A union of more than 12,000 immigration enforcement officers, on Monday, stated that the union would not support the Senate immigration reform bill. Members of this union deal with immigration and they represent a large number of employees in the US Department of Homeland Security. These immigration enforcement officers would play a major role in legalizing the 11 million undocumented immigrants and in granting them US citizenship. Likewise, the National ICE Council that includes 7,000 employees, has sent a letter to the US Congress stating that it would not support the Senate immigration reform bill.
According to the President of the National Citizenship and Immigration Services Council (NCISC), Kenneth Palinkas, the Senate immigration reform bill would lead to the creation of an “insurmountable bureaucracy” within the bureau. He also stated that the bill would interfere with the judgment of the immigration enforcement officers. He added that these officers are already being pressured to just stamp the applications without investigating and reviewing the cases and that the culture at the USCIS encourages all petitions to be approved. Palinkas also stated that the federal immigration enforcement officers are the backbone of America’s immigration system. According to Fox news, three more unions of federal employees are opposing the Senate immigration reform bill.
Nevertheless, the Senate Judiciary Committee is working on the immigration reform bill and the Committee has adopted few amendments. There are a lot of issues that must be solved and many believe that the issues related to gay rights would derail the immigration reform bill. Activists want the Judiciary Committee to approve amendments that would help the US citizens to sponsor their same sex foreign partners. The committee debated on and adopted 30 amendments on Monday and the Committee believes that is will finish its work on all the amendments, by the end of this week.