Couple of odds and ends post-President Obama executive order announcement

Crossposted at DemocraticDiva.com

Here’s the very first bill filed in the Georgia Senate for their upcoming session.

First Reader Summary
PF: A BILL to be entitled an Act to amend Chapters 5, 11, and 16 of Title 40 of the O.C.G.A., relating to drivers’ licenses, abandoned motor vehicles, and the Department of Driver Services, respectively, so as to provide that persons who possess a lawful alien status are the only category of noncitizens who may obtain a license, permit, or card; to require the Department of Driver Services to participate in the Records and Information from DMVs for E-Verify initiative of the United States Department of Homeland Security; to provide for related matters; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other purposes…

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(11) ‘Lawful alien status’ means an alien status provided for by the federal Immigration
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and Nationality Act or any other provision by the United States Congress; provided,
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however, that lawful alien status shall not include a grant of any deferred deportation
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action from the United States Department of Homeland Security

What babies.

And per Reuters, here’s an example of why a family-based immigration policy – and government policies in general – ought to have a more expansive definition of “family”:

(Reuters) – Most Friday nights, in the Denver suburb of Arvada, Ramon Madera invites his sister Angelica and her three children over to his home for dinner and games. It’s a tradition that became all the more important after the children’s father was deported back to Mexico about five years ago.

Lately, conversations on game night have taken an anxious turn: Madera himself was apprehended by immigration enforcement agents in September and is due in court for a deportation hearing next June.

Madera, 36, said that while he may be a father figure to Angelica’s children, as a gay man who has no children of his own he is unlikely to benefit from the executive action President Barack Obama is expected to announce on Thursday night. His deportation hearing will probably go ahead as scheduled.

“I’m like the dad of the family,” said Madera. “If they need money, they ask me. If they aren’t sure if they should do something, they call me. For every thing, every opinion, they come to me.”

Obama, seeking to give legal status to some of the more than 11 million immigrants without documents in the United States, is likely to focus on keeping nuclear families together by granting temporary relief from deportation to parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents.

The Migration Policy Institute estimates that around 6.5 million people are like Madera, undocumented immigrant adults living in the United States without children.

Angelica’s daughter and two sons are U.S. citizens, so she will likely be granted relief. But she worries about how she will provide for her family if her brother is deported.

I understand why the administration shaped the policy around traditional nuclear families because, as the Reuters piece points out, that’s an easier sell. But it is clear that a full reform package is needed so that millions of people like Ramon Madera aren’t also torn from families who need them. Too bad a bunch of crybabies like the state legislators in Georgia also got elected to take over the US Senate. Not much room for empathy for a gay undocumented immigrant in that crowd.