Congress is now considering various immigration bills that range form a broad-based legalization program to a guest-worker program, with “earned legalization” and reform of family-based immigration positioned somewhere in the middle. It is our position that any broad-based legalization program must provide an opportunity for permanent residency. Earned legalization should be achievable and independently verifiable. Family-based immigration reform must include provisions that reduce backlogs in the 2A preference category without harming other preference categories. And any temporary worker program must include:

• A path to permanent residency which is achievable/verifiable
  
• Family unity which allows immediate family members to join worker
  
• Job portability which allows workers to change employers
  
• Labor protections which apply to U.S. workers
  
• Enforcement mechanisms and resources to enforce worker’s rights
  
• Wages and benefits which do not undercut domestic workers
  
• Mobility between U.S. and homeland and within U.S.
  
• Labor-market test to ensure U.S. workers are not harmed

1. Confidentiality: Applicants for either the legalization or temporary worker program should be extended confidentiality and not subject to deportation or arrest if they do not qualify.
   
2. Qualified Designated Entities: Qualified designated entities (QDEs) which are BIA-recognized should be created to assist in implementation of both programs.
   
3. Adequate Funding: Funding should be authorized for QDEs to assist applicants, for public outreach, and for BCIS to implement the program adequately.
   
4. Reasonable Enactment Period: Sufficient time should be given between enactment and implementation so that regulations, procedures, and infrastructure are in place. Deportations of prospective applicants who qualify should be suspended between the two dates.
   
5. Creation of Separate Entity: A separate entity, similar to the asylum corps, should be created within BCIS to implement legislation; such an entity should be adequately funded through appropriations.
   
6. Derivative Benefits: Immediate family members should receive the same benefits under legalization/temporary worker program as worker.
   
7. Generous Evidentiary Standards: Evidentiary standards should be based upon “preponderance of evidence” and should include a wide range of proof, including attestation.
   
8. One-Step Legalization: A one-step legalization program would verify eligibility and security and background checks in one process up front and not in a two-step process, i.e. upon conditional status and then permanent status.
   
9. Operational Terms should be defined: Operational terms in the bill, such as “continuous residence,” “brief, casual, and innocent,” and “known to the government,” should be defined in legislation to avoid later confusion.
   
10. Broad humanitarian waiver: A broad waiver of bars to admissibility such as unlawful presence, fraud, or other minor offenses. See refugee waiver (INA 209c) or NACARA waiver.