Conservative senator blocks Mike Lee-Kamala Harris immigration reform bill
SALT LAKE CITY — A fellow conservative Republican dealt a blow to Sen. Mike Lee’s nearly nine-year effort to end what he calls a “Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley-era” aspect of federal immigration law.
The Utah Republican said it was “greatly disappointing" that Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s objection Thursday blocked his bill to end per-country caps on employment-based green cards from advancing by unanimous consent.
It only takes one objection under Senate rules to stop a request for unanimous consent to bring legislation forward.
Lee said an amendment Paul proposed would not be compatible with his bipartisan legislation and cause it to fail.
"This is by far the closest we have ever come to having a deal, and we’ve achieved that deal by keeping this bill focused on the very things this legislation deals with," Lee said. "We have an opportunity to pass this. This could pass this body right now."
Lee and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., introduced the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act in February, an issue Lee has worked on since being elected to the Senate in 2010. He called it an "important point of common ground" between Republicans and Democrats who can't agree on how to fix the country's immigration system.
Under current law, "rigid, arbitrary, antiquated, outdated" quotas limit immigrants in any given country to no more than 7 percent of the total number of visas allocated, Lee said on the Senate floor.
As a result, immigrants from nations with large populations have significantly longer wait times to get a green card than do immigrants from smaller countries.
"In some cases, they can be stuck in a backlog of green card petitions for decades," Lee said, calling the system "unfair" and "un-American."
"This is one of the many features of Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley-era immigration code that is outdated and needs to be cast into the dustbin of history," he said.
The bill would increase the per-country caps for family-sponsored green cards from 7% to 15%. Without adding any new green cards, it creates a first-come, first-served system that alleviates the backlogs and allows green cards to be awarded more efficiently, according to Lee.
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