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Bruce Thatcher Offers Congress Savvy Advice About the Dream Act

Bruce Thatcher, author of  

Immigration:How to Avoid Its Perils and Make It Work 

has this to say about the Dream Act. 

 Of greatest interest may be, what’s ahead?  It’ll take almost unimaginable political skill to craft anything meaningful that will pass both House and Senate (I believe that Obama will sign almost any immigration bill that lands on his desk).  So what are the options?

‘Improve’ the Senate-passed bill – S.744 is so bad, fixing its problems is probably harder than starting all over from scratch. 

Craft a new ‘comprehensive’ immigration reform bill to send to the Senate.  Theoretically the best approach, especially if it starts from ground zero by abolishing all existing immigration law and substituting a single new policy (like what Senator Baucus and Representative Camp are attempting to do with tax policy).  This is probably the only route that can both cover all the bases and simplify the immigration codes.  But hard to imagine Rep. Goodlatte and Senator Leahy getting together.

Pass piecemeal legislation to fix major problems.  This seems to be the House inclination.  The House Judiciary Committee has passed four such bills in the past month  — Interior Enforcement Bill (SAFE), Agricultural Guestworker Program (AG), Expanded E-Verify (Legal Workforce Act), High-Skilled Immigration Bill (SKILLS Visa Act).  Even though these bills address and, arguably, improve much of what’s good in the Senate bill, getting them passed by the Senate is very problematic.  

More is needed – End chain immigration, raise educational and lingual requirements for all immigrants, and specifically deny entry to radical Islamists.

Finally, after all the above, resolve the statuses of illegal/undocumented residents.