I just never expected the bill to be this bad," said Beck, executive director of NumbersUSA, a group that helped sink the last attempt to change the nation's immigration laws in 2007 and is trying to do the same this time.

With so many components in the far-reaching bill, reactions varied Tuesday after the Senate's "Gang of Eight" released details of their proposal. Senate aides say they plan on formally filing the bill Tuesday, and are planning a news conference to unveil the legislation Wednesday.

President Obama weighed in Tuesday after receiving a briefing from two members of the Gang of Eight: Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. The president said the bill was filled with "commonsense steps that the majority of Americans support" and pledged his support to getting it passed through Congress.

"This bill is clearly a compromise, and no one will get everything they wanted, including me," the president's statement read. "But it is largely consistent with the principles that I have repeatedly laid out for comprehensive immigration reform."

Aside from opening the door to legal status for the nation's estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants, Beck says the bill adds even more competition for unemployed Americans by bringing in a huge influx of foreign workers through visas for high-tech and low-skilled workers.

"Every politician that has run for office over the last 10 years has said, 'Jobs. Jobs are No. 1.' And yet, everything in this bill is about bringing in more people to compete for American jobs," Beck said. "This whole bill is written as if the nation is in the throes of a terrible labor shortage."

Yet many business and labor groups have endorsed the plan. When the Gang of Eight holds its news conference announcing the bill, they will be joined by business leaders, like the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as well as labor leaders from the AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union.

Immigrant and religious groups that have been focused on getting people who are in the country illegally on a path to citizenship are worried about the obstacles created by the plan.

Unauthorized immigrants could get temporary legal status within six months of the bill passing, but most would have to wait 10 years and pay more than $2,000 in fines and penalties before they could apply for a green card. They also had to have arrived in the U.S. before Dec. 31, 2011.

Bishop Ricardo McClin, pastor of the Church of God Restoration in Kissimmee, Fla., said he was pleased by the progress of the Gang of Eight and its attempts to legalize many of the nation's unauthorized immigrants.

"Unfortunately, the proposed legislation falls short by placing unnecessary obstacles and delays in the path to citizenship and could unfairly exclude some of the 11 million aspiring Americans who are our neighbors, friends, family and fellow-worshipers," said McClin, a member of the PICO National Network, a group that works with 1,000 religious congregations around the country.

Others in the religious community struck a more upbeat tone. Members of the evangelical community have proven critical to convince conservative voters and politicians to support the Senate immigration plan.

Galen Carey of the National Association of Evangelicals said there's enough in the bill to stop the deportation practices that have broken up families and speed up visa wait times to maintain that support.

"We're encouraged by what they're trying," said Carey, vice president of government relations for the association. "The current system has failed abysmally in keeping families together. People are waiting 10, 20 years to be united with their relatives. So if those problems are being resolved, that would be a major step forward."

Republicans on the Gang of Eight, such as Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., have also tried to calm critics worried about border security. When Washington last passed a sweeping change to immigration laws in 1986, it allowed up to 3 million people here illegally to get legal status, but it failed in its other promise of securing the border.

The Senate bill allocates up to $7 billion to the nation's southwest border with Mexico, including 3,500 more Border Patrol agents, the ability to use National Guardsmen to help monitor the region and more surveillance technology. The bill states that Homeland Security must monitor 100% of the border, and intercept 90% of people trying to cross over it. It would require all U.S. businesses to use the federal E-Verify program to check the immigration status of new employees, and require the government to develop a system to track all immigrants who enter and exit the country.

But there is no requirement that the borders be deemed secured by any measurement before people can apply for green cards, a requirement that had been discussed during the Senate negotiations but was left out of the bill.

"It does not surprise me that the security goals do not have to be met," said Janice Kephart, former counsel for the September 11 Commission and a national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that opposes the immigration plan. "The fact is, the Gang of Eight knows the administration would reject their proposal if security was actually a metric that has to be achieved."