Separate bills to deal with skilled workers, visa issues, says Rep. Ryan.
By American Bazaar Staff
WASHINGTON, DC: For legal immigrants who were stuck in limbo with their Green Card applications stalled and the chances of it coming through perhaps decades away, the deadlock in the House on the comprehensive immigration reform bill passed by the Senate was a big blow. But there is hope yet: the former Republican vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan said the House will take up piecemeal bills for voting in October of this year, including one that deals with the issues of legal immigrants, speaking at a meet today in his home state of Wisconsin.
Talking in Racine today, Ryan made it clear that the House will not do anything before it goes for recess at the end of the month, but come October the issue of comprehensive immigration reform would be dealt with in separate bills, reported the Journal Sentinel.
“…bring about five or six bills…to fix these problems in our immigration laws one step at a time in a comprehensive way,” he said. Ryan said negotiations are underway to bring “these various bills to the floor of Congress.”
He added: “Tentatively, October, we’re going to vote on these bills. We’re going to vote on a a border security bill, we’re going to vote on an interior enforcement bill, like the workplace verification and the visa tracking. We’re going to vote on a legal immigration bill for visas, for agricultural workers, for skilled workers.”
On the issue of legalizing the undocumented immigrants – which has been the crux of the problem in the House taking up the bill for voting – Ryan said that a vote would be put forward, which would intend to give provisional visas to illegals, and they would have to wait for 15 years to get permanent residency, two years more than what the Senate had recommended.
According to Ryan, who is turning out to a star in the House on immigration reforms, as well as getting recognition among Latinos, for his determination to make the bill into law, “immigration is a good thing for this country.” He said that he was not doing it for “politics,” but because he thinks “it’s the right thing to do for the country.”
Ryan, who many have said has been working behind the scenes in the House to get a deal worked out for comprehensive immigration reforms, has also been a champion of legal immigrants, and is in favor of granting more visas for skilled workers, especially for the shortages faced in Silicon Valley.
He said he wants to fix the immigration system “once and for all so that we don’t have the same problem 10 years from now.”
Ryan also spoke out strongly in favor of legal immigrants, an issue which most politicians fail to make a point across, but tend to dwell instead on the issue of the 11 million illegal immigrants.
“We want to make sure we’re fair to the legal immigrant,” Ryan said. “We want to make sure the law does not reward people for quote, unquote, cutting in line. We want to make sure that that person who came here legally in the first place who waited patiently, that they’re respected by being at the front of the line.”
Ryan added, “So yes it may be difficult and it might take 15 years for a person to get right. But I think that’s a pretty good deal given that we have all these undocumented Americans.”
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