US House bill seeks to ban US citizens from petitioning brothers, sisters

WASHINGTON — A measure seeking to prevent US citizens from petitioning their siblings to join them in the United States has been filed in the House of Representatives, sparking a grassroots campaign in ethnic communities to defeat the proposal.

Arizona Republican J.D. Hayworth filed the measure on Thursday as an amendment to House Bill 4437 entitled "Border Protection, Anti-terrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005." It seeks to eliminate the category of "brothers and sisters of US citizens" from the family-based immigration system.

Under the Hayworth proposal, siblings of US citizens who have been waiting for years to immigrate legally to the United States would be unable to reunite with family and 65,000 visas from this classification would be moved to the employment-based immigration system.

Under present laws US citizens, who must be over 21 when they petition for their siblings, wait for 11 years in order to be reunited with their brothers and sisters. For some countries such as India, Mexico and the Philippines the wait is longer — as long as 23 years in the case of the Philippines, ethnic immigration lawyers said.

"Rather than fixing the broken immigration system so that US citizens would not have to wait decades to be reunited with their families, the Hayworth amendment would retroactively punish US citizens and their brothers and sisters who have been waiting patiently for years to immigrate legally to the US," said Traci Hong, director of Immigration Program at the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium.

The National Federation of Filipino American Associations, in an urgent message to members on Thursday, asked them to contact their congressmen immediately to ask them to vote against the Hayworth amendment that was apparently introduced at the last minute.

The US House suspended deliberations on HB 4437 for the night without tackling the contentious amendment.

Earlier this week the US House had approved by voice vote a resolution acknowledging the achievements and contributions of Filipino Americans over the past century and recognizing 2006 as the centennial of sustained immigration from the Philippines to the United States.

Democratic congressman Ed Case of Hawaii, author of House concurrent resolution 218, said Filipino immigrants have played a prominent role in all facets of life in their adopted land including the military, "where Filipino-Americans demonstrated decades of bravery and loyalty to our country and have one of the highest enlistment rates."

The House measure approved on Wednesday requested President George W. Bush to issue a proclamation "calling on the people of the United States to observe this milestone with appropriate celebratory and educational programs, ceremonies and other activities."

A similar concurrent resolution will be introduced in the Senate.

Approval of the House resolution kicked off a week of festivities in Hawaii, a lead-in to a yearlong celebration of 100 years of Filipino immigration to America.