Simon Rosenberg, president of the New Democrat Network, a center-left think tank, conceded that "the Democrats need the Hispanic vote more than they understand." He added that "the Latino vote in 2010 will be still overwhelmingly Democratic, but it will be a smaller share of the electorate than in the last two elections."
Narrowing the discussion to “birth tourists” is McConnell’s effort to pull his party back from the precipice where Republicans further alienate Hispanic voters. This is “base talk,” says Simon Rosenberg, an immigration expert with NDN, the New Democrat Network. Republican primary voters care a lot about immigration, but it’s not a voting issue for the broader public in an election where jobs are the priority. Besides, he says, Republicans are already so motivated to vote this November “it’s like pouring a gallon of fuel on a massive fire.
“What troubles me about Senator Graham's comments is that the Republican base is already really riled up and doesn’t require any more energy to get them to the polls in November,” says Simon Rosenberg, head of NDN, a liberal think-tank.
“This is like chucking fuel on to a fire that is already raging.”
Actually, I agree with Senator McConnell. We absolutely should hold hearings as soon as possible to discuss whether we should amend the U.S. Constitution to make newborns deportable. We need a high-level national discussion in both Houses of Congress on the issue of whether to station federal ICE agents in every maternity ward and delivery room right between the OB-GYN and the expectant father.
Imagine a United States where every birth initiates an investigation to determine the citizenship and immigration status of each parent. Let's have the hearing so we can take careful notes when the Republican's witness explains how this government intrusion into maternal and child health -- burdening our health care system and discouraging pregnant women from seeking medical care (while perhaps discouraging claims of paternity) -- is justified to secure our borders and protect the core liberties of America. I would love to hear the opening remarks of Judiciary Committee Members Lindsey Graham in the Senate or Lamar Smith in the House broadcast live from coast-to-coast on C-SPAN. I can hear it now. "Mr. Chairman, I would like to express my support for a full federal background check and proof of citizenship for every precious human life."
The Obama administration, while deporting a record number of immigrants convicted of crimes, is sparing one group of illegal immigrants from expulsion: students who came to the United States without papers when they were children.
In case after case where immigrant students were identified by federal agents as being in the country illegally, the students were released from detention and their deportations were suspended or canceled, lawyers and immigrant advocates said. Officials have even declined to deport students who openly declared their illegal status in public protests.
In an unexpected move Thursday night, Senate Democrats won approval of a $600 million bill that includes money for 1,500 new border personnel, a pair of unmanned drones and military-style bases along the border. The bill by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), which fulfills a request from President Barack Obama, heads to the House for a final vote as early as next week.
“.....My view is that we had a whole lot of people, both moderate Democrats and Republicans, who said they wouldn’t consider comprehensive reform until we did something about the border,” Schumer said. “It is smart, it is tough, it not punitive. It furthers the ability to get comprehensive reform done.”
New guidance telling U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to focus on apprehending terrorists and criminals has many of ICE's rank-and-file agents wondering who then is responsible for tracking down and detaining the millions of other illegal border-crossers and fugitive aliens now in the country.
The new guidelines are outlined in a June 29 memo from Assistant Secretary John Morton, who heads the agency, to all ICE employees regarding the apprehension, detention and removal of illegal immigrants, noting that the agency "only has resources to remove approximately 400,000 aliens per year, less than 4 percent of the estimated illegal-alien population in the United States."
In Arizona, the shooting death of a rancher blew the lid off simmering anger over border security and helped solidify support for a tough new immigration law. A similar eruption threatens in Virginia following the death of a Catholic nun in a car accident involving a man in the country illegally and accused of drunken driving.
The Benedictine Sisters of Virginia tried to discourage using the death of Sister Denise Mosier as a “forum of the illegal immigration agenda’’ and pleaded for a focus on “Christ’s command to forgive.’’
Virginia has entered the immigration fray with their own homegrown version of SB1070.
Fox News has the full story in a piece online titled Is Virginia the Next Arizona? State Lawmakers Fuel Immigration Debate, the story can be read here. Excerpts are below.
Virginia, one of nearly 20 states toying with the idea of an Arizona-style immigration law, hurtled onto the national radar screen this week after Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli ruled that police can ask people about their immigration status during routine stops.
While a northern Virginia county has been at the forefront of the push for stricter local immigration laws for three years, none of this activity has prompted the kind of nationwide backlash -- in the form of boycotts and a federal government lawsuit -- that Arizona triggered with its law in April. Those behind the Virginia proposals, including a proposed statewide law, are hoping their state can avoid the kind of public relations and legal pitfalls that have, at least temporarily, ensnared Arizona.
The Governor of Virginia has posted what the new law would accomplish, the full outline can be read here, excerpts below:
Objectives Achieved in this Draft
* Preserves and legally strengthens vital Arizona enforcement provisions * Anticipates and avoids legal pitfalls in Arizona law by placing key provisions in sections upheld by 2010-7-28 federal district court ruling (Section 3B) * Incorporates other best practices, specifically from Oklahoma and Georgia statutes, not present in Arizona law (Section 7, Section 8 ) * Advances new real estate property ownership provision (Section 9)
We will be following this more closely as it develops.
Phoenix-based KPHO News Station has produced a damaging news story recently about Jan Brewer, SB1070 and the private prison system in Arizona.
The story notes that while tourism and the state economy is taking a beating due to the curious habit of many of the states state political elites constantly characterizing Arizona as a war zone to the national media, there is one business that is still raking in money off of SB1070: the private prison system.
Apparently many of Gov. Brewer's staff have connections to the private prison system, which was granted contracts from the state.
E.J. Dionne Jr. of the Washington Post, has put up a column today about Republicans who want to change the 14th amendment to deny immigrants birth right citizenship. The full story can be read here.
The article puts the current Republican Party stance on the 14th Amendment in a more historical context.
What E.J. and a number of other publications have noted is that for the most Republicans are proud of the fact that they passed the 14th Amendment.
Jonathan Allen of the Politico has a story up here, highlighting the fact that the Republican National Party website actually touts the fact that it was the G.O.P. that passed the Fourteenth Amendment. The RNC web page is here.
Before I digress further, below are excerpts from E.J.'s article:
Rather than shout, I'll just ask the question in a civil way: Dear Republicans, do you really want to endanger your party's greatest political legacy by turning the 14th Amendment to our Constitution into an excuse for election-year ugliness? This Story
Honestly, I thought that our politics could not get worse, and suddenly there appears this attack on birthright citizenship and the introduction into popular use of the hideous term "anchor babies": children whom illegal immigrants have for the alleged purpose of "anchoring" themselves to American rights and the welfare state.
Particularly depressing is that the idea of repealing the 14th Amendment's guarantee of citizenship to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States" was given momentum by one of the nation's most reasonable conservatives.
E.J. then takes aim at certain members of the G.O.P.
"People come here to have babies," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). "They come here to drop a child. It's called, 'drop and leave.' To have a child in America, they cross the border, they go to the emergency room, have a child, and that child's automatically an American citizen. That shouldn't be the case. That attracts people here for all the wrong reasons."
Drop a child? How can a strong believer in the right to life use such a phrase?
I can't do better on this than the Cleveland Plain Dealer's estimable columnist Connie Schultz: "I have lived for more than half a century, and I have yet to meet a mother anywhere in the world who would describe the excruciating miracle of birth as 'dropping' a baby."
Graham has long favored comprehensive immigration reform, so it's hard to escape the thought that his talk of child-dropping is designed to appease a right wing out to get him because he's "too liberal."
Just as dispiriting: Sen. John McCain, another once-brave champion of immigration reform, has tried to duck the issue. McCain, facing an Arizona Republican primary challenge on Aug. 24, has said he supports "the concept of holding hearings" on the meaning of the 14th Amendment's birthright citizenship clause.
However before you write this off as an attack on Republicans, E.J. takes the time to point out that what makes their current stance so frustrating is that the G.O.P. has a proud history on civil rights issues:
Nothing should make Republicans prouder than their party's role in passing what are known as the Civil War or Reconstruction amendments: the 13th, ending slavery; the 14th, guaranteeing equal protection under the law and establishing national standards for citizenship; and the 15th, protecting the right to vote. In those days, Democrats were the racial demagogues.
....Epps cites an 1859 oration by Carl Schurz, the German immigrant and Republican leader who helped deliver his community's vote to Abraham Lincoln in 1864. Schurz later became a leading backer of the 14th Amendment.
"All the social and national elements of the civilized world are represented in the new land," Schurz declared. In our nation, "their peculiar characteristics are to be blended together by the all-assimilating power of freedom. This is the origin of the American nationality, which did not spring from one family, one tribe, one country, but incorporates the vigorous elements of all civilized nations on earth."
Let's hope that the current discourse can return to where it was when Republicans actually defended the 14th amendment.
FAIR and the Republican party have begun a campaign to remove birth right citizenship from the 14th Amendment.
NDN President Simon Rosenberg and I have prepared a statement on these actions:
We at NDN oppose the FAIR and Republican driven push to change the Fourteenth Amendment to deny immigrants birth right citizenship.
As a country we made a conscious decision to grant those born in America the opportunity to not be denied citizenship based purely on political motivation.
That is why the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment chose an objective standard for citizenship--birth, which they considered something that could not be politicized.
Fast forward to today, and FAIR and members of the Republican party are trying to do exactly what the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment hoped to avoid: politicize a right so basic and simple that it was thought to be outside of political posturing.
If FAIR and Republicans are serious about fixing our broken immigration system, they would join Democrats and work in good faith on passing Comprehensive Immigration Reform.
NDN Senior Policy Advisor Alicia Menendez was on Fox News morning show AmericasNewsroom with Paul Babeu, Pinal County Sherriff to talk about Border Security.
Officer Babeu is a bit of celebrity these days, he had a staring roll in an infamous piece of campaign propaganda featuring Arizona Senator John McCain. For those of you who have not seen the ad Complete the Danged Fence, it is below.
Sherriff Babeu is presented as a law enforcement leader on the Fox News segment, however he has had far more experience as a politician.
During the segment with Alicia, he alludes to being from the East Coast, this is significant because it draws attention to who Paul Babeu was before he came to Arizona.
In a recent profile done in the Arizona Daily Star it was revealed that Sherriff Babeu, was born and raised in North Adams, Mass. and was elected to the City Council at age 18. The Sherriff, now 41, moved to Arizona after losing a Mayoral bid in his home town. The full profile can be read here, excerpt below:
But to some, including longtime Arizona law enforcement officials, Babeu is a pretender. Many officers question how 3 1/2 years spent patrolling Chandler's streets, plus a border deployment, qualify him as a national expert on border security, said Bill Richardson, a retired Mesa police officer who also worked for 10 years on a Drug Enforcement Administration task force in Pima, Pinal and other counties.
"It would be like a college freshman pre-med student who's had one anatomy class telling a veteran pathologist how to do an autopsy," said Richardson, who has followed Babeu closely since 2008.
Smuggling has long occurred in western Pinal County, but Babeu's claims of soaring violence have more to do with his own political aspirations than reality, Richardson said.
"What he's very skillfully doing, much like (Joe) Arpaio and (State Sen. Russell) Pearce, is he's creating fear or fanning the flames of fear, that the undocumented are the root cause of crime in Arizona," Richardson said. "In fact, they are not."
He has had far more experience as a politician then as a law enforcement officer.
His ability to spin a story is on display in this segment
Sherriff Babeu starts the segment by bemoaning the lack of federal support for the border. Going so far as to say that in a time of need the federal government is actually suing the state instead of sending troops to the border. He then claims that President Obama is playing political games with our national security.
There are a couple of things wrong with this logic: As Alicia mentions in the clip President Obama is sending an unprecedented amount of resources to the border. This is a fact, just ask The Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection and John Morton, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement HERE.
Sherriff Babeu's other assertion that in a time of need, the federal government is suing the state is the worst kind of political spin. The federal law suit has nothing to do with border security and everything to do with SB1070.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has admitted that SB1070 has nothing to do with border security. So saying that the President is playing political games with national security while making an erroneous connection between the federal government lawsuit against SB1070 and Arizona's Border security is a little hypocritical.
It is entirely possible to work towards securing the border, and file a lawsuit against an unconstitutional state law.
But I digress...
When asked if the border is in fact safer, he recounted a single instance when his deputy encountered border violence, as an example of out of control violence. To be fair he never answered one way or the other if violence was down on the border.
Crime is down along the border, in fact this is well established by the FBI:
Anti Immigrant Group FAIR is at it again in Arizona and The United States Senate, helping to craft legislation that would deny any one born on American soil automatic citizenship.
Miriam Jordan, Jean Guerrero and Laura Meckler have a story up in today's Wall Street Journal on the growing fight to change the 14th Amendment to deny people born on American soil automatic citizenship.
The story entitled U.S. Immigration Fight Widens to Native Born can be seen HERE. Excerpts below:
The immigration debate is reviving the explosive idea of denying citizenship to children born on U.S. soil if their parents are in the country illegally.
A U.S. senator and a state lawmaker in Arizona, both central players in the battle over immigration law, separately proposed this week that "birthright" citizenship be denied to the children of illegal immigrants. They said the change would help stem the flood of illegal border crossings.
FAIR President Dan Stein is helping to spear head this campaign:
Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which calls for cracking down on all immigration to the U.S., said that citizenship as a birthright isn't automatic in many countries in the West.
"We should not allow language from 1868 to enslave our thinking...in the 21st century," Mr. Stein said.
Senator Lindsey Graham (R) is leading the fight against the children of immigrants:
"People come here to have babies. They come here to drop a child," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) said Wednesday night on Fox News. "That shouldn't be the case. That attracts people here for all the wrong reasons." Mr. Graham is a onetime partner with Democrats in crafting a proposed overhaul of immigration laws.
This legislative action in the Senate is being mirrored in Arizona, by State Senator Russell Pearce:
In Arizona, Republican state Sen. Russell Pearce, the architect of the immigration law that drew a legal challenge from the Obama administration, said he wanted to deny U.S. citizenship to children born in his state to illegal immigrants.
Changing the 14th Amendment is a significant undertaking:
At issue is the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, enacted in 1868 to ensure that states not deny former slaves the full rights of citizenship. It states, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
Mr. Pearce, like some other proponents of the change, argued that the amendment as written doesn't apply to illegal immigrants. Because illegal immigrants aren't "subject to the jurisdiction" of the U.S., as the amendment requires, they fall outside its protection, these people argue. A group of House lawmakers made a similar argument when they tried to pass legislation changing the birthright principle in 2005.
"When it was ratified in 1868, the amendment had to do with African-Americans; it had nothing to do with aliens," Mr. Pearce said. "It's got to be fixed."
Given the controversial nature of this proposal, successfully amending the Constitution would be considered a long shot. It requires a vote of two-thirds of the House and of the Senate, and must be ratified by three-fourths of state legislators.
A change in state law redefining who is a citizen would likely draw a legal challenge, as did Arizona's effort to change state immigration law.
Under Mr. Pearce's proposal, Arizona would refuse to issue a birth certificate to any child unless at least one parent could prove legal presence in the U.S. "The 14th Amendment has been hijacked and abused," Mr. Pearce said. "We incentivize people to break our laws."
EJ Montini of the Arizona Republic has written a piece on Arizona Governor Jan Brewer's interview with Larry King Live. In the story, Montini examines Gov. Brewer's changing view on what SB1070 is meant to accomplish.
Many of SB1070's most ardent supporters have contended that SB1070 is important because it helps secure the border.
However Governor Brewer in her interview with Larry King admits that SB1070 does nothing to secure the border. The full story can be read HERE.
Excerpts fromthe story can be read below.
KING: “One of the things they would say, and show me something in SB-1070 that actually improves border security. It may have -- your intention may have been, and if you had been allowed to implement it fully, you may have dealt more aggressively with immigration enforcement interior, but what in that bill would have improved border security?”
BREWER: “Well, you know, Senate Bill 1070 is just another tool in our tool box in regards to trying to address the issues that we're facing here.”
KING: “But you concede it wouldn't do much along the border?”
BREWER: “Well, you know, I'm not quite sure about that. I think -- well, not along the border. I think it would help in telling people that it is illegal to come into the state of Arizona, which it already is, but it's just not being enforced. And so if they use it, the states themselves were going to enforce it, that certainly would maybe give people pause before they came running and crossed the border.”
After establishing that Gov. Brewer knew full well that SB1070 did nothing to secure the border, Montini notes that the law was crafted not as a piece of well thought out immigration policy but as a means to bolster Gov. Brewer's election chances:
I added that for Brewer SB 1070 was never about securing the border but about securing her election.
To which a reader calling himself “Neeters” responded, “Montini apparently drinks before writing. His lost of brain cells grows more apparent with every drama piece he tries to create out of nothing. Never was it said that SB1070 would do anything to secure the border.”
Except that on Brewer's Facebook page she defended SB 1070 by saying, “Rest assured we will not back down until our borders are secure.”
A blog response from “Beenaround” added, “I don't recall in Brewer's spiel after signing SB 1070 that she ever mentioned anything about ‘the need to secure our border.'”
Except on the website the governor uses to solicit funds to fight lawsuits against SB 1070 a printed slogan reads "maintaining a safe border.”
And a note from Brewer to potential donors reads, “Thank you for your interest in my efforts to lead the Great State of Arizona. I am humbled by the prayers and support you and many others have offered to me.
“If you would like to contribute to Arizona in defending border security and immigration matters, please click the appropriate donation button on this page.”
Now she admits that SB 1070 is not about “defending border security.” Still, pointing this out was called “one of the dumbest articles you have written” by “AZpokerdood,” who added, “Governor Brewer has requested help with the actual border from President Obama. She has also requested additional border patrol agents.”
The Legal Law Enforcement Engagement Initiative represents a consortium of the chiefs of police from America's major cities and other law enforcement professional organizations. The organization is engaged in the debate over comprehensive immigration reform and SB1070.
They overwhelmingly support the partial federal injunction on SB1070:
U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton’s decision today to issue a partial injunction against Arizona’s controversial immigration law, SB 1070, is a victory for law enforcement leaders around the country, who have been among the law’s most vocal opponents. The injunction covers the provision of the law requiring police officers in Arizona to ask anyone for papers during a stop, detention or arrest if “reasonable suspicion” existed that the person was undocumented—a provision which would have diverted policing resources away from fighting violent crime and destroyed the public trust between residents and law enforcement that makes community policing effective.
They have also released a background memo which highlights the overwhelming opposition to SB1070 that local law enforcement officials nationwide have registered.
In April the Police Executive Research Forum, at the request of Phoenix Police Chief Jack Harris, sent a delegation of some of the nation’s leading city police chiefs—including Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck, Philadelphia Police Commissioner and President of PERF, Charles Ramsey, and Chief Rob Davis of the San Jose Police Department and President of the U.S. and Canada Major Cities Chiefs Association—to meet with Attorney General Eric Holder and ask the federal government to prevent the law from going into effect. Their effort was successful, and the suit filed by the Department of Justice included declarations from Phoenix Police Chief Jack Harris, Tucson Police Chief Roberto Villas nor and Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada. National organizations including the National Latino Peace Officers Association, the National Black Police Association and the Hispanic American Police Command Officers Association have passed resolutions or issued statements condemning the law, and the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police issued a forceful declaration opposing S.B. 1070.
CNN has just release a poll on immigration and SB1070.
The results show that an overwhelming majority of Americans support passing comprehensive immigration reform.
In fact comprehensive immigration reform crushes, SB1070 in a head to head popularity contest.
81% of Americans support a federal solution to fixing comprehensive immigration reform that would: create a program that would allow illegal immigrants already living in the United States for a number of years to stay here and apply to legally remain in this country permanently if they had a job and paid back taxes
The cross tab below shows that there is across the board support for comprehensive immigration reform.
What may surprise some is that there has been consistent support for CIR
Meanwhile support for SB1070 has actually eroded. In May of this year SB1070 enjoyed 57% popularity nationally, now that support is down to 55%.
When respondents were asked: As you may know, Arizona recently passed a law concerning illegal immigrants. Based on what you have read or heard about that law, do you favor or oppose it?
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