The Immigration Plan Americans Want and Congress Needs to Read

WASHINGTON, April 29, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) announces the release of An Immigration Reform Agenda for the 114th Congress. The thorough list of reforms for addressing mass illegal immigration and fixing our dysfunctional legal immigration process stand in sharp contrast to recent immigration reform efforts in Congress that reward special interests.  Notably, FAIR's recommendations are premised on the idea that the primary stakeholders in U.S. immigration policy are the American people.

"Rather than focusing on satisfying the demands of millions of people who violate our immigration laws, and employers who want even greater access to lower wage foreign workers, FAIR's agenda focuses on protecting American workers, taxpayers, the environment, and national security," said Dan Stein, president of FAIR. "These ideas for fixing our broken immigration system reflect the mainstream views of the American people on these issues."

FAIR's Immigration Reform Agenda for the 114^th Congress offers specific proposals for ending mass illegal immigration, protecting America's national security, reining in abuse of executive authority, and instituting rational legal immigration policies. Key recommendations in each of these areas include:

Controlling Illegal Immigration

• Improve worksite and interior enforcement.
• Mandatory E-Verify checks for all new hires.
• Empower American workers to take legal action against employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens.
• Prohibit employers from deducting wages paid to illegal workers on their taxes.
• Ensure security of identification documents.
• Make the Social Security card a counterfeit- and tamper-resistant document.
• Fully implement REAL ID, which was enacted in 2005.
• Enhance cooperation between federal and state and local law enforcement.
• Restore the congressionally mandated 287(g) program and Secure Communities.
• Deny certain federal funds to sanctuary jurisdictions.
• Increase information sharing between federal agencies and with state and local governments.
• Eliminate non-essential, non-emergency public benefits and services to illegal aliens.

Enhancing Homeland Security

• Secure borders and ports of entry.
• Complete construction of congressionally mandated border fencing, and utilize available technology to detect illegal entry.
• Increase border and port of entry manpower.
• Increase detention space to hold deportable aliens.
• Fully implement congressionally mandated biometric entry/exit program for legal entrants.
• End the Visa Waiver Program.

Reining in Abuse of Executive Authority

• Significantly limit the use of deferred action, parole and other forms of "prosecutorial discretion."
• Defund Obama's executive amnesty programs, including DACA and DAPA.
• Bar the issuance of work authorization to aliens who do not have "legal status" in the U.S.

Overhaul the Legal Immigration Process

• Significantly reduce overall numbers from current levels of about 1.1 million a year.
• End family chain migration by limiting family immigration to spouses and unmarried minor children.
• Adopt a merit-based selection process for issuing immigration visas.
• Legislatively repeal birthright citizenship.
• End abuses of guest worker programs that allow employers to displace American workers.

"FAIR's legislative agenda provides lawmakers with a blueprint for reforming our immigration policies in a way that would establish clear, fair and enforceable rules for people who want to immigrate to our country, while protecting the vital social and economic interests of the American people. In short, they are the sort of proposals that meet most Americans' definition of true immigration reform," Stein said.

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SOURCE FAIR

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