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The House of Representatives will take up two immigration-related bills this week including one that will give so-called 'DREAMers' a path to citizenship. The second bill would provide a pathway to citizenship for farm workers who are living in the country illegally. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi decided to embrace a piecemeal approach to getting immigration legislation through after taking a whip count earlier this month and discovering President Joe Biden's larger immigration package didn't have the votes. Until then, they'll pass the two stand-alone bills, which passed in the last Congress as well, so to kickstart negotiations in the Senate....

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Wednesday said Republicans should follow the lead of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). Reid said Graham defeated conservative challengers and avoided a runoff after co-authoring immigration reform last year, unlike House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), who was defeated in a shocking result the same night. ADVERTISEMENT “I believe the Republicans should follow the lead of Lindsey Graham. Lindsey Graham was part of the Gang of Eight to come up with immigration reform. He never backed down, backed up. He kept going forward on this issue,” Reid said. “We need more Republicans who are...

Monday, June 17, 2013 Coming to America Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog How does one define a nation? That is truly the fundamental question of amnesty. The libertarian argument in favor of amnesty comes down to the question of whether nations even necessary at all. If the only characteristic that matters is freedom then borders and the other vestiges of nationhood only interfere with the flow of the free market. America then becomes a set of ideas and its only usefulness is as a space for harboring those ideas. This ideological definition of a nation demands...

Executive Summary Unlawful immigration and amnesty for current unlawful immigrants can pose large fiscal costs for U.S. taxpayers. Government provides four types of benefits and services that are relevant to this issue: Direct benefits. These include Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation. Means-tested welfare benefits. There are over 80 of these programs which, at a cost of nearly $900 billion per year, provide cash, food, housing, medical, and other services to roughly 100 million low-income Americans. Major programs include Medicaid, food stamps, the refundable Earned Income Tax Credit, public housing, Supplemental Security Income, and Temporary Assistance for Needy...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) says in a forthcoming article that the tea party movement is “unsustainable” and will “die out” because it lacks vision. Graham made the comments to The New York Times as part of a profile in Sunday’s magazine written by Robert Draper. Graham argues throughout the story that the Republican Party will eventually move away from the fringe and join him closer to the political middle but that, for now, it has shifted too far to the right. “Everything I’m doing now in terms of talking about climate, talking about immigration, talking about Gitmo is completely opposite...

When U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and his aides walked into Cardinal Daniel DiNardo's conference room at the Catholic Chancery one afternoon three weeks ago to talk about immigration reform, they were greeted by the archbishop, Lutheran Bishop Michael Rinehart and a dozen rabbis and clergy members from a variety of denominations. They were also greeted by about 6,000 postcards piled in stacks on the large conference table around which the group would sit.... At a time when anger is the currency of the political realm, much of it aimed at illegal immigrants, the religious leaders were saying to Cornyn that...

When Sen. Lindsey Graham announced his support for Sonia Sotomayor this week, right-wing radio talk show host Mark Levin said it was a sign that Graham is “unreliable ... as a thinker and a leader.” Wendy Long, counsel for the conservative Judicial Confirmation Network, called it proof that Graham “still lacks courage, statesmanship and an understanding of the Constitution and rule of law.” “May his antics get the attention they richly deserve.” The response from Graham: Enjoy life in the minority. In an interview with POLITICO Thursday, the South Carolina Republican defended his decision to back Sotomayor by laying out...

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Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham is in deep trouble with hard-core conservative members of his own party because of his support of President Bush's presumably failed immigration reform package. Some even are threatening to run a candidate against him in next June's GOP primary. So far, no one has stepped forward. "Lindsey will get an opponent," predicted Francis Marion University political scientist Neal Thigpen, a Republican activist. "The only question is will the candidate be any one of stature." (snip) Robert Botsch, a University of South Carolina-Aiken professor, said if Graham has a problem it's likely to be in the...