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Senators McCain and Kennedy introduce S. 1033

May 12, 2005

As promised during the REAL ID debate in Senate, Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Ed Kennedy (D-MA) introduced the “Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act” today.  Among other things, it partially addresses family unification of permanent residents with their spouses and minor children.

The bill is touted to be a comprehensive immigration reform package.  A number of its provisions has to do with according legal status to undocumented workers who are in the United States.  These provisions, while unrelated to the family unification problem, are hot-button issues.  Disagreement on these provisions may drag the entire bill down even though there may be broad agreement on the family unification sections.

S. 1033 partially addresses the family unification problem by introducing the following:

• An increase in the number of immigrant visas available to preference categories by no longer reducing the total number available per fiscal year by the number used up for immediate relatives of U.S. citizens.
• Recapture of unused immigrant visas from fiscal years 2000 through 2005 to be used for those waiting for a visa.

While these provisions, if enacted, will be an improvement over the current situation, they do not go far enough.  The REAL ID Act has removed the annual cap on the number of asylees who can adjust to permanent resident status.  This will result in a lot of new permanent residents.  If they now sponsor their spouses and minor children, the demand for family immigrant visas will shoot up.  Further, since neither the REAL ID Act nor S. 1033 provide any funding for handling the backlog that would result, it is expected that the family unification delays would still exceed 3 years.

UniteFamilies.org still believes that reinstating the V visa is the right solution to the problem.  We urge Congress to reinstate the V visa.

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