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Comment by Alberto on July 1, 2009 at 7:27am

Sen Schumer: Call them "Illegals"..... Here is a Follow up to Joe Vs. Jose


Posted on Wed, Jun. 24, 2009
Obama, Congress prepare to take up immigration overhaul
William Douglas
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - On the eve of the White House's long-delayed bipartisan meeting Thursday to kick off its drive to revamp U.S. immigration policy, lawmakers and interest groups weighed in Wednesday on what's needed in a comprehensive bill.
The senator tapped to write it, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., gave his most detailed outline to date on what he intends to include in an immigration bill that he and congressional Democratic leaders say could be written and voted on this fall.

Schumer's goal is to balance a get-tough approach to illegal immigration while still providing a path to citizenship for the nearly 12 million illegal immigrants who're already here.

"I do not believe that a bipartisan immigration bill can be enacted if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle do not believe that Democrats are serious about enforcement, " Schumer told a conference at Georgetown University .

Schumer said that Democrats can no longer afford to use soft, euphemistic language about illegal immigration if they are to pass an immigration bill on Obama's watch.

"When we use phrases like 'undocumented workers,' we convey a message to the American people that their government is not serious about combating illegal immigration, which the American people overwhelmingly oppose."

Schumer's immigration plan includes:

a.. Acknowledging that illegal immigration is wrong and making a dramatic reduction in future illegal immigration a priority.

b.. Bolstering infrastructure, technology and personnel along the U.S. border within a year of enactment.

c.. Using a biometric-based employer verification system to "significantly diminish the job magnet that attracts illegal aliens to the United States ."

d.. Registering all illegal aliens inside the country upon enactment of the new law and having them "submit to a rigorous process of converting to legal status and earning a path to citizenship - or face imminent deportment."

e.. Making reunification of families "a cornerstone value of our immigration system."

f.. Encouraging immigration of the "world's best and brightest individuals" to the United States while discouraging businesses from using immigration laws to "obtain temporary and less-expensive foreign labor to replace capable American workers."

g.. Changing the current flow of unskilled illegal workers into a more manageable flow of legal ones who can be absorbed by the economy.
Schumer laid down his markers one day before he and other lawmakers convene at the White House to launch Obama's effort to overhaul the country's immigration policy, a goal that eluded his predecessor, George W. Bush.

The meeting comes after two postponements, which prompted some immigration advocates to question Obama's commitment to Hispanic voters. Obama promised during the presidential campaign that he would address immigration in his first year in office.

That vow helped him earn 67 percent of the Hispanic vote to Republican presidential candidate John McCain's 31 percent.

"We see this as really a critical moment of truth on immigration, " said the Most Rev. Jaime Soto, the Bishop of Sacramento and a member of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Migration. "Tomorrow's meeting will tell us if the administration is serious about enacting comprehensive immigration reform this year, or is it perhaps getting timid and abandoning commitments that it made during the campaign."

White House officials and congressional Democratic leaders have given mixed signals on how eager they are to move immigration forward. Their agenda is already loaded with complex urgent challenges, including an overhaul of national health insurance, trying to cap carbon emissions, redesigning financial regulation, confirming a new justice for the Supreme Court, as well as the usual spending and budget measures.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday that Obama would like to see immigration addressed this year, but added "currently where we sit, the math makes that real difficult."

However, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Tuesday that he has the votes to push immigration legislation through the Senate.

"What is impacting doing comprehensive immigration reform is getting floor time to do it," he said.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., questioned Congress' ability to get to immigration this year, given the crowded legislative schedule.

"We've got a full plate already," McConnell told reporters Tuesday. "There's been very little discussion in our conference about the way forward on immigration reform. So really I haven't given much thought to that issue lately."

Gibbs said that Obama will be in a listening mode on Thursday.

"The president was a participant in the (immigration) debate in 2006 in the Senate," Gibbs said. "I think one of the things that he hopes to hear and wants to hear from folks is based on what we know and have learned from those debates, does that affect the path forward."

Soto, on a conference call with other immigration advocates, said he'll be listening for assurances that lawmakers will overhaul immigration in a comprehensive manner, not piecemeal.

"What I'm afraid of is the tendency to want to put this off into the future and, in a sense, the 'Manana Syndrome,'" he said. "What I want to hear is that they are ready to engage the issue and move it now."

Comment by Alberto on June 29, 2009 at 8:23am

Immigration pressure on Obama increasing
By Richard S. Dunham and Gary Martin
Houston Chronicle (June 28, 2009)

WASHINGTON - For weeks, President Obama has been under increasing pressure from civil rights groups, Latino elected officials and Democratic liberals to do something - anything - to rescue comprehensive immigration reform from political purgatory.

"Americans won't tolerate excuses any longer," says John Podesta, president of the liberal Center for American Progress. "They voted for change and they want their leaders to solve tough problems, not kick them down the road."

Obama did something on Thursday, meeting with 34 lawmakers and administration officials at the White House and declaring his unwavering support for passing some sort of immigration legislation as quickly as possible.

But while the Thursday White House summit - held after two previous postponements - may buy Obama a little time to craft a comprehensive immigration proposal, it doesn't do anything to narrow the yawning divides that separate liberal Democrats, conservative Republicans, organized labor and business groups.

Under increasing pressure to act, Obama and his reformist partners are facing a complex political equation in which concessions designed to win support from one group may end up alienating other factions needed to build a legislative majority.

For example, New York Sen. Charles Schumer's proposal to require a biometric-based employer verification system has strong business support, but it would be a deal-killer for some on the left.

On the flip side, any plan that offers a path to citizenship for people living in the U.S. without authorization will lose the votes of a wide swath of conservatives.

At the moment, the White House does not have the votes for any comprehensive plan that would try to secure the border, give businesses continuing access to immigrant labor and provide legal residency to unauthorized immigrants.

But without the votes on Capitol Hill, the president has no choice to step back and try to build a bipartisan coalition that includes some critics of the ill-fated 2007 immigration proposal, like Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.

"The president is a realist; there is only so much he can do," acknowledges Rep. Charlie Gonzalez, D-San Antonio. "The reality for us, legislatively, is to come to him with a package and say we have the votes. He's saying, 'Show me the votes in the House and Senate.' "

Over the next few months, the administration will try to build momentum for action by high-profile highlighting of successes in border enforcement and low-profile negotiations with key players on Capitol Hill.

But Obama doesn't have the luxury of time. Many Hispanic groups are pressing for action now.

Janet Murguia, president of the National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest Hispanic rights group, points out that Latino voters rejected anti-immigrant candidates in the last election and were instrumental in the Obama victory. Immigration reform remains a rallying issue among Hispanic voters, who turned out 2-1 for Obama last November.

As Obama moves forward on the immigration issue, he's learning that Latinos and liberals aren't the only groups pressuring the White House to act. The Southwest border states of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California, as well as others with large immigration populations, continue to shoulder the cost of a broken federal system.

The White House is also being pressured on the right. Conservatives in the House and Senate have questioned the need for immigration reform during a recession, with double-digit unemployment forecast for later this year.

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, which oversees immigration reform, said the administration should be more concerned with enforcing current immigration laws.

Some hopeful reform advocates believe the Obama summit might have altered the D.C. dynamics. Mary Giovagnoli, director of the Immigration Policy Center, said the president's summit had "changed the nature of the debate - shifting politicians from finger-pointing to problem-solving."

"There will be challenges, as there are in any legislative process," Giovagnoli predicted, "but the public should be reassured that we are finally moving forward in a genuine, bipartisan fashion, on a reasoned and reasonable debate on comprehensive immigration reform."