Dianne Feinstein: “let me state why I think the Hagel- Martinez compromise is not workable. The Hagel-Martinez compromise essentially…”

“let me state why I think the Hagel- Martinez compromise is not workable. The Hagel-Martinez compromise essentially creates three tiers of people in this country in undocumented or illegal status. The first is 6.7 million who have been here more than 5 years; the second is 1.6 million who have been here less than 2 years; and the third is 2.8 million who have been here from 2 to 5 years. People here less than 2 years are subject to immediate deportation. Someone has to find them, go into their workplace or their homes, pick them up, and deport them. Then one has to consider the likelihood that in about 3 days, which is often the case in California, they will come back to their families and their job. The second is the 2.8 million who must leave, touch back, get in a guest worker program or some other visa program, come back, be in this country, and then, after a period of time, get an employer to sponsor them for a green card or leave. They have a kind of mandatory departure. The guest worker program they would be eligible for is the H-2C program, which we reduced in size from 325,000 to 200,000 in an earlier amendment. The cap of the program is removed for them. Therefore, what is created for this group is a 3 million-person guest worker program, but they cannot earn a path to legalization unless they have an employer who will petition for them. They are limited in the time they can stay in the country, and they must return.…”