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Subscribe to RSSThe president is taking his second-term agenda on the road next week.
However, the topic of Tuesday’s trip is immigration and not gun control. While event details are still being sorted out, the White House has confirmed that “the president will be traveling to Nevada on Tuesday to redouble the Administration's efforts to work with Congress to fix the broken immigration system this year.”
This comes after an unannounced meeting at the White House with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Friday morning. Members of the caucus and the White House expressed a “sense of urgency” when it came to tackling the issue of comprehensive immigration reform.
Since his re-election, President Obama has said that he would attempt to tackle the issue in his second term and the topic was given prominence by being included in his inaugural address.
“Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity,” he said Monday.
Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), who has been an outspoken supporter of the DREAM Act and comprehensive immigration reform said after the meeting, “We all need to work together -- the president and Congress, Republicans and Democrats -- to get something done right away."
In an interview late last year, House Speaker John Boehner said, “I think a comprehensive approach is long overdue, and I’m confident that the president, myself, others, can find the common ground to take care of this issue once and for all.”
But while there has been acknowledgement and even some optimism on both sides of the aisle that there needs to be some type of reform to the country’s immigration system, it is still unclear how any kind of large-scale reform would move through Congress, what the details would be, and who would spearhead it.
President Obama's push for comprehensive immigration reform comes after his sweeping advantage with Latinos in his re-election. Obama won 71 percent of Latinos, up from 67% in 2008. They made up 10 percent of the electorate, up from 9 percent in 2008, which underperforms their population nationally -- 16 percent, according to the U.S. Census.
In Nevada, those shares are even higher. Obama won 74 percent of Hispanics in Nevada, and made up 19 percent of the electorate (but are 27 percent of the overall population). They were crucial in helping Obama to a 52-46% win in the Silver State, as well as victories in Colorado, New Mexico, and Florida.
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Pay the Mandate GOP and get the h$ll out of the way.
The problem with another amnesty without securing the border first, will bring another 11.000,000 into this country illegally and the Democrats will want to give them amnesty as well. We cannot afford the ones who are here illegally, let alone another 11 mil. Our government is also doing very little despite what they claim to stop the flow of mules carrying drugs into this country. For those of you who are not familiar with the term "mule", it refers to an illegal carrying drugs into the U. S. for the drug cartels. If Obama wants to pull the military out of Afghanistan, the Arizona border would be a great place to move them.
BTW I am sure you Liberals would love for the Republicans to just disappear and let you Liberals turn this country into a totally Communist Socialist country. But that isn't going to happen.
If they illegally jump the fence they are ILLEGALS and will always be so. They need to jump back to Mexico and stop corrupting our country. They have a home. They need to go back there. They'll never be Americans, no matter how Obama wants to twist the law to gain votes. Deport them, and their anchor babies too. No sympathy for criminals.
The Native Americans owned this land before OUR Relatives came and took it, does that matter to you?
Which tribe? They probably took it from someone else. Wake up. Its been the USA for quite a while now. What's your point??? That we should just give it up to a bunch of illegals?
try- Going to use the same line 400 - 600- 1,000 years from now pretty lame. Wakeup the current year now is 2013
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that illegal immigration is a drain on our economy. We are losing jobs and spending billions in resources on people that are not legally supposed to be here. This isn't the time to place blame. Both parties have had the opportunity to fix our immigration policy. Being anti illegal immigration doesn't mean that people are anti immigrant. There is a very bid difference between people who came here legally and those breaking the law to get here.
It's going to happen, just get used to it.
We already can't afford the people we have here. Why should they get preferential treatment over the law abiding citizen from another country that did things the right way?
Because they'll vote Democratic
See - that's the problem.
Doing things the right way is very time consuming and in most cases restrictive.
For those that claim illegals are taking their jobs, how many are willing to live in shacks, performing menial tasks for less than $2 an hour?
American.......The don't make $2 an hour, but 8-12 an hour. Illegals do jobs that Americans refuse to do at such a low wage that is true, but if companies couldn't hire illegals they would be forced to pay more. That would be a help to the middle class. We have wage stagnation in this country and illegal immigrants are playing a big role in that regards because they depress wages.
Most illegals I see are working construction, fast food and other jobs that used to go to legal citizens. They get food stamps, rent subsidies, free hospital care, and lots of charity. High school students who have little or no experience, used to take those low wage jobs to gain experience in the work force. (I speak from experience) It used to be the way young Americans could break into the work force. Now those jobs go to illegals and our legal children can't get work. Living in shacks??? Working for $2 an hour?? No way. We're sacrificing our children's employment opportunity to pander to a bunch of illegals.
They also pay nothing in taxes and a lot of them file for child earned income credit for every child them have. The government paid out a lot of money last year to illegals for this. Of course you Liberals don't care how much money our government wastes.
We are broke stay in DC get a budget, stop the spending and just enforce the laws we have and start deporting the illegals, catch them a 2nd time put them on a chain gang for a year building our great wall, catch them a third time give them 5 years on the wall. -- No road trip needed and free labor
Another great obama idea. Reward the lawbreakers. 23 million out of work or under employed and he wants illegals to have citizenship and a job. Must be some of those not on food stamps yet. 47 million not enough.
No amnesty.
Nevada is a great place to start on immigration. Nevada has the highest unemployment rate in the nation, it only makes sense to start immigration reform there. Besides there are plenty of new forclosed homes just waiting to be occupied, with the new immigration reform Las Vegas will have a whole new face. 10 years from now, you wont even recognize it. all the extra money earned will be sent to the families in mexico, so it sounds like a real good plan to get the economy going in Nevada.
Get rid of the Guns, bring in the Cartel to run the gambling towns as good honest citizens. Worked in mexico, it will work here too.
No Short Cuts Mr. President
Fill out the forms, get sponsors and follow the current immigration process to become a citizen just like everybody else. It took five years for my spouse to become a citizen accompanied by mountains of paperwork, physicals, and face to face meetings followed by a comprehensive test.
If the immigration process is simplified then so be it, but start with the people who have applied for citizenship and have been waiting for years. We need a process and not wave of the BO wand to allow illegal aliens to automatically become citizens ahead of those who have been following the guidelines and protocol of US immigrations.
What most don't get is that the large immigration that was allowed circa mid 1990s through 2008, was done on purpose. Back even in Reagan's administration, everyone knew that the 78 million odd baby boomers were going to place a huge financial drain on the Federal Government because the baby boomers didn't have lots of kids to pay for the baby boomer Social Security and Medicare costs.
So the politicians who run our country [we elected them], decided to allow massive immigration [50 million people] to solve the baby shortage. Workers who will work paying into social security and medicare thus pay for the baby boomers retirement. Immigration laws and regulations were kept in place because the politicians [we elected them to office] didn't want to continue the the huge financial problem social security and medicare is. They wanted the immigrants to come here and work and pay taxes, they just didn't want the immigrants to become citizens which would entitle them to the entitlement programs that are bankrupting the country.
But some shortsighted politicians figured hey, there's 50 million potential new voters who work low wage jobs, lets make them citizens, give them "Free subsidies" and they've vote for us.
So now, the Social Security and Medicare problem will continue unless those characters we elect to run our country change Social Security and Medicare. Something the immigrants who came here do NOT want to happen. They want to become citizens so they can have the retirement and Medicare. Their home country doesn't have anything like it so they will push for amnesty, become citizens, then vote out anyone who wants to change Social Security or Medicare. Thus are Democratic voters.
There's no fix for a Ponzi scheme which is what Social Security and Medicare are. The many paying for the few, but in this case the few are 1/3 the population [78 million baby boomers], and further out, the 50 million new immigrants and their children.
SteveAllen what you DO NOT understand is that a large UNEDUCATED ILLEGAL population that consumes far more in social welfare services than they pay in taxes is NOT BY ANY MATHEMATICAL METHODOLOGY A NET BENEFIT TO U.S. CITIZENS. Rather, it's a further drain.
That's my point. The "deal" back in Reagan's term, with the Democratic party [Tip O'Neill] and quess who else was there [Biden] was, to encourage massive immigration for cheap labor, who then pay social security and medicare taxes, without them actually, at some point, obtaining said Social Security and Medicare. That was to cover the 78 million baby boomers who would retire without a large young working population to support their retirement and medical care.
Welfare Reform was part of this. With the massive immigration of low wage workers, the Federal Government didn't want Welfare rolls to skyrocket when the inevitable downturn in the economy happens [recessions happen regularly].
The "liberals" and I'm not saying Democrats because there are "liberal" Republicans, but a influential group of politicians [and again Biden was there], figured they could seize political power "forever", through the social safetynet programs. After Welfare Reform, the social safetynet programs were expanded to include, low wage workers. Those workers who make $15,000.00 a year or less [poverty level defined in yearly wages]. This was paid for by ending the Cold War, thus ending the Large Military Industrial Complex which kept America going economically, and created the "middle class", since the end of WWII. America operated on Keynseain economic theory from the end of WWII, which is a semi-closed economy, where goverment becomes the stabilizing economic force by buying products and services from the private sector.
What we see today, is the result of governmental policies decided 30 years ago by men and women who are now dead [or most of them anyways].
Where it all went wrong was the politicians deciding the large immigrant population as their means in which to ensure their political career and their political party's dominance. That is to subsidize living expenses for the working poor, thus creating a large class of voters who are dependent upon government subsidies. They've done that. 49% of working Americans now receive some form of goverment assistance, and that number will grow when Obamacare is fully implemented. The goverment will subsidize insurance premium payments to private insurance companies, so those who can't afford the unaffordable insurance atleast pays something.
The other issue is Social Security and Medicare. Granting citizenship to the government number of 11 million undocumented immigrants means those 11 million immigrants now qualify for Social Security and Medicare when they retire. The politicians believe these 11 million immigrants will assimulate into American society, have atleast 5 to 6 children who then will have 5 or 6 children, all growing up to work and pay taxes into Social Security and Medicare. The net result is millions of voters who will vote to keep those benefits.
The politicians simply believe they can tax the people to pay for all this and the more people they have, the more taxes they will collect. California is banking on this to save that state from bankrupcy. The many paying taxes.
The "Convervatives" seeing their political party's influence virtually wiped out by massive numbers of people dependent upon the Federal Government for subsidies, thus taking tax money away from businesses, ie the old economic model from WWII, want to change the entitlement programs that will, financial expand, to the point where almost all of the tax money collect from citizens is spend to pay for those programs. Thus is no tax money available to keep private businesses in business during economic downturns and mitigate wide flucutations in the economy [boom bust cycles] that are a product of the private economy. There always are boom bust cycles in the private economy [as well as boom bust employment]. Bad economies and high unemployment leads to civil unrest and revolt. Further, changing Social Security and Medicare means reducing political clout by removing voter dependency upon goverment entitlements. Throw grandma under the bus isn't their motive, it's keep their polticial foes from having large numbers of voter who will vote for politicians who will keep and expand government subsidies. Subsidies paid for by tax money that would otherwise be used to keep the economy from large boom bust cycles, by buying products and services from private industry. That's the Hallmark of Republicans [conservatives]. Use tax money to buy products and services from the private sector, thus create a stable economy.
But that is exactly what we have today in 2013, because of politicians who simply decide to ignor the consequences of their actions for the short term benefits.
Yes-- it's the combination of the mentality of the the anti-border activists and rewards-for-lawbreaking on the left and the piggy Chamber of Commerce and the blackmarket labor lawbreakers on the right which both seek to American devastate wages for short-term benefit and our leaders who have sold out American citizens and LEGAL immigrants for short-term political gain.
This agenda of rewards for immigration lawbreaking is a despicable and conspicuous (for anyone with a brain) sell-out of the long-term best interests of the United States. UNACCEPTABLE!
Might be despicable but that's politics.
It's a dirty game, no one plays fair. There is no moral fairness and what's right when politics are concerned and politicians use people's ideal of fairness and morality against them.
Again, it's politics and it's a dirty game and the general population gets screwed for it.
Wars and Rebellions have began because of that. Just look at the French Revolution of 1789, 20 years after the American Revolution and why the French peasantry rebelled against the French Monarchy. Why British Citizens in America rebelled against their British monarchy creating Ameria.
The people got screwed.
Look today at France's socialist president to must appeal to French nationalism and patriotism, what is morally right in the socialists president and his political party viewpoint, on taxing the rich 75% of their income over $1,000,000.00 Francs to fund socialistic policies.
The rich are far more savy than to fall prey to calls for nationalism and patriotism in being heavily taxed, but the general population envious of the rich's money certainly want the rich to be taxed.
American politicians are no different.
Let's see if Mr Obama will skip past that Constitution, he finds so pesky and burdensome.
Obama and the Democrats will stand at the border and hand out Welfare Checks, Food Stamp cards and Medicaid...
All paid for by the White American Taxpayer
I cant believe we have ..lots of people like you..must of been all that drilling in Texas..mess up the water your party drank as a child
Whatever... Both myself and people that look like me pay the VAST majority of taxes in this country.....
Other certain ethnic groups can not survive without the White Man's tax money...
im white you dumb azz..oh that's right i live in my moms basement at the Alamo right..I live off you right???
Why doesn't Obama offer a streamlined path to citizenship BUT require ALL new citizens to wait 10 years before qualifying for ANY Entitlement.
what do you tea nuts want..to solve the problem..put up a German fence armed guards on the border..you don't want to pay for..yep that's it
Mexico is not the enemy, simply cut off ALL entitlements to illegals and support policies that help the Mexican economy get better.
If people emigrate to the U.S. out of poverty and a need for work, that is understandable BUT Entitlements cannot be a lure, which it currently is...
Mexico is rich..they have corrupt President's who run with Mexico's money when they leave office...and we Americans have to pay the tab..
Hey Obama you clown....do something about THE DEFICIT you idiot......immigration, climate change, etc....
He works on EVERYTHING but what's important.....the worst EVER....by far
once America stops giving money to nations who hate us...war war 3..will take place...America has gave the enemy money far to long..let it stop and see whats up
Let me see Immigration Reform, in other words OBamnesty. Press 1 for English is here to stay, with a little luck Mexico will adopt us as their newest Province and we can all be Homies. Es Muy Importante Su Hablar Espanol.
Deport, then we'll talk about immigration reform. You have 11-13 million of the Latin Extraction wonders sucking off the Federal Teat, any extra they earn heads back to Mexico. Let Mexico take care of Mexico's Problem, send them home. They don't want to learn the language, they run up their Taco Flag like they have a right to on our soil. Secure the Border, Deport, No Exceptions, Then we can have that reasonable discussion about Immigration Reform. Selective Enforcement is Traitorous, You Are Breaking The Laws and Trashing the Constitution of this Once Great Nation, Mr. OBama !!!!
Dear Mr. President.
Amnesty is not the same as fixing the illegal immigrant problem. All Reagan's amnesty in 1986 did was encourage more citizens of Mexico to enter the USA illegally. A path for illegals to gain citizenship is rewarding criminals for their actions. The only scenario that I can see as being fair is allowing them to stay only if they serve in the military for 1 term of enlistment.
I try to be a fair minded person when it comes to immigration. Unless you are a Native American, you or your ancestors were immigrants, too. Allowing immigrants into the U.S. "the right way" is fine by me. But sneaking in the back door is not. At the same time, we need to acknowledge that a complete "open borders" policy, or blanket amnesty without conditions, is not in the national interest.
Immigration reform, whether under the guise of the Dream Act or other such proposal, must included, at a minimum, the following:
1. English language requirement. All those staying in the U.S. must be required to learn spoken English. If they want to learn to write it, too, that's great. But the ability to speak it is the minimum.
2. Confession to the crime of unlawful entry for those who entered as adults. In exchange for the confession, adjudication is suspended pending payment of a fine and completion of whatever other requirements are imposed. Those who entered as minors can be excused from this requirement.
3. Payment of all processing fees. Lawful citizens and taxpayers shouldn't bear the financial burden of the program. Those illegals who want to sign up need to pay the fees to run the program as deficit neutral.
4. Reform the 14th Amendment to eliminate the anchor baby loophole.
5. Guaranteed funding for border security in excess of existing levels.
6. Economic aid to Central and South American countries contingent upon enforcing illegal immigration policies.
7. Those with hard-core criminal records are ineligible.
Within that framework, you can probably develop a workable program that is fair to all concerned.
If the door is never closed to illegal immigration it will continue forever.
In addition to your ideas;
You are only eligible if you were in the United States before, lets say Jan 1st 2010, and you must prove it.
Any one entering the United States Illegally after Jan 1st 2010 will never be eligible.
You have one Year from time the bill is passed to come clean and fill out the proper paper work, go through the background check and become documented. You don’t get to hide in the Shadows for ten years until 2025 or so then decide to sign up after your caught.
If you are here on a visa/work permit, etc. and it expires, you are ordered to deport, and don't, you are no longer eligible no matter how long you have been here.
You have 10 years to learn to read and write English and pass the tests, take the citizenship test and become a U.S citizen, other wise you lose the right to become a U.S. citizen and must leave.
You have to give up your citizenship from your country of Origin, no dual citizenship. If it wasn't your intention to become a U.S. citizen then go home.
First issue is any individual born on the American continent is a "native" American .. I assume you are referring to the aboriginal? If so remember they came from asia ... just how far back you willing to go? You do realise there was another group on the continent prior to the ancient asian migration right? The Clovis people as near as can be traced so far came from a region of Europe, and conveniently became extinct about the same time as the arrival from asia by the way. Nor in any way shape or form an illegal arrival, there WAS no government or authority to grant or deny arrival and settling. Various stone-age tribes at war with each other do not constitute a U.S. or any other form of authority.
In todays world it is more logical to deport any illegal aliens currently in the nation, deny them the right ot ever cross the border again and start fresh with a reasonable level of immigrants based on the needs of the Republic and ability to assimilate them.
David Noah:
A timing element is probably appropriate, along with a "sunset" (i.e. expiration) provision.
The dual citizenship thing would probably be hard to enforce, since the original country's government would have to accept the relinquishment. I know that some countries don't. Once you are their citizen, they keep you as a citizen forever, even if you relinquish. As I understand it, for some countries (like Greece) if your parents were citizens, you are automatically a citizen, even if you weren't born there. How do I know this? One of my best friends is of Greek ancestry, but was born in the U.S. The last time he went to Greece he ran into a bureaucratic snafu because he hadn't completed Greek's equivalent of Selective Service (in 2009 Greece re-introduced mandatory military service for all males between 19-45 years of age). He explained that he was a U.S. citizen born in the United States. They then told him that he was also a Greek citizen and had perform mandatory military service, which was news to him.
Dennis:
Just to play Devil's Advocate, how do you go about deporting 16 million people? For comparison's sake, from 1933-1945, Nazi Germany did everything it could to wipe out the Jews in Europe (without regard to notions of humanity or due process of law), but could "only" kill 7 million of them. Deportation is simply too expensive, except for the real scum (criminals, pimps, drug dealers, human traffickers, etc.). The others, who simply want jobs and to live in peace, it would cost trillions to deport them all. And that assumes they don't all start filing lawsuits, gaining allies, friends to hide them in the basement, etc., etc., etc.
Wouldnt it be more rational and in line with the job this individual was elected to do in the first place to deal with the illegal alien problem and THEN enforce a reasonable immigration agenda? The steps should be: get control of the border, U.S. army if necessary (it worked in the past), Massive sweep to deport current illegal aliens (again worked in the past), institute a reasonable immigration policy that fills the Republics needs and capacity to assimilate (once again use what has proven successful). Of course that is logical and rational .... the "progressive" would never be able to deal with a program that works.
So tired of kow-towing to the illegals. If you want your yard cleaned, then hire a local kid who wants to earn some extra money. Contact your local middle/high schools. Also, if they can't speak English, then assimilate them ASAP. I had a high school chorus and one new hispanic young lady could not speak a word of English. By the end of the semester she could speak and understand English better than many of her classmates. She had so much potential. Unfortunately, she was taken back to Mexico, no more schooling and was soon married off. What a pathetic "culture."
If we'd ever had a leader with a finger on the pulse of immigrants Barry is the guy.
I guess NBC News thinks Obama news is more worth than the hundreds of thousand people who gathered to protest abortion. Unbelievable the deception that Channel CBS, NBC, ABC and CNN are keeping from viewers.
I guess Obama is trying to make up the million of abortions with millions of "illegal's".
I would like to ask everyone an honest question. The immigrants who came over here illegally have knowingly broken US laws by crossing the border. Do you think that they should be allowed to benefit in any way from this? If you do think that they should be given a "path" to citizenship or even some type of legal status then why do you believe that they should benefit from coming here illegally?
adc we must be on the same frequency tonight. It's amazing, just as I was fixing to type up a post with some of the same thoughts and questions.
It is a dilemma. You have to develop the means to "separate the wheat from the chaff."
Many of the illegals came because they were desperate. No opportunities where they came from. Some were duped by human traffickers. Some were brought here as kids. Some fled persecution of some kind. So there is a humanitarian element. They aren't all drug dealers. Some are very ordinary people.
There is also a pragmatic element. How do you deport 16 million people? The costs would be enormous. Further, dislocating that many people from the national economy would probably cause a net decline in GDP.
Blanket amnesty isn't the answer. But deportation of them all is fundamentally unworkable. So you are left with some kind of middle solution. "Separate the wheat from the chaff." It's in the Bible.
Pay for the deportations by deducting the cost from the bazillions we send in "foreign aid" as they laugh because the USA is such a sucker!
so chris, you are saying to be pragmatic because we have allowed so many to come over that some of them will have to be given legal status simply because there are too many? There must be consequences for their lawbreaking though. That would be like saying that since so many people have sold meth and the cost of prosecuting and imprisoning them is too high that we should just give some of them a pardon. i don't like the precedent that you would be setting. If we do that then every third world country's people will do ANYTHING to get here just on the slim hope that they would be given legal status and citizenship. Pretty soon we could end up as the world's homeless shelter. It would be the end of us. I can't endorse this. If these guys want legal status then I say let them turn themselves into the police and give them some sort of punishment. Maybe like 2000 hours of community service to complete before they can be considered for legal residence status. I do not endorse a path to citizenship for anyone here illegally though. There is too much temptation to using that to get more voters for a political party(which is what happened with the latino vote in the last two elections).
I am not an evil person but I will not be a doormat either.
Obama tried to pass himself off as Reaganesque last term. Guess his drive for amnesty is why he is shifting to MLK as his wanna-be hero. After all Reagan realized his amnesty program was a disaster and regretted that he has tried it. It may tie Latinos to the Democratic party but in the long run, as long as he fails to secure the border, amnesty will only encourage more illegal immigrants to sneak across the border.
And rome burns as our nero fiddles away....you bet get more people on the dole for the next election, liberal A$$HOLES!!