THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary _________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release October 27, 2000 LETTER FROM CHIEF OF STAFF JOHN PODESTA TO SENATOR ORRIN HATCH October 27, 2000 The Honorable Orrin Hatch United States Senate Washington, D.C. 20510 Dear Senator Hatch: I share your disappointment that we have been unable to reach agreement on legislation to address several injustices in our immigration system as called for by the Latino and Immigrant Fairness Act. While we applaud your willingness to consider these issues, your legislative proposal simply does not go far enough. Contrary to statements in your letter that you have not received serious feedback on your proposal, we have communicated our views orally to your staff. Briefly, your proposal does not help most of the people who need relief and continues the patchwork of contradictory and discriminatory policies passed by previous Congresses. In an effort to move this process along, however, please find below the Administration?s specific objections: Proposal on the 1986 Legalization Program. Your proposal does not fully correct the flawed implementation of the1986 legalization program under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. Your proposal would only help individuals who filed specific lawsuits with a specific law firm. Those individuals who would now be citizens will wait years for relief as their court actions continue after a four-year hiatus. While we continue to prefer our registry date proposal, we would consider a proposal to define the class of people to be protected as those who were in the country before January 1, 1982 and would have likely benefited from the 1986 legalization program. Additionally, a non-judicial process for ensuring that such individuals meet the admissibility requirements of the Immigration and National Act (INA) section 212 will result in a more timely, humane and less burdensome process. Given that immediate relatives, along with those who would have qualified for relief in 1986, were all victims of the INS' misinterpretation of the law, solutions must address the status of both the applicants and their immediate family members. Section 245(i). Your response to our proposal to reinstate section 245(i) is to create an entirely new visa program, which would help some but not all of the individuals who would benefit from reinstatement of this section. Your proposal treats the family members of some legal permanent residents better than family members of U.S. citizens. It leaves out U.S. citizens applying for their children over the age of 21 and fails to help U.S. citizens seeking to reunite with their spouses and children if the spouse or child fell out of status for six months or more. There is bipartisan support for reinstatement of 245(i) as evidenced by its inclusion in past Senate versions of the Commerce, Justice, State Appropriations bill. Accordingly, while we are interested in exploring your proposal for a new ?V? visa program, we believe it should be coupled with reinstatement of section 245(I). NACARA Parity. Your proposal fails to address in any way the inequities contained in the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act (NACARA) and the Haitian Refugee and Immigration Fairness Act (HRIFA). These laws, passed in 1997 and 1998, provide for unequal treatment for refugees fleeing from countries that were torn by war in the 1980?s and early 1990?s. At the time these laws were passed, we made clear our opposition to this unequal treatment. We have tried since then to correct these inequities. It is long past time to close the chapter on this country?s history of choosing some people for preferential treatment even though there were others similarly situated. Again, there is bipartisan support for this proposal as evidenced by a recent letter of support signed by seven prominent House Republicans. We simply cannot accept your suggestion to defer this issue until the next Congress. We continue to believe that we can find some common ground to address these issues and look forward to hearing from you. Sincerely, John D. Podesta Chief of Staff to the President # # #
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