Republications Should Back Immigration Compromise

[Woodmonkey]

REPUBLICANS SHOULD BACK IMMIGRATION COMPROMISE


The Republican Party would be self-destructive (not for the first time, either) if they did not let the immigration compromise negotiated by Sens. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) pass and become law. The hopes of the entire Latino community are pinned to immigration reform and, if the GOP is seen as blocking it, the consequences for the indefinite future will be horrific. The Republican Party will lose Hispanics as surely as they lost blacks when Barry Goldwater ran in 1964 against the civil rights bill (even though a higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats backed the bill in each house).

If the Hispanics are not massively turned off by a Republican rejection of immigration reform, they will drift into an increasingly pro-Republican orientation just as Irish and Italian Catholics did before them. Already Protestant evangelicalism has converted a third of the American Latino population, a clear precursor of GOP political support.

Hispanics now account for 13 percent of the U.S. population (blacks are 12 percent) and will constitute 20 percent of our population by 2020 regardless of whether immigration reform passes or not. Key red states like Texas and Florida hang in the balance, depending on the voting intention of their burgeoning Latino populations.

The reform compromise proposed in the Senate postpones, in my opinion wrongly, granting citizenship and voting rights to immigrants now in the U.S. for at least a decade. While they get legal status immediately on payment of a $5,000 fine, they must return to their country of origin and wait their turn in line for a valid green card to return legally. Only then can they become citizens. Given the seven- to eight-year wait for green cards, they would not be a potent political force until well into the next decade.

In the meantime, the GOP base should note that the bill commits the Democrats to the border fence and a major increase in border guards. It also will require tamper-proof identification cards, a key element in blocking further illegal immigration.

But the political stakes are largely in the symbolism of the bill. Whichever party is seen as supporting reform will gain a huge vote share among Hispanics, and the opponents will lose accordingly.

Had the Republicans gotten it together to pass such a bill while they ran Congress, they would have gotten unambiguous credit for the achievement. This history would have made it possible to switch Latinos into Republican voters. Surely, two-thirds of Latinos would not have voted Democrat as they did, in their disappointment with the lack of a bill, in 2006.

In fact, the Republican Party could well have held onto the Senate with a few Latino switches in key states like Georgia and Missouri.

Now the GOP will have to share credit with the Democrats, but the signature on the bill will still read “George W. Bush,” a fact that Latinos are not going to forget.

But if the Republicans kill the bill, driven by their own irreconcilable base, they will leave it to the next president — very probably a Democrat — and two Democratic houses of Congress to pass the liberating legislation. The GOP will have delivered the largest minority group in America right into the hands of its adversaries.

The compromise requires English skills, payment of a fine, and a good work history for an illegal immigrant to get citizenship. It also requires that he “touch back” in Mexico and wait his turn. The bill also puts border enforcement before the granting of rights.

Democrats want Hispanics to vote but don’t want them to work and compete with their labor union allies for jobs.

Republicans want them to work (since the employers are mostly Republican) but don’t want them to vote.

This bill, unfortunately, allows current illegal immigrants to work immediately but defers giving them the franchise for almost a decade. It’s a bill a Republican should love.

The Source

[leobold1]

The compromise requires English skills, payment of a fine, and a good work history for an illegal immigrant to get citizenship. It also requires that he “touch back” in Mexico and wait his turn. The bill also puts border enforcement before the granting of rights.

The only reason they have to go back to their home of origin (not always Mexico) is if they want to become American Citizens.

I wonder why any of them would want to? They already have more rights you and I do, including free health treatment (hospitals can't turn them away, which I do agree with), the option for tax free pay (cash under the table) and groups like the ACLU, La Raza, LULAC, MeCHa, CAIR, Amnesty International, and plenty others to run and hide behind when things get rough.

Besides that, all they have to do is have a child on US soil, and in 18 years their child can sponsor them over. No fine, no going home, nothing.

This is also called AMNESTY!

[RAMESES the Great]

Immigration reform is so important I am willing to tolerate a degree of patisan political posturing. Hispanic Americans can and will make their own decision as to which party better represents them. The Presidents speeches and Republican "support" will probably count for little to them. The traditional values of working classes vs. monied rich is still true, and the Republicans have another major liability in Catholic hispanic eyes, the affiliation with the protestant religious right wing. Only when the Republicans change their obligations to the rich and the religious extremists with they gaither hispanic support. This is not to say that the Democrates are without problems in this area, but their claimed goals more closely match Hispanic asperations.

[BrianK]

This is not to say that the Democrates are without problems in this area, but their claimed goals more closely match Hispanic asperations.

I don't know what asperations the Hispanics have. Are the aspirations in mind before arriving here or developed afterwards?

I don't know what goals the democrats have.

Overall I don't think the well being of America should depend on who gets the biggest block of votes from not enforcing the immigration laws we've had in place.

As it is according to two other threads there is a slow but continuing deterioration of the American dream. How does worrying about votes override regaining the leadership that created the dream?

That was a rhetorical question. We are on a path that will eventually have no southern border. Or at least not the border we call a border now. I can almost hear Vincente Fox in his old age. Mr. president tear down that wall.

[RAMESES the Great]

We are a great nation only because we have allowed diverse cultures to be melted into a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Latter day alarmists, decrying loss of "American" values, are closet racists hiding behind false values. President Fox, may well, accurately say that, because if we don't diversify, we are doomed to mediocracy. There is nothing this country needs more of, than a great influx of hard working, socially conscious peoples that too many of us fat lazy "Americans" spend too much time critizing.

[leobold1]

Originally Posted by RAMESES the Great

We are a great nation only because we have allowed diverse cultures to be melted into a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Latter day alarmists, decrying loss of "American" values, are closet racists hiding behind false values. President Fox, may well, accurately say that, because if we don't diversify, we are doomed to mediocracy. There is nothing this country needs more of, than a great influx of hard working, socially conscious peoples that too many of us fat lazy "Americans" spend too much time critizing.

What happens when the members of those diverse cultures don't melt into the whole? When the parts are more important than the whole?

Being called a racist doesn't bother me anymore. I embrace it. But, its not the loss of American values that I worry about. Its the loss of American soverignty. We're allowing in groups of people who want nothing more than the breakup of the whole because its their "native homeland." We're letting in people who want to see the break-up of this country due to their religious beliefs. We're letting in people who want the benefits of living in this country by breaking the law.

In the movie The American President, Michael Douglas plays the President who, in a press conference, defends why he's a member of the ACLU. I love the speech, but don't agree with the words said, with one exception. He says "America means advanced citizenship, you gotta want it."

And many of the people who are in this country DON'T want it. But, they want the benefits of it.

It takes less than 3 months to apply and recieve a work visa and all they have to do is fill out one form. Who's the lazy ones?