I am talking to you, U.S. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). Do your job or suffer the consequences. Take a trip into the 21st century. Pass the immigration reform bill.
Apparently Donald Trump has wooed the GOP base big time with his immigration proposal. Which is essentially a cruel and appalling effort to deport 11 million undocumented U.S. residents. As well as deport their American born children.
Not to be outdone in the extreme, other GOP Presidential candidates are also proposing to repeal of the 14th Amendment, birthright citizenship.
Donald Trump: ”This remains the biggest magnet for illegal immigration,” he said in his immigration proposal.
Rand Paul: “This resolution makes clear that under the 14th Amendment a person born in the United States to illegal aliens does not automatically gain citizenship,” he said in 2011 about a constitutional amendment he proposed with Sen. David Vitter.
Rick Santorum: “Other enticements to illegal immigration, such as birthright citizenship, should be ended… Of developed countries other than the United States, only Canada has birthright citizenship,” he wrote back in May.
Lindsey Graham: ”Birthright citizenship I think is a mistake,” he said in 2010. “We should change our Constitution and say if you come here illegally and you have a child, that child’s automatically not a citizen.” (He added to Kasie Hunt on Monday: “I’ve been saying for a long time that I’m willing to change birthright citizenship after we fix the current broken immigration system.”)
Chris Christie: ”I think all this stuff needs to be reexamined in light of the current circumstances,” he told Laura Ingraham this month. “[Birthright citizenship] may have made sense at some point in our history, but right now, we need to re-look at all that.”
Bobby Jindal: “We need to end birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants,” he tweeted.
Scott Walker: When asked by MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt whether birthright citizenship should be ended, he replied “Yeah, to me it’s about enforcing the laws in this country.” But Walker later appeared to walk it back: When asked if he misspoke on birthright citizenship, Walker said, per NBC’s Shaquille Brewster: “No, we had a three hour rolling gaggle there. It’s— you answer part of the question, somebody turns and asks you something. My point is, yeah I empathize with people who have concerns about that but until we fundamentally secure the border.”
Many of us cannot not believe this discussion is taking place. We all know that the U.S. is a nation of immigrants. Except in the case of Native American Indians all of us are descendants of immigrants. So why are Donald Trump and his wannabe front runner Republican Presidential candidates picking on undocumented residents?
Now I can understand the frustration that many of us have given the hopelessly craven U.S. Congress that refuses to address immigration reform. The Senate passed a bi-partisan bill last year that won't see the light of day in the House. This is simply because Speaker John Boehner is more worried about keeping his job and is therefore afraid to alienate the tea party wing of his Party. The Koch purchased tea party wing, of course, most likely supports Trump's deportation plan hands down.
And so nothing gets done. And when nothing gets done an opening arises for clever charlatans and carnival barkers with PR savvy like Trump. The snake oil dealers will successfully fabricate a bogey man on which to foment fear and hatred.
For the GOP tea party base and low information voters the snake oil is working like a charm. After all, this is the same group of the easily manipulated that loathes President Obama simply because of the color of his skin.
Sarah Palin worked this group into frenzies during the 2008 Presidential contests when her rallies became hate fests. Let's hate on Barack Obama! He pals around with terrorists! He's a Muslim! A Kenyan! Kill him! Donald Trump himself led the birther charge against the President. Fox "News" gave Trump an open platform on which to insult, disrespect and demean the duly elected President of the United States.
Haters gotta hate, disrespect and demean.
Most of us are horrified by Donald Trump's threat to deport millions of people most of whom are here for the same reason as our ancestors. Jobs, opportunity, escape from religious persecution, starvation and wars were among the reasons why so many arrived here.
But like most GOP candidates who have little substance to offer other than endless foreign wars and tax cuts for the rich, including those for some really despicable characters, there is always a need to gin up a faux evil doer of some sort. This evil doer is responsible for all that is wrong in our society. They, it, are doing the raping, robbing, murdering and inciting all of the gang violence in communities.
Yes indeed. Find an evil doer to cover up neglect and incompetence. Blame the Chinese for the recent stock market melt-down that took a hit on our retirement savings accounts.
Snake oil dealers like Trump, Walker, Bush, et. al. will also fabricate a myth that an evil doer is getting something, a perk or entitlement or worse, is taking something away, that ordinary hard working Americans cannot obtain.
Always play the resentment card whenever opportunity knocks.
Jeb Bush sank as low as to target "Asian anchor babies" as the real culprits of "unearned entitlement."
What I was talking about was the specific case of fraud being committed where there's organized efforts—and frankly it's more related to Asian people—coming into our country, having children, in that organized efforts, taking advantage of a noble concept, which is birthright citizenship. I support the 14th amendment. Nothing I've said should be viewed as derogatory toward immigrants at all.
Nope. Nothing derogatory at all, Jeb. Except that my ears are ringing from your Party's dog whistles and Donald Trump's fog horns.
But Trump, Bush and their cowardly GOP side kicks aren't going to win this fight. Fortunately, the sentiments of the majority of us is in a far more tolerant and compassionate place.
First of all Trump's promises to build a 2000 mile long wall that cannot be tunneled or scaled is unsustainable. The notion of a wall that cannot be scaled or tunneled is a myth. Where there is a will there is a way. It will be breached one way or another.
Even people who support tough immigration reform question whether Trump has the right answers. For instance, anyone with an elemental understanding of border security knows how hard it would be to build a continuous wall along 2,000 miles of the Southwest border because of rough terrain and private property rights.
Beto Cardenas is a Laredo native, who served as general counsel to then-Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, during immigration debates.
"When it comes to the idea of border fencing, there is a difference that is needed in one county versus another," Cardenas said. "You cannot say there is one solution that fits all."
Rounding up people like Trump envisions would turn our country into a police state. Show me your papers! Don't have 'em? Of to deportation jail you go.
Kerry Talbot, an immigration lawyer who worked for Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., was a key negotiator who helped come up with a bipartisan immigration bill that passed the Senate in 2013 (and failed in the House). She dismissed the idea of deporting everyone in the U.S. illegally.
"That's just not a solution that is workable," Talbot said. "It's not possible to deport 11 million people."
She added, "And so the Senate negotiators realized that, and they understood that, you know, you just have to work with reality and what's possible. And you need to look at people's connections to the U.S., what kind of contributions they're making. And Trump doesn't look at any of that. He just wants to deport everyone."
Immigrant families often have mixed legal status. Take the family of Juan Belman — a 22-year-old university student in Austin. He and his 17-year-old brother were brought here illegally from Mexico as young children, and they identify as Americans. His two other little brothers were born in Texas and are U.S. citizens.
But the real reason Trump's plan will never likely happen is because the
majority of us support a legal path to citizenship for undocumented residents.
Although the poll question did not specify what those requirements might be, 72% of Americans agreed there should be a way for such immigrants to gain legal status. When asked to specify, 42% said such immigrants should be allowed to apply for citizenship, and 26% said they should be able to apply for permanent residency, not citizenship.
Most non-Republicans see immigrants as a boon to our society.
About half of the 2,002 respondents -- 51% -- said immigrants are a boon to the nation, making it stronger through hard work and talents, and 41% said immigrants are a burden, taking jobs and resources away from Americans.
Among Republicans, 56% said they back a path to legal status. When asked whether immigrants are a burden, 63% said yes, and only 27% said immigrants strengthen the country.
In comparison, most Democrats (62%) and independents (57%) viewed immigrants as positive additions to the labor pool.
For folks like me who live in huge and very diverse cities such as Houston, immigrants, whether legal or not, are a natural part of the fabric of our society. There are many mixed racially and ethnic couples. Last year I attended the marriage of an Hispanic man to a Vietnamese woman. Both are first generation Americans. This is more the norm than not in cities like this. It is the past. It is the present. It is the future. Were their parents legal immigrants? Who cares? The newly married couple is my neighbor.
My grandparents on my mother's side were immigrants. My husband is a naturalized American citizen. When we lived and worked on a college campus in Houston it was not uncommon for a Ms. Kelly Garcia to marry a Mr. Jay Kumar. This is the way it is. Nothing is going to change in a global melting pot such as Houston.
Cowards and charlatans like Donald Trump and his Republican Presidential opponents should stop picking on undocumented residents and do something productive for a change.
Like pass an immigration reform bill, Mr. Boehner.
Do your jobs for a change, Republicans.
Not doing your jobs let a wolf win the hearts and minds of your Party, losers. It must suck to be chumps for Trump.
For Trump is doing one heck of a successful job at running as a Republican.
