Top 5 Most Barbarous Immigration Proposals in Congress

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But there’s more.

“It doesn't say so explicitly in the bill, after they've been in RPI status for 10 years, they will most likely have to pay to file for ‘Adjustment of Status’ when they want to ‘adjust’ from RPI status to LPR/green card status,” Daniel Costa, director of Immigration Law and Policy Research for the Economic Policy Institute writes in an email.  “Currently, adjustment of status costs $1,070. Then, after you're an LPR for 3 years, filing for naturalization (i.e. to become a citizen), will cost an additional $680 bucks. So at a minimum, before DHS processing fees and paying back taxes, you're already at a grand…total of $3,750 over 13 years before you become a citizen.” 

Back taxes must also be paid, which could be an imposing amount considering that many undocumented immigrants work off-the-books. Meanwhile these workers’ payroll taxes will be going toward our social safety net programs, from which they will be excluded for many years. Immigrants with RPI status will not be eligible for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, home energy assistance, or the Affordable Care Act’s provisions.

5. Income and employment limits. The Senate bill also forces RPIs to meet a draconian standard that would grant unscrupulous employers even more power over immigrant laborers. At the six-year mark, those who are re-applying for RPI status must prove that their average income is at 100 percent of the poverty line and show that they have never been unemployed for longer than 60 days. At the 10-year mark they have to prove an average income of 125 percent of the poverty line, and again, continuous employment with no more than 60 days of unemployment.

“People working at or below minimum wage, who are undocumented, are totally vulnerable to their employers,” says Michael Livingston, director of public policy for Interfaith Worker Justice. “They are not going to make the continuous employment or the minimum income requirements. No way if you are making $6.50 or $7.25 or $8.25 will you be able to demonstrate adequate levels of income. It’s about punishment more than it’s about people, and it’s about security more than it’s about citizenship. They are just being victimized in almost every way imaginable.”

How many people do you know who have been continually employed for 10 years with no bouts of unemployment lasting longer than 60 days? In the current employment environment that would be hard enough, particularly in the high-turnover jobs where many immigrant workers are employed. It’ll be even more difficult the next time we have a recession.

And regardless of the caprices of the business cycle, this will give employers another tool to keep their workers in check. Thinking of speaking up about conditions on the job? Better not. If your employer fires you and you can’t get another job, you’ll be subject to deportation. Many will instead choose to continue working in unsafe conditions or for lower than the minimum wage…which would put them afoul of the income requirements.

But despite their critiques of the bills in Congress, all of the advocates interviewed for this article agreed that they would want to see a bill like the one passed by the Senate become law. Even Livingston argued that it would at least serve as a basis for future reform. And unlike the House’s ideas, the Senate bill also includes some good ideas.

It would overturn a recent Supreme Court decision that undocumented immigrants could not win backpay if they are fired unjustly (the reasoning being that the crime of working illegally trumps the employer’s crime of not paying them or illegally firing them). And there is another provision in the Senate bill that would protect undocumented workers who blow the whistle on employers who are breaking the law, including worker wage, hour and safety statutes. Currently 10,000 U-Visas a year are available to undocumented immigrants who cooperate with authorities who are investigating a crime. The Senate bill would create 8,000 more U-Visas each year.