"It's time we all understand: America is a nation with a long history of immigrants, and we are proud of it." - Al Gore

Immigrating to America is often more than a geographic journey to a new home or place of refuge. For many, America represents hope - the promise of a better life for present and future generations. As a nation with a long history of immigration, we can appreciate how new Americans enrich all of our lives and make our country stronger. That's why Al Gore has a fair and comprehensive immigration agenda that is based on keeping families together, providing humanitarian protection for refugees, protecting the U.S. workforce, and continuing tough enforcement.

ENSURING FAIR IMMIGRATION POLICIES

• Improving the Immigration and Naturalization Service. As President, Al Gore would change the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to make it more efficient and more customer friendly. He will create clear and separate lines of authority for enforcement and service operations, while maintaining an equal balance between these responsibilities within one department. Al Gore opposes creating another federal bureaucracy without a strong high level official with the authority to oversee and lead both parts of a restructured INS. We need a leaner, more efficient federal government.
• Addressing the Immigration Backlog and Family Reunification. Al Gore supports addressing the growing backlog of applications for individuals who are waiting to reunite with their families. As President, he will work with Congress to ensure adequate resources for the INS to address the backlog in citizenship applications. Al Gore will also consider other proposals to reunify families.
• Keeping Families Together and Ensuring Due Process. Al Gore is urging Congress to allow families to remain together in the United States while immigration applications are pending, rather than force them to return to their home country, and to permit qualified long-term migrants who have lived in the United States since 1986 to become lawful permanent residents and retain their substantial ties to this country. In addition, Al Gore remains concerned for the American families who have been tragically torn apart due to the unfairness and lack of judicial discretion under current immigration laws. For these extenuating circumstances, Al Gore believes we should ensure due process by alleviating some of the effects of current law while continuing tough enforcement.
• Providing Parity for Central Americans and Haitians. The Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act of 1997 (NACARA) allowed Nicaraguan and Cubans to become legal immigrants, but made it more difficult for similarly situated Central Americans and Haitians to adjust their status. Al Gore wants to amend NACARA to ensure equitable treatment for other Central Americans and Haitians who fled human rights abuses or unstable conditions and advance our commitment to the stability of emerging democracies.
• Reviewing the Asylum Process. Al Gore supports having the United States provide refuge to those who have a well-founded fear of persecution based upon their race, religion, political opinions, or national origin. As President, Gore will review the current asylum process and make the necessary changes to ensure that asylum seekers are treated with dignity and respect and that their claims are considered promptly and fairly.
• Addressing Labor Shortages While Protecting U.S. Workers. During this time of economic prosperity, with unemployment at its lowest in thirty years, we must ensure that this expansion is not slowed by a shortage of highly-skilled workers. Millions of new information technology jobs will open up over the next 10 years, and high-tech companies already report a need for more workers. To continue our progress in the short-term, we need to train American workers as well as enable American businesses to periodically tap into the international labor market. That is why Al Gore supports providing additional resources to educate and train U.S. workers, while increasing the number of H-1B visas to 200,000 for FYs 2001 through 2003. Together, these provisions will advance his primary and longer-term goal of protecting and preparing our own U.S. workforce our economy continues to grow.

PROVIDING ASSISTANCE TO LEGAL IMMIGRANT FAMILIES

• Securing Medicare for the Future and Adding a Prescription Drug Benefit for Seniors. Al Gore has been a leader in the fight to help preserve and strengthen Medicare. Al Gore is proposing to take Medicare off-budget to assure that all Medicare surpluses go to Medicare - not other government spending or tax cuts - and add a needed prescription drug benefit for seniors.
• Assuring Access to Affordable Coverage for All Children. Al Gore fought for the largest investment in children's health care since 1965 -- providing health insurance to millions of children whose parents make too much money for Medicaid but not enough to afford private health insurance. Now he is working to assure that all children have access to affordable coverage and is expanding coverage to their parents.
• Restoring Benefits for Legal Immigrants. As Vice President, Al Gore fought hard to reverse unnecessary cuts in assistance to legal immigrants that had nothing to do with the 1996 welfare law's goal of moving people from welfare to work. As President, he will maintain his commitment to restoring important health, disability, and nutritional supports for legal immigrants, including: (1) restoring SSI and Medicaid to legal immigrants who entered the United States after August 22, 1996, have been here for five years, and become disabled after entry; (2) restoring Food Stamp eligibility to legal immigrants who were in the country before August 22, 1996 and either subsequently reach age 65 or live in a household with Food Stamp eligible children; and (3) allowing states to provide Medicaid or the Children Health Insurance Program to legal immigrant children and pregnant women regardless of their date of entry.

ENSURING EQUAL OPPORTUNITY

• Strengthening Bilingual and Immigrant Education. Al Gore supports strengthening bilingual and immigrant education efforts. Bilingual education funding helps school districts teach English to more than a million limited English proficient children, helping them achieve the same high standards as all other students. The Immigrant Education Program helps more than a thousand school districts provide supplemental instructional services to more than 800,000 recent immigrant students. Al Gore also supports the English Language/Civics initiative, an innovative program to help states and communities provide limited English proficient (LEP) individuals with instruction in both English literacy and critical life skills necessary for effective citizenship and civic participation.
• Opposing English-Only Legislation. Al Gore strongly opposes legislation to make English the official language of the United States, which jeopardizes services and programs for non-English speakers and jeopardizes assistance to the tens of thousands of new immigrants and others seeking to learn English as adults.
• Opposing Efforts to Eliminate Affirmative Action. Al Gore has denounced efforts, such as Proposition 209 in California and Initiative 200 in Washington State, that have attempted to eliminate affirmative action programs. Gore also denounced Proposition 187 - a California ballot initiative that would deny all social services, including medical and educational programs for children, to illegal immigrants in California. Al Gore supports the current Administration's "mend it, don't end it" position on affirmative action. Gore believes we should ensure that affirmative action programs are carefully targeted and fair and that they meet legal requirements, but we should not eliminate altogether programs that have worked.
• Fighting Hate Crimes. America cannot afford to tolerate hate crimes. As President, Al Gore will continue to fight for federal hate crimes legislation to protect victims who are targeted simply because of who they are - including their race, color, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or gender. He will work with the Congress to pass the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which will expand the definition of hate crimes and allow for the prosecution of these crimes under federal law.

Source: Al Gore for President 2000 Web Site