Simplifying Immigration: The Orange Card?
By amba | Related entries in Discuss, Immigration, LegislationAs the immigration bill, Hagel-Martinez S. 2611, works its way slowly through the Senate, numerous amendments fasten onto it like barnacles and pilotfish, then are put to a vote and either firmly secured to the bill or sheared off. This Thursday list of some of those amendments and their fates, posted at the unabashedly pro-immigrant American Friends Service Committee, is an utterly fascinating look at the process of democracy in action in a divided nation. Note the rarity of senators pairing up across the aisle (the Lieberman-Brownback amendment to restore protection for asylum seekers and humane detention conditions, stalled by Homeland Security concerns — the senators request your calls). Also note some surprises: Colorado Democrat Ken Salazar’s provision that the border must be secured before a legalization program can take effect (passed); Obama and Feinstein proposing measures to protect unemployed low-wage American workers; Kerry’s amendment to beef up border security. I’m sure those more knowledgeable and cynical than I will find horse-trading and posturing and window-dressing here, but the absolute necessity for debate and struggle and compromise is on display. Enforcement-only appears to be off the table. There will be some kind of path towards legalization, and some kind of guest-worker program.
Close friends of mine who are strongly progressive and pro-immigrant sent me the following description of the streamlined “Orange Card Amendment” being proposed by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), along with a call to barrage Senators with phone, e-mail and fax messages in support of the amendment on Monday. This amendment describes a “simple and single,” though not fast or easy, process for any current undocumented immigrant who meets certain requirements to work towards permanent-resident status. It would replace the three-tiered system currently in the bill.
I am not knowledgeable enough about the issue to have an opinion yet about this amendment, so I’m posting it here for discussion and possible action. I’d be grateful if someone would provide a clear description of the three-tiered approach Senator Feinstein wants to replace. Here’s the document:
Senator Dianne Feinstein to Introduce Orange Card Program Amendment
Prepared on May 19, 2006
What is the Orange Card program?
The Feinstein Orange Card amendment replaces the three-tiered treatment of undocumented immigrants in S. 2611 (the bill now being considered by the senate) with one simple process that applies to undocumented immigrants who lived in the U.S. on 1/1/06 and meet certain other requirements.
Requirements for Orange Card
The requirements to get an Orange Card are as follows:
- Undocumented on 1/1/06
- Physically present in the U.S. on or before 1/1/06
- If over 18, employed or in school on 1/1/06
- Paid taxes
- Speak English
- Have an understanding of American Civics
- Pass criminal and security background checks
- Registered for the selective service if required
- Pay $2,000 fine
The spouse and children of Orange Card holders may also qualify.
Requirements during waiting period
Orange Card holders may become lawful permanent residents when all current applicants for green cards have received them (estimated to be 6 years), or eight years after the bill becomes law, whichever is earlier.
Orange Card holders must check in each year with the government and show that they continue to meet all of the requirements listed above.
Requirements for permanent Green Card
After the 6-8 year waiting period, Orange Card holders may qualify for a permanent green card, if they meet the following requirements:
- Continue to meet all of the requirements to get an Orange Card
- If over 18, worked or attended school for at least 6 years
What are the advantages of the Orange Card program?
- One simple process to legalize qualifying undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. before 1/1/06.
- Does not leave out millions of undocumented immigrants who live in the U.S. and contribute to the economy, as does the current version of S. 2611
- Treats all family members equally
- Much easier to administer, so less fraud and fewer problems
- For 2-5 year immigrants:
- No requirement to leave the U.S. and come back
- No guestworker requirement
- No waiver of right to appeal
- Same waiting period as others
If you believe this amendment is an improvement on the bill as written, Monday is the day to call your Senator and say so. (Capitol switchboard: 202-224-3121.) If not, tell me why not. This is a hugely important issue, and I hope everyone will let fly.
This entry was posted on Saturday, May 20th, 2006 and is filed under Discuss, Immigration, Legislation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 21st, 2006 at 5:20 pm
No comments! Oy. I hoped someone would come along and teach me a thing or two.
I guess I needed to post on either a right- or a left-wing blog to get a reactions.
May 21st, 2006 at 7:42 pm
Personally, I like that idea. I especially like the requirements to speak English and be gainfully employed (or in school). I know that some people will say that means that more people will be sponging off the system, but I think this will encourage the “card holders” to get decent paying jobs (I believe they would be able to demand better treatment if they weren’t afraid of deportation) and better themselves, instead of keeping to the shadows (as they are now). That would certainly be preferrable to a mass deportation and, in my opinion, it could actually help the economy. I think we could probably use a couple of million more taxpayers at this point.
May 22nd, 2006 at 12:38 am
I’ve just recently come to understand that most posts everywhere are rhetorical–which I think is not unique–and this would explain few and/or fewer comments.
At the risk of irritating you more, Amba, how active of a commenter are you?
May 22nd, 2006 at 12:39 am
For myself, except in spurts, over the broader blogworld, its consistently less and rather deliberately moving to as much to nil as possible in most places. Not unique, I don’t think.
May 22nd, 2006 at 12:41 am
That should be: “Not a unique position, I think.”
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:48 am
I’d like to see the bill tweaked a little bit…
Since “Undocumented” is just the PC way of saying ILLEGAL,
when they show up to get there “Orange Card”, we really give them a
“Red Card”, put them on a bus and eject them from the country.
May 22nd, 2006 at 12:18 pm
I like the idea of letting every immigrant trying to get in legally first.
May 22nd, 2006 at 4:02 pm
The main problem for me is this:
“Orange Card holders may become lawful permanent residents when all current applicants for green cards have received them (estimated to be 6 years), or eight years after the bill becomes law, whichever is earlier.”
You’re letting people who came here legally potentially jump in front of people who are trying to come here legally simply by allowing them to stay here. I understand, though, that deporting every illegal immigrant isn’t a realistic solution. This selection that I quoted, though, bothers me because, with the 8 year clause, it opens up the possibility that those who broke our laws could end up in front of those who are trying to do things legally in their obtaining of a green card. As far as I’m concerned, let them keep their orange card and never give them a green card. Then, ensure that green card holders always have more rights than orange card holders so you are actually punishing them for breaking our laws and rewarding green card holders for following our laws.
I don’t see any mention of citizenship in this. Does that mean that illegal immigrants would never be eligible for citizenship, as it should be, or that “earned citizenship” is still on the table?
May 22nd, 2006 at 8:03 pm
If the “Orange Card” proposal is implemented, do you think it will eventually lead to everyone in America having to have a tamper-proof biometric National ID Card and how will that add to an already huge problem with identity theft in the future?
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 pm
How do you steal someone’s identity with a biometric card? You can’t steal their retina or fingerprint.
To me, the trouble with getting punitive towards illegal immigrants, particularly the Latinos who come to do construction, yard, and restaurant work, is the hypocrisy that employers want them. They and the employers are at least partners in crime.
It’s an interesting thought to have parallel tracks for orange and green cards, where one is never converted into the other. There might be a path to citizenship for orange card holders, but it would be longer. Part of the point would be to make it undesirable enough to discourage illegal immigration. Legal paths should work better, including a guest-worker program. However, you can assume that had such a legal path existed before now, together with tougher enforcement, many of today’s illegals would have availed themselves of it.
May 22nd, 2006 at 11:55 pm
The way to steal a person’s identity is to belong to an illegal eavesdroppers club.
Visit http://www.wiretapclub.com, http://www.antispyproducts.com and http://www.yathatsright.com to find out more.
If you know the right people, it can easily be done. You would be amazed how much privacy an unaware victim could lose.
May 23rd, 2006 at 1:58 am
hey how are you, i think “orange card” is the solution. cuz, it is easier than hagel-martinez. No requirement to leave the U.S. and come back
No guestworker requirement No waiver of right to appeal Same waiting period as others, the requirement for the orange card are fine. the people whom want to apply MOST to speak english, paid taxes, Pass criminal and security background checks, if you want traslate the next do it… soy inmigrante cruze la frontera por el paso texas y tengo one year de estar aqui, y estoy cumpliendo con lo que me toca, estoy aprendiendo ingles, estoy pagando taxes desde que pague, no estoy causando problemas a la sociedad. y solo quiero salir de las sombras en la que todos nosotros nos sentimos abarcados ahora. Solo deme una oportunidad no voy a defraudarlo. No soy criminal, si lo fuera ya hubiera estado preso o en mi pais deportado, por eso que estoy a favor de esta propuesta porque no le da permiso a los criminales, y ademas creo que los latinos que no saben el idioma para comunicarse tendran que hacer un esfuerzo para aprender, de lo contrario no pueden calificar. si no ha pagado taxes tampoco. el debe de estar fuera si no cumple los requisitos. ayedeme, solo vengo a trabajar yo se que a veces soy un estorbo para usted o me mira con malos ojos. pero i just want to make others lives hapier…. My family
May 23rd, 2006 at 7:35 am
Amba, I do think that getting very tough with employers of illegal immigrants is a must. That wasn’t mentioned with the orange card proposal, which is why I didn’t mention it, but this is an absolute must. Why aren’t we currently going after employers of illegal immigrants very aggressively? Of course, one could ask why we aren’t going after illegal immigrants themselves more aggresively than we currently are.
Personally, I think it would be an error to grant citizenship to anyone who came here legally. I work with a legal immigrant who is not even allowed to ever apply for citizenship. Why should people who broke our laws in coming here be rewarded for breaking our laws by being handed a right that people who work hard and sacrifice greatly to follow our laws aren’t given? People who flagrantly violate our laws should never be given as many rights as those who diligently follow our laws, much less given more rights.
When some people who came here legally aren’t allowed to obtain citizenship, why should those who came here illegally be allowed to do so? Isn’t the $2000 slap on the wrist (it cost my coworker more than that to come here legally and he has been paying taxes all along and had to learn English before coming – if he did anything criminal, he’d be on the first plane back to his home country) and granting a legal status enough of a reward for breaking our laws already?
May 23rd, 2006 at 9:56 am
Many people are thinking of illigal immigrants as one huge law brakeing culb or coult or something of a sort, but let me ask you something . . . what about all the kids that were braught here to this great cuntry and now are young man and woman??? they didnt have a say in what was going on, it was their parents decision and they could do nothing but go along wit it but now they must pay the price also.
This are teens working hard to get through school, learning english, adapting to our society, prety much americanizeing them selfs, teens that grew up in this cuntry since they were 5, 7, 10 years old and grew to love this cuntry . . . now trying to make something of them selfs and contribute to society they graduate from high school only to crash into a dead end with no return because after all their hard work, they are told that it was pointless, because of their parents mistakes . . . do this now 18, 20, 23 year olds have not deserve a chance 2 not only make something of them selfs but also contribute to this cuntry becomeing tax payers??? can u take 10 seconds and try to put your selfs in their shoes? to imagine how frustrating it must be? how sad it is?
May 23rd, 2006 at 12:52 pm
I’m not saying everyone should be treated the same way. However, you offer an interesting thought on the children caught in middle of the sins of their parents. Let’s apply your example to legal immigrants.
Consider the children caught in the middle of our screwed up legal immigration process. Consider someone who was born in the United States to legal immigrant parents. However, because of their status, they have to go through the “visa lottery” on a regular basis. Now, after let’s say 20 years in the country, their luck runs out and they get deported because their names weren’t drawn in the visa lottery (yes, this actually happens – the sister of my coworker recently got deported when her name was not drawn in the visa lottery even though she has an American born son). Now, this 15 year old child who has known nothing but America, wants to contribute to society and wants to give back to the country has to decide between possibly never seeing his or her parents again or “returning” to a country he or she has never been to in order to stay with his or her parents. Why? Because his or her parents chose to play by the rules. Because his or her parents did not come here illegally, which gave them the chance at obtaining an orange card.
Just as illegal immigrants themselves should not be treated better than legal immigrants, children of illegal immigrants should not be treated better than children of legal immigrants. I’m not saying we should treat the innocent children of illegal immigrants too harshly but why should they be treated better than the children of legal immigrants just because their parents broke the law.
May 25th, 2006 at 11:11 am
Children born in the United States are citizens at birth, regardless of their parents’ immigration status.
An excellent example of what Jonathon was talking about is Manuel Bartsch, a German living in Cleveland. He was brought here by his step-grandfather on a 90-day visa when he was 8, has assimilated to our society, graduated high school, and is now facing deportation- because his adult caregiver overstayed their visas. That story is here.
June 17th, 2006 at 12:52 am
It’s a good program but one interest think it says to be illegible for O.Card illigals supous to be emploed before 1.1.2006 . But how they gona show up thous jobs? They are illigal so they gat illigal jobs!
so this program cut of more them 90 persent of people “illigals” who hope to get sothing to live , pay taxes and tobe patriot of the cantry!
AND GAS IS TO EXSPENSIVE FOR 4X4 FORD TRUK
January 2nd, 2007 at 11:11 pm
I think this is a very good law that comes for immigrant people. I’m a 14 year old immigrant brought to the USA when 3 i was trilangual at age 13 and speak Spanish, English and french. Everyone should have the right to become more than just an immigrant and have a right in this country. Also If the Usa ever thought about the debt they were in with all countries mexico being one of them, they should take an advantage and let hispanic’s help. Hope this law becomes a dream for all thos out there in desperate need of help.
June 24th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
[...] of the Senate. Senator Feinstein was arguing for support of her Orange Card program. The provisions of the Card allow for a streamlined process for illegal immigrants who were in the United States on January 1 [...]