|
|
5 17 2007
In a striking reach across party lines, the White House
and key lawmakers agreed Thursday on a sweeping immigration plan to
grant legal status to millions of people in the country unlawfully.
Sealed after months of secretive bargaining, the deal mandates bolstered
border security and a high-tech employment verification system to
prevent illegal workers from getting jobs.
President Bush said the proposal would "help enforce our borders but
equally importantly, it'll treat people with respect."
The compromise brought together an unlikely alliance of liberal
Democrats such as Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and
conservative Republicans such as Sen. Jon Kyl (news, bio, voting record)
of Arizona on an issue that carries heavy potential risks and rewards
for all involved.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev.,
said debate would begin on Monday, but he cautioned, "I don't know if
the immigration legislation is going to bear fruit and we're going to be
able to pass it."
Almost instantly, the plan brought vehement criticism from both sides of
the immigration issue, including liberals who called it unfair and
unworkable and conservatives who branded it an overly permissive
"amnesty."
The proposal constitutes a far-reaching change in the immigration system
that would admit future arrivals seeking to put down roots in the U.S.
based on their skills, education levels and job experience, limiting the
importance of family ties. A new class of guest workers would be allowed
in temporarily, but only after the new security measures were in place —
expected to take 18 months.
"This is a bill where people who live here in our country will be
treated without amnesty but without animosity," Bush said.
Kennedy hailed it as "the best possible chance we will have in years to
secure our borders and bring millions of people out of the shadows and
into the sunshine of America."
Kyl said the measure wasn't perfect, "but it represents the best
opportunity that we have in a bipartisan way to do something about this
problem."
It was clear, however, that many Republicans and Democrats were deeply
skeptical. Reid said it needed improvement.
"I have serious concerns about some aspects of this proposal, including
the structure of the temporary worker program and undue limitations on
family immigration," Reid said.
In a reminder of the delicate nature of the coalition, some lawmakers on
both ends of the political spectrum who attended the weeks of
closed-door talks that yielded the agreement deserted it at the last
moment.
Sen. Robert Menendez (news, bio, voting record), D-N.J., said the
proposal "tears families apart" because a new point system used to
evaluate future legal immigrants would value family connections well
below employment-related criteria.
"When you anchor yourself to the far right and you give, I think,
relatively little, it's hard to meet the challenge" of producing a
workable bill, Menendez said in an interview.
Sen. John Cornyn (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas, said he had "very
serious concerns with the principles outlined" in the agreement.
And conservatives on both sides of the Capitol derided the deal as
"amnesty" for illegal immigrants, using a politically charged word that
figured prominently in campaigns across the country last year.
"I don't care how you try to spin it, this is amnesty," said Sen. Jim
DeMint (news, bio, voting record), R-S.C.
The proposed agreement would allow illegal immigrants to come forward
and obtain a "Z visa" and — after paying fees and a $5,000 fine —
ultimately get on track for permanent residency, which could take
between eight and 13 years. Heads of households would have to return to
their home countries first.
They could come forward right away to claim a probationary card that
would let them live and work legally in the U.S., but could not begin
the path to permanent residency or citizenship until border security
improvements and the high-tech worker identification program were
completed.
A new crop of low-skilled guest workers would have to return home after
stints of two years. They could renew their visas twice, but would be
required to leave for a year in between each time. If they wanted to
stay in the U.S. permanently, they would have to apply under the point
system for a limited pool of green cards.
The program drew fire from liberal groups that said it was unworkable.
They had joined Democrats in pressing instead for guest workers to be
permitted to stay and work indefinitely in the U.S., and ultimately earn
the chance to stay.
"Without a clear path to permanent residence for a healthy share of the
future temporary workers, we run the risk of reproducing the widespread
illegality that this bill is designed to address," said Frank Sharry,
the executive director of the National Immigration Forum.
Sen. Byron Dorgan (news, bio, voting record), D-N.D., said he would try
to kill the temporary worker program because it would bring in a
potentially unlimited stream of immigrants to compete with Americans for
jobs and depress wages.
In perhaps the most hotly debated change, the proposed plan would shift
from an immigration system primarily weighted toward family ties toward
one with preferences for people with advanced degrees and sophisticated
skills. Republicans have long sought such revisions, which they say are
needed to end "chain migration" that harms the economy.
Family connections alone would no longer be enough to qualify for a
green card — except for spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens.
Strict new limits would apply to U.S. citizens seeking to bring
foreign-born parents into the country.
Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., who led the charge
last year to push through an immigration overhaul, called the deal "the
first step" and urged moving it forward before the politics of 2008 made
such action impossible.
"We all know that this issue can be caught up in extracurricular
politics unless we move forward as quickly as possible," said McCain,
who is seeking the GOP nomination for president.
A nude car wash offering an X-rated sideshow and topless
cleaning in Australia's tropical Queensland state has been given the
all-clear after police and officials said they were powerless to scrub
it.
The Bubbles 'n' Babes car wash in Brisbane prompted a flood of
complaints with a topless car wash for A$55 ($45) and a nude car wash
with X-rated lap-dance service for A$100. "If it was approved for a car
wash then I can't imagine how we can stop them," Lord Mayor Campbell
Newman told a council meeting with worried local lawmakers.
Professional car washes have boomed in most cities with drought-stricken
Australians banned from washing their own cars due to tough water
restrictions.
Queensland police denied any cover-up in a state where their image has
been dented by past accusations of police corruption and involvement
with organized crime.
The raunchy wash, set up by a strip-club owner, was screened from the
public and used recycled water to avoid breaching water use
restrictions, they said.
"We don't want any traffic accidents caused by people looking at the
girls instead of looking at the road," Superintendent Colin Campbell
told local media.
Bullet analysis used to justify the lone assassin theory
behind President John F. Kennedy's assassination is based on flawed
evidence, according to a team of researchers including a former top FBI
scientist.
Writing in the Annals of Applied Statistics, the researchers urged a
reexamination of bullet fragments from the 1963 shooting in Dallas to
confirm the number of bullets that struck Kennedy.
Official investigations during the 1960s concluded that Kennedy was hit
by two bullets fired by Lee Harvey Oswald.
But the researchers, including former FBI lab metallurgist William
Tobin, said new chemical and statistical analyses of bullets from the
same batch used by Oswald suggest that more than two bullets could have
struck the president.
"Evidence used to rule out a second assassin is fundamentally flawed,"
the researchers said in their article.
"If the assassination (bullet) fragments are derived from three or more
separate bullets, then a second assassin is likely."
The Kennedy assassination set off a whirlwind of theories about who
killed the 46-year-old president.
The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy,
known unofficially as the Warren Commission, concluded in 1964 that Lee
Harvey Oswald, acting alone, fired three shots, one of which missed the
president's car. There have been many challenges to its conclusions over
the years.
The House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations
concluded that Oswald was probably part of a conspiracy that could have
included a second gunman who fired but missed Kennedy.
The panel's supporting evidence was a bullet analysis that said
fragments collected from the site were too similar to be from more than
two slugs.
But the latest report found that many bullets from the same batch used
by Oswald had a similar composition.
"Further, we found that one of the thirty bullets analyzed in our study
also compositionally matched one of the fragments from the
assassination," the article said.
"This finding means that the bullet fragments from the assassination
that match could have come from three or more separate bullets."
The West Nile Virus is taking a worse-than-expected toll
on some favorite birds in North America such as robins and chickadees,
U.S. researchers said on Thursday.
They studied 20 North American birds and found declines in seven species
from four families as a result of the virus, which lives in birds and
other animals and can be transmitted by mosquitoes to humans.
The impact was especially strong among the American crow population,
which has been cut by 45 percent since West Nile first appeared in the
United States in 1999.
"Seven out of 20 is a substantial number," said A. Marm Kilpatrick,
senior research scientist for the Consortium for Conservation Medicine
at the Wildlife Trust, whose work appears in journal Nature this week.
"When West Nile first showed up in '99, people knew that crows were
dying and jays were dying, but no one knew if there were any population
level impacts," Kilpatrick said in a telephone interview.
Kilpatrick and colleagues analyzed 26 years of survey data on 20 bird
species to evaluate the impact of West Nile. Besides the American crow,
robin, Carolina and black-capped chickadee, and blue jay, other
significantly impacted birds were tufted titmice, eastern bluebirds and
house wrens.
Only two of the seven species -- blue jays and house wrens -- had
recovered to pre-West Nile Virus levels by 2005.
"What our study also suggests is there are other species that are
impacted," Kilpatrick said.
The researchers also found a correlation between the prevalence of the
disease in birds and human infections.
"The birds are indicating what the intensity of the epidemic is that
year," he said.
The seven hardest-hit species are all associated with cities and
suburban areas, suggesting that people are creating breeding places for
mosquitoes.
"We're providing the larval habitat for those mosquitoes," Kilpatrick
said, noting the mosquito's affinity for breeding in stagnant, polluted
water like that found in bird baths and catch basins.
Between 1999 and 2006, nearly 24,000 people were reported infected with
West Nile virus in the United States, with 962 deaths, according to the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The virus is also common in Africa, southern Europe and the Middle East.
Most people who are infected with the virus, about 80 percent, show no
symptoms.
But about one in 150 people infected with West Nile Virus will develop
severe illness, with symptoms including high fever, disorientation,
coma, tremors, convulsions, vision loss and paralysis, according to the
CDC.
|
