9/11 bill attracts anti-immigrant amendments

Efforts by House Republicans to add immigration amendments to a bill that carries recommendations from the Sept. 11 commission for reorganizing U.S. intelligence agencies has drawn the ire of pro-immigrant organizations. "There are some very troubling provisions in HR 10 which we are labeling an anti-immigration bill," Judith Golub of the American Immigration Lawyers Association said in a telephone press conference last Thursday. Golub said the Republican actions to deny the use of the Mexican-issued matrícula consular as official identification and to prevent states from issuing driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants goes against the recommendations of the commission. "The commission said we should be more welcoming to immigrants," said Golub. "Our borders and immigration system ought to send a message of tolerance." Commission leader Thomas Kean, at a news conference last Friday in Washington, D.C., urged the Republicans to remove the immigration restrictions. "We're very respectfully suggesting that provisions which are controversial and are not part of our recommendations to make the American people safer perhaps ought to be part of another bill at another time," said Kean. [more ]