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In an weak attempt to preempt the President’s proposal on immigration tomorrow, Washington’s “Gang of 8” held a press conference to unveil their bipartisan proposal for immigration reform. The “Gang of 8″ includes Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Robert Flake (R-AZ), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Michel Bennet (D-CO).
As Jon Walker outlines, the framework includes four key principles:
- create of “tough but fair” pathway to legalization, that is contingent upon securing the border; children brought to the United States at a young age and agricultural workers would go through a separate and expedited process
- implement an employment verification system that will prove potential employees are indeed eligible to work in the United States
- reform the immigration system to encourage the retention of highly skilled workers
- streamline the process to allow low skilled workers to come in order to meet critical labor demands
Upon closer examination, this enforcement heavy framework provides little -if any- relief for undocumented immigrants. If this is the initial starting point for immigration reform that then we are in serious trouble. The Daily Caller is applauding this framework for its conservatism.
Like its predecessor, Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIA) the latest blueprint for Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) will ultimately expand detentions, deportations and the usage of drones along the U.S -Mexico border. That’s right. Drones.
Additionally, our legislation will increase the number of unmanned aerial vehicles and surveillance equipment, improve radio interoperability and increase the number of agents at and between ports of entry. The purpose is to substantially lower the number of successful illegal border crossings while continuing to facilitate commerce.
That’s just the enforcement piece. The actual “pathway to citizenship” is rife with multiple stipulations that are punitive and will put millions of people in limbo for a number of years. The most abhorrent piece is the creation of “border commission” that will decide the right time to grant permanent residency for the millions of undocumented immigrants in the country. In other words, governors from border states (read: Governor Jan Brewer) will get to decide when the border has been sufficiently secured and thus decide the best time to issue green cards. And even at that point, permanent residency will not be granted until every person that is currently “in line” has received his or her green cards. Right now, the longest wait for a family sponsored visa is for a brother or sister of U.S citizen. Suppose that individual is from the Philippines. The wait would be twenty three years. Twenty three years. It will be a quarter of a century before anyone gets a green card.
Members of Congress made it very clear that an attempt by the President to introduce his own legislation will “poison the well.” Well, it is obvious that is exactly what Obama will have to do to counter this asinine proposal from the Senate. However, if this press conference is any indication, this proposal has the full backing of the White House. Again, we are in serious trouble and we will have to seriously re-think our strategies for the upcoming debate on immigration reform.
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And Congrats for getting underneath and behind all this political nonsense. Further, let’s hope that none of this makes it into the Rule of Law, and if so, it will take another 30 years to straighten this mess out and where Comprehensive Immigration can be done correctly.
Shortly after the news conference from this Gang of Eight, I reached for the keyboard, and wrote the following and which was originally posted on another web site, earlier this morning. Enjoy!
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Progressives, Immigration Reform and the Placebo Effect
With the self-preservation construct that is well-understood among Conservative politicians and which is pandemic in terms of our public discourse, Republicans and the “camouflaged” Democrats alike, “connecting” with our respective Spanish-speaking communities, albeit, little of importance and as such, this behavior toward “reform” is now arriving onto our public agenda that is still a distant third ‘goal’ and far behind of our “unmet” Need of our personified electoral behavior and which has been symbolic for Jobs and More Jobs.
And in particular, the now ‘camouflaged’ Democrats of the like-minded and as former Progressives and who once served in the House and were members of the House Progressive Caucus, i.e., Senators, Durbin, Schumer, Brown and Menendez, their enthusiasm for Comprehensive Immigration Reform falls into the category for the lukewarm, at best, while in public support of President Obama’s announced effort at immigration reform.
And given that each of these Senators continue to firmly resist establishing a Progressive Caucus in the Senate, effectively demonstrates to each of us in our Spanish-speaking realm of national politics, another Ugly Pander is about to be foisted on the American people in the form a of Placebo Effect, provided the Republican Caucus in the House is willing to fall into line with the conservatives in the Senate. Not likely to occur, of course, since gerrymandering is now all about eliminating any competition in their primary elections, according to their self-perceived or “unmet” needs among those on the Right. And Comprehensive Immigration Reform is not a “feature” but a “bug” for their like-mindedness—as seen from our political prism here and which is affectionately known as our Sonoran Desert.
Consequently, with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce clamoring for a cheap labor provision, and well known as the historic and infamous Guest Worker Program of the 1950’s, now is the time for Progressives to up this political ante and in favor of including Card Check into our domestic and foreign policy approach to the Rule of Law. But standing in the middle of this road, as an obstacle, is “amnesty.”
Thus, with the pending retirement of the sole-surviving Progressive in the Senate, Senator Tom Harkins (D-Iowa) can add a capstone to his well-deserved Legacy, but that would require of him to take the leadership role among national Progressives for moving Card Check into our national discussion via Comprehensive Immigration Reform. For those of us and who have followed this discourse and are in support of Card Check, adding Card Check into our national regimen of international trade agreements and done on the premise that Card Check is the “missing” Labor Standard that was once promised by President Clinton and his cadre of Neo-Liberals, would add considerable “value” in the form that requiring foreign governments to divest themselves of “control” over all labor rights in these respective nations, and in particular, the Latin America Region. In doing so, this endemic behavior would substantially reduce the migratory flow of persons seeking employment here in the United States. Therefore, conservatives will not address the overriding effort to reduce this international migratory flow, but will continue to demand a “secure border” that is premised on upping the national Fear Quotient and directed at the undefined “others” and where a nationalistic fervor commences and suffuses this public discourse for establishing a second class citizenship status.
With the Republicans, and the “conservative” Democrats facing their certain political demise in the years ahead, given the current demographic changes favoring Latinos nationally, Card Check, legalized for domestic and foreign policy, will do more for and in favor of “connecting” with our Spanish-speaking populations; and do far more for Republicans than for ‘conservative’ Democrats, and yet, “self-interest” in national politics will not resonate for the hard-core Right and as exemplified by the Tea Party Cabal—not as an element of international Freedom but for a continued vanquishing of their perceived political and “liberal” enemies.
More over, the current effort to establish a ‘new’ version of Comprehensive Immigration Reform built on the overall effort of the late Senator, Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, and which did not include Card Check, means that a new generation of Progressives must accept the mantle of leadership from America’s “old and tired white dudes” that are unable, albeit, unwilling to “see” the future for themselves and their paymasters. And asking the retiring Senator Tom Harkins, to move Card Check into the Rule of Law—as in domestic and foreign policy, is indeed, a Big Ask and done in order to avoid this Placebo Effect for the rhetoric that imbues “more” Freedom.
Just as FDR, Truman, Johnson and Carter have gained our national affection as “stand-out” Presidents; Senator Harkin will soon achieve our Stature of Affection. If Senator Harkin were to contemplate or consider addressing comprehensive immigration—from the standpoint of our Sonoran Desert perspective, is equivalent to a political slavishness on our part and which we won’t encourage, and thusly, this burden should not be visited onto his doorstep, knowing that he is retiring. Further and by default, our national surrender to a Guest Worker Program without our advocating Card Check, will demonstrate that our future is being placed in jeopardy by the ever-present conservatives and which is consistent with and equivalent to, a ‘low-wage’ nation. And for a Legacy Party that is unwilling to change, as evidenced by Governor Bobby Jindal’s (R-LA) speech of last week, is the discordant “message” that resonates for us too and which comes to us in the form of an “amnesty” stop sign on the road to Progress. And “amnesty” is the first of many stop signs that will crop up during these ensuing years of political malpractice, given that our national debt was minimal during the Carter Era and when measured with today’s Obama Standard, the debt exceeds the multiplicity of trillions and well ahead of the anticipated trillions more that are expected to be incurred.
In closing, “comprehensive” immigration reform will just become another political placebo unless crafting a public policy that institutionalizes higher wages for our fellow citizens is firmly established and only Card Check can do so since the technology that is reducing labor costs, is not being passed on to the employees. And the aforementioned ‘low wage’ nation will come to epitomize our America and immigration reform should be seen correctly as a perceptive secondary or tertiary response to our national construct of “unmet needs.” Consequently, Card Check fulfills both sides of our proclaimed artificial or national “limit” and that being, economics and geography.
Be So Advised!
Jaango
Excellent, Marybeth.
These are PEOPLE we’re talking about — people that are essential for this country to function. Thanks to them we have fruits and veggies on the table, roofs that don’t leak, dishes that are washed, beds made, meat that’s butchered and landscape that’s maintained. So they’ll have to pay back taxes? On what? They’ve been off the books, many of them. etc etc The whole thing is dependent upon securing the border? Good luck on that. It’s inhuman.
Whenever you hear ‘bipartisan’, bend over and grab your ankles. You’re about to get it up the tailpipe without the benefit of K-Y.
That’s
bibuypartisan.In other words, a win for the PIC and nothing else.
Hey, ya think we don’t have a problem when the overwhelming majority representation of Texas in Congress is not Democratic?? Is there any State that should be heavily Democratic more than Texas?
Texans ties with Mexico and Latin America go back centuries, so it should be the leader in humane migration policy which reflects the long American history of free migration of all peoples.
Nothing in the Constitution calls for or supports restrictions on migration, and free migration between Mexico and Texas was the rule until the 60s and the 1965 immigration reform.
Seems the US Congress thinks human are nothing than cheap labor.
Citizens and illegals alike…… Vaseline with a little rock salt for good measure.
First it was agricultural work that Americans supposedly won’t do, now it’s landscaping, housekeeping, and meatcutting? Get real. I know someone, an American, who cut meat for decades. This proposal is simply a way to inject millions more workers into our country in order to keep wages down and to please some special interests.
The value of “immigration reform” to Republicans is cheap labor, busting what is left of unions and making sure they stay busted and trying to burnish their racist image before the next election.
Democrats will agree with the measures Republicans want, then call it a successful compromise and declare victory.
The Democratic base will rail against Republicans and the Republican base will smile to themselves.
Same shit, different day.
More H1-B visas? Why are the poverty immigration activists not standing in solidarity with American workers on stopping the importation of more cheap labor in cases where there are American workers willing to do the job?
I’m now cleaning up the mess left by an Indian H1-B worker who allegedly had a PhD and two MA in Computer Science and Biomedical Informatics who wrote crap code, bolted back to India with his family after a 10 min handoff meeting, and now will not answer any questions about his steaming pile of java.
Having been an “illegal alien” in Mexico (no, I did not do the backstroke across the river… I did the normal thing, overstayed my tourist visa and took a job), and now a permanent resident (on the “pathway to citizenship” here), I’m partial to doing compare/contrasts between the two country’s processes. Based on the mimimum wages in both countries, if Mexico’s immigration policy was like the existing U.S. policy, U.S. immigrants to Mexico would have to pay 60K for just yearly residency. Even with new regulations, I’m paying something closer to 250 US$ a year (and that includes outside legal assistance).
The U.S. “reforms” make the process much more complex and expensive for those headed the opposite direction, even for those who would be considered skilled workers or investors (like I am here), not to mention that “going to the back of the line” thing: which means we’ll have several million people with cultural and business ties to the U.S. stuck in Mexico for an indefinite period of time, waiting to return, but not people anyone would hire for a career-track type position, or one that requires substantial training or investment by their employer.
Reform? What a joke!