Posted on 09/23/2010 6:23:21 AM PDT by Kaslin
Harry Reid and President Obama want Hispanics to believe that it is Republicans who are obstructing immigration legislation, while it has been Democrats who have scuttled efforts at comprehensive reform.
During the lead-up to the November elections, some fairly prominent Democrats are frantically rewriting history and trying to portray themselves as friends to the Latino community on immigration reform.
But a more careful and truthful reading of the facts should make one thing plain to America’s largest minority: with friends like these, who needs Republicans?
* Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told a gathering of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute that the blame for the fact that there has been no action on a comprehensive immigration reform bill lies squarely with Republicans. Napolitano accused Republicans in Congress of acting in bad faith and “moving goal posts” by saying they want to secure the border and then failing to give the administration credit for doing just that.
Here, the secretary actually makes a good point that there’s a big difference between securing the border (what Republicans say they want) and sealing the border (what they seem to really want); one can be accomplished, the other can’t. Then, Napolitano urged Latinos to turn out and vote their displeasure in November.
“Your voice is your vote, man,” Napolitano told the mostly Hispanic group. “Your vote is the currency this town lives on.”
* A few days later, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said that he plans to add the DREAM Act to a defense policy bill that the Senate is scheduled to take up. The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act was originally proposed in 2000 by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind. The bill targets young people in the country illegally, offering them “conditional permanent residency” if they came before they were 16 and if they attend college or serve in the military. Once they graduate or complete their enlistment, they would get permanent legal residency with a chance to eventually apply for U.S. citizenship. Reid framed the issue as settling for half a loaf since Republicans wouldn’t give up the whole thing.
”I know we can’t do comprehensive immigration reform,” Reid said at a news conference. “But those Republicans we had in the last Congress have left us.”
* The day after those remarks, President Barack Obama appealed to a Hispanic audience to support Democratic candidates in the November elections despite the fact that he failed to keep his promise to pass an immigration overhaul — or even make it the top priority he pledged he would while campaigning for president. “You have every right to keep the heat on me and the Democrats, and I hope you do. That’s how our political process works,”
At the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s awards dinner Obama said, “But don’t forget who is standing with you, and who is standing against you.” Obama also promised to help win passage of the DREAM Act. In the meantime, he said, Hispanics need to remember which party has served their interest on many issues, beyond immigration.
“Don’t forget who your friends are,” Obama told the audience. “No se olviden” (Don’t forget).
We could dismiss all of this hot air as election-year “His-pandering,” but that would be much too easy. There is something more cynical, and more sinister, going on here. This isn’t merely an attempt by Democratic leaders to win Hispanic votes and sour them on Republicans by portraying the GOP as the main obstacle to immigration reform. It’s an attempt to rewrite history and hope that Hispanics don’t figure out that it’s really Democrats who have — since 2006 — helped kill, stall, and derail any compromise immigration reform bill that includes language calling for guest workers which organized labor considers a non-starter. In fact, one of the chief offenders is none other than Reid, who now has the gall to blame Republicans for supposedly doing what he actually did.
Democrats also don’t have much of an interest in Hispanic voters zeroing in on the fact that Obama — who received two-thirds of the Hispanic vote in the 2008 election — not only broke his promise to make comprehensive immigration a top priority but also limited his efforts in this arena to increasing enforcement, deploying the National Guard, beefing up the border patrol, continuing workplace raids, and ratcheting up deportations to historic levels. Obama did all this to help undermine the GOP talking point that he’s soft on illegal immigration. But in the process, he also undermined the trust that Latinos put in him to take a comprehensive approach to the problem that went beyond the inanity of the “enforcement only” stance typically taken by Republicans.
That’s the real story, and one worth telling. And until it gets out, Democrats will continue to try to hoodwink Hispanic voters into thinking that they have that community’s best interests at heart — when, in reality, the only interests that Democrats, or any political party, care about are their own.
Sunlight, as always, is the best disinfectant.
Too many of the Northern European immigrants were coming to the US to escape the growing socialism of Europe and were voting Republican. The RATS had to stop that influx and used racism as the rationale.
We need to eliminate the RAT infestation in this country.
Navarette is just trying to put more pressure on the Dems to pass CIR, i.e., amnesty. The majority of Latinos will continue to support the Dems. Turnout might be affected in 2010 to send the Dems a message.
Instead of whining about it, You (we) should fight back. You know spin is all what they have
Dims control the house and senate. Failure to pass legislation is a result of loosing votes in their own party, not a failure to gain republican votes.
Just some recent examples of Amnesty; infact we have had over six programs of forgiveness.
The Dems’ “blame the Republicans” theme is getting old. Most recent lies would be the “Republicans playing politics with military funding” and now this. Morons.
I am totally confused... the Republicans have been fighting against “comprehensive immigration reform” AKA amnesty.
Navarette is talking about the 21st century. He uses the date 2006 because that was the date of CIRA, but is began in 2003 with AgJobs.
Then in 2004 the Bush Plan emerged. In 2005 there was Real ID, McCain Kennedy, Kyl Cornyn, and the get tuff House bill in Dec 2005. In 2006 the Senate passed CIRA that was to be merged with the 2005 House bill.
That all collapsed and in 2007 there were two attempts. The first was killed by the unions in the Dorgan amendment to add a sunset clause to the guest worker program. The second attempt was killed by the civil libertarians over Real ID and employee verification and merging of the federal databases.
Navarette is correct about the dems/unions being opposed to guest workers aka temporary visas, but the republicans are opposed to permanent visas, aka amnesty.
If you look at it objectively, there was a brief period of time there where the balance of power in Congress was such that Kennedy on the left and McCain on the right were able to reach a compromise on temporary visas versus permanent visas that almost passed.
Now, there is no way to get a guest worker program thru Congress. As Navarette says, the dems/unions won't allow it. And even if the Dems could, the republicans would not approve of amnesty.
In 2006 the Senate passed CIRA that was to be merged with the 2005 House bill.
Hagel-Martinez passed the Republican controlled Senate in 2006 with 23 Reps voting for it. It was not supposed to be merged with HR 4437, which was an enforcement only bill that passed the House with 20% of the Dems voting for it. The WH effectively killed HR 4437 by not supporting it. Sensenbrenner was pissed about Rove and the Bush WH. Hagel-Martinez never went to the House for a vote for procedural reasons. The House would have never passed it anyway.
...were able to reach a compromise on temporary visas versus permanent visas that almost passed.
Could you explain what you mean by that?
Now, there is no way to get a guest worker program thru Congress. As Navarette says, the dems/unions won't allow it. And even if the Dems could, the republicans would not approve of amnesty.
There are still enough squishy Reps in Congress that could pass an amnesty. McCain, once reelected, will be leading the charge. The new phrase he used in his campaign is "regularization of status" instead of "an earned path to citizenship." Both are descriptions of amnesty.
And the union leadership can be bought off. We are bringing in 125,000 legal foreign workers a month right now thru both permanent and temporary work permits in the midst of almost 10% unemployment or close to 17% using U-6 numbers. And an estimated 8 million illegal aliens hold jobs. Does this make sense? And where are the unions on amnesty? They support it.
I'm practicing in case I decide to become a democrat. ;-)
In the 2005 test vote, There 40 of 45 dems plus 13 of 55 GOPers supporting amnesty on to the path. Plus, there were 22 of 55 GOPers supporting amnesty to guest worker. So total that up and you have 75 members of the Senate supporting some form of amnesty. Based on that vote, the Senate decided to go ahead with immigration reform. That, when it came time to vote, the senate would find a compromise. And the 2006 compromise, as you correctly pointed out, would be Hagel Martinez.
CIRA had those same 40 dems and 13 pubs in support, which was not enough for cloture. So they reached the Hagel-Martinez compromise, and another 10 pubs came in giving them 63 for cloture.
As for HR 4437. Kyl Cornyn in July 2005 was the first immigration reform legislation to contain both immigration reform and law enforcement. That infuriated the House because the House has authority over law enforcement.
So the Senate and the House agreed to let the House kick it off by passing the law enforcement part, HR 4437. Then the Senate would add the immigration reform part and make any changes that they wanted to the law enforcement part, then it would go to conference committee for final negotiations.
This is where Bush comes in. Bush wanted Hastert and Frist to stack the conference committee the same way they did on the medicare prescription bill. The immigration bill that came out of conference committee would be very different from what went in. And the changed bill would probably pass the Senate because the dems would be afraid to filibuster because the press would call them obstructionists.
Reid and the dems knew the GOP was going to do this, So before Reid would let Hagel Martinez onto the floor, he forced Frist to name which senators would be going to conference committee. Frist named the entire Judiciary Committee, and there were enough republican supporters of immigration reform on the judiciary committee to fight off Sensenbrenner in conference committee.
The rest is history. Knowing there weren't enough votes to change the bill in conference committee, Bush/Hastert refused to go, saying that the senate bill contained tax increases, which are the prerogative of the House.
This bill revealed major divisions within the Republican Party over the issue of immigration. President Bush proposed a "balanced approach" of tightened boarder security and a guest worker program for undocumented immigrants currently in the United States. But a more hardline Republican faction in the House was able to turn the tide against the president's plan. The result was this bill, which clamped down on illegal immigration and toughened border security, but omitted any new avenue for current illegal immigrants to gain legal status.
I was involved in the fight over HR 4437. Sensenbrenner got stabbed in the back by Rove and the WH. I won't get too far down into the weeds, but the WH supported HR 4437 initially. The Dems had placed a poison pill in the bill by making illegal entry into the US a felony vice a misdemeanor. Sensenbrenner offered to take it out if it went to conference. Rove essentially killed the bill by withdrawing WH support for it.
I know a lot of people thought, or were led to believe, that HR 4437 was a stand alone bill. That Sensenbrenner and the House passed HR 4437 as an enforcement only solution to the problem of illegal immigration. And that the Senate would respond to HR 4437 by either rubber stamping 4437 or responding with the Senate's version of enforcement only legislation.
That is not the case.
Ping!
S 2611 was stalled indefinitely, however, when House Republicans refused to conference with House Democrats and Senators to work-out differences between the Senate legislation and H.R. 4437, the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act, which had passed the House on a vote of 239 to 182. The House refusal was based on the fact that the Senate bill contained appropriation language in it. The House wanted it removed before considering it.
Your last line, "The House wanted it removed before considering it". That's what they do in conference committee.
The hardliners, Bush, Rove, and anybody else walked away from the legislation because the democrats blocked their attempt to change the bill in conference committee.
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