Five times in this century, Republican special interests, such as plantation owners, have pushed for amnesty to reward past illegal immigrants and to encourage future ones. One big problem the Republican brain trust has repeatedly faced, however, is that the word "amnesty" polls poorly among law-abiding American citizens. So, they've preferred hand-waving words like "reform" to hide their amnesty plan.
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| Why they come here |
Clearly, illegal immigrants come here because they love the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.
Coincidentally, "pathway to citizenship" has the advantage of increasing the number of Democratic voters in the middle run.
After more than year of Democrats advising Republicans that putting illegal aliens on the path to citizenship was -- would we lie to you? -- in the best electoral interests of GOP politicians, enough Republican House members have apparently put their foot down to kill the chances of the Path to Citizenship passing in the next six weeks.
But the future is long. So, now, Democrats are talking about amnesty without a path to citizenship (at least not in this bill). After all, now they tell us, illegal aliens don't care about being American citizens. They just want to live here. So, the Democrats are now falling back on Plan B: amnesty with helotry. This would drive an even bigger wedge between the interests of GOP politicians and the interests of voters, so it could be a slam dunk in Congress.
From the NYT:
Illegal Immigrants Divided Over the Importance of Citizenship
By JULIA PRESTON
Glendy Martínez is waiting anxiously to see if Congress will ever pass legislation to allow immigrants like her without papers to stay in the country legally. But frankly, she says, she does not care if it will include any promise of citizenship.
With the earnings from her job in a Houston hair salon, Ms. Martínez, 30, is supporting one child born in Texas and three others she left behind in her home country, Nicaragua.
“So many people back there depend on those of us who are here,” she said. “It would be such a help if we could work in peace and go back sometimes to see our children.”
As President Obama looks for a way to salvage a broad overhaul of the immigration system, he opened the door this week to a piecemeal series of smaller bills as a way of getting past the objections of the Republican-run House, which refused to take up the comprehensive measure that the Senate passed in June.
But as far as Ms. Martínez and many other immigrants are concerned, one of House Republicans’ sharpest disagreements with the Senate and the White House — over a path to citizenship for those here illegally — should not be that hard to resolve.
“For many undocumented people, citizenship is not a priority,” said Oscar A. Chacon, executive director of the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities, a network of immigrant organizations that includes many foreigners here without papers. “What they really care about is a solution that allows them to overcome their greatest vulnerabilities.”
The Senate bill includes a 13-year pathway for 11.7 million illegal immigrants that ends with a chance to naturalize. President Obama and other supporters of that measure insist that any alternative would create a disenfranchised underclass. Many House Republicans reject the Senate path as rewarding immigrants who broke the law. But a growing number of Republicans say they remain ready to work on immigration and could consider legalization, if it did not involve any direct route to citizenship.
For foreigners like Ms. Martínez — those who cannot get a driver’s license in most states and live with gnawing worries about being fired or deported — that would be enough. They aspire to become Americans but would easily settle for less if they could work and drive legally, and visit relatives outside the United States. ...
In the House, several dozen conservatives reject any legalization, calling it amnesty for outlaws.
Only controversial (i.e., crazy) people call it "amnesty." But if it's not going to be a "a path to citizenship" anymore, and we're all agreed to never ever call it "amnesty," what do we call it?
But Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio and other House leaders continue to urge Republicans to show they can fix an immigration system that is broken. Many Republicans say legalization, along with tough border and workplace enforcement, is the only practical way to deal with unauthorized immigrants who have settled in the country.
Mr. Boehner said the House will take up the issues next year in smaller bills framed by principles being devised by the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Representative Robert W. Goodlatte of Virginia. Mr. Goodlatte has said that he wants to “find the appropriate legal status for unlawful immigrants,” but that he would not grant them any special path to becoming Americans. Mr. Obama on Tuesday told The Wall Street Journal in an interview conducted before business executives, “If they want to chop that thing up into five pies, as long as all five pieces get done, I don’t care what it looks like.”
Republicans point to low rates of naturalization among some legal immigrants — 36 percent among Mexicans who are eligible, according to the Pew Research Center — to say that citizenship is not vital for those groups. Some Republicans also worry that by offering citizenship, they could be creating millions of future Democratic voters.
Several Republicans are trying to come up proposals their caucus could accept. Mr. Goodlatte and the majority leader, Representative Eric Cantor, also from Virginia, have been working on a bill with a path to citizenship limited to young undocumented immigrants.
Representative Darrell Issa of California, the powerful chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said he had been writing a hybrid bill that would give illegal immigrants a six-year provisional status, allowing those with family ties here to naturalize eventually through regular channels, and creating a long-term guest worker program for others.
Thanks, Darrell.
Representative Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida is proposing earned citizenship for a broader group. And three Republicans have signed on to a bill by House Democrats with a pathway mirroring the Senate’s.
Speaking on Tuesday to Hispanic evangelicals in Washington, Representative Luis V. Gutierrez, a Democrat from Illinois who is an ardent defender of a broad overhaul, urged supporters to be ready to compromise with Republicans and accept legalization only for some immigrants to protect them from deportation.
Well, if Rep. Gutierrez is for it, it's gotta be good.
Among Latinos, a growing electorate that both parties want to court, sentiment is strong. In a recent national survey by the Public Religion Research Institute, 67 percent of Latinos said immigrants here illegally should be allowed to become citizens if they met certain requirements, while 17 percent said they should only become legal residents.
So, the Democrats can just use it as a way to keep stirring up racial animus: "Those evil old white men don't think you are good enough to become American citizens!" etcetera etcetera You might think that Republicans would eventually catch on, but, evidently, this gag never gets old.
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36 comments:
Moot point Steve. Vdare reports via Federale that Obama will simply grant citizenship by fiat. Executive order.
Absent impeachment and conviction and a hard core patriot replacement President, its a done deal. America was finished, over, dead the moment Obama was elected. We warned you all.
Does this damned amnesty ever die?
Well look on the bright side.
At least people like Obama's Aunt Zeituni can become citizens more easily.
Yay!
Ideally
-if they turn themselves in give them a five year working visa that can be used anytime over the next fifteen years. Perhaps they could even transfer this to others so that they could go home and sell the work permit in their home country.
-end birthright citizenship.
-long prison sentences for those who hire illegals and force them to work in conditions that are not legal under health and safety regulations. Mild fines for those who simply hire illegals and treat them the same as American citizens.
Punish those who let them in and abuse them not the illegals themselves. The object should be to help the American people rather than hurt illegals.
AKAHorace
My girlfriend had a new patient today. A 24-year old Rwandan woman, 8 3/4 months pregnant, boarded a plane to Boston and, upon landing, was transported to the hospital straight from the airport. She gave birth to a rather unhealthy 6 lb. AMERICAN CITIZEN, who was placed in the pediatric ICU and on Mass Health (Medicaid) as soon as he cleared the womb, standard procedure here in the People's Commonwealth.
We're past the point of no return. I'm just glad I'm old enough to have seen the best of it in America.
The main hangup for any big comprehensive piece of immigration legislation is this:
In D.C. right now, you have de facto three political parties that want something different from immigration legislation.
Democrats: Citizenship for as many immigrants, legal and illegal, as quickly as possible, to help blue team at the ballot box as soon as possible.
RINOs: Legal forbearance of "deportation" (even though deportation is largely a chimera these days) and work permits for as many immigrants as possible, to drive down wages and salaries to help the RINO donor class, but with no possibility of a path to citizenship so that the newly "legalized" immigrants can't hurt red team at the ballot box.
TEA (sans Rubio): Enforcement first, and in the case of most of them, enforcement only. Some will advocate some form of quasi-legalization after genuine enforcement takes place, but that's not a majority of this caucus. Overall, this caucus constitutes a majority of House Republicans (a fact which is important in my upcoming analysis) and maybe around half of Senate Republicans.
If the only two factions were the first and the second, brokering a big comprehensive bill would be hard, because of the contradictory partisan concerns that each side brings. However, it would still be possible.
The huge hangup, though, is that there is the third faction. That's important because: 1. Red team controls the House, 2. The Hastert Rule. No big bill was going to make it through the House that didn't get a majority of Republicans, and like I said above, a majority of House Republicans aren't interested in amnesty or quasi-amnesty for their own sake. And 3. Since Boehner broke the Hastert Rule to break the most previous budget impasse, breaking it again to pass a big immigration bill over the objection of the majority of his own caucus was politically impossible.
Going from here, we'll have to watch out for three possibilities:
1. Salami slicing. The RINOs try to slice up a large bill into tiny slices and slip each tiny slice into an unrelated bill that would pass anyway.
2. An Obama EO. The problem there is that all Obama can do with an EO is stop enforcement of immigration law. Well, how is that any different from what he has already been doing? Non-enforcement of immigration law has been de rigueur since Eisenhower left office. I don't think Obama will issue an EO, because an EO that seems like amnesty will be bad PR for his party. What he will do is what he and every President before him going back to JFK has done: Stealth amnesty via non-enforcement of immigration law.
3. Next year's elections. If by some fluke the Democrats can win the House, then the TEA faction is suddenly irrelevant in the matter, and it's simply down to Democrats and RINOs trying to iron out a big bill.
Wouldn't the helots kids be citizens if born in the US?
The first Tokyo Rose-ish comment is completely wrong. It's absurdly easy to stop amnesty. All you have to do is severely impact the career of one amnesty supporter over it, and that will send a message to the rest.
Some pols would support child labor if they were paid for it and could get away with it. But, they don't, because they know that supporting it would impact their careers. Look at the pushback Newt got from his janitors comment, imagine what would have happened if he'd promoted 10-year-olds working in sheet metal factories.
So, you make supporting illegal immigration and amnesty that toxic.
P.S. One of the things I do is try to undercut amnesty fans on Twitter. For instance, I search for those who chat with @JuliaPrestonNYT and then send one of those other people a tailored tweet pointing out how bad she is. The problem with her is that almost all those who tweet her are completely unpersuadable, but the same isn't true of most.
P.P.S. Moving this site to a self-hosted Drupal or Wordpress installation and using Disqus would solve any commenting problems and would also reduce reliance on the Googleplex.
Vdare reports via Federale that Obama will simply grant citizenship by fiat. Executive order.
He cannot do that. It would not be legal. He has (apparently) the right not to enforce the laws, but he can't confer on them some positive status without congressional authorization. It would be no different than unilaterally sentencing someone to death (ignore those drones circling overhead) or doubling tax rates.
Several Republicans are trying to come up proposals their caucus could accept. Mr. Goodlatte and the majority leader, Representative Eric Cantor, also from Virginia, have been working on a bill with a path to citizenship limited to young undocumented immigrants.
What compelling reason is there for Republicans to do this? Is it the moral thing to do? Do they think they'll get credit for it in the long run?
Once again it illustrates how many Republicans are willing to give up a great deal in exchange for absolutely nothing.
Pass the DREAM Act, fine. But what do we get in return? An end to birthright citizenship? An end to the diversity lottery? An end to family reunification? What do we get? Damnit, do these people even know how to negotiate?
A lot of Republicans foolishly conflate immigration policy with immigrant policy.
So they're falling for bad advice: "you can compensate for legalizing millions by being a real hardass...make 'em wait, give 'em a bunch of fees and forms, deny them citizenship!"
Worst of both worlds. Let everyone in, then treat them like Wal-Mart shoppers or airline passengers in coach. They'll love us!
Perhaps that should be thier new motto: A Path to Helotry.
Or perhaps; A Path to Indentured Servitude.
"Whiskey said...
Absent impeachment and conviction and a hard core patriot replacement President, its a done deal. America was finished, over, dead the moment Obama was elected. We warned you all."
If Romney had won, an amnesty would already have been passed. Obama's election is not the cause of America's demise. It is a symptom of it.
Waitasec. Three kids there and one here? So that's either three kids without their mother and father, or one kid with a different father. If she was so focused on helping her kids back home you'd think she could have avoided getting knocked up again.
"Matthew said...
What do we get? Damnit, do these people even know how to negotiate?"
The Republicans? Sure, they know how to negotiate. They'll happily debase your citizenship for the benefit of the US Chamber of Commerce and its' members.
Will the millions of helots/indentured laborers be eligible for - or pay into - Obamacare?
In the last week I read (can't recall where I read it or I'd have included the source here) that illegal imminvader colonist parasites and legal immigrants send $123-billion per year out of the U.S. to their native lands. No wonder, then, that these people defaulted on the high-risk mortgages that Angelo Mozilo & his cohorts were signing them to.
Our Dear Rulers keep proving to us that they are hell bent on contriving more and more ways to keep pushing us along the Path To National Suicide.
Absent impeachment and conviction and a hard core patriot replacement President, its a done deal. America was finished, over, dead the moment Obama was elected. We warned you all.
And we warned YOU. YOU were given the keys to power after the 2002 midterms. And what did you do?
You invaded a country that had nothing to do with 9-11, got us bogged down in two wars/nation-building disasters, enacted more free trade deals to gut our workforce, grew the government beast with no child left behind and prescription drug benefits, left our borders unguarded, stopped enforcing immigration work rules and almost got us into a war with a major nuclear power.
In short you made Obama look downright presidential. He could never have been elected had YOU not screwed the pooch.
To act as if everything has gone downhill because of Obama is preposterous. Obama is not the cause of this nation's decline. He is the result.
It's absurdly easy to stop amnesty. All you have to do is severely impact the career of one amnesty supporter over it, and that will send a message to the rest.
Excellent point. Look at the 180 Rubio was forced to do after backlash against his Gang of Eight dalliance. All of their strongly held convictions go right out the window at the first hint that their magical lives on the Hill might be taken away.
The only Americans politicians
know exits are state and local government workers, the citizenship thing means illegal aliens can get pensioned government jobs. But it is all moot anyway, the children will be adults soon enough. Deportation is a serious enough threat to keep the illegals in line, their children will face no such threat.
Maudlin illegals? How about the argument offered by D.C.'s own Sen. Reid (an all-purpose rejoinder if I've ever heard one). Take it up with Managua City Hall, lady--we got problems of our own out here. Mau-mauing is going to see diminishing returns now that the dilemma of having a prosperous, solvent society has been solved
"The first Tokyo Rose-ish comment is completely wrong. It's absurdly easy to stop amnesty. All you have to do is severely impact the career of one amnesty supporter over it, and that will send a message to the rest."
I give you Chris Cannon, Bob Bennett, and pretty much every candidate in the 2012 Republican primary who said anything remotely sympathetic towards illegal immigrants, esp. Rick Perry. All defeated.
Result? Mitt Romney selected Paul Asshole Ryan - an ardent supporter of open borders who toured California in 1994 with Jack Asshole Kemp campaigning against Prop 187 - to be his running mate, and we have another putsch for amnesty going on today.
You don't understand: the money is almost 100% on their side. The billionaires, whatever else they may disagree on, all agree they want vast importation of slaves to hold down their labor costs and keep American workers from getting too uppity.
And until those Republicans who oppose them begin taking the fight to the neofeudalists, they will never be set straight. Why do middle class Republicans still support tax cuts for the rich? Why do we give two shits about cutting or eliminating the estate tax? Why do we oppose increases in the minimum wage?
Whiskey said: We warned you all.
Hunsdon said: That's some funny shit right there, Whiskey. Was that when you were also warning that the Big O was going to declare martial law and rule the universe from beyond the grave? (Extra points for the John Carpenter reference.)
Look at the 180 Rubio was forced to do after backlash against his Gang of Eight dalliance.
There's some doubt there. It's more likely that Rubio has just changed tactics, understanding that the only way to get an amnesty passed is to have the House go to conference with the Senate where they will get taken to the cleaners. I still suspect that Rubio would gladly give your right arm to get an amnesty through.
If Rubio gets amnesty through, I think it's likely he'll switch parties.
"Glendy" is a really nice name.
"Glendy" reminds me that the junk names of Latin America are as far as I know never commented on in writing.
My friends in Spain in the '90s were obsessively amused by the tendency of the lower classes there to borrow names from the Mexican soap operas they spent all day watching--names the Mexican soap-opera writers had themselves borrowed from what they fancied to be fancy Americans. So suddenly in Seville's traditional gypsy district Triana, there came to be a lot of little girls named e.g. María Vanessa.
Like our own downscale Americans, though, women in Latin America have run completely amok in the naming department. With surprising industry they've unleashed their own unfortunate inventiveness and managed to pollute the realm of boys' names as well--as anyone who pays attention to Major League Baseball can attest. And so we have not only Glendy, but also Endy, Wandy and Jhonny...
It's a remarkable phenomenon--and remarkably unremarked-upon.
And we warned YOU. YOU were given the keys to power after the 2002 midterms. And what did you do?...
Indeed. Bush was horrible. And then they nominated crazy old John McCain, openly contemptuous of his white constituency. Then they nominated Romney, member of a kooky sect whose leadership doesn't even believe in their founding documents. Romney would have had an amnesty bill drafted by Day Two.
Republicans are so bad it's got to be intentional.
"Why do middle class Republicans still support tax cuts for the rich? Why do we give two shits about cutting or eliminating the estate tax? Why do we oppose increases in the minimum wage?" - While the first and the last are the product of cargoculting, the estate tax will eventually be employed against the middle class, and continue to not hit the superwealthy at all(loopholes and all that).
Well, most of the political right treats people like garbage too. They want a lot of tech vistas and always want to cut welfare even if a poor white works at Walmart and don't want them to get a rise because Walmart can't afford it.. I suspect the Democrats but I'm tired of the Tea party right as well.
I guess it's give and take.
Since Democrats in the 90s helped the GOP with 'free trade', Republicans must help Democrats with 'open borders'.
But it's funny how both are turning out to help Democrats more than Republicans. The best and most profitable globalist opportunities went to Liberals, and most of the newcomers vote Democratic.
If the GOP had at least come out on top with 'free trade', it might be a decent trade off. Imagine if the richest and most powerful areas of the US that profited most from globalism were conservative and/or Republican.
But even the winners of 'free trade' policies were Jews, homos, and urban liberals.
Or, if most Hispanics at least voted for the GOP, that would be some consolation. But conservatives lost the economic competition to Liberals and they are losing the immigrant votes to Democrats as well.
GOP and conservatives really don't have a clue. They don't know how to play this game.
If the GOP had at least come out on top with 'free trade', it might be a decent trade off. Imagine if the richest and most powerful areas of the US that profited most from globalism were conservative and/or Republican.
Well, you forgot, Oil men from Texas, the Koch brothers and so forth. Not all the wealthy are democrats. In Southern Calif the wealthy live in Newport Beach are sometimes Republican. In Sugar land area of Texas the wealthiest are Republican. Just because the tech people are democratic doesn't mean all the wealthy people are Democratic. On of the wealthiest persons in Southern California is Don Bren ahead of the Irvine Company, a Republican. Rush Limbaugh makes over 40 million a year, Rush is a multi-millionaire and makes more than most corporate executives. Also, Boeing a well to do company gives more money to Republicans than Democrats. Same goes for Disney at least in Anaheim it gives more to Republicans than Democrats.
" Some Republicans also worry that by offering citizenship, they could be creating millions of future Democratic voters. "
Are they nuts? Citizenship, Schmizenship. Give them driver's licenses and they will be voting Democrat in the next election.
Voting is trivial for anyone who wants to, citizen or not. Motor voter, remember?
Most Mexicans don't became citizens, less than 40 percent of illegal immigrants and legal immigrant Mexicans do. Asians are more likely, this is why you don't see Republicans trying to court their vote. The Democrats have many Asians like the Chinese and Indians back from Clinton's presidency.
Well as for Whiskley he needs to go to a Lincoln Club of Orange County meeting. A liberal went there pretending he was a conservative and a Mexican member of the Lincoln Club stated that the Lincoln Club of Orange County supports at least legalization of many Hispanics to do cleaning jobs and fast food and car wash jobs in Orange County.
"the estate tax will eventually be employed against the middle class, and continue to not hit the superwealthy at all(loopholes and all that)."
It's not likely to hit the middle class anytime soon, if ever. Currently the first $5.25 million of your estate is untaxed. That's far beyond what most members of the middle class will be leaving their heirs.
If the superwealthy have full-proof methods of avoiding the tax, why are they fighting so hard to get rid of it?
"Then they nominated Romney, member of a kooky sect whose leadership doesn't even believe in their founding documents. Romney would have had an amnesty bill drafted by Day Two."
Few if any leaders of the LDS Church have ever suggested they don't believe in the Church's "founding documents" (i.e., the Book of Mormon).
Romney has shown with his initial endorsement of the 2006 amnesty, with his selection of Paul Ryan as running mate, and with his endorsement of several open borders pols, including Sen. Bob Bennett, where his real views probably are. But he is smart enough not to have contaminated his first term with an amnesty. He would have chosen - like Bush, like Clinton, like Bush, like Obama - not to enforce our immigration laws.
There are rumors that one of Mitt Romney's sons may challenge Sen. Mike Lee in 2016. The establishment still hasn't forgiven Lee for knocking off Bennett back in 2010.
There are rumors that one of Mitt Romney's sons may challenge Sen. Mike Lee in 2016. The establishment still hasn't forgiven Lee for knocking off Bennett back in 2010.
Sorry, Lee is not a hero, he sign with Chuck Schumter an investment vista which has helped Chinese buy more US companies and more real estate. The guy is a second Ted Cruz type which means that he will bring in thousands a year to take tech jobs. Probably, Romney son is not as bad as Lee on some immigration. Lee is the Typical Tea Party right type which means slightly better on illegal immigration and even worst on tech vistas. I say good bye to both Mike Lee and Ted Cruz.
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