Public Advocate Bill de Blasio unveiled a plan Thursday intended to promote the safety and economic involvement of immigrants in New York City.

The plan would eliminate bureaucratic obstacles faced by domestic violence victims, who are eligible for a special visa, lessen cooperation with the federal detention and deportation process, and eliminate the city’s Human Resources Administration’s mandate that sponsors of legal immigrants repay the city for assistance sought by the individuals they sponsor.

“Our city can’t be whole while hundreds of thousands of people are living in the shadows,” de Blasio said.

Karen Kaminsky at the New York Immigration Coalition called de Blasio’s proposals “common sense,” and said they “will contribute to rebuilding a sense of trust between the NYPD and the communities they serve.”

“NYC should not be in the business of helping deport people,” Kaminsky said.

De Blasio’s proposal includes legislation similar to that in Colorado, which would enable immigrants to get driver’s licenses and auto insurance, as well as legislation that currently exists or is being put in place in New Haven, San Francisco and Los Angeles, which would provide undocumented immigrants with municipal IDs, giving them access to city services.

“We’re seeing states and cities around the country take the lead in opening their doors,” de Blasio said. “New York City has to retake the mantel of the nation’s premier open city, that welcomes all immigrants and knits them into our civic life.”

Council members, including Daniel Dromm and Gale Brewer, recently proposed legislation to allow noncitizens to vote in municipal elections. While Mayor Michael Bloomberg has generally been a vocal proponent of immigrant rights, his office said they would not support such legislation because it conflicts with state law.

The Mayor’s Office of Immigration Affairs, established in 1984, is the only chartered immigrant affairs office in the country.

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Carlos Daniel Dos Santos and James Oseland hope their lives will change overnight this summer.

The couple, married since 2011, are hoping the Supreme Court’s Defense of Marriage Act ruling will mean they can finally move out of the shadow they feel forced under.

“Our lives are on hold,” Dos Santos told Metro.

Dos Santos, 45, is from Brazil, and unlike heterosexual spouses, his husband, Oseland, 50, cannot apply for him to legally stay because federal law does not recognize same-sex marriage.

A Supreme Court decision, expected this summer, could change that, as could an alteration of the law under the immigration reform Congress is considering.

Robert Lassègue, 33, and Manuel Reyes, 35, are crossing their fingers.

Married in 2011 at City Hall after gay marriage was legalized in New York, they also face immigration hurdles, and other states do not recognize their marriage.

“I would like to ask straight couples, would they like to carry a license that’s only valid in one state?” Lassègue said.

Dos Santos and Oseland struggled with what to do when his visa expired, ultimately deciding to stay together in their Gramercy Park home.

“I could not conceive of finally finding the man of my dreams and then having to leave him behind,” Dos Santos said.

Now, everything from meeting families to finding jobs is affected – Dos Santos cannot visit relatives abroad or get a job because of his expired visa.

In other countries, like Dos Santos’ native Brazil, they could apply to legally stay within two months, he said.

But neither want to leave the city where they met and fell in love, and Oseland does not want to abandon his job as editor-in-chief of Saveur magazine.

“The suffering that we’ve gone through as a direct result of the United States government not having policies that address situations like ours, it’s unconscionable,” Oseland said.

For now, they take it day by day.

“I can at any moment be deported, so there’s really not much future-planning,” Dos Santos said.

Both await a federal decision, counseling each other on whether hopes should be high or hampered.

“It will happen,” Dos Santos says. “If it doesn’t happen now, we just keep on fighting. I don’t see any other way to go.”

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As a national debate on immigration reform heats up, the New York City Council is proposing an amendment that would grant broader immigrant voting rights, and the Bloomberg administration told Talking Points Memo they will not support it.

The legislation, co-sponsored by Councilman Daniel Dromm and Councilwoman Gale Brewer, would give legal immigrants who are residents of the city for six months or longer the right to vote in municipal elections.

It had eight supporters in the council when it was first introduced in 2010. It currently has the support of 34 of the Council’s 51 members, which is exactly the number of votes needed to override a veto from the mayor, Dromm told Metro.

The mayor has long been a vocal proponent of immigration reform, but a spokeswoman for his administration, Evelyn Erskine, told TPM: “This bill violates the state constitution and the administration does not support it.”

“The mayor believes voting is the most important right we are granted as citizens, and you should have to go through the process of becoming a citizen and declaring allegiance to this country before being given that right,” Erskine said.

While the majority vote in the council could override a Bloomberg veto, the bill could still be stopped by Council Speaker Christine Quinn. Quinn decides when — if at all — bills come to the floor, so it’s up to her whether it comes up for a vote.

Robin Levine, a spokeswoman for Quinn, told Metro the speaker is “looking forward to reviewing testimony from today’s hearing.”

Dromm is adamant that legislation is vital for the adequate representation of the city’s immigrant communities, particularly ones like the one he represents, which he says “is 68 percent immigrant, many of whom would fall into this category.”

Giving them the right to vote would change the way politicians interact — or often neglect to interact — with them, Dromm said: “No longer could people running for city office ignore communities like mine; they’d have to come and address the issues.”

“The nation’s founders were right in saying that there should be no taxation without representation,” Dromm said. “In the early days of this country if you were a property owner, it didn’t matter what country you came from, you had the right to vote.”

He corrected himself, conceding that the law only applied to white male property owners, but noted that over the course of history, that law was expanded to include women and African-Americans. Including immigrants, he believes, is simply the next logical step.

Dromm also notes that the state constitution actually says that municipalities and localities are able to determine who can vote in their elections, and that from 1968 to 2001, anybody, even undocumented immigrants, could vote in school board elections — a rule which was approved by the state legislature in 1968. 

He dismissed concerns that giving immigrants voting rights will deter them from applying for full citizenship and taking on all the responsibilities that come with that status.

“These are people who desperately want to participate in the American system,” Dromm said. “Sometimes it takes 13 years, even when you have a good lawyer and you’re on the path to citizenship and even after you’ve received a green card.”

Councilman Jumaane Williams, another one of the bill’s supporters, agreed after Thursday’s hearing, and noted the potential this legislation has to affect the national conversation on immigration reform.

“These individuals are contributing and taxpaying members of our communities,” Williams said. “I am a proud child of immigrant parents and I represent a proud immigrant community.”

“We look forward to the restoration of immigrant voting rights and the positive effects this will have on the nationwide conversation,” he added.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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As the Senate Judiciary Committee commences debate on proposed immigration legislation today, its proponents have to grapple with a flood of amendments that could tank its chances of passing.

John McCain (R – NV), one member of the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” backing the bill, said he is “guardedly optimistic” but warned against “efforts made to destroy that delicate compromise.”

By Tuesday’s deadline, 300 amendments had been filed, two-thirds of which came from the Republican Party. The majority came from two Republican senators: 77 from Charles Grassley (R – IA) and 49 from Jeff Sessions (R – AL).

Democrats have also proposed controversial amendments, however: Patrick Leahy (D – VT) is pushing for gay citizens to be able to sponsor the green card applications of foreign partners and spouses.

Senator Charles Schumer (D – NY), another member of the “Gang of Eight” and a long-time gay rights supporter, expressed ambivalence over Leahy’s amendment.

“I would very much like to see it in the bill,” Schumer told reporters. “But we have to have a bill that has support to get [it] passed. That’s the conundrum.”

Schumer said the four Republicans in the bipartisan Gang of Eight have expressed an aversion to the amendment that would grant gay couples the same green card rights as heterosexual spouses and fiances.

“Our four Republican colleagues feel very strongly that if this is in the bill they would not be able to support it,” Schumer said.

It still remains to be seen whether Leahy will even push for a vote on the amendment during the committee debate, postpone it under the floor debate, or drop it altogether.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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Senators crafting an immigration bill have agreed that foreigners who crossed the U.S. border illegally would be deported if they entered the United States after December 31, 2011, a congressional aide said on Friday.

The legislation by a bipartisan group of senators would give the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally a way to obtain legal status and eventually become U.S. citizens, provided certain measures are met.

But of the unauthorized immigrants, those who entered after the December 2011 cut-off date would be forced to go back to their country of origin, said the aide, who was not authorized to speak publicly because the bill is still being negotiated.

“People need to have been in the country long enough to have put down some roots. If you just got here and are illegal, then you can’t stay,” the congressional aide said.

The lawmakers – four Democrats and four Republicans – are aiming to unveil their bill on Tuesday, one day before the Senate Judiciary Committee is to hold a hearing to examine the legislation.

Senators and congressional aides have said that most major policy issues have been resolved. But some details still need to be worked out, said sources familiar with the negotiations.

Support has been growing among lawmakers and the public for immigration reform since President Barack Obama was re-elected in November with help from the Hispanic community.

The last time U.S. immigration laws were extensively rewritten was in 1986 and those policies have been blamed for allowing millions of people to enter and live in the country illegally, while also resulting in shortages of high-skilled workers from abroad, as well as some low-skilled wage-earners.

Under the bill being crafted, security would first be improved along the southwestern border with Mexico. At the same time, the threat of deportation would be lifted for many who are living in the U.S. illegally. Within 13 years of enactment, those immigrants could begin securing U.S. citizenship.

The bill would increase the number of visas issued for high-skilled workers and create a new program to control the flow of unskilled workers. It would also make it harder for U.S. citizens to petition for visas for their extended families.

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Major U.S. business and labor groups have reached an agreement on a guest-worker program that removes a major hurdle to a broad immigration overhaul and clears the way for Senate legislation to be introduced soon, a source familiar with the deal said on Saturday.

The agreement was reached on Friday night between the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Tom Donohue, and the president of the AFL-CIO labor organization, Richard Trumka, with New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer acting as the mediator, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A guest-worker program has been a major stumbling block to efforts by a bipartisan group of senators known as the Gang of Eight to come up with a compromise on a way to create a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

Labor unions have worried that a flood of low-wage immigrant laborers would take away jobs from Americans. The agreement covers the pay levels for low-skilled temporary workers and the types of jobs that would be included.

Schumer briefed White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough on Saturday on the breakthrough, the source said.

The agreement still must be approved by the Gang of Eight senators. If they do so as expected, Senate legislation on a broad new immigration law would be advanced in the Senate in the coming weeks.

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A draft of a White House immigration proposal would allow illegal immigrants to become legal permanent residents within eight years, USA Today reported on Saturday.

The plan, obtained by the newspaper, also would provide for more security funding and require businesses to check the immigration status of new hires within four years. Illegal immigrants could also apply for a newly created “Lawful Prospective Immigrant” visa, under the draft bill, it said.

If approved, they could apply for the same provisional legal status for spouses or children living outside the country, according to the draft.

The White House has emphasized the importance of creating a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million immigrants who are in the United States illegally. Many Republicans emphasize that the nation’s borders must be secured first.

Latinos favored President Barack Obama over Republican Mitt Romney in the November 6 election by 71 percent to 27 percent, helping tilt politically divided states to the Democratic incumbent.

Members of Congress also are drafting their own immigration bills.

In the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, a bipartisan group has been negotiating an immigration proposal for years and is writing its own bill. Last month, four Republican senators joined with four Democratic senators to announce their agreement on the general outlines of an immigration plan.

One of those Republican senators, Marco Rubio of Florida, dismissed the leaked White House draft bill, however, as a seriously flawed rehash of failed immigration policies that would make the country’s immigration problems worse.

“If actually proposed, the president’s bill would be dead on arrival in Congress, leaving us with unsecured borders and a broken legal immigration system for years to come,” Rubio, who is a Cuban-American, said in a statement on Saturday.

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