Graham: Obama just paying lip service to immigration reform - Page 2

I have a feeling that there's enough Republican support in both houses to pass some sort of legalization program - certainly more than one vote unlike health care - IF the Democrats, including the President, allow it to be brought to a vote. I think the right negotiations can make it possible this year.

On March 26, 2009 Senators Durbin(D) and Lugar(R); Representatives Berman(D) and Diaz-Balart(R) along with several other Republican and Democratic representatives introduced in BOTH chambers the Dream Act. Think about where we were as a country a year ago with none of the mess health care legislation has created and you can see this would have passed easily in Congress. Does anyone know who benched this??

yeah I wish he would just focus only on the dream act and on more border security, that way the right wing could be more satisfied if we let them know that there would be an increase of border security and of keeping track of people with tourist visas.

I blame Obama because how can they let cubans become immediate residents when they get here?, or haitians that werent even in the earthquake get residency ?, the amnesty of haitian undocumented immigrants was passed from one day to the other while we've been fighting for like 8 years to get the dream act passed. How am i any different than the undocumented haitian immigrant? how is my struggle any different than a cuban's struggle to get here? I am of course not haiting on haitians or cubans but just want the same benefits they recieve, because I am no different than them. obama is so weird, I know he knows what is the right thing to do but for some reason hes not doing shit, I understand he has to fight against republican obstructionism but he could be doing some real arm twisting if he had the balls to be a leader and not a conformist.
he had a lot of people supporting him in the beginning and he shouldve taken a better advantage of that, he couldve been a great president if he wanted to, and I guess he kind of still has time to change things around because I know he wants to be reelected.



O btw does anybody know how many people in recent years have overstayed their visas and have brought children along with them? I cant find any statistics on this.
I find it hard to believe that people are still putting their children through this, the psychological and socioeconomic affects it has on their children is not worth it. how can a better life be considered living in the shadows for decades. you would grow up "poorer" (even though I sometimes I think I grew up even more poor here in the us) in the 3rd world but at least you would be able to study and work towards a better future for yourself and for your birth country, why do parents never think of that? after living most of my life in the us I wouldnt feel comfortable been a permanent citizen of my birth country now but if i never wouldve known what the u.s was like I probably wouldve been pretty content in birth country

Def time to start holding more parents accountable, unless your not escaping death threats or an extreme corrupt gov that is constantly violating your human rights(like the genocidal mass killings going on in sudan) than just try to do it the legal way, if your not happy with the opportunities your birth country is providing for you start changing it through the many means there are like activisim , social disobedience, and political action. I know there has usually been a lot of support for the parents that committed the "crime" in the first place because they just wanted to provide a better future for their families but its to tell them no more .

The right-wingers are dead-set on ending the lottery visa program and they should just as well terminate the ridiculous 'wet-foot; dry-foot' green card program for Cubans. They get automatic Green cards upon arrival with the benefit of not having to be 'burdened' to learn English as they mostly go to Florida, and immediately sign up for social benefits at the expense of the taxpayer. I work very hard and studied for as long as I could; have been filing and paying my taxes for a long time and never asking for a hand-out as neither did my parents; EVER. Not even free school lunches during K-12 (although that was mostly because they wouldn't allow us to eat the crap that schools serve for 'lunch'). Why do people who arrive not having proved themselves; many not intending in becoming productive members of society (read: employed) get to have full rights, no questions asked? If any need to be treated this way are the refugees from Iraq and the African interior. Sadly they don't get treated this way.

@melpw: I agree with you; I wouldn't ever dream of doing this as an adult and if it'd known then what I know now, I can't say that I'd be here. But now I have too much vested in this country to leave.

What do you guys think??

http://www.reporternews.com/news/201...ration-reform/

The fight for immigration reform

They seemed almost embarrassed to acknowledge it. Yet one after another, the same immigrant rights leaders who encouraged us to vote for Barack Obama were telling us that the president had betrayed them — and all of us who believed that he would fix our broken immigration system.

At a Washington news conference last week, they finally took off their politically correct gloves and slapped the president around for failing to keep his promise to fight for comprehensive immigration reform.

It took them a long time. If they had started protesting this way last summer, perhaps they could have pressured the president and Congress to take up this controversial matter long before this year’s midterm elections. Yet now that they are nearly out of time — in the last round — the pro-immigrant leaders finally have come out swinging.

They charged that Obama broke George W. Bush’s deportation record, that the Obama administration “seems proud to out-enforce the Bush administration” and that many things Obama could have improved for undocumented immigrants — even without the consent of Congress — have actually worsened under his administration. They said that even in their wildest nightmares, they never imagined that Obama would deport more than 387,000 immigrants during his first year as president or that on any given day on Obama’s watch, there would be 32,000 immigrants detained in U.S. prisons and awaiting deportation.

“These are the same enforcement practices that we marched against during the Bush administration,” said Angelica Salas, director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

She and other members of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement called on Obama to halt immigration raids and deportations and to fight for a legalization plan for some 11 million undocumented immigrants. They called on all Americans to join them in a pro-immigration march in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, March 21, to pressure the president and Congress to come up with “concrete” immigration reform proposals immediately.

That was on Monday, March 8. Three days later, some of the same leaders actually met with the president and came out of the White House claiming that they were encouraged once again by Obama’s alleged commitment to overhaul our immigration system. Really? On the same day they were meeting with the president, major raids against undocumented immigrants were being conducted in Maryland, as the Obama administration continues to beat Bush on Draconian policies that could be stopped by executive order.

Before meeting with pro-immigrant advocates on March 11, Obama also met with the two senators — Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. — who have been procrastinating artfully on the creation of a new “bipartisan” immigration reform bill.

And though the pro-immigrant advocates keep demanding to see a concrete proposal from the president and Congress before their March 21 demonstration, all we’ve gotten has been a statement in which Obama said he would “review” the “promising framework” drafted by the two senators.

Obviously, the Schumer-Graham bill is far from ready — and much farther from being introduced, approved by Congress and signed by Obama this year.

As opposed to the comprehensive immigration reform bill already introduced in the House — by Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill. — the Schumer-Graham bill would attempt to control future illegal immigration by creating a national biometric identification card for all American citizens and legal immigrants — a new issue that by itself could take a year to debate in Congress and perhaps even longer in the courts. There certainly will be many Americans who will argue that a national ID card would allow the government to violate their right to privacy.

Surely Schumer, Graham and Obama are aware that such a measure would totally derail comprehensive immigration reform for months, if not years. Is that their objective? Can they be trusted at this point?

While the president was telling pro-immigrant advocates that he needs to rally the support of some Republicans to pass an immigration reform bill, Graham was issuing a statement saying that he told Obama “in no uncertain terms” that immigration reform “could come to a halt for the year” if Obama persisted on passing health care legislation by using the reconciliation method, which requires a 51-vote majority in the Senate instead of 60 votes. “Using reconciliation to push health care through will make it much harder for Congress to come together on a topic as important as immigration,” Graham noted.

Of course, we all know that Obama is indeed “using reconciliation to push health care through.” In fact, he is spending all his political capital to attain the 216 House votes needed to pass the health care bill this week — the same week when pro-immigrant advocates expect him to come up with “concrete” immigration proposals.

It’s too late — and they know it! Everyone knows that the obstacles to immigration reform are insurmountable right now. Everyone knows that once health care is out of the way, the president and Congress have other huge priorities, such as job creation, waiting in line.

Yet they show up in the last round, while their opponent is still busy with another tough rival, and they expect Obama to fight for health care and immigration at the same time.

They stayed loyal to Obama and the Democratic Party for too long, and now they will go to Washington to pretend that they are the independent leaders they should have been since last summer.

I’m sorry. I wish this were truly a grass-roots effort to condemn Obama and the Democratic leadership in Congress for betraying the immigrants they promised to help. Better yet, I wish it were still possible to pressure Democrats to “do the right thing” for immigrants this year. But this is all a farce.

The White House meetings with senators and advocates and even the demonstration on Sunday — it’s all a show, make-believe, so that both the back-stabbing politicians and the betrayed pro-immigrant leaders can pretend that at least they tried.

To find out more about Miguel Perez, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.