Thread: US Immigration Reform

Originally Posted by barbaro

I follow events in my state of Washington and I was recently there for an extended period.
The advertising is working

then it should be quite easy to provide a link that supports your claim:

Originally Posted by barbaro

Washington state (my home state) has been advertising for a few year for illegals to come.

Ray,

The word I'm referring to is sanctuary state.

Sanctuary state.

That is, an advertisement. Come here if you are ILLegal.

There are employment problems in my county and the county next to mine.

Here are some recent facts:

At least 9 illegals were / are living in a small motor home in a neighborhood nearby. People that live there don't want 9 strangers nor anyone living in a small motorhome. Sanitation, waste, food, etc. The same people brought a large garbage can and put garbage into it until it overflowed and there were pieces of garbage around the trash can.

I know someone who finally called to report it. Police. No action. County officials. No response. Even the mayor's office. Even though the residential neighborhood is not zoned for that.

Another true case (among many others).

2 men were taking oysters with out a permit and were also way over limit. They were caught. The official that wanted to give them a ticket could not because these 2 men had no I.D. and did not speak English and would not provide any information about themselves.

The official decided to call immigration - but was critized - and immigration never came.

Why?

Because he was accused of "ethnic profiling."

Try going to Thailand illegally without a visa, passport or any ID, and then refuse to tell the Thai police your name or where you are from.

Common sense is lost in the US.

Originally Posted by barbaro

Here are some recent facts:

here's a more recent fact:

you clearly can't provide a link to support your claim that:

Originally Posted by barbaro

Washington state (my home state) has been advertising for a few year for illegals to come.

^ As I stated.

Being a sanctuary state is advertising.

Not 'buts' about it.

That is clearly advertising: "come here!"

Illegals are also running businesses and under-cutting people I personally know who are playing by the rules.

It's not just the stereotype of "landscaping."

This advertising is working.

This is a very good presentation on the US's immigration policy and the world. (Overpopulation, IMO.)

Watch as economist Ben Powell makes short work of the three standby anti-immigration arguments:

Thursday afternoon, CPAC hosted a panel on GOP outreach into minority communities. The panel included Virginia Senate candidate Ed Gillespie and a panel of Republican political strategists: Jason Roe, Elroy Sailor, and Robert Woodson. The panel delivered a remarkably pointed review of GOP voter outreach (largely its failures) and explained, in very straightforward terms, how the party can (and must) do better.

However, the most revealing part of the experience was not what happened on stage, but what happened off stage, and reflects the national electoral struggles Republicans are facing.

Some movement. Will Obama act alone on Immigration?

Will Obama decide to grant work permits to undocumented migrants? | Voxxi

Even as they grapple with an immigration crisis at the border, White House officials are making plans to act before November’s mid-term elections to grant work permits to potentially millions of immigrants who are in this country illegally, allowing them to stay in the United States without threat of deportation, according to advocates and lawmakers in touch with the administration.

So after suing Obama for using Executive action to get stuff done, the Republitards are now asking him to use Executive action to get stuff done.

You couldn't make this shit up.

Good news for these kids and most of us.

88 percent of voters believe Dreamers should be allowed to earn citizenship

On the two-year anniversary of the implementation of President Barack Obama’s deferred action program, which protects undocumented youth from deportation and allows them to work, a new report shows the federal program is improving the lives of those who are benefiting from it.

The report released Friday by United We Dream shows that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals is not only protecting hundreds of thousands of undocumented young immigrants from deportation but also allowing them to enter the workforce using their two-year renewable work permit. Many are also getting driver’s licenses, applying for credit cards and buying their first car.

“We’re excited to highlight DACA and to show the country that it works,” said Adam Luna, an organizer with United We Dream. “It has lifted more than half a million of young people out of the shadows. It has provided them protection from deportation and the ability to further contribute to the country we all call home.”

Since the federal government began accepting applications for DACA on Aug. 15, 2012, hundreds of thousands of Dreamers have applied and have been approved. The report cites a study by the Migration Policy Institute that shows a total of 681,189 undocumented young immigrants had applied for DACA as of July 20 of this year. Out of those applicants, 587,366 were approved and 25,029 were denied.

The release of the report comes as House Republicans continue with their efforts to end DACA. Adam Luna, an organizer with United We Dream, condemned House Republicans for wanting to get rid of the program.

Snip

Sousa-Rodriguez said that as Obama gets ready to announce executive actions on immigration, he and other immigration advocates are calling on the president to expand DACA to benefit the parents of Dreamers and other undocumented immigrants. “President Obama has a unique opportunity to build on DACA’s success and to lift millions of undocumented immigrants out of the fear of deportation,” he said.

.... And turn them into Democratic voters.

The problem with any immigration reform is the countless number of family members standing in line with immigration petitions already filed. Patiently waiting years and sometimes decades for their number to come up and their case to be reviewed. How can they, and their families be appeased?

Originally Posted by bowie

The problem with any immigration reform is the countless number of family members standing in line with immigration petitions already filed. Patiently waiting years and sometimes decades for their number to come up and their case to be reviewed. How can they, and their families be appeased?

How ‘bout we do this?

After 10 years in provisional status, immigrants can seek a green card and lawful permanent resident status if they are current on their taxes and pay a $1,000 fine, have maintained continuous physical presence in the U.S., meet work requirements and learn English. Also the border triggers must have been met, and all people waiting to immigrate through the legal system as of the date of enactment of the legislation must have been dealt with.

Some people need to get out more.

"and all people waiting to immigrate through the legal system as of the date of enactment of the legislation must have been dealt with."

The above criteria is the problem with the plan. Immediate legal immigration?

Originally Posted by S Landreth

Interesting poll out and it shows even the republican party members (but not in Washington) want immigration reform. Hope the poll will reach those in congress who will not act on reforming our immigration system before it hits them at the polls before 2016 like it did during the last presidential election (Obama receives 71% of the Hispanic vote, Romney receives 27%).

Other major findings include:

78 percent of voters prefer reforming the immigration system as opposed to leaving it the way it is

Voters overwhelmingly support border security and enforcement measures, as well as measures to attract high-skilled and lower-skilled workers

59 percent of voters support a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants, but a path to citizenship is even more popular with 64 percent of voters saying they support allowing undocumented immigrants to become citizens

88 percent of voters believe Dreamers should be allowed to earn citizenship if they received a high school degree and attended college or served in the U.S. military

I think anyone who actually cares, be it republican or democrat, want a better immigration system, they just don't want a free pass to illegals.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

.... And turn them into Democratic voters.

How can it be when the republicans put a historic whooping on the democrats in the mid terms

Another Veto?

Likening immigration reform to the great civil-rights movements in U.S. history, President Barack Obama vowed during a brief visit to Miami on Wednesday to veto any legislation undoing his executive order protecting from deportation up to 5 million people who are in the country illegally.

“In the short term, if Mr. [Mitch] McConnell, the leader of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, want to have a vote on whether what I’m doing is legal or not, they can have that vote,” Obama said, almost daring congressional leaders to challenge him. “I will veto that vote because I’m absolutely confident that what we’re doing is the right thing to do.”

His veto threat was met with rousing applause from the friendly audience assembled at Florida International University, where Obama taped an hour-long town hall-style meeting hosted by Miami-based Telemundo and sister network MSNBC. The event, moderated by bilingual anchor José Díaz-Balart, was later nationally televised on both networks.

McConnell, of Kentucky, wants a stand-alone bill blocking Obama’s 2014 actions, which were supposed to take effect this week but have been stalled by a Texas federal judge. Boehner, of Ohio, is waiting for the Senate’s move, after House Republicans passed a budget for the Homeland Security Department that wouldn’t pay for the president’s plan.

Obama defied Republican leaders while trying to persuade undocumented immigrants — who would be covered by his actions but are now in limbo — that his administration has not given up.

“We have appealed very aggressively. We’re going to be as aggressive as we can,” he said. “In the meantime, what we said to Republicans is, ‘Instead of trying to hold hostage funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which is so important for our national security, fund that and let’s get on with actually passing comprehensive immigration reform.’”

Republicans characterized Obama’s Miami visit as a strictly political move intent not on resolving a problem but on bashing the GOP to Hispanic voters, a crucial bloc in Florida and other swing states.

“President Obama tells Americans he wants to work with Republicans, but his actions don’t live up to his rhetoric,” Republican National Committee spokeswoman Ali Pardo said in a statement. “And as the President struggles to defend his executive action that was blocked by a federal court, his partisan campaign stops aren’t making things better.”

There is little chance that Congress will act during the remainder of Obama’s final term, with the 2016 presidential campaign season already under way and Republicans angered that the president has wielded executive authority in what they consider an overreach. Obama nevertheless insisted: “I haven’t given up passing it while I’m president.”

Like other Spanish-language interviewers have done in high-profile settings, Díaz-Balart reminded Obama that he could have made an immigration push during his first two years in office, when Democrats controlled the House and Senate.

“I don’t know if anybody remembers, José, that when I took office and I had a majority we had the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression,” Obama said. “It wasn’t as if I was just sitting back not doing anything.”

Still, several questions from immigrants in the audience or through social media centered on why the president hasn’t done more — and why federal immigration authorities have continued to deport people who do not have a serious criminal record and are not supposed to be a priority to remove from the country.

“Every time you have a big bureaucracy and you’ve changed policy, there is going to be one or two or three instances where people apparently haven’t gotten the message,” Obama said. “But if you talk to the head of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, he is absolutely committed to this new prioritization. More importantly, I, the president of the United States, am committed … We are going to be focusing on criminals; we’re going to be focusing on potential felons.”

In the audience were young people who benefited from Obama’s first executive action in 2012 when he granted temporary legal status to nearly 800,000 immigrants brought into the country illegally as children. One of them was 26-year-old Nancy Palacios of Tampa, who said her parents would also be eligible for protection under Obama’s second executive action, which is now tied up in court.

“I go out of town a lot and worry about not coming home to my parents. I want to have that peace of mind,” said Palacios, who called the president’s message optimistic. “The victory won’t be fulfilled until my parents have their work permits.”

One of the few people who got to ask a question at the event was Eric Narvaez Alvarado, 26, a military veteran who served in Afghanistan. When he returned, the country he served was trying to deport his mother to Mexico.

“It’s like a slap in the face,” Narvaez Alvarado said after the meeting, in which he told Obama that his mother had been the one who signed off on his enlistment when he was 17. Esther Alvarado, who accompanied her son to FIU, said she knew that “in his heart” Obama wants to help.

“I kind of believe in him,” she said. “I have faith in him.”

Not everyone was pleased with Obama’s visit. A handful of protesters held signs outside FIU, including one that read, “Obama Jihadist Coward,” and another, by the hardline Cuban exile group Vigilia Mambisa, that read, “Freedom for Cuba/Helping Castro is a Crime.”

As he stepped off Air Force One, Obama was greeted at Miami International Airport by Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez. Scott, a Republican, gave the president a black Miami Marlins baseball cap, in honor of the 2017 Major League Baseball All-Star Game that will be held there, the governor said beforehand.

The only local member of Congress in attendance was Rep. Frederica Wilson, a Miami Gardens Democrat, who flew with the president. Rep. Carlos Curbelo, the Republican whose district includes FIU, was invited late Monday but denied an Air Force One seat after he could only find early-morning flights that he said would have required missing a full day of votes.

A spokesman for Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said the Republican was invited at 11:21 a.m. Tuesday, but the email was caught by a spam filter and her office didn’t see it. A spokesman for Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, brother of the town-hall moderator and a leading GOP proponent of immigration reform, said he was not invited.

Obama called on more people — youth in particular — to vote, and he urged immigrant advocates to keep telling personal stories that hopefully “softens the hearts of people who right now are blocking us from solving some of these problems.”

“Every major social movement, every bit of progress in this country — whether it’s been the workers’ rights movement or the civil rights movement, or the women’s rights movement — every single bit of that progress has required us to fight and push,” he said. “You don’t get everything right away, and then you push some more, and that’s how the country continually gets better.”

Eventually, he concluded, politicians will rewrite immigration laws, “because at some point, there’s going to be a President Rodriguez, or there’s going to be a President Chin.”

“The country is a nation of immigrants,” he said.

Miami Herald writers Kathleen Devaney, Rebeca Piccardo and Rebecca Savransky contributed to this report.

REACTIONS FROM THE “TOWN HALL” WITH PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

Eric Narvaez Alvarado, 26, who served in the army in Afghanistan, said he is hoping President Barack Obama can help keep his mother from being deported.

“My 18th birthday was spent in boot camp,” he said. “On my 21st birthday I was in Afghanistan, and I was actually shot at on my birthday, but I was barely missed by inches on my head. So I dealt with all that and then I came back from Afghanistan.”

Upon returning home, he said, he learned the federal immigration authorities were trying to deport his mother, Esther Alvarez, to Mexico.

“I didn’t have anyone there, I was by myself. I showed up to America with none of my family to be there,” he said. “Its like a slap in the face, because here I am serving this country and here is this country deporting my mother who actually signed for me to join the military.”

He said he appreciated that Obama came to Miami to talk to about immigration, with so many other issues in the country. His mother, who also attended the event with Obama, said she knows he wants to help people like her.

“I kind of believe in him,” she said. “I have faith in him.”

Narvaez Alvarado said he still doesn’t know what’s going to happen, but he’s going to keep fighting for his mother.

“I feel like our situation is way different than others because I’m a veteran,” he said. “I served this country, I actually gave my body, literally gave my body for this country.”

Samuel Vilchez, 17, is an immigrant from Venezuela. He said he got political asylum to stay in the United States after he was politically persecuted in Venezuela. He said gunmen had fired shots at his home. Next year, he’ll be going to Princeton University. And he said he attended Obama’s speech to stand in support of the president’s executive action.

“We strongly believe it’s a step forward in our fight for a comprehensive immigration reform,” he said.

Vilchez was with the organization, Mi Familia Vota, which advocates for comprehensive immigration reform. He said he is fortunate to have been able to come to this country and attend college. He said he wants everyone to be able to have the same experiences he had.

“I do not believe that legal barriers should present a barrier to those people to reach their American dream,” he said. “I feel like any young person should have the same opportunities that I had.”

Marleine Bastien, executive director of Haitian Women of Miami, also attended the speech. She was a contributor to a report released earlier this month urging the Obama administration to stop deporting Haitians with a criminal background until conditions in Haiti improve. She said she was impressed by the president’s strong support and emphasized that his executive order needs to be passed.

“It is our responsibility and the responsibility of Congress to pass laws that protect immigrants that have been sacrificing themselves for this country — to pass a law to protect them from deportation,” she said.

Bastien said Obama’s executive action is a step in the right direction.

“The immigrants are here, they contribute,” she said.

Mark B. Rosenberg, president of Florida International University, said he was satisfied with the questions that were asked and the answers that were given during the town hall meeting. But he said he left feeling discontent about the status of the country’s current immigration issues.

“I’m dissatisfied that we can’t get the Congress and the President together on this critical issue, and that’s the part that leaves me with a lot of anxiety about where our county is going and how we’re going to get there,” he said.

Nicolas and Esteban Wulff, 24-year-old twins who attend FIU, originally came to the United States from Colombia when they were 5 years old.

The brothers who are DACA students, said one of the reasons they chose to attend FIU, is because it was one of the first schools in Florida to offer in-state tuition to undocumented students. The two have worked in the past to help pass the instate tuition law for DACA students at a statewide level.

In November, Obama announced two programs to protect immigrants in the country illegally from deportation. In the first, Obama expanded eligibility for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program first launched in 2012 by eliminating age caps and allowing immigrants who arrived as recently as 2010 to apply. The second program, known as DAPA and being challenged in federal court, would extended protections to parents of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents. Both groups would be protected from deportation for three years and get work permits.

“The issues discussed at the meeting impact us directly,” Esteban Wulff said, pointing to himself and his brother. For that reason, Wulff agrees with many of the points that the President discussed.

“For the most part, I think everyone is aware that the Republican Party is the one that has been impeding the approval of a large-scale bill. The President and other democrats have been urging the Republicans and are trying to pull as many strings as they can toward bettering the lives of undocumented immigrants and just immigrants in general,” he said.

Nancy Palacios, 26, drove with four other people on behalf of a group called Faith in Florida from Tampa Wednesday morning to attend the town hall.

Overall, she thinks Obama is sending out a message of optimism to the undocumented community.

“It’s important that the president was willing to come out and address the undocumented community,” she said. “Now we can take the message back to the community.”

Palacios and her sisters were DACA approved and her parents are DAPA eligible because their younger brother is a U.S. citizen. Hearing the president speak renewed her hopes that her parents can actually have a life after 20 years of living as undocumented.

“I go out of town a lot and I worry about not come home to my parents. I want to have that peace of mind,” she said. “The victory won’t be fulfilled until my parents have their work permits.”

Sarah Pitney, 26, works in FIU’s immigration law clinic, helping undocumented immigrants fill out their DACA paperwork and even help people who are detained and going through a removal proceeding.

Pitney, who wants to continue helping the undocumented community as an immigration lawyer, said the president got defensive at certain questions.

“He was very defensive. When he was asked about the timing and control in Congress,” she said. “But he explained how he was digging us out of hue he largest recession since 1929.”

Pitney said that her biggest criticism of the president is when he advises whoever comes next to ignore the short term politics and focus on a long term solution.

“What caught my attention is that DACA is a short term solution and he could have done something long term.”

Originally Posted by S Landreth

Pitney said that her biggest criticism of the president is when he advises whoever comes next to ignore the short term politics and focus on a long term solution.

Hmmmmm . . .

^ From the above article.....

The Congressional Budget Office says the $1.7 billion payment to illegals will be offset by $20 billion in new taxes from legalized illegals.


How 'bout dat?