Immigration

Valdez: ‘Let’s roll House Speaker John Boehner’

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Arizona Republic's Linda Valdez joins the discharge petition movement today. Roll Boehner for immigration reform:

It’s called the discharge petition.

Under House rules, you need a majority
of the 435 members to bring a measure directly to the floor. With 200
Democrats currently in the chamber, only a few Republicans are needed.

* * *

President Obama says he’s “absolutely
certain” the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill would pass
the House if it came to the floor. Arizona Democratic Rep. Ann
Kirkpatrick told The Arizona Republic editorial board this week, “It would pass.”

So let’s roll Republican House Speaker John Boehner.

If Kirkpatrick and president are wrong, and the Senate bill fails, we can start over in two years.

This might not be a complete disaster.

For one thing, the GOP will get the
blame, and — as GOP Sen. Marco Rubio suggested — Obama can extend
deferred deportation to the parents of the Dreamers. This will help
Democrats in 2014 and anoint Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Rep. Matt Salmon on immigration reform – ‘no citizenship for you!’

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

At least one editor of The Arizona Republic appears to be OK with the Republican National Committee (RNC) position of "no citizenship for you!" in immigration reform. The Republic editorials have previously been supportive of the "Gang of Eight" comprehensive immigration reform bill sponsored by Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake.

Joanna Allhands, writes Does Salmon have the right immigration answer?

It’s becoming increasingly clear that the immigration reforms most
likely to pass the U.S. House won’t involve a path to citizenship for
adults. Too many in the GOP simply won’t go for it.

But can reform still be meaningful without that piece?

U.S. Rep. Matt Salmon, one of the Republicans who remains against the
path to citizenship, is pressing to grant undocumented adults a type of
provisional status that they can renew every few years. It would allow
them to get driver’s licenses and work here legally as long as they are
employed and don’t break the law. But it would just be that: presence,
not belonging.

When asked Wednesday during a meeting with The Republic‘s
editorial board if such a status would create a second class of
citizens, Salmon answered with a question: “Well, what are they now? …
They’re not really anything.”

Offering legal presence, he said, at least moves the ball up the field.

UPDATED: Monthly Progressive Roundtables Give PDA Members a ‘Seat at the Table’ (video)

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Group-47-sig-sm300by Pamela Powers Hannley

UPDATE: This article was picked up by the national publication In These Times and by the Daily Kos Progressive Blog Round-up. Check out the In These Times version for more details: Knights of the Progressive Roundtable.

Deals are made, and bills are negotiated not only in the halls of Congress but in offices and meeting rooms around DC. Since December 2012, Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) has been conducting monthly, Educate Congress roundtable meetings with Congressional representatives and key staff.

With a give-and-take format, these meetings allow PDA representatives and allies to discuss proposed legislation and related progressive ideas and allow Congressional representatives and staffers to offer updates, insights, and strategies.

The Progressive Roundtables provide a forum to address a broad range of issues– from Wall Street gambling and hunger in America to voting rights, immigration, fracking, universal healthcare, the living wage, austerity, tax reform, mass incarceration, and more.

“One of the things I love about PDA is you stand up for ‘the little guy,’ and that’s what government’s all about,” Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern told the roundtable audience in July 2013. “Donald Trump doesn’t need us [Congress], but somebody who is unemployed or somebody who is working and making so little that they still qualify for SNAP [food stamps], they need us!” More roundtable details and videos after the jump.)

The man who would kill comprehensive immigration reform

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Steve Benen reports Key House Republican looks to kill immigration reform:

GoodlatteHouse Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) rejected comprehensive reform in February, but left himself some wiggle room ever since.

That is, until yesterday.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) didn't breed much optimism on Monday about
his plans for comprehensive immigration reform, telling a town hall
crowd that the House would act, but not on a "special pathway to
citizenship" that Democrats support. […]

Goodlatte said he sympathized with young undocumented immigrants who
wanted to gain legal status so they can work and attend college more
easily. But he said he would not support moving forward before other
border security and enforcement mechanisms were in place. He said he
also opposes allowing a special pathway to citizenship for other
undocumented immigrants — such as Dreamers' parents — that he feared
may encourage more unauthorized immigration.

Militarization of the Mexican border made unauthorized immigration worse

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I previously posted about the $30 billion dollar border security "surge" amendment by Tea-Publican Senators Bob Corker and John Hoeven in the U.S. Senate "Gang of Eight" comprehensive immigration bill. The price for GOP nativism and racism: $30+ billion wasted dollars.

Our own Senator John McCain said, "I mean this is not only sufficient, it is well over-sufficient. We'll
be the most militarized border since the fall of the Berlin Wall. That's
why I think this amendment was very important." Sen. McCain: US will have 'most militarized' border since Berlin Wall.

One has to question why McCain longs for a Berlin Wall in the United States, because we are all about "freedom!" Are we now the "evil empire" of the Soviet Union in McCain's fevered dreams?

Apparently our purported military "genius" — according to the Sunday morning bobblehead shows — is unfamiliar with the famous quotation from General George S. Patton: "Fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man." The Berlin Wall is a primary example.

Last week, Ezra Klein posted about a study by Princeton University's Doug Massey, one of the nation’s preeminent immigration scholars. Everything you know about immigration is wrong:

Everything you know about immigration, particularly unauthorized immigration, is wrong.

[Massey] thinks we’ve wasted a whole lot of money on immigration policy and are about to waste a whole lot more.