Immigration plan recognizes realities

Our immigration policies and practices are broken and in need of major reform. The backlog of those eligible to enter this country includes a huge number from Asian countries who have been waiting for more than 10 years.

The estimates of people here in this country without legal permission are as high as 11 million, including half a million Chinese. Meanwhile, anti-immigrant sentiment in this country is surging as the rights of immigrants erode.

Two years ago, President Bush presented a new guest-worker plan that narrowly focused on "illegal immigrants." But the plan was narrow and not realistic because the guest-worker program he proposed did not provide an avenue for citizenship and did not address the backlog of immigrants. The Bush plan received little support in Congress.

Since then, however, a number of bills on immigration have been introduced in Congress.

The most promising of these is the comprehensive immigration reform bills, the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act of 2005. It is a bipartisan bill co-sponsored by Sens. Ted Kennedy and John McCain. An identical bill is being co-sponsored in the House by Reps. Jim Kolbe, Jeff Flake and Luis Gutierrez.

The Secure American Act will addresses several key immigration issues, including a means to:

Reduce the tremendous backlog of petitions to unify families and not count the new immigrant against the annual 20,000 quota allowed per country.

Provide a path of lawful permanent residence and citizenship for people here without legal permission. Those workers would be required to pay a $2,000 fine and apply for a work visa and get in line to behind legal immigrants for a chance at citizenship by proving to be taxpayers and good citizens.

Create legal and orderly processes for immigrant workers by creating an essential workers program that requires the cooperation of Mexico and other countries.

Provide assistance to immigrants to learn English and provide citizenship programs.

It's clear that the Security Act of 2005 is not an amnesty program nor does it guarantee citizenship. It is a realistic reform plan that recognizes economic realities and the contributions immigrants have made to our nation while continuing our legacy as the land of opportunity and fairness.

Passage of the act will also strengthen our national security and even the playing field for employers while providing full labor rights for all workers. We cannot continue the status quo. We strongly urge Congress to take action and pass this badly needed legislation.

Bettie Luke is project manager and Doug Chin is president of the Organization of Chinese Americans of Greater Seattle.

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