Regarding Comprehensive Immigration Reform, President Obama is talking the talk, but is he walking the walk? (626 hits)

On March 17, just four days before the immigration rally in Washington, D.C., Senators Schumer (D-NY) and Graham (R-SC) wrote an article in the Washington Post entitled "The Right Way to Mend Immigration". Their plan incorporates the following four pillars:

Requiring biometric Social Security cards to ensure that illegal workers cannot get jobs;
Fulfilling and strengthening our commitments on border security and interior enforcement;
Creating a process for admitting temporary workers; and
Implementing a tough but fair path to legalization for those already here.
In their article, the two Senators stated: "The American people deserve more than empty rhetoric and impractical calls for mass deportation...We urge the public and our colleagues to join our bipartisan efforts in enacting these reforms."

President Obama met with the two Senators and immediately endorsed their plan: "I pledge to do everything in my power to forge a bipartisan consensus this year on this important issue."

Yet, almost immediately, Senator Graham poured cold water on the proposal by stating as follows: "The first casualty of the Democratic health care bill will be immigration reform. If the health care bill goes through this weekend, that will, in my view, pretty much kill any chance of immigration reform passing the Senate this year."

Then, on March 21, the same day that the healthcare plan was approved by the House of Representatives, 150,000 pro-immigration activists marched in the streets of Washington, D.C. In a video shown to the crowd, President Obama stated: "You know as well as I do that this won't be easy, and it won't happen overnight....But if we work together across ethnic, state and party lines, we can build a future worthy of our history as a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws."

However, one of the speakers challenged the President immediately after the video was shown with the following language: "Mr. President, we are going to hold you accountable."

So where does all this rhetoric leave us?

As Rodney King famously remarked, "Why can't we all get along?" As Democrats and Republicans in Congress have spent the past year beating each other up regarding the health care bill, do we want the same thing to happen with immigration this year? At the moment, President Obama cannot even find two Republican senators out of 41 to support Comprehensive Immigration Reform. And anyone who thinks that all Democrats are united in support of CIR must be drinking the Kool-Aid.

So does this mean that immigration reform is DOA in 2010? Not necessarily. There are individual pieces of immigration legislation which enjoy bipartisan support. Like what?

For instance, the DREAM Act. Students who have lived almost their entire lives in the U.S., excelled in school, and are pursuing their goals in universities should not be punished because their parents brought them to the Promised Land as toddlers. Senators on the left and the right are co-sponsoring the DREAM Act. Any piece of immigration legislation that is co-sponsored by Senators Richard Lugar (R-IN), Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and 31 of their colleagues should definitely be voted on in 2010.

The same thing with the AgJobs bill. On how many issues do agricultural employers and the United Farm Workers agree on? Not many, but this is one. Congressmen Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Luis Gutierrez (D-Il) don't see eye-to-eye on CIR, but together with over 50 of their colleagues, they have co-sponsored this important piece of legislation. If ICE ever decides to audit farms as they have factories, there will be a lot of hungry children in America. I think we all know who is picking the crops.

And how about erasing the enormous wait for Indian EB-3 workers with approved PERM applications? Is it the American Way to penalize a person solely because of their country of birth?

And who, in these terrible times of double-digit unemployment, could possibly oppose visas for investors who put Americans to work? Or for physicians and nurses who work in medically-underserved areas?

I say, let's see what we agree on, and move forward.

In President Obama's words, "Let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good."

http://shusterman.com/newsletterusimmigrat...
Posted By: Jen Fad
Tuesday, April 13th 2010 at 9:08AM
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