Immigration Blog

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Signs of Movement on Immigration Reform Bill


June 28, 2006

The Los Angeles Times reports today that several Republican senators have indicated that they might accept delayed implementation of guestworker and legalization portions of an immigration reform bill in order to show that the Senate was serious about enforcement as well.  The compromise is a nod to House Republicans who ardently adhere to an enforcement-only approach.  What specifically would trigger implementation of the guestworker and legalization programs has not been stated and would apparently be a subject of negotiation.  I have not heard anyone explain, however, how this approach would work in practice when employers, subject to strict new verification procedures, have no mechanism for verifying workers whose legalization program has not yet been implemented.  One possibility would be to make the verification program operational but not enforce the sanctions until the legalization program has begun.

Republican Candidate for Governor Jumps on Immigration Bandwagon


June 27, 2006

Jim Bryson, the leading Republican candidate in Tennessee's upcoming election for governor, has officially jumped on the "exploit immigration" bandwagon.  At a news conference yesterday Bryson was accompanied by a Tennessee woman whose parents were killed in a car accident caused by an undocumented person who had been previously arrested many times before.  Bryson used this story to state that Phil Bredesen, current Tennessee governor, had "four years to get tough on illegal immigration but did not."  Bredesen appropriately accused Bryson of exploiting a tragic accident for political gain.

Regional Immigration News


June 25, 2006

There are several regional immigration news stories of significance today:
 
1.  A Hispanic activist and community leader and his 18-year old son were murdered in Clarksville, Tennessee this past Friday.  The deaths have terrified the local Hispanic community.  Clarksville police indicated that while the deaths were definitely not random violence, no current evidence suggests racial motives.  A memorial fund has been established at US Bank for the family.
 
2.  An anti-immigrant rally in Hamblen County "ends with arrest and chaos" on Saturday, according to a WATE-6 report.  Organizers complained that the substantial police presence at the Hamblen County Courthouse, where the rally took place, was intimidating.  The rally eventually retreated to the local VFW building because "they did not feel welcome outside the courthouse."
 
3.  Federal authorities have charged a building contractor in Covington, Kentucky with harboring illegal workers and money laundering upon accusations that he paid $141,000 to undocumented workers who worked on framing crews over the past five years and that he leased apartments for the same.  The contractor has pleaded not guilty; the trial has been scheduled for October.  The arrests were the result of a year-long investigation by Immigration & Customs Enforcement, the IRS, and local authorities.


Senate Counters with Immigration Hearings of Its Own


June 22, 2006

In response to House Republicans' plan to conduct hearings on the Senate's immigration bill this summer, Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) announced yesterday that his committee would conduct summer hearings of its own to defend the Senate's comprehensive approach over the enforcement-only approach advanced by the House.  The Republican vs. Republican move adds to the unusual sequence of events that the upcoming elections have created:  a Congressional historian has noted that to his knowledge Congress has never before called for pre-conference hearings on legislation that has already been passed.  That historical information, along with Representative Jim Kolbe's (R-AZ) statement that the House would pass comprehensive legislation he has introduced if the Republican leadership would allow his legislation to go to the floor for a vote, further supports my conclusion that the Republican leadership in the House has hijacked the immigration issue for election purposes.



House Republicans Hijack Serious Immigration Reform


June 21, 2006

During the last election cycle, conservative Republicans implemented a strategy to motivate their base to vote on election day:  find the social issue that the base is currently hot about and make the entire election turn on that particular issue.  In 2004 the hot issue was gay marriage and Republicans were boosted by people turning out to vote on the many gay marriage initiatives that had been placed on state ballots.  Gay marriage doesn't carry the same weight in 2006 as it did in 2004--Senate Republicans know this firsthand after their introduction of a constitutional gay marriage ban earlier this month failed to excite conservatives.  In 2006 the hot social issue is immigration.  House Republicans, pointing to the success of Brian Bilbray in California and John Jacob in Utah (see previous entry), are convinced that immigration is the issue that is going to energize their base and make them successful in the November elections.  With yesterday's announcement by Republican House Leader Dennis Hastert (R-IL) that the House will conduct hearings on the Senate's immigration bill, it is clear that the House intends to ride the immigration issue through the election season.  Moreover, Hastert's plan for the hearings--held in Washington D.C. in July and then traveling around the country in August in order to "listen to the American people"--is an obvious political ploy to parade House Republicans' position on immigration around the country in an attempt to further enflame constituent passions.  Simply put, House Republicans have hijacked serious immigration reform and turned it into their latest vehicle for election night success.

Immigration Enforcement Key Element of Republican Election Strategies


June 20, 2006

It is becoming increasingly clear that Republicans in the House of Representatives are and will be leaning heavily on the immigration issue in the run-up to the November elections and that their mantra is "immigration enforcement or bust."  Buoyed by the experience of Brian Bilbray (R-CA), who narrowly won a special election to the House over his democratic opponent by campaigning almost exclusively on immigration enforcement, House Republicans are hardening their positions on the issue.  Rep. David Dreier (R-CA) was recently quoted as saying that, "It would be safe to say that the outcome of the Bilbray race was a reaffirmation of the correctness of the House position on security for our borders.  That race underscored our strong commitment to making sure that we focus on border security."  Further affirmation will occur if John Jacob, a Republican congressional candidate in Utah, is successful in his bid to defeat Republican incumbent Chris Cannon.  Jacob is following the Bilbray model of focusing almost exclusively on immigration enforcement, while incumbent Cannon advocates a comprehensive approach.  A primary victory for Jacob over a Republican incumbent will almost certainly cement an enforcement-only position in the minds of House Republicans going into November elections.  As voiced by Tom Tancredo (R-CO), leader of the restrictionist Immigration Reform Caucus, "It's much easier to go home and defend the House position and attack the Senate position than it is to try to explain some compromise."


House Continuing Immigration Reform Delay Tactics


June 16, 2006

Republican leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives continues to delay the start of a conference to reconcile immigration bills passed by the House and Senate.  The revenue technicality previously discussed was the first volley; Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) said this week that hearings in the House on the Senate bill should be conducted prior to naming the House negotiators for the conference committee.  Holding hearings on the Senate bill is almost certain to delay the conference committee until after Congress' summer break which starts in August.  The move may signify House Republicans' decision that it is better to enter the November elections without any action on the immigration issue.



In Immigration Debate, Stick to the Facts


June 11, 2006

I was heartened to read of the Missouri legislature's approach to the issue of immigration in their state in Friday's Kansas City Star.  In light of the national debate, the state's House of Representatives created a commission to investigate the actual impacts of immigration in their state.  The results:  "Illegal immigrants housed in Missouri prisons, receiving Medicaid benefits or enrolled in state colleges and universities aren't that common."  According to the article, less than 2% of Missouri's prison population is foreign-born, which includes U.S. citizens born abroad and legal and illegal immigrants.  An even lower percentage have received Medicaid benefits:  of 850,000 people in the state's program, only 2,700 received benefits paid for by the state--a number that includes both legal and illegal immigrants, as well.  The hearing led the commission's chairman to state that, "knowing that illegal immigration isn't having much of an impact on certain parts of state government makes it easier to pinpoint what changes are needed."  The report is a welcome dose of factual information in a time of political rhetoric and anti-immigrant myth.  I urge Tennessee's legislature to commission a similar study.

TN Senate Candidates Playing Politics with Immigration


June 10, 2006

An article in Nashville's City Paper described yesterday how Tennessee's U.S. Senate candidates are playing politics with the immigration debate.  In their latest effort to "out-right" each other, Republican candidates Ed Bryant and Van Hilleary have been joined by Democrat Harold Ford in accusing Republican Bob Corker's former construction firm Bencor of hiring undocumented workers in the late 1980s.  Corker has denied any wrongdoing and characterized the incident as one in which the "INS reported that Bencor bent over backwards to make sure that the subcontractors were complying with all rules and regulations."  Tennessee's Senate candidates would apparently rather bicker about what did and did not happen at a particular construction site twenty years ago rather than debate solutions to the immigration issues faced by construction companies in the present.



Polls Suggest Immigration Restrictionists a Vocal Minority


June 9, 2006

The Christian Science Monitor reports that polls conducted by the Republican National Committee suggest that all the anti-immigrant noise we hear comes from a very vocal minority.  The 6/9/06 article states that, "The RNC poll tested a number of messages on immigration and found that the candidate who focuses only on border security loses to the candidate who talks about comprehensive reform, 25 percent to 71 percent. Seventy percent of voters - and 64 percent of Republicans - say illegal immigrants who have put down roots in the US should be granted legal status if they 'go to the back of the line, pay a fine, pay back taxes, learn English, and have a clean criminal record,' according to this poll. Only 25 percent say that would be amnesty."  These numbers belie the sense that talk radio and much of the press portrays that America is solidly against comprehensive immigration reform.  As I previously wrote in my Majority of the Majority entry, when the voice of the majority of America is heard, the immigration position is a reasonable, middle-ground approach.  Getting the majority to speak, however, is always a difficult task.  As the restrictionist camps know well, it is the squeaky wheel that gets the oil.

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