Tough Questions on Immigration Reform (Part 2)
The national census should be used to determine that America #39;s borders are secure before policymakers decide how to address those who are here illegally, a t...
By: The Heritage Foundation
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Boehner unsure immigration reform can pass this year
Speaker of the House Boehner isn #39;t confident that an immigration reform measure will pass this year. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says there #39;s no more ...
By: The Washington Examiner
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Boehner unsure immigration reform can pass this year - Video
Congresswoman Renee Ellmers on immigration reform
Congresswoman Ellmers speaks about immigration reform during a Bibles, Badges and Business for Immigration Reform roundtable on Feb. 19, 2014.
By: bbbimmigration
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Even though legislation is dead in Congress, a coalition of groups isn't throwing in the towel
A coalition of womens organizations announced Wednesday they will continue pushing House Republican leaders to vote on immigration reform this year, even as legislation before Congress is effectively dead.
The coalition is led by the pro-reform group We Belong Together, and it includes union, women, and community groups. The groups plan to use protest fasting and targeted attacks within congressional districts starting in March to mobilize women around the idea that immigration policy, at its core, has its greatest impact on women, children and families. Though they have yet to specify which members of Congress will face the most pressure, organizers said they will hold up GOP inaction as proof that Republicans are often anti-women, anti-black and brown, and anti-family.
The timeline of [immigration reform] cannot be dictated by a small group of people, Pramila Jayapal of We Belong Together told reporters on a conference call. If Republican leadership really looks at the cost of not moving immigration reform forward and also the cost for their base, theyll realize that a lack of action would continue to play into the frame.
The Senate passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill last year, and while Republicans signaled earlier this year that they might move on smaller piecemeal reform measures, House Speaker John Boehner, under pressure from conservatives, threw in the towel earlier this month. Boehner said his members dont trust that Obama, who has overseen a record number of deportations, to appropriately enforce any new immigration law.
The American people, including many of my members, dont trust that the reform that were talking about will be implemented as it was intended to be, Boehner said at the time.
Organizers said about 75 percent of immigrants in the United States are women and children. A woman on the call who works with a pro-immigrant community group in Los Angeles said she lives in fear that her family will be separated every day because of existing law. Even though I cant vote Im educating other people in my community about the importance of voting, said Mara Galvn, an undocumented immigrant and mother of two. We must participate in this fight. Together we will make immigration reform with path to citizenship a reality.
California Democratic Rep. Judy Chu said that if the existing reform bill were put to a vote, it would pass the House. She called on womens groups to work together like they did in the successful push to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act.
Efforts like these keep the pressure on, Chu said. It is public pressure that can change things around.
Continued here:
Despite near unanimous agreement that the U.S. immigration system is broken, it appears doubtful that Congress will take up the issue this year. Republicans say they dont trust the president to enforce new rules - a charge many Democrats says is simply a political excuse to deny a Democratic president a legislative victory in an election year. But some say lawmakers are missing the bigger point that immigration reform is not a political issue but an economic one.
Experts said communities paid a heavy price when 11 million undocumented immigrants live in the shadows. And for a country that prides itself in its humanitarian beliefs - fixing a broken immigration system should be a high priority.
I think that each day that Congress delays this decision people are getting hurt, are getting hurt by the deportation machine, that is as I said before, separating families every day," said Guillermo Cantor, a senior analyst at the Immigration Policy Center.
Cantor said there were other reasons why Congress should act.
And one of them that sometimes gets overlooked is that it would result in enormous economic benefits for this country, he said.
But critics of immigration reform said the governments own studies suggested otherwise.
Republican Senator Jeff Sessions said, How can we vote for a bill that our own Congressional Budget Office says will reduce average wages in America for 12 years?
Sessions is only half right. The CBO report said reforms would reduce average wages one-tenth of one percent (0.1 percent) by 2023 but that's because the estimate included wages from lower-skilled workers who would become legal residents. After 10 years, the report said wages would rise about half of a percent, more than they would without reforms.
But that's just part of the story said Marc Rosenberg at the Migration Policy Institute
Legalization is probably going to help the U.S. economy. Its also going to bring more people into the tax system, so it probably has a net fiscal benefit of people paying more taxes," he said. "In the long run however, unauthorized immigrants who become legal will also be eligible for additional services, so the fiscal impact has pluses and minuses.
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