Thread: DallasEditorial: Immigration reform, not political posturing

Editorial: Immigration reform, not political posturing

06:23 PM CDT on Wednesday, July 7, 2010

The White House's sudden interest in immigration issues would be laudable if it didn't smack so much of political posturing ahead of the November elections. Having largely avoided the politically radioactive topic of immigration reform since taking office 18 months ago, President Barack Obama now seems to recognize it as a valuable wedge issue for his party to woo Hispanic voters and avoid losing control of Congress.

Immigration reform should have had administration and congressional priority from the beginning. This new focus doesn't excuse the years of neglect and political cowardice by both parties that has fueled the nation's current immigration frustrations and pushed states such as Arizona to take matters into their own hands.

Obama's message is the correct one: to push Congress toward passing an immigration reform package and to question the wisdom of Arizona's new policing law targeting illegal immigrants. But the lawsuit Attorney General Eric Holder filed Tuesday seems based less on legal foundation and more on generating an emotional public reaction. Holder's flimsy assertion that the Arizona law risks "diverting federal resources away from dangerous aliens such as terrorism suspects and aliens with criminal records" only adds to the cynicism about administration motives.

Arizona's law does pose serious risks of abuses such as racial profiling. But the administration would have been wiser to wait until after the law becomes effective July 29 to see if, in fact, such abuses occur. The Criminal Alien Program adopted by Irving in 2007 also prompted fears of racial profiling, which proved unfounded.

By intervening now, with court arguments based on speculation, the administration serves only to galvanize the opposition and undermine the bigger goal of winning bipartisan support for comprehensive reform. Obama conceded in his July 1 immigration speech that approval cannot be won without bipartisan support, so every move he makes must be geared toward enticing Republican partners.

His speech correctly noted that the flood of illegal immigrants "makes a mockery of all those who are going through the process of immigrating legally." He also noted the difficult balance between not rewarding those who broke the law and the desire to fix our broken immigration system. "Ultimately, our nation, like all nations, has the right and obligation to control its borders and set laws for residency and citizenship. And no matter how decent they are, no matter their reasons, the 11 million who broke these laws should be held accountable."

Having made this important point, what better opportunity to identify the fixes Obama envisions to hold illegal immigrants accountable? The president was far too short on specifics. And his emphasis on a federal DREAM Act – a measure guaranteeing in-state tuition rates to college-age illegal immigrants – was badly timed. Without a broader framework for all immigrants to emerge from the shadows and seek legal status, the act would only help expand a highly educated class of illegal immigrants who still cannot find legal employment. Plus, he opened the door for conservative opponents who misconstrue it as another give-away to law breakers.

We want to see a tough but fair comprehensive reform package succeed, regardless of which party receives the credit. For Obama to be successful, he'll have to abandon short-term political opportunism and find more effective ways to build bipartisan consensus.

• Tough penalties for businesses that employ illegal immigrants

• A flexible temporary worker program that admits laborers based on employers' needs

• Expanded use of supplemental law-enforcement options such as the Criminal Alien Program

• Requirement that illegal immigrants pay back taxes, learn English and pay fines or perform national service to qualify for legalization

This is an excellent article until it ends with the same ideas that have been repeated thousands of times in the press and by the politicians.

How long would it take an adult illegal tolearn begin using English? How about the illegals from Latino countries other than Mexico, the very, very poor countries. Some of the people crossing into Mexico on their way to the United States do not read or write, they are here, how do you teach them English when they can't read? How long will it take for them to master reading? These are people with zero schooling. Is our government going to import hundreds of translators for every nationality?

As for the notion of paying back taxes, how do you go about deciding how much has been earned by someone who has been paid in cash for years? How do you verify the dependents they have in their native country? What type of documentation would suffice for proof of this?

Our government can't manage (or does not choose to) enforce so many of our existing laws, not just immigration, how is it possible to take on even a small part of these "ways to get legal"?

Who will pay for that, oh yes, we will, so the American taxpayer will continue to support illegals for the years it will take to become legal.

I also question the number of illegals in our country who actually want to become citizens, I'm guessing there is a large percentage who have no intention of complying with a list of rules written by a bunch of out of touch politicians who know nothing about the voters they are supposed to represent, much less a mass of multi-nationals.

The only smart item in the list is regarding employers of illegals and we already have a law against hiring, the government chooses to ignore most of the time. The rest will result in massive government spending based on a larger tax burden for Americans.

The rest will result in massive government spending based on a larger tax burden for Americans.

Plain and simply - we are importing poverty. I believe it's all part of Obama's plan to make the majority of the population dependent on the government and voting Democratic.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 674a3.html

The problem for at least the last 20 years is too many Elitist Politicians from both major Political Parties, have been willing to turn the United States into a welfare state to insure most of our citizens obtain Third World status by importing ILLEGALS for cheap labor to take United States Citizen’s jobs for their Political Contributors and Special Interest Groups or outsourcing United States Citizen’s jobs to Third World Countries. Too many U.S. Citizens are wrapped up into winning one for their political party and our nation's survival becomes secondary to PARTY Loyalty!

HEAVY FINES and FELONY JAIL time for the ILLEGAL EMPLOYERS! Felony Conviction and Deportation for the ILLEGALS!

Enforce our existing Immigration Laws and Secure our National Borders!