Congress after congress, president after president, and year after year, the immigration status quo has continued to persist, and a broken, inhuman and often irrational immigration system has been allowed to fester. And every time an opponent of immigration reform engages in a campaign of fear and misinformation, that's just another win for the dangerous status quo.
We at Immigrants' List -- a bipartisan political action committee dedicated to electing lawmakers who are pro-immigration -- decided to shine a light on those individuals who have presented the greatest obstacles to repairing our country's immigration system. We unveiled this week our Hall of Shame, ten of the biggest obstructionists to immigration reform who are running or have run for office this year.
Regrettably, this past year has given us plenty of people to consider: Here's the list:
1 - Former State Assemblywoman Sharron Angle (R-NV)
Former State Assemblywoman and current Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle has been criticized for her extremist views, including her views on immigration. The Minutemen-endorsed candidate has advocated the use of a voter-id program to "safeguard the election process" and opposed a scholarship program because it gave tuition money to legal residents who were not citizens.
2 - Former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO)
Former Rep. Tancredo is perhaps the founder of the anti-reform world and one of its most vociferious spokespeople for years now. Tancredo is also a leading voice of the nativist view that all immigrants must be culturally assimilated.
3 - Former Rep. JD Hayworth (R-AZ)
Former Ariz. Rep. and senate candidate Hayworth has always had a stern anti-reform reputation, going back to his effort to kill the Kennedy-McCain reform package in 2006. But Hayworth also has offered an odd approach to fixing the immigration system: banning legal immigration from Mexico.
4 - Governor Jan Brewer (R-AZ)
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer is responsible for a law that is nothing short of a state takeover of a federal power. While debate over SB 1070 could have been a catalyst for a much-needed national conversation about immigration reform, Brewer used the bill to inspire fear.
5 - Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
Senator Grassley has been at the forefront of the paranoia campaign against immigration reform for years. Most recently, and what puts him at the top of the list is his spreading the notion of an Obama back-door amnesty plan.
6 - Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX)
In 1995, Rep. Smith penned an op-ed calling for amending the 14th Amendment to address birthright citizenship. For the entirety of his career, he has used the immigration issue as a scare tactic for political gain. This year, Smith used an anti-immigration message to undercut support for President Obama's healthcare reform plan.
7 - Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-CA)
Rep. Bilbray of California is one of the leading obstructionists of immigration reform. Besides heading the House of Representative's leading anti-reform caucus, Bilbray was a key advocate of SB 1070. Recently, Bilbray has been rumor-mongering that President Obama plans to grant amnesty to undocumented residents by presidential order--which the Department of Homeland Security dismissed.
8 - Rep. Gene Taylor (D-MS)
Rep. Taylor's roots with the anti-reform movement run very deep. He has endorsed legislation to address birthright citizenship, has been endorsed by a leading anti-reform group Americans for Legal Immigration and has the highest score of any Democrat by the anti-reform group NumbersUSA.
9 - Rep. Steve King (R-IA)
Rep. King of Iowa has always erected obstacles in the path of fixing our immigration system. King called the 2007 Kennedy-Kyl reform effort a "hand grenade" and a "sham." Most recently, he was an avid supporter of SB 1070, and cited The Bible in arguing that God was against immigration reform.
10 - Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC)
Rep. Foxx of North Carolina has consistently engaged in the type of fear and misinformation campaign that undermines public support for immigration reform. Foxx has likened legal immigration to an "invasion," and supports the use of dragnets to round up undocumented residents.
We already allow more legal immigration then the rest of the world - combined. Far more then we have the capability to supply water, energy, good land, schools, roads, sewage plants, landfills, etc for.
We already subsidize the immigration process (background checks, paperwork, medical records, agents, etc) through taxes for the cost for that legal immigration. If we grant amnesty to illegals their fines will be far far less then the cost borne by legal immigrants. So we taxpayers end up paying again.
We already give instant citizenship to anyone born here - the only industrial nation to do so. Not only that but we also grant immigrants and their kids far far more social programs then any other industrial nation. All while our already numerous poor people have to be dehumanized in order to get some help and that slice of welfare pie is cut into ever smaller pieces.
We already are lowering the wages of our lowest paid workers (the jobs that immigrants flock to have the highest unemployment rates and the lowest wage rises for decades) by importing too many people. Labor is a supply/demand item.
Questions for Amy: what makes the system broken to you? How is the current system inhuman?
Does she mean by limiting immigration? That will still be the case under the terms of a CIR.
Does she mean enforcement of immigration law? There will be enforcement provisions under any CIR. There will still be people subject to deportation.
If that is what you mean, what exactly is going to be different going forward under the terms of the CIR you're proposing to keep the new system from being "inhuman" to you? How can you support the limitations and enforcement provisions of the legislation you lobby in favor of when you oppose the current system for those reasons?
Even today the housing numbers are terrible; there is over a year of back inventory on the real estate market. But our fear of non-anglo human beings prevents us from increasing legal immigration and from legalizing the people who are already living and working here without any legal status. Don't you think that people might be more likely to buy a home or invest in a property if they didn't think they could be picked up and deported at any time?
Macroeconomics is not a zero sum game - bringing in people who want to work is not going to take already scarce jobs away from Americans...on the contrary...it will increase economic activity and the size of the economy and increase consumer spending a major driver of the US economy.
Since the average person’s working years start at age 16 in both 1950 and 2010 it means that in 1950 the average Worker worked for 49 years and retired for three years. So there were 16 Workers for every Retiree, all age groups being equal. This matches with the statistic perfectly.
Today the average Worker works for 49 years and retires for 15 years. Now the math shows there should be 3.3 Workers for every Retiree, all age groups being equal. The actual rate is 2.94. Increased life span has caused 97% of the 1950 to 2010 decline in number of Workers per Retiree. This is what is bankrupting Social Security. The large Baby Boom generation compared to the Depression and World War II baby bust offset the increase in retirement time until now. Per current tax rates, benefits, and time in retirement it would take 115 million Immigrant Workers to temporarily fix Social Security.
My nominee for the list: President Barack Obama
President Obama has deported more undocumented immigrants than George W. Bush did in any single year in office. 86% of all individuals detained on immigration charges in 2009 by the Obama administration are from Mexico. Looks like a classic case of racial profiling to me.
Obama has completely turned his back on the immigration reform community and has broken his campaign promise to address immigration reform in his first year in office. Year two is slipping away, and we are no closer to reform than we were when then Senator Obama introduced a poison pill amendment on the floor of the Senate that helped killed the last stab at immigration reform.
If anyone deserves to be on that list it is the President.
Now, 24 years later, it is the same old song and dance - tough enforcement in exchange for "a path to legalization". What kind of suckers do people pushing this deal think we are? I am sure almost everyone can understand how those who were burned once refuse to be burned again. That making deals with those who break their promises is making no deal at all.
Does no one learn from history? All one has to do is look at the entire history of broken agreements between American Indian Nations and the US Government to see that Simpson-Mazzoli fits that pattern. If those pushing a “path to legalization” want to restore the faith of those who were burned the last time then dealing with all 11 million Illegal Immigrants as agreed to in Simpson-Mazzoli should restore the faith. Of course that would make another deal superfluous would it not?
I thought I was pro-immigration reform until it became clear that a "path to citizenship" for those who've been here illegally now seems inseparable from the idea of immigration reform.
Because I have yet to see an "Immigration Reform" plan that doesn't create one.
Just imagine if illegal immigrants were fake money. would we allow them to become legal?
Pathway to legal status = paying a fine to legalize fake money.
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Between the Democratic Party and the Catholic Church, almost anything said against illegal aliens, and FOR the laws of the land are considered support of the dangerous status quo. The Church is providing us with this sort of information to boot.
http://catholicknight.blogspot.com/2010/01/illegal-aliens-amnesty-us-catholic.html
Two more sites that spell it out for the Citizens of this country and hope that everyone looks at them.
http://www.bop.gov/about/facts.jsp
http://www.numbersusa.com/content/issues.html