Post-election, new hope for immigration reform
Gustavo Torres, director, Casa in Action, center, and others, chant during a rally of immigration rights organizations, including Casa in Action and Maryland Dream Act, in front of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 8, 2012, calling on President Barack Obama to fulfill his promise of passing comprehensive immigration reform.
/ AP Photo/Cliff OwenIn the aftermath of the presidential campaign and with pressing business awaiting them, Congress returns to work this week facing a landscape that, in many ways, remains unchanged: Democrats control the White House and the Senate, the House of Representatives is led by Republicans, and signs of gridlock are already brewing. Nevertheless, Democrats are already expressing confidence about reaching a deal on one of the most contentious and bitterly partisan legislative goals in recent memory: Immigration reform.
The desire for reform is hardly new: For years, Democrats, activists, and a handful of Republicans have pursued laws that would not only provide legal status and a pathway to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants, but also improve the nation's visa system and secure the border.
In recent years, though, these efforts have recently taken on an increasingly partisan nature. Many of the Republicans who supported comprehensive immigration reform in the past have backed away from that position, and the party itself has adopted a harsh tone toward undocumented immigrants: Where Democratic rhetoric includes a path for citizenship and sometimes amnesty, Republicans have often touted electric border fences and "self-deportation." The likelihood of passing reform legislation, once considered merely near-impossible, has over the last two years taken on epically bad odds.
In light of the GOP's electoral shellacking among Latino voters on Tuesday, however, Democrats are ready to put the issue back on the table - and they're banking on the possibility that Republicans can't afford to say no.
The key to GOP survival?
As the GOP contemplates a course forward following Mitt Romney's presidential defeat this week, much has been made of the party's "soul-searching" efforts to determine how to broaden its reach - particularly in light of Romney's staggering loss to President Obama among non-white voters. According to exit polls, much of Romney's support came from white males, of whom he won 62 percent, and white voters in general, of whom he won 59 percent overall.
While his support among African-Americans was dismal at 6 percent, it was Romney's 44-point loss among Hispanic voters that has caused the most immediate public stir. After all, unlike with African-American voters, Republicans have had some success building Latino support in the past: George W. Bush was able to win 44 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004, and McCain captured 31 percent in 2008 (Romney only pulled in 27 percent on Election Day). Meanwhile, the Latino population in America has grown exponentially: Latinos accounted for more than half of the U.S. population increase between 2000 and 2010, according to the 2010 census.
Unsurprisingly, Romney's weakness among Latinos cost him dearly on Tuesday, particularly in battleground states like Nevada, Colorado, Virginia and Florida, all of which boast large - and growing - Hispanic communities. If future Republican candidates don't perform better among that group, red states like Arizona and even Texas could be on a path to become battlegrounds themselves.
As Democrats and activists see it, the GOP knows it will fade into irrelevance if it doesn't work doubly hard to regain lost ground among Hispanic voters. Which means that blocking comprehensive immigration legislation - which most Hispanics support - is not a badge the party should be eager to wear.
"I'm hoping there are some savvy Republicans who say, 'Let's deal with this issue, let's get it off the table so we can compete for the Latino vote on issues like values and the economy and the American dream, where I think Republicans could be competitive," said Arturo Vargas, executive director of NALEO Educational Fund. But "as long as this is their albatross," he said, "as long as we keep hearing things like self-deportation and no and no and no, it's just going to be the monkey on their back that drags them down with regard to Latinos."
Republicans aren't the only ones who have a political motivation for tackling immigration reform: Mr. Obama continues to take heat from Latinos for having so far failed to deliver on his 2008 campaign promise to do so, and reform activists believe that the president has a newfound responsibility to making good on that promise considering that Latinos effectively delivered him a second term.
"Latino voters were driven to the polls this year because they supported a student's goal to be the first one in their family to go to college, a worker's right to be treated with respect, a family's dream to stay united in the only country they call home," said Daniel Rodriguez, member of the National Coordinating Committee of United We Dream Network, in a conference call yesterday.
"We proved what we could do with that renewed sense of motivation," he said, referencing Mr. Obama's June 15 mandate halting deportation of many young undocumented immigrants. "Now we have a check to cash."
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http://americhy.com/i-love-you-america/
His reform:
Required employers to attest to their employees' immigration status. Made it illegal to knowingly hire or recruit unauthorized immigrants.
Granted amnesty to certain seasonal agricultural illegal immigrants.
Granted amnesty to illegal immigrants who entered the United States before January 1, 1982 and had resided there continuously. About three million illegal immigrants were granted amnesty.
It is long overdue to arrest HR. Personal, Management and CEOs, freezing all their banks accounts, retirement accounts, take their homes, cars and so-on under the Asset Forfeiture Law. Seizing all their ill-gotten gains because they knowingly hire illegals and profited from it, using Asset Forfeiture Law seize all money from stock holders as well, with pending arrests for being part of the cartels that broke the laws put into place by Reagan.
Instead, here we are again!
The same watered-down promises Reagan made, never enforced and Amnesty again for those lawbreakers from other countries.
Want drop unemployment to below 5 or 4 percent? Want to draw-down on the deficit?
It is simple:
Use what is currently in place: Social Security in conjunction with the IRS, do a computer search for oddities with Social Security numbers and then go after everyone involved.
Arrest and prosecute HR. Personal, Management and CEOs. Freeze all their banks accounts, retirement accounts, and take their homes, cars under the Asset Forfeiture Law. Seizing all their ill-gotten gains because they knowingly hire illegals and profited from it, and using Asset Forfeiture
Law seize all money from stock holders as well.
With millions of illegals fleeing the United States to avoid prison, think of all the jobs that will suddenly open-up? Unemployment could easily drop below 5 percent.
And with arrest and prosecution of employers who did the illegal hiring, companies will be very careful and confirm a person's legal status prior to hiring.
We were promised the Reagan reforms was a cure-all to Illegals in this country... Here we are again, three decades later.
Enough, is enough...
Start the arrests and Asset Forfeitures - Illegal Immigration issue is then solved.
And of course the GOP will then lose the Hispanic community for another generation, thus handing the presidency to the Democrats once again. Tricky problem for you hardliners.
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Diddy sounds like the typical teabagger spewing terms like marxist, socialist, communist and I doubt that they know what any of them mean. They just parrot what they hear fpr fox news, rush limbaugh, beck, hannity etc. Idiots all!
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No con, an idiot is someone who doesn't think a tax cut raises tax revenue and stimulates job growth as your friend and fellow idiot shallow/republicon was so gracious as to point out for us.