Posted on 07/11/2013 4:33:40 PM PDT by markomalley
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) are drafting legislation to provide a path to citizenship for immigrant children who were brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents, their offices said Thursday.
The bill, which a Cantor spokeswoman said is in its “early stages,” would be the first House Republican proposal to address the status of illegal immigrants, but it would not go nearly as far as Democrats want. While the legislation resembles the Dream Act that is part of the Senate immigration bill, aides said it would not be as broad.
The Senate Dream Act provides an expedited path to citizenship for children and for young adults in college or who have served in the military. The House GOP proposal, by contrast, may be limited to younger people. “As part of the step-by-step approach the House is taking to address immigration reform, Leader Cantor and I are working on a bill to provide a legal status to those who were brought illegally to the U.S. as children by their parents,” Goodlatte said in a statement Thursday.
“These children came here through no fault of their own and many of them know no other home than the United States,” Goodlatte said. “This is one component of immigration reform — any successful reform plan must improve our legal immigration programs, strengthen border security and the interior enforcement of our immigration laws, and find a way to fairly deal with those who are currently in the country unlawfully.”
Aides said there is no timetable for when the proposal would get a committee hearing or vote.
The Judiciary Committee has already approved four immigration bills dealing with interior enforcement, an e-verify system for employers, high-skilled visas and an agricultural guest-worker program.
Democrats said the move was a welcome sign from Republicans who have been reluctant to provide any legal status to illegal immigrants. But they said it is not enough.
“You’ve got to deal with all aspects of the broken immigration system,” said Rep. Xavier Becerra (Calif.), the House Democratic caucus chairman who is working on a bipartisan, comprehensive bill. “You can help the kids, but if you leave the parents behind, you still have a very broken system.”
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has said the House would move immigration reform on a step-by-step basis rather than with a comprehensive bill. Becerra said the system could not be fixed with “band-aids” or “in pieces.”
“I’m not in the Republican conference. I’m not the Speaker,” Becerra said. “The Speaker has to determine how he can try to move things forward. I will simply say that we know what it takes to fix the broken immigration system. Pieces don’t fix the machine. You’ve got to fix the machine. You know, man up, do it right, get it done.”
Several lawmakers made compelling cases for approving some version of the Dream Act during Wednesday’s closed-door House GOP meeting on immigration reform.
“It seemed like a lot more people [thought] that if you were brought here as a child and you graduate valedictorian — how can we be against it?,” one veteran lawmaker told The Hill after the meeting. “A lot of people said that and I was surprised.”
An embrace of any form of the Dream Act would represent a shift by the GOP, especially since just last month the House voted to kill policies that give officials discretion to not deport illegal immigrants considered low-risk.
Only six Republicans opposed the amendment sponsored by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) and approved by the House in a 224-201 vote.
Republican leaders have consistently voted against the Democrats' Dream Act over the last several years.
According to one member of the Republican leadership team who spoke to The Hill on the condition of anonymity, it was apparent at Wednesday's lengthy meeting that "there was a growing recognition" the GOP needed to deal with the issue.
"I think there's growing support to deal with that in immigration — that immigration is changing before our eyes because our kids have grown up with these kids, they're in the families, they're in the neighborhoods, they are graduating with our kids and it's like, what the heck are you going to do with a 18-year-old valedictorian who was brought in when they were one or two?," the lawmaker said.
Cantor's effort on a Republican Dream Act is consistent with a post-election speech he delivered at the American Enterprise Institute in February. When it comes to immigration reform, Cantor said at the time, "a good place to start is with the kids."
He added, "One of the great founding principles of our country was that children would not be punished for the mistakes of their parents."
Last year, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) planned to offer the a Republican version of the Dream Act, but later opted not to.
My view is yes, the GOP is beyond hope.
However, a newly-sprung third party is likely to be a short-lived failure.
That’s why I advocate using the GOP as the scaffolding by which to build its successor.
I’d start with a tea party-like grassroots organization that organizes statewide nominating conventions before the GOP primaries in 2014, and additionally a national-level one in 2016. Their endorsements would presumably be overwhelmingly if not all within the GOP and many of its members would presumably be members of the GOP as well.
The goal would be to unite small-government conservatives behind a single primary candidate for the 2016 presidential primary, especially, and then to get that candidate to be the GOP nominee—and president.
If the organization succeeds at that, it has a chance of overtaking the GOP from within, but either way it has a nationwide grassroots party apparatus already built that could become a viable third party as early as 2018 if need be.
The Zimmerman case is big, but it's effect is done. The feds and race baiters have already done the damage. It will only affect us if there are riots because of a well deserved acquittal.
I'm thinking we're all so shell shocked from being whupped so often, we're using it as entertainment to escape our bruises.
The big question: If we put our nickels together, will we get a dime back?
:-)
I hear you, and I figured a reasoned response would include something like (can we not concentrate on more than one thing at a time). I agree, we should be able to, but the American public is fickle and sometimes easily led (some groups more than others).
I often have to remind myself that on FR, we are still a slice of the distribution - more often on one end of the spectrum, but we are still a slice of it. It can be hard to reconcile that with the idea that we are tightly knit on one end of the spectrum for the most part, but all (or at least a lot of) the other social mores are there in the spectrum as well.
:-)
Amen.
LLS
” DEAF, DUMB, SELL-OUT, PANDERING TRAITORS!!!”
That covers it quite well, Onyx.
” I have to say, that FR is posting way more than 100 times more on Zimmerman trial threads than on immigration threads is a bad sign. It’s sad where we are putting our attention.”
Yep. We discussed that yesterday.
they just wanted us to shut up
IMHO, start with the (L) party. Aside from the few things I think they are ‘wrong’ about, you can’t fault too much when the platform says “I will follow the Constitution”
Like any brand, even re-building from scratch and making things 1000% takes FOREVER to restore credibility/trust...The Republic doesn’t have that kind of time.
“But, you’re for drugs”
- No we’re for Freedom as you belong to no one.
“But, you’re for abortion”
- Here is where I 180 their platform. Egg+Sperm = new DNA = per PERSON
“But, you’re for open borders”
- With few denials, most people are free to enter/leave as they wish. Borders are still enforced, people are still scrutinized. That does not mean the visitor is a Citizen.
What they ARE for, and the GOP won’t even touch, is the systematic dismantling of the ABC departments, the Fed, the 16th (and I’d hope 17th) Amendment, etc. Now, THAT is a bold platform to get behind.
What does the GOP promise? End the Dept. of Educ.? ‘Allowing’ one to keep more of their $$ (thank you, ‘master’)? Amnesty, TSA, NSA. They can’t even pass a BALANCED BUDGET (all Cont. Resolutions @ $4T+ DEFICIT/yr), let alone one for 5+ yrs. out (HA)
I’ve got plenty of overlap with small-l libertarians and some with capital-L Libertarians. But IMO they lose the necessary translation from principle to what is pragmatic given human nature and where we are starting from.
A perfect example is their take on immigration. The country does provide, and will continue to provide, social support (even if it weren’t governmental, it would be charitable) of a nature that can’t accommodate the billions who would like to come and avail themselves of it. The open borders that you and they espouse sets us up for invasion (which some could reasonably argue is ongoing from the south) at a level and even of a type that is the first Constitutional duty of our federal government to protect us against. Also, the Libertarian position on immigration ignores the common, Western cultural baseline that is required for Constitutional self-government to work.
The basics of libertarian philosophy can be used to support either side of the abortion debate, and so don’t of themselves provide much practical help on that issue.
It is IMO the small government, reasoned but firm dismantling of those federal (and state) monstrosities is the common ground where conservatives, libertarians, moderates and independents can find a majority coalition and start to take back the government and our country. That’s why the tea party was for a time so successful despite its organizational limitations.
The GOP is so totally sold out and rotten to its core that it is not a viable vehicle for what is needed (unless, as I outlined above a ‘freedom party/tea party’ initiative can succeed in taking over the party from within by 2016).
It’s been said before, but unfortunately it’s worth saying again: Boener is a bonehead.
BTTT!
I’ve posted information which you dismiss and instead make suppositions about what I have done. I am not the topic, the actions of the House Republicans is. You state that “they haven’t done anything wrong yet” when the evidence is that they are conspiring to. I have shown you that evidence. The Hastert rule is window dressing, a ploy to gull the unwary and the naive.
Disappointing. At the same time, something has to be done beyond just building a fence etc.
But, this isn’t it.
They are in a tough spot because letting all them on the voter rolls could easily doom the GOP forever. But, deporting all the kids looks bad too.
I don’t know the answer. But, this just caving in isn’t the answer either.
” I don’t know the answer.”
Simple.
Enforce the law of the 1986 amnesty.
If we had, there wouldn’t be a problem.
I’m sending this info to others and working on ways for Republicans to kick these RINO groups out of the GOP.
God help us.......
I fail to see then how one could A) Still support the GOP/RNC B) Rail for a NEW 3rd party (of which NO details exist), when they already exist (and have been in the trenches)
IMHO, I believe you’re mixing apples and oranges. Firstly, if the support were charitable/voluntary, I would have NO gripe/say whom they would give their $$. Secondly, ‘open travel’ does not = Citizen; no bennies (distributed BY gov’t) = no reason to LEGALLY immigrate unless one WANTS to be a Citizen. Again, open travel does NOT equal NO security/checks for those coming in (as if what we have today is ‘secure’ /s).
RE: ‘common, Western cultural baseline’. I’ll have to ask you to lay that out, I’m unfamiliar with your meaning.
RE: Abortion. That is ONE of the few areas I believe the (L) is wrong. BUT, as they espouse 95% of what I believe in, my vote goes with them (unless another candidate can sway me with more than ‘lesser of 2 evils’ B.S. or point to their record).
As for your closing statements, I wholeheartedly agree (EG: having common ground), but you’d be a minority, even here, to say forces should be joined on those basics.
Most, that I have witnessed, would rather/happily cast their lot with a party that would sell out their own base than acknowledge they may have been backing the ‘true’ opposition. It seems, to me, that the GOP has their own share of plantation workers who are too scared of Liberty themselves to ‘buck the system’ and vote for anyone other than (R).
Lastly, if this ‘new’ party were to join with some of the others out there, I would def. be one giving time/$$ all around. It’s been too many years since I held my nose to vote for ‘the next in line’ union seniority ideals; and I think the conglomerate (say to present the BEST candidate, given REAL debates and ideas) would shake the rot in the 2-party cartel to its core.
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