‘The Devil Is in the Details’ on Bipartisan Immigration Reform
In a last-minute schedule update, President Obama penciled in a meeting today with police chiefs and sheriffs to talk about his topic of the hour: gun control.
“We recognize that this is an issue that elicits a lot of passion all across the country. And Joe and my Cabinet members who have been involved in this have been on a listening session over the last several months. No group is more important for us to listen to than our law enforcement officials,” Obama said. “They are where the rubber hits the road.”
But Congress managed to steal his thunder by turning to another issue that ignites passionate debate — one that Obama promised to deal with in his first term but left unresolved.
And far from being a surefire gotcha issue for Republicans, the comprehensive immigration reform framework rolled out today at a Senate press conference threatens to drive a wedge into a party that’s trying to find its footing on the road back to the White House.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he and the rest of the Gang of Eight — Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Lindsey Graham (R-Ariz.), and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) — hope to turn their “set of bipartisan principles” into legislation by March with the goal of passage by mid-year.
“The key to our compromise is to recognize that Americans overwhelming oppose illegal immigration, and support legal immigration,” Schumer said. From there, they based the framework on four “pillars”: “a tough, but fair path to citizenship for illegal immigrants currently living in the United States that is contingent upon securing our borders,” unspecified reforms of the immigration legal system, creating an “effective employment verification system, that will prevent identity theft, and end the hiring of future unauthorized workers,” and admitting workers “to serve our nation’s workforce needs, while simultaneously protecting all workers.”
“The politics on this issue have been turned upside down. For the first time ever, there is more political risk in opposing immigration reform than in supporting it,” Schumer said. “…By their presence today, my Republican colleagues are making a significant statement about the need to fix our broken immigration system. We Democrats are equally serious.”
Perhaps to keep viewers tuned in to the full length of the news conference, the senators present spoke in turn and saved Rubio for last.
“I see immigration every single day. I see the good of immigration. I see how important it is for our future,” the Florida Republican said. “…By the same token, I see the negative that illegal immigration has been for our country, and the problems that it causes.”
He called the millions of illegal immigrants in the country today “not something that anyone is happy about, that’s not something that anyone wanted to see happen, but that is what happened.”
“I think today is an important first step in what’s going to be a significantly — a significant complicated journey. Because, the issue of immigration is not a simple one. But I think we have the opportunity to do it right. And if we do, I think we’ll do a tremendous service to our country and our future,” Rubio said.
The only freshman in the Group of Eight, Flake, wasn’t at the press conference. Serving in McCain’s border state, the former House member won the seat vacated by retiring Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.).
“While there are still many details to be worked out, I recognize that in order to address the many facets of immigration reform, it’s going to take a bipartisan commitment. Yes, ‘the devil’s in the details,’ and not everyone is going to like everything, but sitting idly by is not a responsible approach,” said Flake.
“I have always insisted that any reform plan not include a blanket amnesty and these principles reflect that,” he added. “I’m also particularly pleased that there is bipartisan support to include the input of border communities. Not only will security be strengthened according to Washington, DC, but border communities will have a say as well.”
Graham, still serving on reserve duty in Afghanistan but no stranger to bipartisan immigration reform efforts, said in a statement, “I hope the third time is the charm.”
I no longer trust Rubio, McCain Mini Me, any farther than I can throw him. Rubio was big on the Arab Spring and probably still is. He, along with his new dad McCain, pushed at Obama to get even more involved in Libya, so Benghazi is blood on his hands too. Rubio, like McCain, seems absolutely incapable of learning anything. Be it about Muslims, who will never be for liberty, or illegal Mexicans, who if made legal will overwhelmingly vote democrat to the point of obliterating what’s left of the Republican party and America. When I look at Rubio, I see John McCain looking back at me and can almost hear, “My friends”. It has become very clear that Rubio is The Man Who Never Was. He’s just an actor and I think more and more people are starting to see through his act.
Si’, but if you have paid attention, his support for “comprehensive immigration reform” has been no secret.
Rest assured, I haven’t had much trust in Rubio for quite some time. Now it’s just about zero. That’s the change.
He’s another RINO like all the rest of them. That’s why he gets so much positive publicity from the enemedia.
THIS is what is already stopping the influx of Mexicans.
Just considering this has fingerprints of Lindsey Graham on it means that it’s going to be a shit sandwich.
When are the people of South Carolina going to wise up and vote him out of office.
Let’s make 11 million illegals permanent residents. Next day they will be in line for food stamps. They are not that stupid when it comes to get something from you for free.
And Obamacare. It covers anyone “legally” in the country. Remember the fight over whether it would apply to the illegals? No problema, sr. Just make them legal!
If the immigration reform (massive amnesty) gets through, nobody will ever attribute it to the Republicans. It will stack forever as “Obama’s reform”, and all future generations of Mexican immigrants will vote only democrat in gratitude to Obama’s party.
Republicans will gain nothing from this “deal”. Unfortunately, they just simply don’t get it.
God, the GOP really is the “stupid party” Gov. Jindal said we were although for a different reason. They just don’t get it. The marxists will get the credit for any immigration reform. And they will get 20 plus million new voters. God how we just walk into the mine fields the marxists lay for us.
How can having 20 million poorly educated, welfare mooching, Zerocare using, America-hating hispanics be good for America?
You are absolutely right. The democrat media will give Obama all credit, and republicans all blame on any issue. Let’s talk solutions.
Romney raised around a billion dollars for his campaign. A lot of that money was spent on ABC,NBC,CBS,MSNBC, TV spots. Those companies took the money for the ads, and their news spots undermined Romney. And they gave Obama donations, of money made from Romney ads. How stupid is that?
What conservatives need to do, is quit complaining about the media and buy it. Then control what you own. If big money donors made a concerted effort to buy the major media outlets, they could play the game on the winning side.
Think about it. Say you are a company advertising the benefits of your Viagara. After the ad is over, a panel comes on to discuss whether Viagara is just a sexual aid for ugly women. Would you want to be seen buying it?
Why did the tag team of McLame/Gramnesty pick Rubio to be on this “Gang of 8?” Simple, they needed a Hispanic on the gang, and Ted Cruz would not play puppet to John McCain’s puppet master.
Rubio obviously has forgotten who worked their tails off to get him elected.
Sorry, Marco, the new crap sandwich is no better than the old crap sandwich that your handlers tried to hand us the last go-round.
Facts on the ground have been changed. Now, more Marxists will be on the voter rolls to vote for more Marxism. The CFR North American Union is but a stone throw away. RINO’s, and Demonrats have sold out to special interests.
Region one of the WTO is being created. Nationalists would have decalred war on Mexiso for it’s invasion of 10-20 million illegal aliens, built roads, schools, and water treatment plants. Instead, millions of illegal aliens are on the government suger tit.
Screw the New World order, and the Dragon they sold out to for money, and power.
Any immigration reform should only include any sort of legalized status taking effect after the flow of illegals from Mexico can be shown to be effectively zero for several years, i.e. the all goes up first, then we figure out how to deal with the ones already here. Funny how the liberals think that it’s the government’s obligation to provide all these services that should rightly be the individual’s responsibility but decry the idea of the nation securing its borders, one of the most basic functions of sovereignty. Even at $1M per mile a border wall could be built for $3 billion or so, a trifle in the federal budget, but this will never happen because the Republicans are stupid and the Democrats venal. They want a new voting majority that will be more amenable to big government and have known for the last couple decades that all they needed to do to achieve it was ignore their responsibilities,sit on their hands, and wait. It’s democracy in reverse, instead of the people electing new politicians, the political class is effectively replacing the population with one more to their liking.
At the risk of sounding like a “me too! sort of guy, this is what I feel needs to be done:
1) Put the wall up
2) Fund the border patrol to whatever level necessary
3) Register ALL illegal aliens within a six month window
4) Determine what taxes need paying and clear that debt first
5) Deport ALL class A misdemeanors and ALL felonious miscreants (whatever level)
6) Set the same standards for illegal as for legal immigrants, ie., NO welfare benefits,
no MedicAid, no food stamps
I’m sure there are other points that I’ve missed but these are critical, to my mind.
I would include that any path to citizenship begin with giving verifiable information about what country you originate in, confessing before witnesses that you are an illegal resident and, should you commit a crime or otherwise neglect to continue the path to citizenship, waive your right to due process in deportation proceedings.
In other words, screw it up and you’re gone tomorrow.
Just one question: how would you build a wall right down the middle of the Rio Grand?
You don’t build walls down the middle of rivers. You build bridges to cross them. So if you have some engineering miracle that will allow us to build a bridge down the middle of the Rio Grand, I’m all for it.
That’s easy, just build it on slightly on our side. The wall doesn’t have to be right AT the border, it just has to keep people out of the main part of the country. Honestly you’d probably want to build 2 walls with a gap in the middle filled with obstacles so that anybody trying to breach the wall would have to carry over the equipment needed to breach the second barrier.
Two fences with a minefield between the two.
I am amazed at how contributors on this site have accepted the premise of
‘Immigration Reform’.
The basic goal of the immigration reformers is to remove the portion of the
1986 Immigration Law that forbids providing citizenship to any immigrant
that has ever been in the country illegally. Once that barrier is removed
you won’t believe how often large scale amnesties occur.
Every illegal immigrant in the U.S. knows they are breaking our laws, and
not just the immigration laws. WE OWE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
On a crass political note, it is also just plain stupid for Republican
Leaders to grant citizenship to the immigration scofflaws. They will be
providing millions of new voters to the Democrats while alienating large
portions of their conservative base. I’m convinced Bush’s immigration
push in 2007 set the stage for the election debacle of 2008.
Republicans do not need to panic. Once Obamacare goes into effect it is
going to truly suck to be a Democrat. It would be sad if Republicans by
alienating their base on illegal immigration were not able to take
advantage of the health care fallout.
What we can say for sure about any “bipartisan immigration surrender,” is it will sell out the citizens of the United States, because our cretinous, retarded, corrupt, debased legislators don’t have the guts to enforce the law. Or don’t care enough about this country to enforce the law.
What we can say for sure about any “bipartisan immigration surrender,” is it will sell out the citizens of the United States, because our cretinous, retarded, corrupt, debased legislators don’t have the guts to enforce the law. Or don’t care enough about this country to enforce the law.
Mississippi bill would nullify federal laws Published January 24, 2013 Associated Press
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/01/24/mississippi-bill-seeks-to-nullify-federal-laws/
Has anybody wondered why it is always a devil in the details? How about angels? I know that would require honesty from D.C..
Rubio would make a good villain for the next Batman movie. He could play a composite of the Joker and Two-Face.
The “framework” is a disaster in the making thats not worthy of consideration by anybody who can see past their eyebrows and no matter your political stripes and desires. Durn! Put aside the growth of government and the huge cost to implement, enforce and sustain such a ‘framework’ of suggested ideas for all the years involved.
Closing the borders. Been throwing that one around for 30+ years and NOBODY has had a workable and sustainable stratgey, much less the money to do anything relatively effective — consider, we’re broke! The ONLY reason illegal entrants are down now, is because the economy and jobs is in the tank. You put pressure on different points and they go to the lesser points. Consider a smuggling route from the Southern CA coastlines to the mid Eastern FL coastline. Consider the resources and cost for an area like that. The Chinese have had non resistant points of entry for many, many, many decades. What about the ‘on-land-you’re-safe’ policy for the Cubans?
Consider the technologies to forge documents that can buy years of time for an illegal entrant. Consider the cost and manpower to track down and enforce forged document providers.
Eleven million plus illegal immigrants. Can you imagine the resources needed and the cost to implement the processing of 11M people? What about the few million who have been here for 20-30 years, worked, payed all the taxes, social security and raised families and have grandchildren and great grandchildren? Imagine the resources and cost of tracking down those who fail to live up to the rules or didn’t signup in the first place who sustain their livelihoods by organized crime incomes or under the table incomes, remembering that alot of that 11 million have come and not been detected? What will be the economic impact if a few hundred thousand are removed from the economy for whatever reason?
So much government growth, so much government cost, so many holes in the proposed plan and so many unintended consequences looming. Got to do something ‘efective’ and rational but, I see this as yet another political debacle equal to the Reagan debacle given the years of implementation involved and the huge resources and cost to sustain it, if it can even remotely work.
I’m dreading the POTUS, “weighing in”. What can he possibly bring but more chaos and confusion, agitation and misery, given his track record?
I remember a columnist once describing him as about as helpful as “a drunk guy with a blowtorch”. A lot of bad things can happen, a few neutral outcomes, but no beneficial ones. That sounds about right.
Nobody here has considered affirmative action…they’ll get that too.
… and they’ll get Affirmative Action too.
Yep.
No pathway to citizenship for lawbreakers and disrespectors of US sovereignty. Legal status only. Abrogate Jus Soli.
Anything McCain touches is poison for America. When is that Quisling going to do enough damage to the country to get him thrown out of the party and forced to officially become a Democrat?
Aside from that: who are they kidding when they say we still need foreigners for the workforce? There aren’t enough jobs for Americans right now as show by the record high foodstamp and welfare rates. Maybe they actually believe the government’s own doctored unemployment numbers and they think the economy is just peachy?
Well, the stupid party is just killing itself, and us, yet again. Not real surprise there.
Looks like my unborn grandkids will be living in Mexico Norte. Where do they get this 11 million number, whose butt do they pull that out of?
I’m not seeing any reform here.
There are no background investigations of visa applicants to reduce criminals, terrorists, intellectual property thieves, spies, and foreign operatives.
There are no reductions in numbers of visitor, exchange, student, guest-work or permanent resident visas to manageable and reasonable levels in light of the 30 million jobs dearth.
There are no requirements for the alleged “best and brightest” to be even good or bright.
There is no mention of deploying regular troops to turn back invaders.
There are no funds for plain-clothes investigations of suspected employers of illegal aliens.
There are no provisions to end anchor-baby-tourism.
There are no reductions in the numbers of pathways for illegal aliens to gain green cards and citizenship (there are already several, and many illegal aliens toggle status several times).
Rubio at least mentioned tracking exits of visa-holders so that over-stays may possibly be detected, and estimates of aliens legally in the USA may be made, but he gives no specifics. Past experiments in tracking exits were given up after only a couple months of total failure. Similarly, he said something about reducing chain-immigration, with no specifics.
BogusBob, The estimates of illegal aliens in the USA range from 8M to 24M. Before the Obummer recession, most estimates were around 12M.
Real Deal wrote: “Two fences with a minefield between the two.”, but I would much prefer deployment of MetalStorm tech. Think of all the jobs it would create for people to reload them.
zane wrote: “Just one question: how would you build a wall right down the middle of the Rio Grand?”
You’d build a fence or a wall across the edge of the Rio Grande about the same way we build other structures in rivers, lakes and oceans. You can build coffer-dams, do the construction, and then remove the cofferdams. That’s how the Roeblings built the suspension bridge across the Ohio in the early 1860s and how they built the Brooklyn bridge shortly thereafter, and how most bridges since then have been built. We could build canals and other access for cattle to the water, with re-bar or angle-iron or heavier grates, while still maintaining a “no-man’s land” between fences or walls, or between a fence and a wall, or between 3 fences… Most of the RG is non-navigable, so that’s not much of an issue. But the important thing is that we, you know, actually TRY to discourage illegal entry for a change.
SongDog, ObummerDoesn’tCare already covers nearly everyone legally in the country, and most of those here illegally. Just repeal it and be done with it. If the corrupt senators won’t go along, propose and vote through another bill to repeal it… and another and another and another… Change the titles; change the summary; change how “repeal it all” is expressed, but keep on passing it, and when you pass another one, chide the corrupt senators for refusing to bring it to a vote, for being obstructionist, for being mean-spirited and uncivil… if only because they are.
And in the next election, we need some real non-leftists to replace Rubio and McCain and Grahamnesty and Pelosi and Lofgren and Feinstein and Boxer and Reid and Schumer. Kick out all of the RINOs in the primaries, and the leftists in the general elections, or keep on their cases to the point they all resign.
Gee. Didn’t we see some sort of ‘one time’ amnesty deal back during the Reagan era?
The democrats are not to be trusted on this.
Rubio needs to go sit on the back bench with Christie as a RINO who screwed his chances at higher office.
Oh wait, the republican leadership will probably laud him as the next “only electable candidate”….
Stupidstupidstupidstupid……
ANCHOR BABIES – why no one dares to even mention this toxic element of the illegal immigration?
Reps and dems, they keep yakking about reforming immigration laws, about comprehensive immigration reform, but no one dares to address this looming giant in the increasingly smaller and increasingly less able to accommodate immigrants -
Amnesty for about apporx. 11 million illegals – probably the real number is around 20 million, and their relatives will add for up to 30 million immigrants to absorb in about 10 years –
Heavens, and the libs dare to talk about American imperialism!
It is breathtaking to see how the Dems in their ambition to become USA’s PRI are using the Hart-Cellar law to change the demographic makeup of the USA -
Address the anchor babies issue, and you will have a beginning in solving this misery -
’till then, visit Alvarado @ 8th – yes, the future is here, and it doesn’t look nice – at all, at all -