Immigration

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.

The Discharge Petition Strategy for Immigration Reform

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Last week, the “New Democrat” coalition of centrist conservadem lawmakers sent a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner
demanding that he bring an immigration bill to the House floor by the
end of September. If he doesn’t, they said, they will introduce their
own bill. Lawmakers Weigh Aggressive Tactic on Immigration:

That bill, or different variation on the sweeping immigration bill
passed by the Senate, could become the basis for an in-your-face tactic
known as a “discharge petition,” which aims to bring a piece of
legislation to the floor over the wishes of the people who run the
House.

“Once there is a House bill, if there is reluctance to bring it
forward and allow members to vote on it, then absolutely we’ll consider a
discharge petition,” said Rep. Jared Polis (D., Colo.), a co-chairman of the coalition’s immigration task force.

He said starting a petition could be an effective way to put more
pressure on Republican leaders, even if Democrats can’t gather the
necessary 218 signatures. The AFL-CIO is also considering support for
this step, calling it a “a very viable tool to force a vote” if
necessary.

But Democrats and immigration advocates are divided over whether to
employ the move in hopes of pressuring House Republicans on immigration,
or to continue pushing what they would like to be a bipartisan march to
the finish line.

Questions for Martha McSally: What is your position on comprehensive immigration reform?

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

In this new series, "Questions for Martha McSally," we pose questions to
the McSally campaign about her positions on current hot topics — I am
not going to give her a free pass until after the GOP primary like our local media did in 2012.

Preface: The "Gang of Eight" in the U.S. Senate, which includes Arizona senators John McCain and Jeff Flake, crafted a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill that passed the U.S. Senate on a super-majority vote of 68-32, with 14 Republicans including Arizona's seantors voting in favor.

The "Gang of Eight" bill includes a "border surge" amendment from Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) that throws $30 billion in spending over a 10-year period at border security which would produce a financial windfall to some of America's
largest aerospace, technology and security companies, and to
border states. Sen. Corker conceded that his "border surge" is "almost overkill."