Friday, August 3, 2007

A NYT story on the attempt to move piecemeal immigration measures through Congress. The story mentions AgJOBS and includes these comments on the DREAM Act:
Another bill, also with bipartisan support, would give a path to citizenship to high school graduates who are illegal immigrants if they complete two years of college or military service. Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and a sponsor of the bill, attached it as an amendment to the military authorization legislation that the Senate last month put off until September. Mr. Durbin said he would seek to move it again then.

[...]

The Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research organization in Washington, says nearly a million immigrant students across the country could gain legal status under the bill, whose backers call it the Dream Act.

While the bill’s prospects seem favorable in the Senate, the outlook is not as bright in the House.

However, this story does have one troublesome detail:
At least 70 percent of the workers in agriculture are illegal immigrants, says the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform, a national trade group.
The Pew Hispanic Center, however, released a report (based on March 2005 data) that says that only 24% of farm workers are "undocumented immigrants." In 2005, Sen. Craig and others were claiming that between 50% and 75% of farmer workers were "undocumented." So there seems to be some discrepancy here in the data...unless I'm misreading something...