New Immigration Reform Proposals Take Shape
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2013-01-29/new-immigration-reform-proposals-take-shape
A bipartisan group of U.S. senators announces an immigration reform plan. President Barack Obama is expected to lay out his own proposal on Tuesday. Diane and her guests discuss pathways to citizenship, border security and other key immigration issues.
Guests
Angela Kelley
vice president for immigration policy and advocacy at the Center for American Progress.
Mark Krikorian
executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies.
Manu Raju
senior congressional reporter at Politico.
Comments
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The overwhelming majority of resident visas, all but practically the two first two categories of employment based immigration, subject the fate of the applicant to the country or family of origin or to a market of sham marriages, a system of castes that is a stain to the memory of Alexander Hamilton, founding father born in the Caribbean who would have been an illegal immigrant under the current law (as he would’ve come as an student and violated the double intention clause). I am afraid that we are going to lose a precious chance to honor his memory giving the 11 million illegal immigrants a chance to prove their character despite their caste of origin.
The misinformation spread by anti-immigrant groups and the poor answers given by pro-immigrant groups have only hurt this debate. Consider, for instance, the myth of the line jumpers. Actually for some applicants, i.e. an Austrian, there’s no real line. For those who meet the caste criteria, there’re different lines, depending on their caste of origin, and for those who were born in the wrong or country, there is simply no line. Amazingly, the proposal of some Republicans is to send them back to that imaginary line to apply again even though they are illegal because they didn’t belong to one of the castes blessed by the current law in the first place.
We need a moral immigration reform that honors our Founders honoring character over caste and efficient in terms of the needs of the labor demand, so we don’t end with another 11 million immigrants after some years. Enforcement-only, enforcement by attrition and other sadistic approaches are not just ineffective. They let us punish people defenseless people for having been born in the wrong caste. Worse, they are alienating the same Hispanic community that will be deciding elections in a few decades. Such rejection may end up in Hispanics, thus detached from the mainstream culture, embracing charlatans skilful in the Latin American ways of doing politics.
You'll never hear this immigration story in the news –
A close friend of mine is a 75 year old German woman who, more than 25 years ago, applied to become a citizen of the US. She has been patiently and respectfully “waiting in line” and following all laws. The law states she must spend no more than six months at a time here, then she must leave the country for a while before returning. For years she's been doing this, though she certainly would like not to have to leave every six months.
She has good private health insurance which will cover her health costs in the US after she becomes a citizen, so she won't use Medicare. She is not only self-sufficient, but is very much a contributing member of American society. She's been doing volunteer work here and donating to charities in the US for many years.
She recently applied for an extension on her visa in order to stay in the US beyond the six months in order to take care of the medical needs of her late husband's cousin (a US citizen) with whom she lives. Since she had never applied for an extension before, she went online to learn how, and became a victim of a fraudulent site which claimed to be an official US government site to take care of issuing extensions. She sent a fee to them, and lost over 400.00 to the fake site, as well as many hours of time trying to untangle the mess. She is still working on it!
The media, generally, has much empathy for the millions of illegals living in this country. We are called racist by some if we don't support and “respect” them! Meanwhile, thousands of law abiding people such as my friend patiently wait in a long line for years to become a legal US citizen.
What is wrong with this picture?
This is certainly a difficult issue on one hand we as american citizens have a real need for the labor force that is provided by illegal immigrants. On the other hand giving preferential treatment to law breakers while many people follow the rules is ridiculous, should we also give extra money to people that commit fraud against social security, and make the law abiding citizens wait longer to claim benefits. Or should we give drunk drivers the sole right to use our roads during rush hour, the rest of use can wait to drive between 7:00 and 9:00 PM. How is it okay in this case to throw out the law but not in other cases?
Here's a suggestion for each illegal immigrant found we deport them back to there country of origin and allow one more person from that country to enter legally. It creates a 0 net sum and it punishes the law breakers while incentivizing the proper methodology. Also if you came to the country illegally after the age of 18 you are barred from reentry for life. They are after all criminals at that point and we don't naturalize criminals.
If you are consciously defending a law that gave to immigrants a different set of rules than those that affected the Great European Immigration, yes, you're a racist. Nevertheless, most Americans' contact with the immigration law has been through episodes of Family Guy or The Simpsons. If you have to abide by immoral laws to show character, Rosa Parks would be known as a criminal and not as a hero. Your German friend should've had a fair chance to stay because she had shown good charecter (volunteering, donating, learning the language, etc.), not because she was German.
If you are consciously defending a law that gave to immigrants a different set of rules than those that affected the Great European Immigration, yes, you're a racist. Nevertheless, most Americans' contact with the immigration law has been through episodes of Family Guy or The Simpsons. If you have to abide by immoral laws to show character, Rosa Parks would be known as a criminal and not as a hero. Your German friend should've had a fair chance to stay because she had shown good character (volunteering, donating, learning the language, etc.), not because she was German.
Unfortunately you're not aware that most immigration violations are now administrative violations, not criminal offenses. For you character seems to be irrelevant when talking about brown immigrants not born in the right cast (what Kennedy called accidents of birth). Unfortunately knowledge is not a condition to take part in this debate and bigotry is not a cause to remove citizenship to somebody born in a country which rebelled against the British Crown, among other reasons, for its immigration policies and banned nobility titles in its Constitution to show its preference for character over caste.
You would've made of Rosa Parks a felon; of Alexander Hamilton an illegal alien.
I'm sure you would not endorse a law banning blacks or browns from driving at any hour. Let's get first a moral and efficient immigration standard, one that gives a fair chance to illegal immigrants to prove whether they're worthy of staying here, no matter their caste of birth, and then let's enforce that standard. For most illegal immigrants to "abide" by the law would've implied to be born again in the right family or country. There's no en exam like in the Simpsons. Actually, for most immigrants character is irrelevant and gives you no preference in any line. Actually, such line doesn't even exist if you think of one line where everybody takes his place according to the moment when he arrived.
Is it Okay to decide on the fate of 11 million people without information, as if you were deciding something trivial? Are the lives of brown immigrants so insignificant that their fate does not deserve a serious debate?
I agree with your description Alfredo; just not your conclusion. I think most would agree that there are hundreds of millions of people who would like to become US citizens. Would we agree that the number of people who would like entry exceeds ouur capacity to integrate them into our society?
If we agree that there needs to be limitations; what should those limitations be? First come, first serve? Prioritizing by country? Race? Gender? While it is fair to criticize; to offer no reasonable alternative is on little help. That the system is broken is agreed by all sides. But what is the solution?
People are not being penalized for being in the "wrong caste". People face penalties because they violate a law that has been passed by our congress and signed into law by our president. These laws have been tried in our courts and found to be acceptable under our constitution. Do we allow people to ignore the law because they are poor? Because in their country of origin they face hardships? Where do you draw the line?
We may disagree abouth the structure of these laws; but that doesn't give either one of us the right to ignore them. Use the political process to change the law. Don't reward those who knowingly violate the law.
Slavery was once endorsed by the Supreme Court but that didn't made slavery right. With time we corrected that mistake. Having a system of castes in the law doesn't make it moral or efficient.
The solution is to set a standard of the right kind of immigrant that is allowed to come according to kid of citizen we want to share our country and then let them compete for the visas, get into a ranking according to whether they apply to be guest workers, immigrants, skilled immigrants or unskilled immigrants. An civics and English exam could be a key element of that exam. Once here, they would have to earn their permanent legal residence by volunteering, improving their education, etc. International students take exams of that kind to come. Immigrants would have to pay for the process. The number of visas would be determined by the needs of the labor market as established by the Department of Labor. Honest family reunification would take place through visas similar to those spouses of H!B visa holders have. It would just require to adapt that know how in order to get an immigration system that makes us proud.
When you have a immoral law, you do the right thing. You change the law and give a fair chance to those affected by it.
If we punished people who violated an immoral law, we should've kept slavery for slaves who violated the law by escaping.
Slavery was once endorsed by the Supreme Court but that didn't made slavery right. With time we corrected that mistake. Having a system of castes in the law doesn't make it moral or efficient.
The solution is to set a standard of the right kind of immigrant that is allowed to come according to kid of citizen we want to share our country and then let them compete for the visas, get into a ranking according to whether they apply to be guest workers, immigrants, skilled immigrants or unskilled immigrants. A civics and English exam could be a key element of that exam. Once here, they would have to earn their permanent legal residence by volunteering, improving their education, etc. International students take exams of that kind to come. Immigrants would have to pay for the process. The number of visas would be determined by the needs of the labor market as established by the Department of Labor. Honest family reunification would take place through visas similar to those spouses of H!B visa holders have. It would just require to adapt that know how in order to get an immigration system that makes us proud.
When you have a immoral law, you do the right thing. You change the law and give a fair chance to those affected by it.
If we punished people who violated an immoral law, we should've kept slavery for slaves who violated the law by escaping.
Slavery was once endorsed by the Supreme Court but that didn't made slavery right. With time we corrected that mistake. Having a system of castes in the law doesn't make it moral or efficient.
The solution is to set a standard of the right kind of immigrant that is allowed to come according to kid of citizen we want to share our country and then let them compete for the visas, get into a ranking according to whether they apply to be guest workers, immigrants, skilled immigrants or unskilled immigrants. A civics and English exam could be a key element of that procedure. Once here, they would have to earn their permanent legal residence by volunteering, improving their education, etc. International students take exams of that kind to come. Immigrants would have to pay for the process. The number of visas would be determined by the needs of the labor market as established by the Department of Labor. Honest family reunification would take place through visas similar to those spouses of H!B visa holders have. It would just require to adapt that know how in order to get an immigration system that makes us proud.
When you have a immoral law, you do the right thing. You change the law and give a fair chance to those affected by it.
If we punished people who violated an immoral law, we should've kept slavery for slaves who violated the law by escaping.
So the motive for this immigration reform stuff is to get "The Hispanic Vote?" That seems just plain racist -- to assume that all Hispanics vote uniformly, and that they only care about a single issue. John McCain, I'm looking at you. You think that Republicans will get three quarters of the Hispanic vote next election (in 2012 Democrats got three quarters) just because you're now favoring immigration reform? That isn't realistic. Some Hispanics might be moved toward the Republican Party because of this. I doubt any will be alienated. But my guess is it won't make much difference at all.
Would be interesting to hear some discussion of the 14th Amendment issue. Most of my European friends are incredulous that children born here are automatically assigned US citizenship instead of that of their parents.
Shouldn't immigration reform address this issue? After all, the 14th Amendment was intended to assure citizenship to former slaves, not illegal immigrants.
My general feeling is if the two parties agree on something it is probably not in the interest of the people of the United States.
I don't know what to do about undocumented immigrants. I do know that disregarding the law, which seems to be the norm now in this country, is not the answer.
We cannot make life perfect for everyone- and by trying we are hurting people. There are not enough jobs for the people who are looking and allowing 11 million more to legally compete for those jobs is harming those who do follow the rules.
I am not a conservative republican. I consider myself liberal. I do not want to deport everyone and I certainly do not want people to be hurt and families to be ripped apart- but I refuse to believe that ignoring the rule of law is going to fix any problems.
We already have large groups of people who are immune from our legal system: bankers, the wealthy, politicians, gun dealers, etc.
By granting amnesty (and forcing a little bribe from everyone) we are not going to stem the flow of undocumented immigration. There is a group of wealthy in this country who will continue to import cheap labor to get richer- they will just bring in a new batch of people to abuse.
My general feeling is if the two parties agree on something it is probably not in the interest of the people of the United States.
I don't know what to do about undocumented immigrants. I do know that disregarding the law, which seems to be the norm now in this country, is not the answer.
We cannot make life perfect for everyone- and by trying we are hurting people. There are not enough jobs for the people who are looking and allowing 11 million more to legally compete for those jobs is harming those who do follow the rules.
I am not a conservative republican. I consider myself liberal. I do not want to deport everyone and I certainly do not want people to be hurt and families to be ripped apart- but I refuse to believe that ignoring the rule of law is going to fix any problems.
We already have large groups of people who are immune from our legal system: bankers, the wealthy, politicians, gun dealers, etc.
By granting amnesty (and forcing a little bribe from everyone) we are not going to stem the flow of undocumented immigration. There is a group of wealthy in this country who will continue to import cheap labor to get richer- they will just bring in a new batch of people to abuse.
My general feeling is if the two parties agree on something it is probably not in the interest of the people of the United States.
I don't know what to do about undocumented immigrants. I do know that disregarding the law, which seems to be the norm now in this country, is not the answer.
We cannot make life perfect for everyone- and by trying we are hurting people. There are not enough jobs for the people who are looking and allowing 11 million more to legally compete for those jobs is harming those who do follow the rules.
I am not a conservative republican. I consider myself liberal. I do not want to deport everyone and I certainly do not want people to be hurt and families to be ripped apart- but I refuse to believe that ignoring the rule of law is going to fix any problems.
We already have large groups of people who are immune from our legal system: bankers, the wealthy, politicians, gun dealers, etc.
By granting amnesty (and forcing a little bribe from everyone) we are not going to stem the flow of undocumented immigration. There is a group of wealthy in this country who will continue to import cheap labor to get richer- they will just bring in a new batch of people to abuse.
My general feeling is if the two parties agree on something it is probably not in the interest of the people of the United States.
I don't know what to do about undocumented immigrants. I do know that disregarding the law, which seems to be the norm now in this country, is not the answer.
We cannot make life perfect for everyone- and by trying we are hurting people. There are not enough jobs for the people who are looking and allowing 11 million more to legally compete for those jobs is harming those who do follow the rules.
I am not a conservative republican. I consider myself liberal. I do not want to deport everyone and I certainly do not want people to be hurt and families to be ripped apart- but I refuse to believe that ignoring the rule of law is going to fix any problems.
We already have large groups of people who are immune from our legal system: bankers, the wealthy, politicians, gun dealers, etc.
By granting amnesty (and forcing a little bribe from everyone) we are not going to stem the flow of undocumented immigration. There is a group of wealthy in this country who will continue to import cheap labor to get richer- they will just bring in a new batch of people to abuse.
This is not about immigration legal or otherwise. This is about the welfare state and the democrat party. The democrats want votes anyway they can get them, poor uneducated immigrants generally stay poor and uneducated. Certain establishment republicans, the usual suspect John McCain and Lindsey Graham want us to believe this will help republicans, the last republican amnesty didn't why would this be any different. The republican party for the sake of survival cannot compete on which party can deliver more welfare benefits, democrats will always win on handouts because they just don't care about anything except power. Permanently poor immigrants are democrats, the democrats know this and they will not do any better for illegals as they have done for black citizens. Keep them poor and voting democrat.
My general feeling is if the two parties agree on something it is probably not in the interest of the people of the United States.
I don't know what to do about undocumented immigrants. I do know that disregarding the law, which seems to be the norm now in this country, is not the answer.
We cannot make life perfect for everyone- and by trying we are hurting people. There are not enough jobs for the people who are looking and allowing 11 million more to legally compete for those jobs is harming those who do follow the rules.
I am not a conservative republican. I consider myself liberal. I do not want to deport everyone and I certainly do not want people to be hurt and families to be ripped apart- but I refuse to believe that ignoring the rule of law is going to fix any problems.
We already have large groups of people who are immune from our legal system: bankers, the wealthy, politicians, gun dealers, etc.
By granting amnesty (and forcing a little bribe from everyone) we are not going to stem the flow of undocumented immigration. There is a group of wealthy in this country who will continue to import cheap labor to get richer- they will just bring in a new batch of people to abuse.
I couldn't care less about the undocumented aliens that come from our southern border to be honest. They, by and large, take jobs that would otherwise not be filled. My biggest concern are the undocumented aliens from Canada/Europe that actually take professional high paying positions. These are jobs that we can and would fill with qualified american citizens. So in reality it would appear that the person spewing considerations that only matter to the black and brown skinned individuals, his words not mine, is the true racist.
You are not a liberal if you advocate for justice and fairness but find that immoral laws are pretty acceptable when it's a brown immigrant who is at the losing end. A liberal would agree with getting a good standard and give everybody a fair chance, no matter where they were born or in what family. Consider another person saying that the XIV amendment was not thought for immigrants but for slaves only not because that's in the law, the comments of the founders, or the tradition in the courts but just because he wants to demonstrate what a tough conservative he is by sending colored infants to a legal limbo.
If the current system were moral and efficient, there would be no need to reform it.
Finally, the worst you can do to our electoral system is to alienate immigrants and so surrender them to charlatans skilful in the Latin American ways of making politics just because you alienated them thinking that you could get rid of their ugly brown faces just by wishing them away.
mnemecek wrote: "I couldn't care less about the undocumented aliens that come from our southern border to be honest. They, by and large, take jobs that would otherwise not be filled."
Ignorance is bliss!
Dan D. wrote:
mnemecek wrote: "I couldn't care less about the undocumented aliens that come from our southern border to be honest. They, by and large, take jobs that would otherwise not be filled."
Ignorance is bliss!
American farmers can't get american citizens to pick the fields without much higher wages which would result in much higher costs at the grocer. So in the long run it may be better for us to have the immigrant work force. Also try reading my whole post and you'll see my main point. That being that immigrants come from all over the world and the biggest impact in professional life is not typically from the southern border.
Alfredo wrote: " immoral laws "
This country allows more legal immigrants in than any other country. What IS immoral is to expect special treatment over others that have not broken the law. Criminal behavior should not be accepted or tolerated, everyone must play by the same rules or all laws are worthless.
That Greek guy that called in is a real doof. We may recall that many conservatives and Republicans are for immigration reform and amnesty for illegal Mexican aliens. Remember George W. Bush proposed this. Yes there were Republicans against it but there were just as many Democrats against it. Obama could have easily done it during his first two years. He had large majorities in both houses and it would have been relatively simple to get enough Republicans to vote for a reasonable plan such as Reagan signed in 87. It is Democrats who play perpetual politics with this. As long as there is no national plan there is no national responsibility and the burden falls heaviest on the border states. So easy to demagogue the politicians in those states. Lots of political gain to be had. Now we will have Obama the savior, the one, the chosen, to come in and heal the rift. What a bunch of suckers.
That Greek guy that called in is a real doof. We may recall that many conservatives and Republicans are for immigration reform and amnesty for illegal Mexican aliens. Remember George W. Bush proposed this. Yes there were Republicans against it but there were just as many Democrats against it. Obama could have easily done it during his first two years. He had large majorities in both houses and it would have been relatively simple to get enough Republicans to vote for a reasonable plan such as Reagan signed in 87. It is Democrats who play perpetual politics with this. As long as there is no national plan there is no national responsibility and the burden falls heaviest on the border states. So easy to demagogue the politicians in those states. Lots of political gain to be had. Now we will have Obama the savior, the one, the chosen, to come in and heal the rift. What a bunch of suckers.
shakazulu wrote: "That Greek guy that called in is a real doof."
He just hates republicans and as such he will say anything to support his hatred. To conflate legal and illegal immigration as is always done by the left, is nothing short of a deliberate lie and deception for political gain.
Notice how Diane hammered his point home by an email basically saying the same thing. Democrats including Diane are really nothing more than dishonest scum.
I am a "legal" immigrant and a registered republican. Yet this year I voted strictly for the democrats. It was my way of reminding the Republican Party that they represent more than just the very wealthy. Not only do they need to get in touch with the more progressive immigrations reforms but also with the needs of middle class Americans. The witch hunt of the few unions left without regards for the consequences while the CEO's continue to make millions/billions of dollars is plain greed. Until they make adjustments they will continue to alienate those of us that (used to) identify with their party philosophy.
gus wrote: I am a "legal" immigrant and a registered republican.
By what you wrote you are not a republican, certainly not conservative. If what you write is true, what you are experiencing is the fact that you are a liberal democrat that has come home.