Immigration

Mixed signals on immigration reform

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Washington Post reported this morning on a New immigration campaign to target House Republicans:

With a year to go until the midterm elections, immigration reform advocates hoping to jump-start debate on Capitol Hill are planning to target a handful of Republican lawmakers most likely to suffer political consequences next year if Congress fails to act on immigration reform.

A campaign set to be announced Thursday will marry the financial and political power of the AFL-CIO and SEIU labor unions with smaller grass-roots immigrant advocacy groups, including America’s Voice, PICO National Network, Mi Familia Vota and CASA in Action, to target nine House GOP lawmakers who support establishing a way for eligible immigrants to apply for U.S. citizenship.

The campaign will target Reps. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.), David Valadao (R-Calif.), Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.), Gary Miller (R-Calif.), Scott Tipton (R-Colo.), Mike Coffman (R-Colo.), Daniel Webster (R-Fla.), Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) and Joe Heck (R-Nev.). They represent districts with sizable Latino voting populations where President Obama won or performed well last year. They also have publicly voiced support for revamping the nation’s immigration laws.

Organizers said the goal of the campaign is to pressure the lawmakers to match their public statements by lobbying colleagues and House Republican leaders to permit votes on a series of immigration bills introduced in recent months. If the nine lawmakers fail to convince their colleagues by the end of the year, the groups plan to devote more resources to defeating them in next year's elections and to expand their campaign.

Conservative Alliance of business leaders press Congress for immigratin reform

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The nativist and anti-immigrant forces of the Tea Party were hoping to slow-walk immigration reform to death in the House, but on Tuesday a group of more than 600 leaders from roughly 40 states descended on the Capitol, taking aim at House Republicans who they think could support broad legislation. Business-Conservative Alliance Presses for Immigration Action:

On Tuesday, the group of more than 600 leaders from roughly 40 states
descended on the Capitol for meetings with nearly 150 Republican
lawmakers. They are largely taking aim at House Republicans who they
think could support a broad immigration overhaul, including some sort of
legal status for the 11 million immigrants in the country illegally.
The leaders are urging the lawmakers to take a more proactive role in
pushing immigration legislation to a House vote.

“Our fly-in today is about moving votes on the Hill in support of
reasonable immigration reform,” Randel K. Johnson, the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce’s senior vice president for immigration and labor issues, said
in a conference call with reporters. “I’m confident we’re going to move
the ball forward.”

The event’s sponsors include the Chamber of Commerce; FWD.us, a
political action group founded by Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of
Facebook; the National Immigration Forum; and the Partnership for a New
American Economy, which is led by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New
York, Rupert Murdoch and Bill Marriott Jr.

The effort kicked off in the morning with several panel discussions at
the Chamber of Commerce, including one conversation in which the
Bipartisan Policy Center, a nonprofit based in Washington, unveiled a
new study that found a broad immigration overhaul would help the
economy.

GOP support for Democratic immigration reform bill in the House

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The "Republican Savior" Marco Rubio now has so little influence that noboby much cares what he has to say anymore (outside of the conservative media entertainment complex information feedback loop). His recent attempt to kill immigration reform bills in the House is not bearing fruit — not yet, anyway.

Two House Republicans are now on record supporting the immigration
reform bill introduced by House Democrats, a version of the Senate bill
that gets rid of one border security amendment disliked by House Dems
and replaces it with another security measure that has House bipartisan support. Immigration reform is sort of undead:

Which is to say that immigration reform is just a bit more undead than it was yesterday.

GOP Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida today signed on to the Democratic bill, after GOP Rep. Jeff Denham did the same
over the weekend. This measure is unlikely to get a vote in the House.
But Dems  have not given up on the possibility that House Republicans
will allow a vote on something immigration related this year.

Immigration reform held hostage by Tea-Publican egotists who want to be president

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Remember this bit of sacriligious pretentiousness from earlier this year?

RubioSavior

Things have been on a downhill slide for Senator Marco "Big Gulp" Rubio ever since he lent his name to the Senate "Gang of Eight" immigration reform bill. He was AWOL during the recent Tea-Publican economic terrorist hostage taking of the federal debt ceiling and GOP government shutdown, which allowed Senator Joe McCarthy Ted "Calgary" Cruz to position himself as the latest darlin' of the foaming at the mouth radical Tea Party extremists whom once worshiped Rubio as their "savior."

"Big Gulp" has previously said that he no longer supports his own immigration reform bill, but now he says that he will also not support any conference committee markup of an immigration reform bill, because he needs to pander to the foaming at the mouth radical Tea Party extremists whom he needs for his narcissistic quest for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016. Rubio Throws In The Towel On Immigration:

The most prominent conservative supporter of sweeping immigration
reform is calling on Congress to dial back the effort and instead focus
on making incremental changes, delivering a significant blow to the
prospects of reform.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) now opposes a
bicameral conference committee to reach a final resolution to the
Senate-passed bill, his spokesman said, arguing that the support is not
there for a comprehensive overhaul and that Congress should act where
there is consensus.

"The point is that at this time, the only
approach that has a realistic chance of success is to focus on those
aspects of reform on which there is consensus through a series of
individual bills," Alex Conant, a top spokesman for Rubio, told TPM in
an email. "Otherwise, this latest effort to make progress on immigration
will meet the same fate as previous efforts: failure."

President Obama on immigration reform: ‘Let’s see if we can get it done this year’

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Today, President Obama joined leaders from business, labor, and faith
communities in support of comprehensive immigration reform.

Remarks by the President on Immigration Reform (excerpts):

Today I’m here with leaders from business, from labor, from faith
communities who are united around one goal — finishing the job of
fixing a broken immigration system.

This is not just an idea whose time has come; this is an idea whose
time has been around for years now.  Leaders like all of you have worked
together with Republicans and Democrats in this town in good faith for
years to try to get this done.  And this is the moment when we should be
able to finally get the job done.

* * *

We should pass immigration reform.  It’s good for our economy.  It’s
good for our national security.  It’s good for our people.  And we
should do it this year.

Everybody knows that our current immigration system is broken. 
Across the political spectrum, people understand that.  We’ve known it
for years.  It’s not smart to invite some of the brightest minds from
around the world to study here and then not let them start businesses
here — we send them back to their home countries to start businesses
and create jobs and invent new products someplace else. 

It’s not fair to businesses and middle-class families who play by the
rules when we allow companies that are trying to undercut the rules
work in the shadow economy, to hire folks at lower wages or no benefits,
no overtime, so that somehow they get a competitive edge from breaking
the rules.  That doesn’t make sense. 

It doesn’t make sense to have 11 million people who are in this
country illegally without any incentive or any way for them to come out
of the shadows, get right with the law, meet their responsibilities and
permit their families then to move ahead.  It’s not smart.  It’s not
fair.  It doesn’t make sense.  We have kicked this particular can down
the road for too long.