Rs have 2 enormous problems: no immigration plan, no "replace ACA" plan. That’s why they’re focusing on process (and losing argument).
— @DemFromCT
In the process of discussing the above with Texas Monthly's
Erica Greider, we realized we were talking about two completely different groups of undocumented. In Texas, there are many seasonal migrant workers who have no intention of staying in the US. In Connecticut, we have small business people, workers, day laborers and others trying to carve out a life. Read this from the
Danbury News Times:
Immigrants would not be eligible for federal benefits such as food stamps or Medicaid.
"If they are going to leave all these people who have been here five years with no benefits, it seems to me that they just want to have workers," said Oscar Figueroa, 42, a Guatemalan native who owns Los Andes Restaurant on Main Street. "But every little bit helps."
Does he know people personally who the president's order would affect?
"I know hundreds of them," he said.
Banana Brasil on Main Street was one host of Obama's televised speech Thursday night. Though the crowd was small, there were lots of hugs and smiles from those who pulled up chairs to watch the historic moment. Some had to have the president's words translated into Spanish.
"It's good, very good news,'' said Angel Perez, an undocumented landscaper from Ecuador who speaks English with a thick accent. "We wait a long time for this.''
It occurred to both of us that it's good to clarify our picture of who we are talking about in any given conversation, and not make assumptions until that clarification. Offering a path to citizenship (not in Obama's OE, but a concept in the
Senate bill) to those who don't want it won't work. Treating all undocumented immigrants as if they were all migrant workers won't work, either. Seems obvious, in retrospect, but where you live might color what you think.
This should infuriate Americans given the amount of taxpayer money and government time spent on all of this.
http://t.co/...
— @ExumAM
More politics and policy below the fold.
WaPo:
Less than 24 hours after announcing executive actions to overhaul the nation’s immigration system, President Obama came here to sell the plan for the first time, calling the current system unfair and in need of a major fix.
“Our immigration system has been broken for a very long time and everybody knows it,” he said. For years, Obama said, “we haven’t done much about” fixing the system. “Today we’re doing something about it.”
In a speech that was part replication of Thursday’s address, part impassioned campaign rally and part a challenge to Congress to pass an immigration reform bill, Obama continued to lay out a legal and moral case for why he needed to take action, and to chide Republicans.
“We’re not a nation that kicks out strivers and dreamers who want to earn their piece of the American dream,” Obama said. “We didn’t raise the Statute of Liberty with her back to the world, we did it with her light shining.”
WaPo:
On the day after President Obama’s historic announcement of a plan to protect millions of illegal immigrants from deportation, hundreds of Latino activists and families gathered in front of the White House Friday afternoon to express their gratitude — and also vow to press Congress to finish the job.
“The decision of the president is going to change the lives of 5 million people forever,” said Gustavo Torres, executive director of CASA de Maryland and Virginia, the major regional advocacy group for illegal immigrants, shortly before the rally. “Today is a day for all of us to celebrate and thank him for delivering on his promise. We are all very touched and moved by what he has done.”
At the same time, Torres said Friday will be the “last day of celebration,” because the immigrant community needs to turn its attentions immediately to Congress and the unfinished business of comprehensive immigration reform.
When you read the stories of real people, you understand why the nativist GOP argument is going to lose.
But Greg Sargent highlights a different challenge:
“Republicans will be trying to minimize sign-ups; advocates will be trying to maximize them,” Frank Sharry, the executive director of America’s Voice, tells me. “The question is whether a consensus takes hold in the immigrant community that signing up is worth the risk. I think we’ll get critical mass. But it will be a challenge.”
Deadspin:
Heavy-tweetin' ESPN baseball writer Keith Law has been noticeably silent for the last couple of days. That's no coincidence—he's been given a Twitter timeout by ESPN, and we're told that it's for loudly and repeatedly defending Charles Darwin from transitional fossil Curt Schilling, his Bristol colleague.
California Report:
California undocumented immigrants who are eligible for deferred deportation under President Obama’s executive action are expected to be eligible for Medi-Cal, as long as they meet income guidelines, advocates said Thursday.
Medi-Cal is the state’s health insurance program for people who are low income.
Under federal law, these immigrants are not eligible for other benefits of the Affordable Care Act, including subsidies on the Covered California exchange.
Gabrielle Lessard is a health policy attorney with the Los Angeles office of the National Immigration Law Center. “They’ll be in the same situation as DACA,” she said, in reference to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, Obama’s 2012 policy for young undocumented immigrants who had come to the United States as children.
Politico:
The president’s decision to use his executive powers to protect some 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation is bound to draw a backlash from middle-of-the-road white voters. Republicans assailed Obama’s handling of immigration in the midterm elections, catering to a conservative and notably less diverse electorate with ads in states such as Arkansas and New Hampshire. Early polling shows significant suspicion of Obama’s unilateral action: An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found 48 percent of Americans pre-emptively opposed to the executive actions, versus 38 percent ready to endorse them.
As a political matter, then, the president’s wager is this: that the voters with the longest memories will be those in the rapidly growing, next-generation national electorate, heavily inflected by socially progressive young people and a growing Latino population.