WAITING FOR REFORM.

Byline: Susan Palmer The Register-Guard

Marie Lopez is safe. Because she was born in the United States to immigrant parents, the current tug of war over the nation's immigration laws won't change her status. But she has strong feelings about the Senate's failure to pass reform legislation as Congress prepares for a monthlong break.

Lopez was born in California, but her family returned to Mexico shortly after her birth. When she was 13 years old, the family came back to the United States. Even though she was a citizen, she experienced the social challenges of being an immigrant.

Married now and a mother of two, Lopez knows many people who are affected by the immigration debate. Taking a break from her work at Los Cabos Mexican Restaurant in Creswell last week, she said she wished that Congress would allow people the chance to become citizens.

"The criminals, you should deport them, but people who are working hard taking care of their families, it's not right," she said.

Lopez recently saw a documentary on Univision, a Spanish language channel, about a woman who was deported with her older daughter while her two youngest children, who were born in the United States, remained behind.

"Watching that," Lopez said, "it made me cry."

People should be prepared for more such stories, immigration reform activists said on Friday as Congress prepared for a monthlong break. Lawmakers' failure to pass a bill will mean increased uncertainty for workers, their families and the employers who rely on them.

They called for lawmakers to pass single-issue reforms that would help immigrant students and allow farmworkers to apply for citizenship.

And they predicted that nationwide citizenship and voter registration drives will have an impact in the 2008 election, especially in states such as Nevada and California that have early primaries for the first time.

Meanwhile, opponents of the comprehensive bill that failed in the Senate in June say enforcing the laws already in place will solve the problem by making the United States increasingly unattractive to illegal migrants.

"Attrition through stronger enforcement," said Bob Dane, communicators director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a nonprofit group that seeks to curb immigration. "It makes it more difficult to live, work and travel here. It makes it easier to self deport," he said.

The current laws include:

Employer sanctions: Passed in 1986, it penalizes those who hire illegal workers with fines and arrests, both of workers and employers. The law has not been heavily enforced, with the number of fines issued steadily declining from 1995 to 2003. Work site arrests in that era peaked at just less than 18,000 in 1997 and declined to less than 2,000 in 2003. Enforcement has increased recently with more than 4,000 arrests in 2006, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Basic Pilot program: Created in 1996, the electronic verification system allows employers to check the Social Security numbers and legal status of new hires. Participation is voluntary, most employers still don't use it and a 2006 survey found that some employers don't immediately fire those revealed to have phony documents, as the law requires.

The Real ID Act: Passed in 2005, it requires states issuing driver's licenses to verify the legal status of applicants. States must begin complying with the act by May 2008 or request an extension to 2009. Some states say they won't comply. In Oregon, the Legislature has yet to revise its regulations.

Secure Border Act: Passed in 2006, it will construct a 700-mile fence along the border with Mexico. So far, 12 miles have been built.

Enforcement of such laws without some avenue to citizenship just creates a permanent underclass, forcing people further into the shadows, said Kevin Appleby, director of Migration and Refugee Policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "A piecemeal approach is not going to solve the problem," he said.

But the failed Senate bill has galvanized the Latino community, said Cecilia Munoz, vice president of the National Council of La Raza, a Latino organization.

More immigrants than ever are applying for citizenship, and voter registration drives targeting them will bring millions of new voters to the polls in 2008, she said. With growing populations in the South and Midwest, these voters could have a real impact.

"We're no longer isolated to the five most populous states," she said.

Munoz also holds out hope that single-issue reform legislation - the AgJobs and DREAM bills - will get traction when Congress reconvenes.

One bill would allow 500,000 migrant farmworkers to seek legal status. The other would give youths who entered the country illegally before they turned 16 provisional status while they attend college or serve in the military and then allow them to apply for citizenship.

But the message coming from Congress is mixed. Senate Republicans introduced a tough new enforcement bill on Thursday, and House Democrats haven't committed to taking up immigration reform.

One House Democrat, Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, told a Latino activist that Democrats would be unlikely to take up comprehensive reform until after the first term of a Democratic president, according to a Washington Times report.

Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama, speaking at convention of the National Council of La Raza, disagreed with that position, Munoz said. "But it has infuriated Latinos, as you can imagine," she said.

She and other activists say the recent failure to pass reform legislation is a setback, not a defeat. "It's still a matter of when, not if," said Frank Sharry of the National Immigration Forum. It took eight years for the Democrats to pass an increase in the minimum wage, he said.

"We've only been at this two years," he said.