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GUESTS: Lee Siu Hin, National Coordinator of the National Immigrant Solidarity Network, Arnoldo Garcia, Enforcement Project Director with the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights

As the House and Senate recess this week, immigrant rights advocates around the country are taking a good hard look at SB 1438, a bill passed by the Senate in recent weeks. While the bill includes a path to citizenship for 12 million undocumented immigrants, that path includes a $5000 fine and a requirement that they return home before coming back to the US. The bill also imposes an untested merit-point system that narrows the channels through which family members can immigrate. And it calls for hundreds of thousands of temporary guest workers to work for two years in the US, take a year off, then repeat that twice before going home forever. For many immigrant rights advocates, the bill is a disappointment, yet right wing talk show hosts have also denounced it, labeling it an “Amnesty Bill.” A New York Times/CBS News poll last week found that a large majority of Americans want to change current immigration laws to allow undocumented immigrants to gain legal status and to create a new guest worker program to meet future labor demands.