As promised, here's our bit about Immigration Reform.
The Senate passed the most comprehensive Immigration bill in nearly 30 years, which in and of itself would be amazing but given the hyper-polarized political times we're living through it makes it even more remarkable. They should be commended - all of them. Democrats have gone along with the Hoeven-Corker
Amendment, which will need to be, well... amended since it contains triggers
(needing to achieve a certain measure as to activate another process) which can
or can not be achieved according to how one interprets the numbers, which means
it can be politically manipulated.
Also part of the Amendment is the call
for more fencing and 20,000 more agents along our southern border -
the Comprehensive Southern Border Security Strategy (see below). Senate Democrats compromised
on these superfluous measures to achieve broad bipartisan support for the bill
even though the effective immigration rate at our Southern border is a net zero. Also note that President Obama's Administration has already deported more people than any
other previous president.
With all that, the Democrats compromised to get to 60 votes and ended up with 68 sending a strong message to the House of Representatives that broad support for the bill was bi-partisan. This is where all the ink praising landmark legislation goes all for not because the Senate bill is going to die in the House. Speaker Boehner has already come out and said that the House will craft its own bill, and then hopefully between the two they can come up with solid law.
This for lack of a better description is a load of crap. There are too many extreme right House members that believe the Senate bill is equivalent to giving amnesty to the 11 million undocumented residents in this country. And that must be true because Sarah Palin confirms it to be so. [The reason we single out Ms. Palin is because to our recollection, she has never been correct in any of her assessments on anything, and these assessments never contain alternative solutions, just castigation.] But on this false premise, the House will construct its own bill that will probably requirement 11 million people to leave and come back if they really want to be citizens. But that reasoning, if you can call it that, simply doesn't contain any logic, as no one is going to do that.
Moderate Republican Senators' motivation for passing comprehensive immigration reform is driven by the knowledge that Latinos are the fastest growing segment of our population, which by and large doesn't support the Republican party. And why should they?
Once again in America, this week there has been much discussion about race. In a country such as ours, it's an on-going conversation that we continually need to have so we shouldn't shy away. With Paula Deen's troubles and the start of the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin murder trial underway, there's something ticking at us that we feel we should mention and its in regard to immigration.
Republicans want the Latino vote, and that's it. They are not so much interested in understanding the community or supporting it, as evidenced by their policies. Their amendments and ideas on what to do with the 11 million undocumented do not stem from a place of compassion, but from fear - all insidiously geared to keeping people out, nothing inclusive. It's not quite all out racism, but what they're doing is systematic and xenophobic. Also, the 'amnesty' that they're talking about is actually a path to citizenship that will take an individual 12 years to complete, in which they have to pay back taxes and fines. It practically doesn't seem achievable.
These types of ideas are what is going to play out in the House, and Republicans will ram through an uncompromising bill without any Democratic support because it will contain nothing in the Democratically lead bill from the Senate. A House Republican takedown. However, before the whole thing collapses, to save some sort of face, a heavily watered down bill will come about so as to say at least something got done.
We really hope we're wrong.
Some actual language from the bill...
COMPREHENSIVE SOUTHERN BORDER SECURITY STRATEGY
The term ‘‘Comprehensive
Southern Border Security Strategy’’ means the strategy established by the
Secretary pursuant to section 5(a) to achieve and maintain an effectiveness
rate of 90 percent or higher in all border sectors.
EFFECTIVE CONTROL
The term ‘‘effective
control’’ means the ability to achieve and maintain, in a Border Patrol sector—
persistent surveillance; and an effectiveness rate of 90 percent orhigher.
EFFECTIVENESS RATE
The ‘‘effectivenessrate’’,
in the case of a border sector, is the percentage calculated by dividing the
number of apprehensions and turn backs in the sector during a fiscal year by
the total number of illegal entries in the sector during such fiscal year.
SOUTHERN BORDER
The term ‘‘Southern
border’’ means the international border between the United States and Mexico.
SOUTHERN BORDER FENCING
STRATEGY
The term ‘‘Southern Border
Fencing Strategy’’ means the strategy established by the Secretary pursuant to
section 5(b) that identifies where fencing (including double-layer fencing),
infrastructure, and technology, including at ports of entry, should be deployed
along the Southern border The Department’s border security goal is to achieve
and maintain effective control in all border sectors along the Southern border.
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