Political Conventions and Immigration

We at the Capitol Immigration Law Group have been following closely the Democratic and the Republican National Conventions, respectively last week and this week, and we were surprised to see that there was virtually zero attention paid to immigration in the speeches and debates on and off the convention floor.

The Republican party was more likely to discuss the issue of immigration, especially in light of some of its members’ proposals to strengthen the border enforcement, go after employers who harbor illegal immigrants and generally opposed to a path to citizenship to illegal immigrants or what they call “amnesty”.   It seems that Senator McCain, who along with Sen. Kennedy (D-MA) authored a bipartisan immigration bill and which bill died in the Senate last year, has become more conversative on this issue and does not, at least in recent public appearances, seem to support the kind of ideas he supported a year or two ago.

In addition to the issue of illegal immigration, there are numerous other immigration-related issues, some of which are supported by  one or the other parties, but again, there does not seem to be much discussion.  There have been a number of groups dedicated to defending the interests of legal foreign workers who follow the legal path to permanent residency but who have been stuck in the system for years without ability to visit their families abroad or to advance their careers.  While some may seem such immigrants as potentially causing some Americans to lose their jobs, studies have shown that many of these highly-qualified foreign employees actually help the economy grow by bringing excellent education and training to the U.S.  Microsoft’s Bill Gates has testified and lobbied Congress on numerous occasions on the need of increasing the work visa quotas and streamlining the processing backlogs which plague the immigration system.

We will continue to follow the discussion of immigration during this political campaign, but given the economy and the Iraq war, we are not optimistic that immigration will take center stage during this political season.  We hope that immigration, even though not politically active topic now, woud be part of the agenda of the next president in January of 2009.