Will Immigration Reform Break The Republican Party?
Wilmer Valderrama weighs in on the GOP #39;s backtracking on immigration policy for fear of alienating the conservative base. Subscribe to TakePart Live! http://goo.gl/I5Fx07 The majority of...
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Will Immigration Reform Break The Republican Party? - Video
DENVER If the anger voiced by immigration reform advocates is any indication, Hispanic voters appear highly motivated to vote in Novembers election in higher numbers than they normally do in non-presidential years.
And while the conventional wisdom is that higher Hispanic turnout will help Democrats, the protestors who rallied across the street from the State Capitol Tuesday and staged a sit-in in the middle of Broadway, temporarily shutting down the road between Colfax and 14th Avenue, had plenty of anger for both political parties.
In fact, protestors directed their harshest criticism at two Democrats: Sen. Michael Bennet, who helped author the 2013 comprehensive immigration reform bill that included a pathway to citizenship and drew bipartisan support in the Senate only to be ignored by the GOP-controlled House; and President Obama, whose Deferred Action executive order has spared many of them from the immediate threat of deportation.
Their message, essentially: what have you done for me lately?
The betrayal of Bennet and Obama is not going to beat us back; were going to keep on fighting, shouted Jeannette Vizquiera, whos been fighting deportation for five years. Were going to keep on fighting.
Reform advocates are especially irked that President Obama floated another executive order to grant citizenship to five million undocumented immigrants before announcing that he will wait to take any such action until after the November election.
Congress will not act. And when the president says hes going to act, he changes his mind, said Alexis Pardo, whose parents brought him to the U.S. from Mexico when he was just 18 months old. No one wants to act, no one wants to do their job.
Pardo, an accredited electrician and welder, has had to turn down high-paying jobs because he is not a U.S. citizen.
I dont know the Mexican national anthem. This is my country the Star Spangled Banner, Pardo said. This is my home. This is where I want to raise my son. This is where I pay $600 in taxes a week. And I am being punished for my the consequences of my parents actions. I face those consequences every day.
Advocates told reporters Tuesday that they met a day earlier with Bennet, who pledged that he remains committed to pursuing immigration reform in Congress.
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Immigration protestors stop traffic, demand action from both parties
Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan said he would convey to the US vice president Joe Biden and secretary of state John Kerry in meetings today the deep sense of frustration on the part of the Irish community that expectations have been raised in the past and ultimately not realised. Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
The time for overhauling US immigration laws benefiting an estimated 50,000 illegal Irish has long passed, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Charlie Flanagan has said on a visit to Washington.
The Irish community in the US had experienced disappointment after disappointment as plans to change immigration laws had faltered in Congress because of political differences, said Mr Flanagan.
Hot topics are the matter of politics. The fact something is hot - and I acknowledge that it is controversial - but that is no reason for it to be ignored, said Mr Flanagan after meeting Congressman Joseph P Kennedy of Massachusetts, the grand-nephew of President John F Kennedy, in his Capitol Hill offices.
I know from my own work as constituency TD in Laois-Offaly the harrowing tales of people disconnected most unfairly over a long number of years from their loved ones, he said.
He referred to the Irish living illegally in the US who were unable to return back to Ireland for festive engagements like christening and weddings and traumatic and difficult occasion such as funerals.
The Senate, with the support of Democrats and Republicans, passed a bill last year that would put an estimated 11 million so-called undocumented immigrants in the US on a path to citizenship.
The proposed legislation has faltered in the Republican-led House of Representatives where the party is concerned about granting what they see as an amnesty to immigrants who have breached laws and the level of security along Americas border with Mexico.
Mr Flanagan said he would convey to the US vice president Joe Biden and secretary of state John Kerry in meetings today the deep sense of frustration on the part of the Irish community that expectations have been raised in the past and ultimately not realised.
President Barack Obama recently reversed plans to take executive action on immigration, bypassing Congress, shelving the divisive issue until after the Congressional midterm elections in early November when Democrats are attempting to retain control of the Senate.
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Time for US immigration reform has long passed - Flanagan
Published: Tuesday, September 30, 2014 at 06:16 PM.
In a speech delivered in 2004 before a conference sponsored by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, former Democratic Governor of Colorado, Richard D. Lamm, in my opinion, made a very prophetic statement. It was entitled: I Have A Plan To Destroy America. I have paraphrased significant points of the presentation.
l. We must first make America a bilingual-bicultural country.
2. We must invent multiculturalism and encourage immigrants to maintain their own culture. I would declare it an article of faith that the Black and Hispanic dropout rate is only due to prejudice and discrimination by the majority.
3. We can make the United States a Hispanic Quebec without much effort. The key is to celebrate diversity rather than unity.
4. Having done this, I would make our fastest growing demographic group the least educated I would add a second underclass, unassimilated, under educated and antagonistic to the majority population. I would allow our immigration pattern to take 50 percent of our immigrant stream from Spanish speaking countries. I would radicalize them with dreams of Atzlan and re-conquering the American Southwest.
5. I would get the big foundations and big businesses to give these efforts lot of money. I would invest in ethnic identity, and I would establish the cult of victimology. I would start a grievance industry blaming all minority failure on the majority population.
6. I would establish dual citizenship and promote divided loyalties. I would celebrate diversity. Diverse people worldwide are mostly engaged in hating each other. A diverse peaceful or stable society is against most historical precedent. People undervalue the unity it takes to keep a nation together, and we can take advantage of this myopia. We can put the emphasis on the pluribus, instead of the unum.
7. I would find words similar to heretic as used in the 16th century that stopped discussion and paralyzed thinking. Words like racist, xenophobic that halts argument and conversation would be made taboo. I would next make it impossible to enforce our immigration laws. I would develop a mantra that because immigration has been good for America, it must always be good and ignore the cumulative impact.
8. Finally, I would get America accustomed to living on borrowed money. Debt is economic cocaine; it becomes addicting. I would start borrowing money, and slowly I would begin building up public and private debt. Debt will be the precipitating factor that will allow us to successfully overthrow the United States government.
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Letter: Prophetic words
Congress reacts to Obama #39;s decision on immigration reform
Congress reacts to Obama #39;s decision on immigration reform Congress reacts to Obama #39;s decision on immigration reform.
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Congress reacts to Obama's decision on immigration reform - Video