The Immigration Spring [NY Times Editorial Exults At Gang of Eight Achievement!]

NYTimes ^ | March 31, 2013 | Editorial

[Steelfish]

EDITORIAL The Immigration Spring

March 31, 2013 It has been amazing this year to watch immigration reform, that perennial train wreck of an issue, keep rolling forward without losing steam or blowing up. A bipartisan band of senators called the Gang of Eight has been working steadily for months on a bill; a similar group in the House is doing the same; diverse outside forces are lining up to urge all of them on, and every week seems to bring new reason for optimism.

The news over the weekend may be the best yet: an agreement in principle between two old adversaries, business and labor, on a new visa program for lower-skilled workers in industries like hotels, restaurants and construction. Previous immigration overhauls have died because of the seemingly unbridgeable divide between business groups, which want an abundant flow of cheap workers, and labor unions, which want to protect the jobs and wages of workers already here.

The impasse had been threatening to derail current efforts to draft legislation, just as it did the last time Congress came close to passing a bill, in 2007.

The breakthrough seems to have come through the vanishing art of compromise. According to negotiators, business won’t get the annual flood of 400,000 guest workers it wanted, but it will get four years of rising visa totals — going from 20,000 to 75,000. After that, visa levels would rise and fall with the unemployment rate and other factors, with a maximum of 200,000 a year.

[Steelfish]

Senate Republican Four: McCain, Graham, Rubio, and Flake taken for suckers.

[Jane Long]

The Gang of 8 Traitors.

[Georgia Girl 2]

I just read something on Drudge where it looks like Marco is taking 10 steps back to punt. Maybe he is finally realizing he’s getting played by the Dems.

Flake who I have zero confidence in came out and said universal background checks are a bridge too far. Duh! His phone must be ringing off the hook.

[FlingWingFlyer]

What the public servants on Capitol Hill are about to pull IS NOT IMMIGRATION! It’s stacking the deck in America against Americans.

[Force of Truth]

Many in the high-technology vocations are not worried that low-skilled workers will take their jobs, but this is a bill to import high-tech workers into America at a time when the economy is terrible.

[i_robot73]

Why even have a Congress when all it takes is ~8 to get anything done (behind closed doors and in secret, but who’s calling ‘em out anyhow)??

How much longer will it take the States to finally declare Fedzilla over reaching/bearing and Unconstitional and finally stand using their/our 9th/10th Rights?

[Pelham]

“it looks like Marco is taking 10 steps back to punt. Maybe he is finally realizing he’s getting played by the Dems.”

Rubio is not getting played. He is a willing collaborator.

And any back pedaling that Rubio is doing is because he is catching a firestorm of anger like Dubya did when he was leading his own treason campaign for amnesty.

[Rummyfan]

All this gushing from the NYT and no one has even seen any of the proposed legislation on paper? And just as an aside, I am sick and tired of this Gang-of-Whatever approach to ruling - it's much too Maoist! And finally, f*** you Chuck Schumer, just because I hate your smarmy self-righteous know-it-all self-important air-of-entitled-to-rule guts!

[Rummyfan]

Why even have a Congress when all it takes is ~8 to get anything done (behind closed doors and in secret, but who’s calling ‘em out anyhow)??

And five justices of SCOTUS!