Much Ado About Nothing: The President's Impending Immigration Reform Meeting

Should we expect progress to emerge from President Obama's meeting with Congressional leaders to discuss immigration reform? I doubt it. With national unemployment at 9.4 percent and black unemployment at 14.9 percent, it is quite unlikely that any major legislative action will take place this calendar year.

Cynics say that the President's meeting is a photo opportunity for him to further solidify the Democratic Party's grasp on the Hispanic vote rather than a serious effort to initiate a conversation about immigration reform. Therefore, it might behoove Republicans to approach the rescheduled meeting with caution since they are dealing with a President who has outmaneuvered them at every turn. After watching Obama tie Republicans in knots over the Sonia Sotomayor nomination, I see the June meeting as more icing on the cake in the Democratic Party's shameless pursuit of the Latino vote.

Given the complexity of immigration issues, it is doubtful that anything constructive can come from this meeting. Instead, the bipartisan meeting gives the Obama Administration another opportunity to paint Republicans as obstructionist to immigration reform. The Democrats will use any reservations raised by Republican leaders to brand them more deeply as racist, anti-immigrant bigots. What is likely to happen is a Democratic Party effort to resurrect the ill-fated 2008 immigration bill defeated in the Senate because of massive grassroots opposition to its amnesty provisions.

Most Americans support immigration reform in principle. For decades, however, their has been a disjuncture between public opinion and the actions of our governmental officials and policy elites. Law professor, Peter Schuck, has written eloquently about this problem. The question arises: is our nation prepared for a real substantive conversation about this issue that does not descend into name-calling? Before such a conversation can begin in earnest, policymakers must spell out for the American people what they mean by "Comprehensive Immigration Reform."

Sometimes reform is presented as a vague concept that means different things to different people. For some people, it means border control and enforcement of laws against illegal immigrants. For others, it means amnesty or an easy path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

We have a serious problem on our hands. What kind of nation does not respect its own laws? The Obama Administration's retrenchment from enforcement of existing laws should trouble all Americans.

To be truly comprehensive, immigration reform should address thorny issues such as birthright citizenship, E-Verify and 287 (g) expansion, over-population, crime, family reunification, identification theft, ballot security, discrimination against immigrations from disfavored nations, as well as the very real adverse impacts to local communities and vulnerable native populations.

In conclusion, we cannot continue to pretend that unchecked immigration is a win/win for our nation. The overall health and well-being of our great nation depends on electing leaders who are courageous enough to look beyond the next election. Until we reform immigration, a host of other domestic public policy such as healthcare and education areas are doomed for failure.

Comments

[Supplysideeconomist]

Hi, Carol its Thomas, Do you like my User ID: I have nothing to add to this. Bravo on this piece. And yes, I too hate having the racist label attached to Republicans when it is not true. Wait a minute, I do have something to add. Regarding this point, "Democratic Party's shameless pursuit of the Latino vote."
This also comes in the form of "government entitlement handouts" One could suggest, in the past illegal immigrants truly want to come here to earn a living, but with increasing entitlements, the incentive is reduced as the handouts are probably more valuable then, what one would make working in Mexico. If this was not the case, I may not have a problem with immigration. But I still do, because of your very point of the unemployment rate among blacks and the poor. Let's put the pressure on!

[SiSePuede08]

I'm interested in what you think needs to be on the issue of birthright citizenship.

The only people who argue that something needs to be done are those who oppose doing what we've done since this nation was founded - grant citizenship to those born within our borders. This is a non-issue for all of those who want to address the real issues with our broken immigration system.

[Mares]

The constitution refers to birthright citizenship being deserving of those who are subject to the laws of the US. The children of illegal aliens, are not subject to the laws of the US, they are subject to the laws of the home countries of their parents, just as their parents are. Our constitution and laws were established not to be cruel, but to protect the most vulnerable citizens of the US from discrimination.. something the left doesn't seem to care about. The 14th amendment wasn't intended as a loophole to allow illegal alien criminals to exploit by having babies in the US. You make a mockery of what that amendment was intended for. Not even the children of foreign diplomats are afforded citizenship, merely because they were born here. Illegals are by their very nature, not in the US legally, they are not subject to US law, as their foreign counsels state on every instance of an illegal being arrested for a capital crime. So, their children are in actuality citizens of, again, their parent's home countries.

Because said left, ignores poor and suffering American citizens, displaced by illegals and the exploitation of our visa programs, living in tent cities across the country. Illegal aliens have no civil rights, they are criminals. The children of illegals should return home to their parent's countries with them. They aren't suffering there, they aren't starving or homeless there.