Immigration

By Michael Bryan

hat tip to Crooks & Liars:

Perhaps Governor Dingbat's staff should just stop allowing her to do live interviews.

Brahm Resnick interviewed Brewer post-election and prodded her regarding the softening in her party nationally on comprehensive immigration reform after the drubbing her ticket got among Latinos (a 44% gap on the Presidential line). He asked Brewer if she would now be open to a comprehensive immigration deal now that her enforcement first position has so thoroughly alienated Latino voters.

"But here's the thing," Resnik pointed out. "With John Boehner and Sean Hannity, Grover Norquist and [Maricopa County Attorney] Bill Montgomery — what he said in particular was, 'You know what? We can do both at once. We can secure the border and do comprehensive immigration reform.' Is that something you're on with? Because it sounds like you are just a secure-the-border-first person."

"What ever works," Brewer replied. "If we can do both at the same time, I'm fine and dandy with that. But we cannot resolve these kinds of issues today and then have the problems still existing."

Well, that's certainly a new tune for Brewer.

Of course, she didn't really mean it. On Sunday, KPNX reported that Brewer's office had contacted Resnick after the interview was recorded on Friday to walk back her support for comprehensive immigration reform in concert with securing the border.

Spokesman Matt Benson said, "the governor still believes in securing the border first," Resnik wrote. "He added that she was willing to 'come to the table' to deal with all immigration issues. Later Friday, the governor's office issued a statement reaffirming her 'secure the border first' stance."

It should not come as a surprise that Brewer's head remains buried in the sand. Toward the end of the interview she clearly implied that the Obama Administration intentionally leaves the Tucson sector "unsecured" in order to whip up racial animus to secure the Latino vote.

When asked if the GOP, and the AZGOP especially, deserved any blame for alienating Latinos, she replied, "No, President Obama, in the last four years, they've had four years to get our borders secured and they refused to do it, but yet we know they can. We know that they can secure the borders. Why won't they secure the border? Because they wanted that out there because they knew that they could turn it into an issue of all about racism."

Say what? So Obama has purposely left the border insecure (despite cleverly covering his tracks by plowing more billions into enforcement, deporting at a record clip, and radically expanding manpower on the border) in order to alarm white folks so much that they'll go batshit, pass a bunch or racist legislation and piss off Latinos, so that in turn Latinos will feel so disrespected by the GOP that they'll vote for him in droves? Now we're deep in the crazy…

Reality adjustment just isn't in the cards for politicians like Brewer and Arpaio. They are incapable of acknowledging that their belief that the Obama Administration and Dems are exploiting racism is nothing more than projection of their own racist motives onto the opposition. The AZGOP has been successfully exploiting racial animus and the fears of white America to win elections for several cycles now. Expecting them to stop now and support a reasonable resolution is like expecting a Coatimundi to ditch its own tail rings.

If the GOP wants a fresh start with Latino voters, they can only do so with fresh GOP politicians who didn't cut their teeth on denigrating Latinos and scaring the shit out of white voters (with headless corpses in the desert, for example…)
to get elected. Of course, that disqualifies nearly every currently elected AZ GOP pol… 

See the video after the click…

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Obama campaign is up with a new Spanish-language ad featuring First Lady Michelle Obama being interviewed by the "Latina Oprah," Cristina Saralegui. Description in English:

Cristina Saralegui:
"Why is it so important for Latinos to vote in this election?"

First Lady Michele Obama:
"So
much is at stake. Comprehensive immigration reform. Making sure that
health care is not repealed. Education — making sure that every young
person in this country has access to good schools. I could go on and on
and on, but that's why the vote is critical."

Video below the fold.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The issue of immigration reform and the DREAM Act came up during last night's debate. Willard "Mittens" Romney whined that President Obama promised a comprehensive immigration reform bill in his first year during the 2008 campaign, and he failed to deliver.

Somehow Whiner Willard has conveniently forgotten that in Obama's first year, the U.S. and world financial systems were in a catastrophic collapse, and the U.S. and world economy were on their way to cratering into a new economic dark ages, a parting "gift" to President Obama from his predecessor George W. Bush.

It's called prioritizing "Mittens" — deal with the disasters first. Stop the ship from sinking, then you can rearrange the deck chairs.

Whiner Willard has also conveniently forgotten that Republicans like Sen. John McCain, who once championed a comprehensive immigration reform bill, disavowed his own bill during the 2008 campaign and adopted the GOP hard-line on immigration reform. McCain could have become an elder statesman by working with Obama. Instead, he opted for the role of embittered sore loser, constantly sniping at the man who defeated him.

When Republicans conspired on the day of Obama's inauguration to oppose everything he proposed, Robert Draper Book: GOP's Anti-Obama Campaign Started Night Of Inauguration, who exactly was going to partner with Obama on a bipartisan compromise? The GOP has had from day one a scorched earth policy of "just say no."

During last night's debate, President Obama slammed Romney for having endorsed "self-deportation" during the GOP primaries as a credible immigration policy. (Romney's chief anti-immigrant adviser is Kris Kobach, the author of Arizona's SB 1070 and other anti-immigrant measures). Steve Benen writes, Trying (and failing) to defend 'self-deportation':

Romney responded, haltingly:

"Self-deportation says let it, let people make their own choice. What
I was saying is, we're not going to round up 12 million people,
undocumented, illegals, and take them out of the nation. Instead, let,
make people make their own choice. And if they, if they find that, that
they can't get the benefits here that they want and they can't find the
job they want, then they'll make a decision to go a place where, where
they have better opportunities."