Immigration Reform, Not Political Poker
Soon after the 2012 elections ended, a wave of predictable knee-jerk reactions followed. Political pundits, news reporters, and immigrant advocates credited the New America for President Obama’s re-election. The Republicans jumped out first. They quickly acknowledged the need for immigration reform. They began floating flawed proposals, like the ACHIEVE Act, and discussed the shift from their campaign postures.
Meanwhile the Democrats decided to take time off to celebrate their victory. For all the talk by Obama supporters about the urgency of immigration reform during the campaign, they did not feel the need to start work on relieving at least some of the stress imposed by current policies on immigrant families until after the Christmas break.
Rather than merely displaying a healthy distrust of their opponents’ overtures, coupled with affirmative proposals of their own, several liberals shrilly ridiculed the change in outlook of Republicans. Neither party’s response was surprising. The Republican gestures and Democratic Party delay were merely the opening partisanship acts of the next round of immigration reform debates.
When it comes to fixing our immigration system, immigrant families cannot afford such partisanship.
In my view as a Riverside immigration lawyer, I hope Democrat diehards who clamored for immigration reform before the election and high-strung Republican opponents of legalization do not retreat into partisanship shells for the next four years. Immigration reform should not be reduced to political poker.
The Danger Of Backroom Wheeling And Dealing Within 24 hours of polls closing on election day, several political experts declared immigration reform a done deal in 2013. My view differs. If meaningful immigration reform legislation happens, in 2013 or beyond, it will not take place without a lot of consistent blood, sweat, and tears by supporters.
To be clear, I believe immigration reform will happen. It’s not a question of if. It’s a question of when. And what.
When I suggested last spring that once the elections were over, the GOP might change their tune and take the lead on dealing the cards on immigration reform, most folks thought I had lost my political marbles. Actually, I was right on the mark.
The next move belongs to Obama. Yet, since the election, there has been an eerie silence by the president on immigration issues. Even Illinois Congressman Luis Gutierrez recently noted Obama’s post-election absence from immigration reform talks. He told the Hill, a Washington-based newspaper, while both the Senate majority leader and the House Speaker have indicated reform is a legislative priority, Obama has been missing in action.
Shortly after Gutierrez’s remarks, loyal Hispanics and Democrats rushed to the president’s defense, saying he will launch the campaign in January, before he is sworn into his second term. The reality is likely different. Most Washington insiders assert the president’s inauguration speech will set the tone. They expect him to place a strong emphasis on immigration reform.
The question remains, once his speech is concluded, whether the president will personally assume leadership on the issue or defer to others. In his first post-election press conference, Obama said, “My expectation is that we get a bill introduced and we begin the process in Congress very soon after my inauguration.”
This means the president wants Congress to go first.
Why not deal the deck?
Could Obama’s strategy, even after reelection, rest on a lingering fear of public backlash? By letting his opponents lay out their proposals, Obama can avoid setting forth his own detailed blueprint until the public reaction can be gauged. After all, several pundits suggest immigration reform has a one year window for success. By 2014, they emphasize, it will be asking too much for those in Congress to vote for immigration reform provisions which might lead to their defeat in the mid-term elections.
I do not necessarily agree with this sentiment. But such political cowardice is not uncommon.
The Contours Of Obama’s Immigration Reform What might an Obama reform package look like? Good question. A glimpse is perhaps provided by Obama’s May 10, 2011 speech in El, Paso, Texas, in which he outlined a four part plan:
- Enhance Border Security Operations And Equipment
- Impose Stricter Penalties Against Employers Of Undocumented Workers
- Implement Guest Worker Programs
- Create Paths To Legal Residency And Citizenship
Several important immigration issues are not part of this condensed formula.
Given the change in the public outlook over the past 18 months, it seems the president should be able to put together an expanded legislative package in the coming year. As a deportation defense lawyer, at minimum, I’d like to see revamping the immigration court and immigration detention systems added to the list.
However, there are signs the list may shrink, not expand, in the coming months.
In the weeks which have followed Obama’s reelection, some Democrats have voiced support for ensuring the country’s borders are secure before new legalization paths are made available for undocumented immigrants already living inside the U.S. In a nutshell, therein lies the potential for massive immigrant disappointment in 2013.
Nearly 410,000 immigrants, many with deep family ties, were deported last year. Immigration audits of businesses reached an all time record. The joint task force on prosecutorial discretion has disappeared. Under Obama’s watch, more money has been spent and more resources expended on border security than ever before.
What more is needed to appease xenophobic nativists, who supposedly lost at the polls in 2012? The border, quite frankly, can never be absolutely sealed. If this is the litmus test for immigration reform, no genuine compromise can be reached, no authentic progress can be made.
Legislation which denies immigrants a path to legalization, or only allows it under onerous regulations, is not properly classified as immigration reform. Until Republicans, Democrats, and the president alike demonstrate true commitment to immigrants and their families, I have no plans to carry a white flag.
This is not the time for political surrender.
Carlos Batara is an Immigration Trial Attorney. He writes “I refuse to accept laws unfairly slanted against immigrants… I have no intentions to put my hands up and surrender.”
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America is going onto the rocks because those in Congress are steering us blindly, not taking care of the major issues facing us? This country is spending far beyond its means and to proof it, one of the few rational Republicans namely Ron Paul is giving up in disgust and leaving his seat. Obama has become a dictator in the eyes of the TEA PARTY and millions of average citizens and refuses to give up his ideology of tax and spend. This president doesn’t seem to think the illegal alien invasion doesn’t affect you, think again? It might be a few extra pennies from the taxes you pay to the IRS, but it also affects you daily family life as your job in lower wages, poor working conditions, and the traffic you are confronted with every day on the ever increasing jammed highways of this country and the growing balkanization of our language. Then we have the DREAM ACT that contradicts the fundamental principles of our policies; passing presidential laws and abridging the House committees. The Dream act for example is the dire consequences of misinterpreting the edicts of the 14th Amendment. This Amendment was for the Emancipation of slaves, giving them the right to citizenship after the War Between the States. The Dream Act had a presidential passport to fulfillment, so it is what it is. But now all legal citizens and residents must involve themselves with the Birthright policy, or this unfair immigration will just continue, bring to our soil a more and more foreign children that we are forever paying. If laws must be changed, the “Rule of Law” must be invoked and no more illegal entrance given asylum and a fair farm bill allowing a moderate number of regulated aliens with temporary visas, but with no allowances to stay after their papers expire. All must be tracked; including overstays who fly into America.
Birthright Citizenship was never meant for every pregnant Mother’s baby that entered our country undetected and then claiming citizen birthright for their sons and daughters. The Illegal alien invader hasn’t climaxed, and everybody should envision the massive costs to the taxpayer in health, schooling and government voucher housing and other public services. The Dream Act is the failure of both spineless parties to build a rampart fence, between the magpie governments who are stealing our countries wealth, through not inhibiting cheap labor or our own inveterate business owners who silently welcome them. Priority should be our own legal populace, and those who ignore it should be incarcerated with huge fines. Senator Sessions has found that this dysfunctional Obama administration has been advertising in Mexico that FOOD STAMPS are available here through SNAP. This program disbursement has continued to rise and spending has quadrupled in just over a decade to $80 billion in 2011 as part as the Department of Agriculture. Senator Sessions stated that SNAP, is the fastest growing major program in the U.S. government today and that the USDA is refusing to answer questions about this ominous promotion in Mexico.
No passing the Amendment to the BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP BILL effects whether your children receives a decent education in the overcrowded schools, as your children are held back by the young who cannot speak English and need more tuition. The county health facilities are overrun with foreign nationals, which are not just identified with large cities, but now have spread to the most rural hospitals. Each day thousands of illegal aliens procure our Social Security numbers not only use it to steal jobs, but also can be identified with buying cars, real estate then reselling the goods, and then disappearing. My thoughts is some anonymous individual should accumulate a dozen or more Social Security numbers belonging to such apathetic Democratic Senator Harry Reid, Republican Speaker John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi and whatever politicians come to mind and go on a lucrative spending spree with these feeder documents. It might wake them up to the anxiety Americans go through, when they find their credit and lifestyle has been compromised, such as the equity in their home being stolen. Perhaps then they will make it their own crusade, to introduce a Social Security card that identifies the owner by thumb print or retinal scan.
While we all writhe under the growing federal deficit 16 TRILLION DOLLARS, all 50 states have been forced into the position of supporting the truly unknown numbers of illegal aliens and now President Obama is willing to enact another Amnesty. At the same time we have the foreign neighboring government laughing at us, because unlike the strict laws of Mexico to enter without a visa IS A FELONY? The Lib-Democrats who keep thinking the millions of poverty stricken people who slip through the miles of open border, or join the job market after hopping off a plane as a international visitor and thinking they are bringing prosperity to this sovereign nation are unadulterated demented fools. Each year over a million legal immigrants come to America with professional skills, with many through CHAIN MIGRATION, a vestige of the 1986 Amnesty while the illegal aliens bring nothing but more poverty and a trail of criminal activity. There is huge influx of more illegal aliens pouring into the country, for Obama’s entitlement programs (BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP) bringing their babies in even huge waves and an astronomical burden on taxpayers. Unions becoming even more powerful, receiving preferential treatment from the already corrupt political parties.
More draining of the U.S. treasury to pay for so called friends in incompetent foreign countries, and the dismissal of a once powerful military defense, conceding to huge cuts in budgets to pay for the spongers, scroungers and freeloaders amongst the population who have no intentions of finding employment. In this period of soaring job loss Washington should enact and support the LEGAL WORKFORCE ACT that contains a mandatory E-Verify provision, which would allow the official draining of many of the illegal aliens stealing jobs from Americans. Both political parties refuse to behave rationally and show the 24 million unemployed, that they mean business and condemn foreigners who under the impression that we owe them a living. If you want further information and are ready to investigate the lies of both the Democrats and Republicans, check out TEA PARTY.ORG, NUMBERSUSA, ALIPAC, JUDICIAL WATCH, FAIR, and AMERICAN PATROL. The American people should realize it is time for Public Campaign Contributions and not the theft of our liberties by the special interest groups of lobbyists, the wealthy, big unions, foreign governments, corporations (Domestic and International) and a whole range of other entities eviscerating the American population.
This long, for the most part mercifully all cap free screed, does not pass the sniff test for rational discussion on the topic of comprehensive immigration reform.
It does encapsulate feelings of paranoia, xenophobia and white entitlement in the face of the inexorable demographic changes occurring in the country. Those are not particularly new feelings in this country.
The Republican party may try to reinvent itself on the immigration issue (see Bobby Jindal for ex) but it appears from this comment that the Tea Party isn’t about to. It has chosen to remain an extreme reactionary fringe out of touch with the facts and the desires and actual life experiences of the American people.