It was a very important vote, and at the same time political business as usual.

Last week, the Republican-controlled House voted 245 to 139 to pass H.R. 6429, the STEM Jobs Act of 2012. It looked like a move to increase immigration to the United States among highly skilled immigrants trained in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (S, T, E, and M—get it? “STEM”). But it was actually a shot across the bow in a much bigger battle.

The Republicans hoped to do something that was good for business and the economy, while also showing that they are not the anti-immigrant party that they are often painted to be. If President Obama and the Democratic Senate oppose the bill it would make them seem equally anti-business and anti-immigrant.

Mid-week last week, the Obama Administration indeed released a statement [PDF] opposing the bill.

The Administration is deeply committed to building a 21st-century immigration system that meets the Nation’s economic and security needs through common-sense, comprehensive immigration reform. As a part of immigration reform, the Administration strongly supports legislation to attract and retain foreign students who graduate with advanced STEM degrees, to establish a start-up visa for foreign-born entrepreneurs to start businesses and create jobs, and to reform the employment-based immigration system to better meet the needs of the U.S. economy. However, the Administration does not support narrowly tailored proposals that do not meet the President’s long-term objectives with respect to comprehensive immigration reform.

Opposing the bill doesn’t come from being anti-business or anti-immigrant, but because President Obama wants comprehensive immigration reform, far more than the Republican caucus would be willing to pass.

So President Obama’s opposition to the bill is meant to put Republicans on the spot. This sliver of immigration reform that Republicans can agree to is only a tiny part of what the country needs to line up the law of the land with the economic and social needs of the country in the immigration area. Republicans are the ones hostile to immigrants and our immigrant traditions, say President Obama and the Democrats.

If you thought there was a change coming to immigration law because of passage of this bill in the House, then you probably think a barking dog is always about to bite. No, this was a message-sending exercise, and the intended recipient was you.

Do you think the only immigration reform we need is a small increase in high-skill immigrants? Or do you think that even greater high-skill immigration should be part of a broader package? These are strategic questions raised by the passage of H.R. 6429 last week. They tee up the debate that may or may not come to the main stage of public next year, under a new Congress and in the second term of the Obama Administration.

Register your opinions in the comments below or on the bill page for H.R. 6429. In the meantime, you can see the current vote on H.R. 6429, the STEM Jobs Act of 2012 just below. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki article on the bill.

We’ve been pushing attention to what is now Public Law 112-175, the Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2013. President Obama recently signed this continuing resolution into law. It funds the government (the parts of it not automatically funded) for six months at a cost of about $12,000 per U.S. family.

But there are other new laws, worth keeping our eyes on.

• There’s Public Law 112-176, which reauthorized—that means “extended the life of”—the EB-5 Regional Center Program, the E-Verify Program, the Special Immigrant Nonminister Religious Worker Program, and the Conrad State 30 J-1 Visa Waiver Program.
• Then there’s Public Law 112-177, the Pesticide Registration Improvement Extension Act of 2012, which, as you might guess, reauthorized the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, also known as “FIFRA.” Hate pests? This one’s for you!
• And finally there’s Public Law 112-178, which changed the date on which certain officials would have to publish their financial disclosures (to December 8, 2012) and exempted other officials from these disclosures. This requirement of the STOCK Act turned out to be controversial when people in the government got a look at what it required.

Here are the current votes on all these laws. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki articles on them. (It’s still worth doing that. You’ll contribute to the national conversation, which is ongoing, and laws get far more attention here than the thousands of bills that go nowhere…)

It’s part of nobody’s plan, but Washington, D.C. is pulling a little misdirection play this week.

While everyone is discussing President Obama’s immigration move, the farm bill in the Senate, the energy bill on the House floor, and so on, some of the more important work of Congress is moving under the radar.

Last week, two more annual spending bills were introduced—without a single headline.

S. 3301 is the financial services appropriations bill. The bill spends about $450 per U.S. family on … oh, a whole bunch of things.

The Labor/HHS appropriations bill in the Senate is S. 3295, and it’s a big kahuna. It spends over $7,300 per U.S. family on lots of other stuff, a big part of which is the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. That’s the bureau that administers Medicare, Medicaid, and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Yes, President Obama lifted the threat of deportation from 800,000 young people whose parents brought them to the country illegally as children. There are lots of questions. Can he do that legally? Does candidate Romney support this or opposite it? Senator Rubio from Florida has a similar plan—what happens with that?

Meanwhile, Congress is spending thousands of dollars of your family’s money.

Here are the current votes on S. 3301 and S. 3295. Click to vote, comment, learn more, and edit the wiki article on the bills.

S. 1258 would provide for comprehensive immigration reform.

Arizona’s toughest-in-the-nation immigration law is scheduled to take effect July 29th. Called SB 1070, it requires law enforcement officers to inquire about a person’s immigration status when they have a “reasonable suspicion” that the person is an illegal immigrant. Critics of the legislation say it encourages racial profiling, while supporters say the law simply enforces existing federal law.

Most everybody agrees that immigration policy is a federal responsibility. One of the controversies is over whether states are allowed to have immigration policies of their own, supplementary to the federal law. The Obama administration recently sued Arizona, arguing that they can’t.

But what has Congress done on this? Mostly nothing. The political winds are blowing the wrong direction for substantive immigration law reform—the only real solution to the immigration problem—so there won’t be any movement in that area this year.

Instead, members of Congress on either side of the issue are introducing non-binding resolutions to posture about the controversy.

Take H. Res. 1370, for example. It would express Congress’ opinion that the 2011 Major League Baseball All-Star Game shouldn’t be held in Arizona and that they should find a better place to play the game.

H. Res. 1380, on the other hand, would applaud the State of Arizona “for asserting its 10th amendment rights, protecting its citizens, and safeguarding its jobs.” It would also call on the Administration to immediately enforce the nation’s immigration laws.

There you have it! Dueling resolutions.

Which posture do you think is right? (Or maybe you think Congress should quit posturing and get to the business of revamping the law…)

As it happens, the votes on both these bills are dead even at the time of this writing. Let’s see where it goes from here!

The current votes are below. Remember, H. Res. 1370—the first one listed here—is to show opposition to the Arizona immigration law. H. Res. 1380 is for supporters of the Arizona immigration law. Click below to vote, comment, learn more or edit the wiki articles on the resolutions.

H.R. 42, the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Latin Americans of Japanese Descent Act, has been scored by the Congressional Budget Office. It’s cost is pretty close to zero. (One penny for a family of seven.)

As the name suggests, the bill would set up a commission to study the treatment of Latino and Japanese people during World War II.

When I went to put the cost information in the database, I noticed an unusually high vote against the bill, but no comments indicating why.

I’m eager to learn! Voting against? Why? Or maybe there should just be more votes in favor.

All that is up to you. Here is the current vote on H.R. 42. (At the time of this writing, it was 8% for, 92% against.) Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki article about the bill.

On Sunday, 60 Minutes replayed a story about immigrants who have married American citizens, but whose spouses have died before the interview to prove their marriage to the Department of Homeland Security.

In some cases, mothers of citizen children are at risk of deportation – and either taking their children to a strange country or leaving the child behind to be raised by other relatives.

A couple of bills would address these situations.

H.R. 182 would provide discretionary authority to immigration judges to decide that the alien parent of a United States citizen child does not have to deported.

S. 815 would allow surviving spouses to petition for treatment as immediate family members under the immigration laws, which would generally allow them to stay in the United States.

What say you? Should surviving spouses get to stay in their adopted land and the land of their loved one? Or should they go?

Here are the current votes on H.R. 182 and S. 815. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki articles about the bills.

One of the dumbest bills I’ve seen in a while was introduced in Congress this week. H.R. 6975 would require aliens to attest that they will not advocate installing a Sharia law system in the United States as a condition of their admission to our country.

First, there’s the simple bureaucratic nonsense of administering this thing: We’re going to ask every Christian, Catholic, Zen Buddhist, and Hindu not to advocate traditional Islamic law? What an utterly stupid waste of time. I don’t want a penny of my money going to pay for this.

But more importantly, a law like this communicates precisely the wrong thing to new immigrants and the world at large. It tells the world that we’re a weak, fearful country, and that we believe Sharia law is possible in the United States. It tells the world that we’ve come off our traditional moorings and that we no longer believe in free speech and tolerance of all opinions, no matter how wrong.

Let’s talk substance, just in case one or two of you out there are weak and fearful: There is no possibility – none – that Sharia law will be established in the United States. Not by any government body at any level. This country can stand to have Sharia advocated by whatever tiny minority might want to – without any risk. In fact, allowing such discussion will help dispel whatever small demand there could be for Sharia, because it would be so obviously incompatible with our way of life.

Whoever introduced this bill doesn’t understand our country’s strength or what this great country is all about.

Here’s the current vote on H.R. 6975. Click to vote, comment (expressions of fear, and advocacy of Sharia law welcome!), learn more, or edit the wiki article about the bill.

Debate is running fast and furious on H.R. 5924, The Emergency Nursing Supply Relief Act. The bill would increase the number of nurses and physical therapists that are allowed to immigrate into the country.

The bill apparently responds to a shortage of nurses in the country, but there are many commenters who don’t trust foreign nurses, assuming their poor language skills or training, or perhaps wishing to keep them out because they could lower the wages of U.S. nurses. From what little I know, we could use more nurses in the country, and concerns with language or training are for the hospitals and health systems that might hire them to worry about – not for the immigration laws to take care of.

One of the people who seems not to like the idea of immigrant nurses is a commenter identified as “Sam.” Sam’s jab at foreign nurses is a pretty good joke. But maybe it’s inappropriate. Depends on the spirit in which it’s intended, I suppose. Here it is:

The Immigration Officer said, “Sindhu, you have passed all the tests so far, there is only one test left. Unless you pass it you cannot stay in the United States of America. Make a sentence using the words, Yellow, Pink and Green.”

Sindhu said, “The telephone goes green, green, green, and I pink it up, and say, ‘Yellow, this is Sindhu.”’

Make your own judgement about the joke. And make your own judgement about whether we should have more nurses in the country. Here’s the current vote on H.R. 5924, The Emergency Nursing Supply Relief Act. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki article about the bill:

I’ve been thinking for months about starting this blog, but one of the things that really got me moving was a recent comment on a bill that increased the number of Iraqi and Afghani translators and interpreters allowed into the United States. Our service members call them “‘terps” for short.

Whether you’re good, bad, or indifferent on our military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, there’s no question that local people working with our military are doing quite a service. Sure, the money may be good compared to their options, but my guess is that they’re motivated at least in part by the ideals that our country stands for. They do it at risk to their own lives, of course, and the lives of their families.

In January 2006, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006 created a special immigrant visa (“SIV”) for Iraqi and Afghan translators working with the U.S. military. But only 50 per year. Just 50. Last year, Public Law 110-36 expanded that number to 500 per year for two years. That lasts until October of this year, when the number will go back to 50.

There are a couple of bills in Congress to increase the numerical limits on translators again. And there are others to give support to Iraqi refugees.

I don’t know what the exact number should be, or all the answers on refugees. Here’s what caught my eye, though, from the comments on Public Law 110-36:

I am a United States Army NCO and I whole heartedly support the SIV Program. I have already sponsored 5 from Afghanistan, 2 already here and 3 more waiting for quota slots to open. I’ve gotten both here on the ground their green cards, SSAN [ed. SSN?], and jobs… they have since moved out of my house to make room for my next 3 and they are doing great. Most of the “TERPS” have friends who will sponsor them at their own expense (like myself) and the government need not spend anything. It’s just the right thing to do for those who have helped us…

We know what servicemember pay is like. We know that members of our military are already discharging their patriotic duty. But here’s an NCO who goes even further and gives space in his home to people in need, people who have already served the U.S., and who want to live a little bit of the American dream.

Why does he help them? “It’s just the right thing to do . . .”

Americans like this make me proud to be an American.