…from last night from a Senate source:
ON TOUCHBACK: Not every illegal alien will have to return to the home country . As the talking point notes, only the head of the household will have to. Additionally, this creates a special path for illegal aliens, one that legal aliens who want to come do not get to participate in. So those aliens who have followed and respected the law are treated more harshly than those who have broken the law. Finally, the amendment allows the Secretary of State to direct any consulate to accept a Z applicant’s application if the alien’s home country is “not contiguous to the U.S.” – i.e not Mexico or Canada. So DOS can arguably send aliens to any country especially if they do not have the personnel in the home country consulates to handle the volume. ON VISA
OVERSTAYS: To date the bill provides for mandatory minimum sentences (actual prison time) for those aliens who enter after the bill passes. As the bill has been debated, approximately 500,000 new illegal aliens, according to Pew, have entered our country who are not eligible (absent fraud) to obtain Z status. And, studies have shown that approximately 40% of visa holders overstay their authorized time in the country. Where are all of the detention beds to hold all of these new aliens who will have to be incarcerated in addition to the criminal aliens who are also under mandatory detention? Is there any realistic way to carry out the mandates of this amendment or is it simply an amendment that has no chance for implementation but it certainly sounds like a tough provision when you tell people about it? Why not make sufficient bed space to detain these numbers a trigger if we really want this to work?
ON 24-HOUR BACKGROUND CHECK: It is good to see that the proponents of this amendment recognize the errors contained in the underlying bill on background checks. However, there remain significant technical and substantive errors that remain in the bill even today that have not been corrected and internal inconsistencies even in the amendments that will be voted on today that if they had been open to full and fair debate, would have been noted and remedied.
However, this provision DOES NOT prohibit aliens seeking probationary Z status from getting the very probationary benefits listed in the bill before background checks are complete. This amendment continues to grant probationary benefits to aliens who have not cleared background checks – most notably authorization to work. But it does not end ther e , the aliens get a “de facto” enforcement holiday, another probationary benefit, because they are considered to be in a legal stay status – that is a quasi-legal status which will be recognized by the Secretary of Homeland Security and would allow them not to be detained or removed while there application is pending and allow employers to be protected from worksite violations for continuing to have the illegal alien working for them.
It is not clear if the amendment prohibits travel for those who have not completed background checks or not. Does it prohibit travel? Do we want aliens who have not completed background checks to be allowed to travel in and out of the country and freely travel within the country? Why not specify what is or is not allowed? Is it purposefully vague so that the proponents can make the claim to conservatives that this is tough until checks are completed while telling liberals that travel is allowed? This is not hypothetical. Clearly travel is contemplated by this amendment because the language allows aliens to work. Obviously they will be allowed to travel to work. If they have to cross state lines to get to their job, they are allowed to travel freely within the US. So, while not delineated in the amendment, the amendment continues to allow aliens who have not passed background checks to work and travel seemingly without limitation.