From Deseret News archives:

Immigration issues challenge Congress

Bush, GOP leaders vow to pass reform bill within year

Published: Friday, Oct. 14, 2005 10:54 p.m. MDT
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"But I don't think any individual bills for reform are going to pass. They have to be included in the comprehensive bill," Hatch said.

Among such ideas are:

• Passing The "DREAM Act," sponsored by Hatch and Cannon. It clarifies that states may offer in-state college tuition rates to children of illegal aliens. Utah already does, but the program's viability has been clouded by some national court decisions.

The Deseret Morning News/KSL-TV poll shows that 60 percent favor giving in-state tuition to Utah colleges for undocumented immigrant students who graduated from Utah high schools. Thirty-seven percent were opposed.

• Requiring employers to check the legality of new hires. This would be helped by possibly issuing tough-to-counterfeit, machine-readable Social Security cards. They would be matched against an employment-eligibility database at the Homeland Security Department.

• Requiring employers to verify the validity of their employees' Social Security numbers is favored by 93 percent in the Morning News poll, and opposed by 5 percent.

• Providing more readily available worker permits and visas. (That is favored by 67 percent in the Dseret Morning News/KSL-TV poll and opposed by 31 percent.)

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• Doing away with giving automatic citizenship to anyone born in America (even if their parents are illegal aliens). Some illegal aliens rear those children here hoping they will eventually be able to sponsor them for permanent legal status and citizenship.

Cannon says doing away with that citizenship provision would require amending the Constitution. "I don't think that is in the cards," he said. (The Dseret Morning News/KSL-TV poll said 51 percent oppose automatic citizenship for children of illegals born here, while 47 percent favor it.)

• Beefing up border enforcement, including proposals to double the number of border patrol agents in coming years.

Recent federal reform

Some reform already has arrived. Earlier this year, Congress tacked many immigration reforms onto the end of a military spending bill.

That included prohibiting states from issuing driver's licenses to illegal aliens; making driver's licenses more counterfeit-proof; making it easier for the Homeland Security Department to waive all legal requirements in order to build barriers along the Mexican border; and making it easier to exclude or deport anyone deemed to be supporting terrorism.

Changes also made it a bit tougher to win asylum for claims of persecution but lifted a cap that limited how many refugees would be allowed annually.

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Image
Luis Sanchez, Saturno/TH

A former school bus loaded with about 50 people now serves as transport for would-be migrants headed for the crossing point in Las Chepas, Mexico, south of New Mexico.

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