Thread: Sacramento activist offers strategy for curbing illegal immi

This is ridiculous! We have enough trouble creating jobs for our own people here. Let the Mexican government take responsibility for its people darn it!

Sacramento activist offers strategy for curbing illegal immigration
By Susan Ferriss
sferriss@sacbee.com
Published: Friday, Feb. 06, 2009 | Page 2B

HECTOR AMEZCUA/hamezcua@sacbee.com

Arnoldo Torres, Sacramento political activist and Spanish-language television analyst, says a joint effort to create jobs in rural Mexico is a key part of his immigration plan.


If there is one issue he's close to, Arnoldo Torres says, it's immigration.

He experienced it from the ground up, picking tomatoes as a kid in his hometown of Sacramento. And he dealt with it daily when he was director of the nationwide League of United Latin American Citizens in the early 1980s and helped draft portions of the last big immigration overhaul bill, in 1986.

Today the Sacramento political activist, who runs an addiction-treatment program, is at it again. He's trying to get Congress and the Obama administration to look at his point-by-point, 17-page idea for a "permanent mechanism" to solve illegal immigration.

Central to the plan is a U.S.-Mexico partnership to build infrastructure projects and create jobs in rural Mexico to stem the flow of migrants.

Torres' proposal dovetails with what a number of policy experts suggest the new administration should consider.

"It's time to recast this issue. And you have a president who recasts things," said Torres, 54.

He said his initiative is an example of how Americans are answering President Barack Obama's call to help solve problems.

A registered Democrat who was a Latino outreach aide for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Torres said he knows an economic stimulus plan is Obama's top priority. But he thinks the American public is ready for fresh ideas on immigration.

He recalls pushing more than 20 years ago for members of Congress to address the roots of illegal immigration – the "push and pull factors" that he said cause people to migrate and draw them north.

"If we had done that then, we couldn't be where are today," he said.

Since his days with LULAC, Torres has kept up with the immigration debate, often as a Spanish-language news analyst for the Univision network. He recently served on a binational immigration committee set up by Mexico's former President Vicente Fox.

His plan recommends a six-year, phased-in legalization for some undocumented workers, Torres said, "but not everybody and his grandmother." It suggests modest pilot programs for guest workers that include employer health coverage.

The plan's centerpiece, however, is a U.S.-Mexican partnership to finance infrastructure that could set the stage for better job development and help develop markets for goods that could come from depressed rural areas in Mexico.

Mexican remittances – the billions of dollars that immigrants send home to relatives – could be used to leverage funds from international aid sources, Torres suggests, including the U.S. Millennium Fund, a pool of U.S. aid.

Mexico accepts relatively little U.S. foreign aid, about $31 million in 2005. Last year, for the first time, it accepted large amounts of military and police aid – the first portion, $400 million, in a billion-dollar package to fight drug cartels.

Kevin Johnson, dean of the University of California, Davis, law school, worked on the Obama campaign's immigration policy team. He agreed that economic development in Mexico "is what it's all about."

And Robert Pastor, a Latin America expert at American University, advocates a temporary $20 billion annual investment fund, with Mexico financing half, Canada, 10 percent and the United States 40 percent.

Pastor points out that a transitional development fund in the European Union helped poorer nations prosper, and that slowed illegal migration.

Torres said he's already e-mailed his plan to Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Los Angeles, who also has been involved in immigration legislation. People he knows in Chicago who also served on Fox's binational immigrant group are taking the plan to Illinois Sen. Roland Burris, Obama's replacement.

Torres' goal is to meet with congressional legislative staff members and turn the plan into a draft bill, just as he and others did in 1986.

"You've got to put this in legislative form that members can vote on," Torres said. "You can't just demand Obama do something.

"The approach shouldn't be, 'Woe is me. I voted for you,' so do something," Torres said. "You have to give them a practical solution."

Call The Bee's Susan Ferriss, (916) 321-1267.
Popular Comment
He recalls pushing more than 20 years ago for members of Congress to address the roots of illegal immigration – the "push and pull factors" that he said cause people to migrate and draw them north. "If we had done that then, we couldn't be where are today," he said." Excuse me, but if illegal immigrants were honest, moral people who respected the law, we wouldn't be in this situation. Insanity is defined as doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result. All attempts to deal with illegal immigration through new laws will fail for one simple reason: illegal immigrants are dishonest, immoral people who do not respect, or abide by the law. It's just that sinmple.

-- hpbromine


http://www.sacbee.com/capitolandcalifor ... California

Sure, if Americans can have all the jobs.

Put a 20% tariff on Chinese imports, then there will be plenty of jobs in both Mexico and the US. Think the Dems will do that? There used to be a 30% tariff on Chinese imports but Clinton eliminated it.

Sure good idea...

So why don't you and all of your little pro illegal friends who are aiding and abetting illegals in the United States move on down there and get er done!!!

Originally Posted by SOSADFORUS

Sure good idea...

So why don't you and all of your little pro illegal friends who are aiding and abetting illegals in the United States move on down there and get er done!!!

Exactly, it's always the US's fault whenever Mexico can't cut it.

I will comment later , in a hurry right now

New Take on Immigration


One political activist in Sacramento believes America is ready for a fresh take on immigration. But are Americans ready to send money to create jobs in Mexico to help resolve the illegal immigration problem here in the U.S.?

Arnoldo Torres is trying to get Congress and the Obama administration to look at his point-by-point, 17-page idea for a "permanent mechanism" to solve illegal immigration, according to a published report.

Torres supports legalization for some undocumented workers over a span of six years but the controversial suggestion that the U.S. fund job growth in Mexico is where some Californians stop listening.

Central to his plan is a U.S.-Mexico partnership to build infrastructure projects and create jobs in rural Mexico to stem the flow of migrants, according to Sacramento Bee writer Susan Ferriss.

Mexican remittances – the billions of dollars that immigrants send home to relatives – could be used to leverage funds from international aid sources, Torres suggested to the paper, including the U.S. Millennium Fund, a pool of U.S. aid.

Torres is working contacts, sending his plan across the country to legislators at the state and national level. He told the Bee that his goal is to meet with congressional staffers to turn the plan into a bill.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29055152/

He has some great ideas..........

BUT!

This has already been tried. NAFTA was suppose to stop ILLEGAL entry into the USA from the South. But it created the opposite. Our own American corporations moved plants there so they could benefit with the lower wages. Wht didn't the Mexicn government use that to their advantage and use money to build their infrastructure. They had to make some money from those plants and from the people working in them.

Pilot programs for guest workers to come here and work. For one thing they are ALREADY HERE ILLEGALLY AND We have been doing that for years and the whole system was ABUSED! People overstaying their visas or not even having visas and crossing the border ILLEGALLY.

And the BILLIONS of dollars made by ILLEGAL ALIENS sent back home to the south. What has happened to that money. Those were billions of dolars that could have been put to use right here in the USA.

And your plan includes the USA giving Meixco another 40 per cent of a 20 BILLION dollar aid package?

I would say NO to this PLAN!!!!

I support Arnoldo Torres and his plan being considered in the discussion regarding how many illegal aliens would remain and what to do to keep more from sneaking in.

Richard,

+1.

IMO the key elements will be

* An immigration policy which is based solely on what we need from immigrants

* Having a monitoring mechanism, to make sure that any money that we contribute actually goes for jobs for Jose Lunchbucket.