ImmigrationSenate Judiciary Committee launches immigration hearings

Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing featured testimony from DHS secretary Janet Napolitano and Jose Antonio Vargas, a former journalist who started the group Define American, which campaigns for immigration reform.

The New York Times reports that the hearing focused largely on border security and enforcement, with an entire panel devoted to just one witness — Napolitano. Napolitano said that border security was often used as an excuse to prevent meaningful changes.

In what may be an indication of the debate to come, Napolitano encountered resistance from key Republicans — including Senator Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), the committee’s ranking member, and Senator John Cornyn (Texas) — over enforcement. “I do not believe that the border is secure,” Cornyn said. “And I still believe we have a long, long way to go.”

Vargas was given the opportunity to tell his story as an example of what some undocumented immigrants may experience. In 2011, Vargas acknowledged his illegal status in a New York Times Magazine essay, but has not been deported so far. Vargas was part of a Washington Post team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2008 for coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre.

Vargas wrote in his essay that his mother sent him from the Philippines to live with grandparents in California in 1993, when he was 12, and that he did not find out he was in the country illegally until he applied for a driver’s permit with forged documents.

The hearing came just a day after President Barack Obama renewed the push for immigration reform which includes a path for full citizenship for the nation’s eleven million illegal immigrants. A bipartisan group of eight senators are currently working on an immigration bill which will eventually grant citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

The bipartisan Senate group, including Senator Chuck Schumer (D-New York), Marco Rubio, (R-Florida), and John McCain, (R-Arizona), are not working with the Senate Judiciary Committee, but the committee will vote on any legislation the group produces.

Judiciary chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) emphasized the important of a direct and attainable path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

“Comprehensive immigration reform must include a fair and straightforward path to citizenship for those `dreamers’ and families who have made the United States their home -the estimated 11 million undocumented people in the United States,” Leahy’s statement said. “I am troubled by any proposal that contains false promises in which citizenship is always over the next mountain. I want the pathway to be clear and the goal of citizenship attainable.”

There are conservative lawmakers among the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, and although many of them say privately that they recognize the need for immigration reform, many of their followers do not share that view, especially if reforming immigration law would allow the undocumented immigrants currently in the country to get on a path to citizenship.

Republican leaders are thus torn between the imperatives of electoral politics – Obama won the votes of 71 percent of Latino voters back in November – and the sentiments of the rank and file.

Some influential Republicans support the president’s policies on immigration reform. Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the party’s vice-presidential nominee last year, said the president’s tone on immigration was measured and constructive.

“I thought on immigration he used the right words and the right tone, which tells me he actually doesn’t want to politicize this, which is conducive to getting something done,” Ryan said.

Senator Jeff Flake (R-Arizona), a member of the bipartisan group of eight, said he had “no complaints [about the president’s approach to immigration reform] — actually I thought it was good for the process.”

“If he were to be seen as leading the effort, it likely wouldn’t be that helpful,” Flake said. “But to say that he’ll sign the bill we put on his desk, that’s helpful.”

Other Republicans were less supportive of the immigration reform effort.“The biggest obstacle we face to reform is this nation’s failure to establish lawfulness in the system,” Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama), said after Obama’s State of the Union speech Tuesday. “The president’s plan meets the desire of businesses for low-wage foreign workers while doing nothing to protect struggling American workers.”

For the bipartisan group, in addition to making sure the border is secure, employment and identity verification will also need to be addressed. Obama’s immigration proposal deals with employment and identity verification methods, but the president’s legislation has nothing about the border security.