Posted on 07/04/2010 6:48:39 AM PDT by La Lydia
...But Obama did nothing to move the debate forward beyond drawing greater public attention to it. Among the things he didn't say: Obama did not announce a public White House meeting that would include key Republicans, Democrats, and representatives of civic and business groups who would try to seek a compromise on immigration reform ...He did not use the occasion to formally announce a Justice Department challenge to the Arizona state law...Obama did not emphasize enough the economic case for fixing America's immigration system to help the United States be more competitive in the global economy.
He did not mention the insanity of a recent case in which federal authorities were planning to deport undocumented Harvard University student Eric Balderas back to Mexico, nor did he address New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's recent statement that ``we're commiting what I call national suicide'' by not giving green cards to highly-skilled foreign students.
According to Brain Gain: Rethinking U.S. Immigration Policy, a new book by Brookings Institution scholar Darrell West scheduled to be released this week, the United States grants only 15 percent of its visas to skilled workers, while Canada and Great Britain set aside 55 percent of their visas for skilled workers...
Obama did not make any new proposals. He could have adopted some of West's proposals, such as giving automatic green cards to foreign graduates of U.S. universities in the fields of math, science and technology, but also reducing the number of immediate relatives foreigners can bring into the United States.
If visas were limited to immediate relatives of immigrants, rather than aunts, uncles and cousins, hundreds of thousands of visas would be freed up to attract individuals with special skills needed by American businesses...
(Excerpt) Read more at miamiherald.com ...
Everything these days are all words, no action - on both sides of the aisle.
The Kenyan’s only goal in the speech was to score political points with Hispanics favoring amnesty. If there weren’t for a perceived political advantage for himself, the Kenyan wouldn’t care at all. The Kenyan came off as a weak whiner, again.
I think the right can run successfully on securing the borders and sending illegals home.
One of the problems with having large numbers of higher level skilled workers come in is that they actually do compete with Americans for well-paying jobs, more so than laborers.
We probably need unskilled workers, too, at any rate when our construction industry is functioning. But there should be a special short-term visa for them so that they can come for projects or for limited periods of time and then go home again. This would probably affect Latin Americans primarily, since they are the ones who live close enough to come and go easily and they have a large number of young male workers who are generally the type required for construction work, clean up work, etc. in places where there isn’t much domestic labor. And the great majority of them actually want to go back home after they have made enough money, but the way our law is now, it actually encourages them to hide out here and stay because they aren’t sure they’ll be able to return for a future job.
Something like that would also cut into the people smuggling business, which, while it smuggles in druggies and non-Latin foreigners from all over the world, smuggles in a lot of basic laborers from Latin America.
I agree about the family member stuff, and I have never understood why one person who arrives here has the right to bring all of his extended family with him (which he can apparently do whether he can support them or not). That’s a real abuse.
That said, I doubt that any of these ideas will even be discussed, because I don’t think Obama intends to deal with this through the legislature. I expect to see him have the agencies enact various regulatory things that will achieve his goals.
And the problem is that his goals are not the economic or political well-being of the United States, which is, as the author says, the thing that should be the foundation of our immigration policy.
I understand your reasoning an, on a flat surface, would agree with you. But realistically, we are not going to be able to shut down immigration entirely, and I think it would be better, in the long run, to allow in more skilled, educated people. Right now we are importing the ignorant, poverty stricken losers of the world, and paying, one way or the other, to subsidize their presence here. Skilled workers would at least be self-sufficient.
My father was one of those poverty stricken losers who came here from Ireland in 1929. He served in WW2 and received no government subsidy beyond social security and VA benefits. Most people who come here are not rolling in the dough back home or they wouldn’t come. That’s most not all.
The bulk of this country is made up of the descendants of poverty stricken losers. The difference is they were looking for a step up not a hand out.
I actually wouldn’t mind illegals if they went the “more American than Americans” route that many previous waves of immigrants pursued. I’d be proud of ‘em.
But that isn’t what they’re doing. They’re not future Americans - they’re invading barbarians determined to impose their cultures and values on us.
You've touched on the real time bomb of "immigration reform". Once the current illegals are given amnesty, they will do just as you state, and completely overwhelm our social services, let along Social Security (let's not forget gramma and grampa in the mix).
In the meantime, new illegals will be encouraged to come up here, wait in the shadows a few years, and then be given Amnesty III.
My family came here from Ireland in the 1880’s and you are right about no welfare, food stamps etc. However, they LEGALLY came here, paid taxes, contributed to their community etc. Immigrants in the past learned the language, and became fully “Americanized” because they loved this country. They didn’t see it as a sow. There wasn’t joint citizenship either. You were either an American or not. You weren’t an American and a Mexican/Russian/whatever. Perhaps that is why I recently saw a documentary stating that the Irish are an American cinderella story and those immigrants did extremely well over some other groups.
I have recently determined that the federal guv is rapidly loosing it's ability to do anything other than declaring actions and individuals in violation of some "rule" and put American Citizens in prison.
As we approach total saturation of every waking moment being in violation of some "rule" or law this will become the sole activity of the fed.gov.
EVERYTHING you do will be against the law, including doing nothing at all.
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Ping!
Thanks for the new tag line...
I was reading the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution this morning, looking for references to God-given rights and I came across this segment in the Declaration. Does Obama think that he is King George?
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He (King George) has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
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That is exactly what Obama is doing in regard to the Arizona immigration law. The following segment might necessarily apply as well:
....it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
It came to my attention during the Kagan hearings that Kagan does not believe in inalienable, God given rights. If there are no God-given rights, the state(federal government) becomes the highest arbiter of those rights and the government will do anything to consolidate and reinforce their control of power, including obliviating the natural rights of the citizens.
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