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As President Obama and Senate Democrats push to pass an immigration bill this year, one key ingredient is still conspicuously missing: a second Republican to co-sponsor the legislation. Most Republicans considered likeliest to join Sens. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, and Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, in writing a bill either have taken a pass or are still on the fence. Key figures say the country does not have the kind of consensus needed to tackle the issue. "It just doesn't exist anymore," said Sen. Jon Kyl, the Arizona Republican who in 2007 took the lead on writing a...

Eliseo Medina, international executive vice-president of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) made the following comments at a June 2009 Washington conference for America's Future Now!: Medina said that during the presidential election in November 2008, Latinos and immigrants "voted overwhelmingly for progressive candidates. Barack Obama got two out of every three voters that showed up." "Can you imagine if we have, even the same ratio, two out of three? Can you imagine 8 million new voters who care about our issues and will be voting?" Medina asked. "We will be creating a governing coalition for the long term, not just...

FRESNO, Calif. – Paula Medrano shifts uncomfortably on the doctor's examination table, holding out a wrist inflamed and swollen by arthritis. The 78-year-old has no health insurance, lives below the federal poverty level, and can't pay for the medication she needs. Just days before her appointment, President Barack Obama signed, with much fanfare, a historic bill to extend health care access to 32 million currently uninsured people.

(snip) VAN SUSTEREN: Governor Palin, if you were vice president today, what would you be telling a President McCain about what to do about immigration, if anything? PALIN: I support his position on immigration. It all comes down to securing the border. And he who has actually proposed some solutions, the Obama administration does not want to listen to Senator McCain or any other Republican, and that, of course, leads to a greater problem that we have in Washington, D.C. And it's that lack of the new administration's ability and enthusiasm for listening to those on the other side of...

The opening minutes of “The Senators’ Bargain,” a documentary film appearing tonight on HBO2, show Senator John McCain at a congressional hearing in 2006, reading out loud from a newspaper article describing the death from desert broiling that befalls many immigrants trying to cross the border illegally. “The brain cooks and the delirium starts,” the Republican senator from Arizona reads somberly, explaining why he will join Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, one of the most liberal Democrats, to sponsor a bill to give legal status to millions of illegal immigrants. The documentary, directed by Shari Robertson and Michael Camerini,...

Like the movie villain Jason Voorhees who seems dead at the end of every movie but comes back for the next horror show, amnesty for illegal aliens isn't dead. It's back! Some people thought amnesty was dead when the people rose up against the Bush/Kennedy/McCain amnesty bill and kept it from becoming law. But they were wrong. The far left never gives up on a bad idea. They just keep bringing it back until they can either implement their mischief piecemeal, or have enough scumbags in congress to ram it through. To them the will of the people, like the...

As the vote for DeathCare commences, Fox Boston just ran a tease of a mob of Spanish-speaking criminal aliens holding a rally where their leaders are screaming into bullhorns, demanding blanket amnesty. Fox suggested that this will be Obama's next big success. Twenty million new Dem voters will make it impossible for the Repubs or any conservatives to ever again hold office.

Protesters carrying banners and U.S. flags mass on the National Mall. Organizers are trying to cast the issue as an element of economic recovery. Reporting from Washington Tens of thousands of people began assembling in Washington on Sunday to march for immigration reform, a politically charged issue that has been pushed to a back burner by the intense focus on healthcare. Wearing colorful shirts and carrying banners and U.S. flags, thousands filled two blocks on the National Mall, chanting "si se puede" - "yes we can" - and "Obama listen, remember your promise." Among the marchers was Jose Barnell, 60,...

Amnesty = 25,000,000 new Democrats. Any questions?

March 21, 2010 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- Tens of thousands gathered on the National Mall in Washington,DC Sunday for a rally focused on immigration reform. Some of those gathered are from the Chicago area. They say they fear reform efforts have been put on the back burner. While in the shadow of Sunday's health care reform vote, tens of thousands of protesters from around the country marched in Washington to push for a long-awaited immigration overhaul, as their fellow advocates in the Chicago area demanded the president make good on his promise of change. "One thing we want to see [is]...

(03-21) 14:19 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) -- Frustrated with the pace of action to overhaul the country's immigration system, thousands of demonstrators descended on the nation's capital Sunday, waving American flags and holding homemade signs in English and Spanish. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/03/21/national/a115650D11.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz0iqiixysD

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Immigrant rights supporters from around the country are rallying for immigration reform on the National Mall. People are waving American flags and holding signs with slogans in English and Spanish such as "Legalization yes, deportation no." About half an hour after the rally's scheduled 2 p.m. start, an area of about four square blocks on the mall was filled with people. Organizers say tens of thousands of people have traveled ...

Reporting from Los Angeles and Washington Tens of thousands of people began assembling in Washington on Sunday to march for immigration reform, a politically charged issue that has been pushed to a back burner by the intense focus on healthcare. In a tactic that reflects the current economy, march organizers have tried to cast the immigration debate as part of economic recovery. "What's important today is that jobs and immigration go hand in hand," Marc Morial of the National Urban League said on Sunday in a television interview. "When you've got millions of undocumented workers working off the books, that...

GOP Senator: Healthcare Bill May Cost Immigration Overhaul Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has indicated that he'd lend key support to an immigration effort, but he's angry about Democrats' tactics in advancing a healthcare bill. Peter Nicholas March 20, 2010 The lone Republican senator inclined to support the Obama administration's bid to pass a major immigration overhaul said Friday that if a healthcare bill passes this weekend, the immigration effort is dead for the year. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is considered a crucial player in the immigration debate -- a Republican prepared to cross party lines and...

Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) unveiled their bipartisan blueprint for comprehensive immigration reform Thursday, a move hailed by President Barack Obama as progress on an issue for which he has been criticized for ignoring. “The American people deserve more than empty rhetoric and impractical calls for mass deportation. We urge the public and our colleagues to join our bipartisan efforts in enacting these reforms,” the Senators said in a Washington Post editorial posted online Thursday. The Schumer-Graham outline entails four key components: a biometric Social Security identification card for employment verification; strengthened border security and interior law...

This weekend, dozens of Southern Californians plan to march in Washington for immigration reform, joining thousands of activists from around the country. Today, a different group of Southern Californians – members of the L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce – heard from a U.S. senator who took a lot of political heat for his efforts at immigration reform. The question arose at lunch during the Chamber’s annual lobbying trip to Washington. What did Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona think the U.S. should do about the “flood of immigrants” “running over” California? McCain cosponsored the last major immigration reform bill with...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) may be working with the White House to craft an immigration reform proposal, but you wouldn't know it from his comments Sunday morning. The South Carolina Republican had no kind words for the president's efforts on the topic, accusing him of ignoring immigration and paying lip service only for temporary political reasons. Graham laughed off the president's claim that he's been "unwavering" in his support for immigration overhaul. "This idea that the president has been unwavering on immigration doesn't really pass the smell test," Graham said on ABC's "This Week." Graham, who has been invited to...

(snip) But Graham has heard it all before. "What drives my train," he told me when I reached him late in the week, "is not their approval; it's getting it right." The fact that such a sentiment makes Graham an oddball in the Republican Party, and to some extent Congress generally, says less about him than about his colleagues. For all his supposed heresies -- on climate change, judicial nominees, immigration and now his offer to help close the Guantanamo Bay prison -- Graham had a 2009 rating of 88 percent from the American Conservative Union and a lifetime rating...

Sen. John McCain's campaign is calling on his primary challenger to disavow the backing of an anti-illegal immigration group that permits the use of terms such as "wetbacks" and "pepper bellies" – derisive epithets sometimes used for immigrants – on its website. "Let's be clear: Congressman [J.D.] Hayworth's continued flirtation with extreme groups that condone racism only opens the door for liberals to falsely paint all opponents of illegal immigration as bigots. Congressman Hayworth should immediately disavow this group’s support and commit to never again associating himself with groups that accept this kind of hateful and counterproductive rhetoric," McCain campaign...

Senator Lindsey Graham, ever the faithful follower of uber-RINO John McCain, scored three RINO initiatives in just one week. Reminiscent of the "the band's getting back together" scenes from the movie "Blues Brothers", Graham and McCain reached back to the good old days of bipartisan shafting of conservative judicial nominees and offered the Democrats another "Gang of Fourteen"--this time to shaft the public with a bipartisan Obamacare bill. The offer must have been tempting to the Democrats who remember how "bipartisan leadership" from Graham and McCain spiked conservative guns when the Republicans were in the majority in the Senate. But...