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 ]
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