immigration

Reforma no racisma.

Walk Down Memory Lane to July 2013 When Boehner & #GOP Failed to ‘Govern’

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Tonight, I had planned to write a highly poignant new blog post about why movement on immigration reform now (and not when the Republicans finally… maybe… get around to it) is a good idea.

When I went back to some old articles to grab links, I found this blog post and decided a history lesson was in order– since Republicans want Obama to delay an immigration executive order to “give them time to govern”. This post was originally published on July 10, 2013, on Tucson-Progressive.com, shortly after the US Senate passed their “comprehensive immigration reform” bill with bipartisan support, including both Arizona Senators, Lindsay Graham, Marco Rubio, and other Republican Senators. Where are they now when the House wants to stall further? [Related articles at the end. Go big, Mr. President. It’s the right thing to do.]

Boehner & the White Man’s Party Prepare to Kill Immigration Reform

partyofno

Knuckle-dragging Republicans in the US House of Representatives have said that they will NOT– that is NOT with capital letters– pass an immigration “reform” billthat includes a path to citizenship for 12 million immigrants living in the US.

After all, the Republican Party’s corporate masters are making big bucks exploiting and imprisoning undocumented workers; I guess their motto is: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” For big business, immigration ain’t broke (except that they would like easier access to  cheap, skilled labor from India).

The US Senate’s much-celebrated bill did have a path to citizen (plus lots of other stuff the Democrats agreed to in order to get a handful of Republicans to vote for it.)

In the spirit of full disclosure, I didn’t like the US Senate’s version of Immigration Reform for multiple reasons:

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UPDATE: Guatemalan Children Get Six-Month Reprieve on Deportation

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Yesterday, I juxtaposed three immigration stories in my post— the sad news about the murder of 5-10 Honduran refugee children that the US deported recently, the plight of a young Guatemalan mother and her three children who crossed the border alone and are facing deportation, and the callous reaction to the child refugee crisis by … Read more

Disgraceful: Some Deported Refugee Children Already Dead

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Young Guatamalan children who were reunited with their mother in Cincinnati could face deportation. (Photo: The Enquirer)
Young Guatemalan children, who were reunited with their mother in Cincinnati, could face deportation. How can we sentence them to death? (Photo: The Enquirer)

Thousands of refugee children have been fleeing violence and poverty in Central America for almost a year now. Until all Hell broke loose in Ferguson, Missouri last week, the refugee children had the national limelight. (We are on to the next shiny thing.)

Two heart-wrenching stories about the refugee children were released today. First, Think Progress released a story stating that 5-10 of the recently deported children have already been murdered.

Second, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported that group of four young cousins would be facing an immigration judge in Cleveland today and could likely deported– despite having been reunited with family members in the US (pictured above).

Look at the faces of these children. How can we send them back to gang violence and death? Have we become a country of greedy, self-centered bigots? Probably, yes.

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What would make Arizona Republicans eager to raise their own taxes?

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com Terrorizing brown people, of course! HighGround, the firm owned by Chuck Coughlin (Arizona’s true Governor) which represents GOP candidate Scott Smith, released a poll of the upcoming primary. The results for Governor track with other recent polls showing Doug Ducey and Christine Jones vying for the lead but still a lot of … Read more

Time to admit it: Trying to get immigration reform from Republicans is a waste of time

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

statue of liberty

When Eric Cantor lost his primary Tuesday night, and his position as House Majority Leader, a lot of liberals were exultant because why the hell shouldn’t we be? It was comical watching the whole thing unfold, since the Cantor camp had been assured of a 30 point victory by their own advisers. And Eric Cantor is a dick anyway. A huge wingnut. A wingnut with access to lots of money, therefore an “establishment Republican”, but that didn’t moderate a single one of his stances. It’s been Cantor leading the GOP House majority in obstructionism, even to the point of endangering the country’s solvency.

Oh wait, he was “good on immigration” or something like that, so I’ve been told by party poopers who insist that “immigration reform is dead now”. Meh. It’s true that immigration reform is looking pretty moribund these days, but that already the case before Cantor’s primary loss. I’m not sure what people think Eric Cantor would have done on immigration in the next few weeks that he won’t now that he’ll be resigning as Majority Leader next month. His past performance on the issue has certainly been less than impressive, as Vox‘s Dara Lind explains:

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