We think of immigration as something that happens at the border, but it’s much more complicated than that.
There are an estimated 11 million undocumented people who live in all 50 states. That could include roughly 5,000 people in Maine.
Some came here to work. Some were brought to this country as infants and live in danger of deportation, even if this is the only country they have ever known.
They could be supporting younger brothers and sisters who are U.S. citizens, but too young to care for themselves if they were to lose their breadwinner.
Under this pressure, even fully documented family members have to live in fear. They may not call the police because they don’t want to draw attention to their household. They may avoid public health services, such as a free vaccine clinic, because they don’t want to be involved with the government.
Our immigration system is broken, and its cracks run through these American families. It’s been 35 years since the last successful attempt at reform, and despite promises from both parties, our national government has not been able to build a system that works.
But this year, Congress has a chance to move us in the right direction.
A little-discussed component of the massive budget package that is now being shaped in the U.S. Senate would provide a path to citizenship to millions of undocumented people, lifting the threat of deportation from them and their families.
We need every member of Maine’s congressional delegation to use their influence to make sure a path to citizenship is included in the package. And we need them to commit to voting for a package that include immigration reforms in the chaotic votes that will be taken later this year.
The details are still being worked out, but the package is expected to include a path to citizenship for certain categories of undocumented immigrants.
They could include:
• So-called “Dreamers,” people who came to the country at a young age and have grown up here.
• People under Temporary Protected Status, who were admitted during times of war or disaster in their countries of origin. Some of them have been here for decades and have raised families and contributed to communities, but are not allowed to apply for permanent resident status.
• Undocumented workers who hold jobs classified as essential by the Department of Labor.
• Farmworkers.
This is not a comprehensive immigration reform bill, and it would not do anything about the people stuck on our border with Mexico or the multiyear backlogs in our immigration costs. It would not extend a path to citizenship to every undocumented resident, but it would affect millions of people and their families.
Passage of these reforms, as well as the entire budget package itself, is far from certain.
To avoid a Republican filibuster in the Senate, the reforms would have to pass through the budget reconciliation process, which calls for only a simple majority vote. For that to happen, the legislation has to affect spending, revenue or deficits. Supporters of the immigration changes say they qualify because changing the status of undocumented people would result in more taxes being collected by the federal government.
But the need to make these changes is not just economic.
A bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill supported by then-President George W. Bush and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi never came up for a vote in 2007, and another package passed the Senate in 2013 but was defeated in the House. Since then, the politics of immigration have become even more polarized, leaving millions of families vulnerable to being broken up.
The political reality is, we are going to have to wait – perhaps for a long time – for Congress to modernize our immigration laws. But as we wait, the U.S .government should not break up families that are divided only by their immigration status.
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