Read Blog for Arizona | Politics from a Liberal Viewpoint for more about Immigration

A DACA deal with ‘Amnesty Don’? Don’t believe it until it actually happens

September 14, 2017 by AZ BlueMeanie

The first thing you always have to keep in mind is that you literally cannot believe anything Donald Trump says. He is a pathological liar who will tell whomever he is speaking to whatever they want to hear, and minutes later deny he ever said it. He frequently contradicts himself, sometimes even in the same sentence. You really cannot negotiate with someone like this because his word is not his bond and there is no morality or sense of honor to hold him to a commitment he has given.

So this happened last night. Pelosi and Schumer Say They Have Deal With Trump to Replace DACA:

Democratic leaders on Wednesday night declared that they had a deal with President Trump to quickly extend protections for young undocumented immigrants and to finalize a border security package that does not include the president’s proposed wall.

The Democrats, Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Nancy Pelosi, said in a joint statement that they had a “very productive” dinner meeting with the president at the White House that focused on the program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. “We agreed to enshrine the protections of DACA into law quickly, and to work out a package of border security, excluding the wall, that’s acceptable to both sides,” they said.

Less than 20 minuts later, White House spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted this after the internet began reporting the news:

Mr. Schumer’s communications director, Matt House, fired back on Twitter: “The President made clear he would continue pushing the wall, just not as part of this agreement.”

Trump Ends DACA: Will Congress Save Dreamers?

September 6, 2017September 6, 2017 by Pamela Powers

Our country’s most ill-prepared president just lobbed one of our country’s stickiest problems into the court of the country’s least effective Congress, ever. What could go wrong? The dreams of nearly one million young people.

On Sept. 5, 2017, Attorney General and long-time anti-immigration advocate Jeff Sessions announced the Trump administration’s decision to rescind President Obama’s executive order that created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Implemented five years ago, DACA was supposed to be a stop-gap measure to shield children and young adults, who were brought to the US illegally as minors by their parents. The plan was that Congress would move on immigration reform while DACA protected these young people from immediate deportation.

Roughly 800,000 young adults under DACA could face deportation if Congress fails to act within the next six months. The crux of the problem is that DACA was created because Congress shirked its duty on meaningful immigration reform. For 16 years, Congress has failed to pass any immigration reform– let alone comprehensive reform, which is sorely needed. Even the DREAM Act (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) — which outlined a path to citizenship for Dreamers– has died a bipartisan death in Congress multiple times, since it was originally proposed in 2001.

Will Congress have the guts to save the Dreamers now?

Rep. McSally responds to President Trump’s recission of DACA with a lie

September 6, 2017 by AZ BlueMeanie

Rep. Martha McSally, who typically avoids commenting on controversial issues, responded to President Trump’s recission of DACA with a lie.

The lie: “Congress was robbed of the opportunity to do so when President Obama issued his June 2012 meorandum.” That is pure unadulterated bullshit.

Since McSally has unfortunately been in Congress, the “Gang of Eight” Immigration Reform bill passed the Senate on a super-majority vote of 68-32 in 2013. Senate passes immigration bill.

The “Gang of Eight” bill died in the House, where Rep. McSally supported alternative bills by racist xenophobe Rep. Steve King (R-IA). Martha McSally is a ‘Deportation Republican’.

The GOP turned over its immigration policy to racist xenophobe Rep. Steve King in the new Congress in 2015, a policy which included the repealof DACA. The GOP reaffirms it is ‘the party of maximum deportations’. Rep. McSally supported Rep. King’s bill.

Rep. McSally voted with her “Mass Deportation” GOP colleagues to defund the DACA program in January 2015. House Deportation Tea-Publicans vote to defund DACA Program.

Rep. McSally is counting on our feckless local media and the low information voters who voted for her to suffer from short-term memory and to not remember how she has voted on this immigration issue in the past. She has consistently voted against DACA. She is not “willing and ready to find a solution.” She has voted for deportation.

Suffer the Children: Day of Reckoning for DACA

September 5, 2017 by AZ BlueMeanie

While the actual details have not yet been announced, the news media has been consistently reporting the White House position leaked to POLITICO over the Labor Day weekend that President Donald Trump has decided to punt the DACA issue to the Tea-Publican Congress. Trump has decided to end DACA, with 6-month delay:

President Donald Trump has decided to end the Obama-era program that grants work permits to undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as children, according to two sources familiar with his thinking. Senior White House aides huddled Sunday afternoon to discuss the rollout of a decision likely to ignite a political firestorm — and fulfill one of the president’s core campaign promises.

Trump has wrestled for months with whether to do away with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, known as DACA. But conversations with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who argued that Congress — rather than the executive branch — is responsible for writing immigration law, helped persuade the president to terminate the program and kick the issue to Congress, the two sources said.

In a nod to reservations held by many lawmakers, the White House plans to delay the enforcement of the president’s decision for six months, giving Congress a window to act, according to one White House official.

Riiight. A Democratic majority Congress could not pass the DREAM Act in 2010 because of a GOP Senate filibuster, joined by five “moderate” Democratic senators (Sens. Baucaus, Hagan, Nelson, Pryor and Tester) on a vote of 55-41 (four senators not voting). Of the three GOP senators who voted for the DREAM Act, Sens. Bennet, Lugar and Murkowski, only Murkowski is still in the Senate. The DREAM Act was passed by the Democratic controlled House.

Since that time, the GOP has become even more anti-immigrant, and in 2016 was taken over by the white nationalist Trump supporters of the alt-right, exemplified by former chief stategist to the Trump campaign, Stephen Bannon.

Phoenix Anti-Hate Rally Draws 1000s: Video the News Didn’t Show You (video)

August 27, 2020August 30, 2017 by Pamela Powers

Reps. Sally Ann Gonzales and Pamela Powers Hannley — Rep. Sally Ann Gonzales and I were interviewed by NBC News out of Los Angeles at the downtown Phoenix rally outside of President Trump’s speech.

On August 11, a white supremacist protest against removal of a Confederate monument in Charlottesville, Virginia turned violent, and a young woman, who was a counter-protester, was killed. This sparked anti-hate/anti-fascism/anti-Nazi marches across the country, including an estimated 1500 people who marched through downtown Tucson.

President Trump’s claim that there was “violence on both sides” in Charlottesville ran counter to what many Americans saw in the news and on social media.

Presidential comments that appeared supportive of white supremacists, the rumor that Trump would soon pardon former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio (which did happened), Trump’s threat to shut down the government if Congress doesn’t fund the border wall, and the potential end of the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals)– all made Trump’s August 22 campaign rally in Phoenix a potential powder keg.