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Posted on 05/14/2011 10:38:42 AM PDT by freespirited
A day after President Obama renewed his pledge to reform the nation's immigration system and blamed Republicans for blocking past efforts, Senate Democrats on Wednesday reintroduced a bill that would provide a path to citizenship for people who arrived here illegally as children.
The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act failed to garner the 60 votes needed for passage when the Democratic-controlled Senate took up the measure last year. It was defeated 55-41, with the help of five moderate Democrats whose support would have provided the votes needed to pass the bill.
Still, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he plans to keep pressure on Republicans to support the proposal this time, not his own Democrats.
"Let's not focus on those five Democrats," Reid said. "We'll work with them, of course. What we need to focus on is the Republicans."
Reid's statement echoed Obama, who on Tuesday delivered a major address on immigration reform, in which he accused the GOP of standing in the way of immigration reform despite his efforts to beef up security along the nation's southern border.
"They'll never be satisfied," Obama said in his speech. "Maybe they'll say we need a moat. Or alligators in the moat."
Reid continued the drumbeat Wednesday, praising the DREAM Act and signaling that the Senate would take up essentially the same bill, though he said he did not know when the vote would take place.
The measure would give illegal immigrants a chance to become citizens if they arrived in the United States as children and completed two years of college or military service.
Democrats say the bill would end the legal limbo for many young and talented illegal immigrants who say they can't join the military or certain professions because they are not legally in the country.
"This is a matter about justice," Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said. "We should not punish children for the action of parents."
But Republicans in both chambers want Congress to first address problems with security along the U.S.-Mexican border so fewer people can gain illegal entry into the United States.
"You need comprehensive immigration reform," Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., told The Washington Examiner. "To even do that without looking at a comprehensive plan wouldn't be doable. I would never support that."
With a smaller majority and looming elections for 23 vulnerable Senate Democrats, many of them from swing states, it's unlikely the Senate will pass the bill, even with Democrats still in control.
But for Obama and the Democrats, it is a political imperative for them to demonstrate they are pushing the legislation, which has become a major focus of Hispanic voters whose support the party needs to win races in 2012.
Last month, Senate Democrats sent a letter to Obama, asking him to stop deporting people who came to the United States as children and who would have been able to remain if the DREAM Act were law.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, told The Examiner earlier this year that the House would not take up the DREAM Act, which passed in the chamber under Democratic control last year.
Nor should we reward children for illegal actions of their parents.
Millions of new Democrat voters.
I would support permanent residency and work visas for those here illegally and who have not committed any other crimes other than violation of immigration laws (identity theft would be a disqualifier) but NO POSSIBILITY OF A PATH TO CITIZENSHIP (and the voting rights that go along with it) would be their “penalty” for jumping the line.
Dems won’s support this because they don’t really care about the illegal families, they just want a new crop of voters.
The immigration system is "broken" is an out and out lie. There is NO "broken" immigration system. What is "broken" is the deceitful politicians' honesty and commitment to the legal taxpaying citizens they serve. It is all about votes.
And for their own aggrandizement the LEFT does indeed know how to spin the emotions of the dumb, as this article illustrates. Hollywood does it every day.
Repeat: It would be better for all, themselves and their families included, if Mexican citizens embraced the responsibilities of civilization and citizenship, just like you and I.
This is ugly ugly stuff. George Soros. (Not unlike ObamaCare incidentally.)
Johnny Suntrade, the Suntrade Institute
The commie ‘RATS are really worried about 2012. They need a serious injection of dumbass, freeloading voters to pull it out for them. Amnesty can do that.
Sad, really, that there is mo path to citizenship here in America for immigrants. None...oh wait.
Even though I oppose any type of amnesty, in terms of politics, the GOP should propose what you are offering.
Illegals who are currently working can only get 1 year conditional visas based on employment which they must pay for and the cost of processing, paying taxes, no criminal record, and no history of participating in public welfare.
If they break any law or stop working, they must return home. No exceptions.
Also, they are ineligible for affirmative action or public jobs.
Under the condition of the visa, there would be no pathway to citizenship under any circumstances, and they must sign a pledge to that effect. The cost of their criminality is that they won’t be rewarded with the privileges of citizenship.
The great thing about this plan is that it will never pass, because the liberals will never accept it, and it will simultaneously expose the liberals for their political ploy to add millions of new voters to the Democratic Party.
Actually it is a Path to the Voting Booth the Democrats want.
And that No Possibility of Citizenship would be rescinded within a few years, at the first chance the Dims and RINO Republicans had to grant full citizenship. Pandering politicians would never leave that along until they'd extended full citizenship.
We'll either start enforcing the law very soon or we never will. A few more years of this - and definitely with any sort of amnesty - then the number of illegals will be even higher and the political pressure they can exert along with the panderers in both parties will become too much to resist.
This DREAM Act is a Trojan horse. The left will point to the most extreme cases, like someone who was brought here as an infant, speaks fluent English, has no criminal record, and has lived here for decades, but they’re being dishonest. This isn’t about the hard cases. It’s about opening the door wide for anyone who came here as a minor and their extended families. If the left was truly concerned about the exceptional cases, then they would create legislation meant solely to address them. Most people would probably support that.
As to the letter to the president asking him to create a de facto DREAM Act since congress is unable to pass it, why bother following any law? We’ll just let the left pick and choose what they like. Geesh!
What Dumbocrats desire is amnesty for votes and nobody is fooled.
Parents who illegally enter our Country and bring their children with them should be charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor and/or child endangerment. They, then, should be prosecuted and put in jail. The children should be adopted out to good families who play by the rules and tech children right over wrong.
And, they should levy a tax against them every time they are stopped by the police or go to court or use a public service.
Ping!
If I was a really devious Rat, I’d try hard to coax out George W. Bush to do ad spots for this “cause.” As great a man as Bush was, this issue was a bad, bad Achilles heel for him, and indeed for the country.
I agree, that’s some truly devious thinkin’.
In principle, I’d be in favor of a “honey trap” approach where illegales sans any other criminal history (not counting minor traffic tickets and the like) could get almost instant “permanent resident” status conditional on staying clean, the caveat being that they could never vote unless they went back to Mexico and began the normal citizenship path from scratch (time already lived in the US under the permanent resident system would not count towards required residency for a prospective citizen). And then there would be a firm voter ID system.
There are an estimated 12-to-20 million illegals in the country who don't belong here. Bad enough.
Some of them have jobs. Which are at the expense of U.S. citizens at a time of high unemployment.
Many of them are on the dole, another drain on the taxpayers and bankrupting our social services system.
A disproportionate number of them are criminals. They commit broadspread mayhem, populate gangs and fill our prisons. Again, at great expense to the taxpayer.
All of their children are essentially free-riders in the public education system. Which is being destroyed in the process of serving them.
All of them rely on free public health care. Bankrupting our hospitals and inflating our costs for medical care and insurance.
And why are they here?
Because our elected representatives have allowed them to be! They willfully refuse to conduct their express constitutional duty.
And, now, having been forced to address the problem, what is their solution? To sell them American citizenship at a discounted price -- cheapening our own.
And, for calling this situation to their attention, they call us "bigots".
But they created the problem. And they have refused to fix it as it should be fixed because...after all, well, gee whiz, it would be hard! Indeed, they don't want to "fix the problem". Ideally, they would really like to ignore it.
At the same time, our elected representatives have also openly allowed the corruption of a.) our voting system and b.) our social security system. The integrity of the social security system has been destroyed forever by trafficking in false identities. Motor voter has enrolled millions of illegals on the voting rolls.
Congratulations, presidents Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama. Congratulations, Congress -- Representatives and Senators alike. Congratulations, Democrats and Republicans. Congratulations, all of you folks in Washington.
You Effed Up big time. And, some day, dammit, you're all going to pay for it.
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