Immigration

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Arizona Daily Star does not do fact checking. When it publishes a fact check article, it typically is an AP (All Propaganda) fact check report, like today's AP report. Dueling immigration claims aren't always the whole truth.

What I found interesting about this fact check is that President Obama is fact checked only once, and the remainder of the article fact checks the shameless shapeshifter and pathological liar, Willard "Mittens" Romney.'

But the one supposed fact check of President Obama by the AP is "misleading" and needs a fact check of its own. The offending passage reads:

Here's a closer look at Obama's statement, Romney's assertions and how they match up with the facts:

OBAMA: "We should have passed the DREAM Act a long time ago. It was written by members of both parties. When it came up for a vote a year and a half ago [2010], Republicans in Congress blocked it. The bill hadn't changed. The need hadn't changed. The only thing that had changed was politics."

THE FACTS: Five Senate Democrats voted against sending the DREAM Act to the Senate floor for full consideration. The bill would have created a path to citizenship for many young illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children. Last week, Obama announced plans to stop deporting illegal immigrants who would have qualified for the DREAM Act. The policy change does not include a path to citizenship.

So according to the AP fact check, the DREAM Act "failed" in the Senate because of five Democratic Senators. The AP does not acknowledge the Republican filibuster and suffers under the delusion that 60 votes are required to pass a bill in the Senate.

Did you know that the DREAM Act has received a majority vote of the U.S. Senate three times? In October 2007, the DREAM Act was offered as an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill. It received 52 votes in favor of passage. In 2010, the DREAM Act was again incorporated into the Defense Aurthorization bill. In September 2010, it received 56 votes in favor of passage. The bill was reintroduced, and in December 2010, it received 55 votes in favor of passage.

In each case, the DREAM Act "failed" only because of the abuse of the Senate cloture (filibuster) rules by Senate Republican leadership.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

President Barack Obama on Friday defended his decision to lift the threat of deportation for hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, saying it gave them an overdue "sense of hope." He challenged Republicans in Congress to join him finally on a big, broad fix of the U.S. immigration laws. Obama says his immigration policy offers 'sense of hope' (AP):

Obama tailored his re-election message of economic fairness and opportunity to his audience of Latino officials, addressing the group one day after Republican rival Mitt Romney did the same.

* * *

The president said the nation needs ideas and policies that build up the middle class and "our current immigration system doesn't reflect those values." The system punishes immigrants who play by the rules and drives away entrepreneurs who can get an education in America but cannot stay here legally, he said.

Obama spoke to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials near Orlando, his first speech to a Hispanic group since he decreed that many young illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children would be exempted from deportation and granted work permits valid for two years

"It was the right thing to do," Obama declared.

* * *

"For those who are saying Congress should be the one to fix this, absolutely," Obama said. "For those who say we should do this in a bipartisan fashion, absolutely. My door's been open for three-and-a-half years. They know where to find me."

Video below the fold.