The new joint Republican-Democrat bill
Senator Edward Kennedy was one of the main speakers during the rally that took place in Washington on April 10th. At the same time, together with another Democrat senator, he was the author of a bill alternative to the HR 4437 that received the support of several immigrants’ organisations proposing that propose that the main aim of the demonstrations should be the passing of that alternative law. We believe this to be a serious mistake.
It is important to point out that, after the first negative vote in the Senate against his original project, Kennedy himself is negotiating with the Republicans a joint project that, according to him “includes the main points” of his project. (El Nuevo Día, 12/04/06)
A negotiated bill
Which can these main points be? In the first place, unlike the HR 4437, the new bill eliminates the figure of the “dangerous criminal” for the illegal immigrants and of “complicity” for those who help them. But it does not say a word about the already existing repressive legislation against the undocumented workers.
In the second place, it would legalise the situation of those who can prove that they have been living in the USA for more than five years. These illegal immigrants (esteemed at about 7 million people) would get a five-year work permit and then a new one for further six years. After this term, if they have a job, they learn English, pay any overdue taxes and fines and have no penal antecedents, they may request citizenship. It is therefore an extremely precarious “legalization” for the next eleven years and conditioned to stipulations difficult to comply with. It also means that the other 5 million undocumented would be actually expelled from the country even if they can ask for a legal visa from their country of origin so as to be able to return to the USA. As the bill proposes a yearly 325 000 temporary working visas, most of them will – as a matter of fact – never return legally.
Imperialists flock together
It is no coincidence that Senator Kennedy should be one of the promoters of this deeply imperialist bill, contrary to the needs of the immigrant workers. The Democrat Party, of which he is a member, is one of the two great political organisations of the imperialist bourgeoisie of the USA, together with Bush’s Republicans. Kennedy expresses the interests of the financial bourgeoisie of the Eastern coast and they have always had a great influence in this party: his brother John was the president of the USA and Robert was also a senator.
In this concrete case, Edward Kennedy, the same as other serious American bourgeois, consider the original project of the Republicans to be “extremist” and therefore dangerous. It was necessary to work out another one that would not collide frontally with the immigrant workers or that, at least, would manage to divide them and so serve the purpose of satisfying the need of the bourgeoisie of exploiting the immigrant labour. This is what the negotiated new bill is aimed at.
Seeing how difficult it was to have the original Republican bill passed, Bush himself stated, “I am satisfied that that Republicans and Democrats are working together to get an ample bill for migrations” “El Nuevo Día 12/04/06) Echoing his words, Kennedy declared, “I am proud that the Senate has arrived at an agreement to treat the urgent need of an ample migration reform. Our plan is hard and just and I am encouraged because now the President has given it his support” (the same).
