Hillary Clinton rejects Bill’s immigration crackdown, vows lenient approach
By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - Monday, May 4, 2015
Bill Clinton was the strictest president in modern political times when it comes to immigration, signing bills cracking down on both legal and illegal immigrants — but it's unlikely that record will infect his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has promised a more lenient approach as she makes a push for Hispanic voters in her presidential bid.
The former first lady and secretary of state already earns relatively high ratings from Hispanics and is moving quickly to head off problems, with her team reaching out to Latino leaders to take the temperature of the community.
On Tuesday Mrs. Clinton will be in Las Vegas to talk immigration with young voters her campaign says are "personally affected" by the issue — a signal, coming this early in the campaign, that she is determined to capitalize on an issue that could produce tremendous payoff in a general election matchup.
"Things have gotten much better for Hispanics when Democrats have been in power and much worse when Republicans have been in power. Shaking that is going to be very hard for the GOP," said Simon Rosenberg, founder of NDN, a think tank that focuses on immigration and demographics.
Mrs. Clinton starts in a position of strength, having won about two-thirds of Hispanic voters in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, where she built one of the most sophisticated Latino outreach operations in political history. Early polling in the 2016 contest also holds good news for Mrs. Clinton, who matches well against Republicans, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush — arguably the best positioned within the GOP. According to an ABC/Washington Post polling, Mrs. Clinton tops Mr. Bush by nearly a 3-1 margin.
Still, immigrant rights activists say there are plenty of questions Mrs. Clinton must answer as well. Advocates were furious last year, during the surge of children and families from Central America who jumped the border, when Mrs. Clinton said they should be "sent back."
"As president, will you reverse that stance?" demanded the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.
Cesar Vargas, co-director of the Dream Action Coalition, which advocates for Dreamers, or young adult illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, said Mrs. Clinton will also need to figure out how to move beyond President Obama's immigration actions, which have included executive action stopping most deportations and granting about half of the 11 million illegal immigrants in the country tentative legal status and work permits.
Mr. Vargas said they will be looking for Mrs. Clinton not only to embrace Mr. Obama's actions, but to pledge to build on them with more executive moves of her own to protect still other illegal immigrants.
"We're going to try to make sure she separates from her husband's terrible immigration record," Mr. Vargas said.
That record included signing the 1996 welfare reform law that went after legal immigrants, requiring green card holders to have been in the country five years before getting taxpayer-funded benefits.
Mr. Clinton also targeted illegal immigrants, signing a law stiffening penalties, speeding deportations and imposing the 10-year bar, which says illegal immigrants who've stayed in the U.S. contrary to law for more than 12 months must leave the country and remain outside for 10 years before being able to apply to return legally. That bar has become a major headache for illegal immigrants trying to find ways to get right with the law.
"Bill Clinton on immigration was terrible," Mr. Vargas said, but he said Mrs. Clinton will be judged on her own stances. He said her team has already reached out to Latino activists to try to get a sense for what's on their minds.
"They're definitely doing a good job on listening and understanding the political and physical reality of what's going on on the ground, rather than just putting talking points on the website," he said.
Despite his record on immigration, Mr. Clinton still did well among Hispanic voters, winning them overwhelmingly in his 1996 reelection campaign against GOP nominee Bob Dole.
Hispanics were a much smaller part of the electorate at that point, and immigration wasn't as tightly coupled with winning Latino votes. But now immigration — and, specifically, offering a chance at legal status to illegal immigrants — is viewed as a threshold issue by many Hispanic voters.
Mr. Rosenberg said Mrs. Clinton starts off "with an enormous amount of good will" among Latinos, thanks in large part to the economic successes most of them felt during her husband's tenure.
"Her challenge is going to be to reintroduce that story to a younger [generation] that's never voted for a Clinton before," he said.
Those younger Hispanics are heavily invested in the immigration issue, and Mrs. Clinton has already taken steps to show a softer approach, saying she supports Mr. Obama's executive actions to date, and saying she believes illegal immigrants should be able to get driver's licenses.
America's Voice, an immigration advocacy group, said if Mrs. Clinton runs as an "assertively pro-immigrant candidate," she will energize Latino voters and make a break with Democratic thinking from previous decades, when they tried to avoid the issue.
The group concluded that her voting record in the Senate was generally pro-immigration: She supported the 2006 and 2007 legalization bills, though she also voted for the border fence. Still, the group said it wants to see whether Mrs. Clinton embraces the "new politics of immigration."
"Hillary Clinton seemed a bit rusty and more than a bit disconnected from the rapid growth of the immigration reform movement and a dramatic shift in the center of gravity of immigration politics during a series of comments she made last summer and fall. However, there have subsequently been a series of positive indications from Clinton and her campaign that show that she may recognize that good immigration policy is also good politics for 2016," the group said.
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports a crackdown on immigration, said Mr. Clinton embraced tighter restrictions because it seemed to be good politics in the 1990s, and he said Mrs. Clinton is embracing looser restrictions now because it's good politics in the Democratic primary.
"It was purely a matter of political calculation for Bill, and I think it's the same thing for Hillary," he said.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...immigration-c/
Clinton To Endorse Path To Citizenship For Illegal Immigrants
by Caroline May
5 May 2015
Hillary Clinton will endorse a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants during a campaign stop at a Nevada high school Tuesday, according to reports.
Politico’s Playbook reports that during a roundtable at the majority Hispanic Rancho High School, Clinton is expected to call for a comprehensive immigration reform plan that includes “nothing less than a full and equal path to citizenship” for illegal immigrants.
Clinton will reportedly add that anything less than a path to full citizenship for illegal immigrants would be “merely a ‘second-class’ status.” Playbook quotes a Clinton official:
Clinton will talk about her commitment to fixing our broken immigration system by passing comprehensive immigration reform that provides a path to citizenship, treats everyone with dignity and compassion, upholds the rule of law, protects our border and national security, and brings millions of hard-working people out of the shadows and into the formal economy … She will say that the standard for a true solution is nothing less than a full and equal path to citizenship. She will say that we cannot settle for proposals that provide hard-working people with merely a ‘second-class’ status.
In recent months the national debate over immigration reform has largely centered on President Obama’s executive amnesty program — currently stalled in the courts — to provide legal status and work permits for millions of illegal immigrants.
Shortly after Obama announced his executive amnesty in November, Clinton said she supported the actions but called for a more permanent solution.
A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found that Clinton is currently more popular among Hispanics than Republican Jeb Bush besting him among registered Hispanic voters 71-26.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...al-immigrants/
Hillary Vows ‘to Go even Further’ than Obama on Exec Amnesty
by Breitbart News
5 May 2015
On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton vowed to go even further than President Barack Obama on enacting executive amnesty programs and went all-in on supporting full citizenship for illegal immigrants, proclaiming that anything less than that would confer “second-class status” on illegal immigrants.
At a roundtable event at Rancho High School in Las Vegas, Nevada, Clinton said that “we can’t wait any longer for a path to full and equal citizenship.”
“This is where I differ with everybody on the Republican side,” she said. “Make no mistakes. Today not a single Republican candidate announced or potential is clearly and consistently supporting a path to citizenship. Not one.”
Clinton then said, “when they talk about legal status, that is code for second-class status.”
She also declared that “if Congress continues to refuse to act, as President, I would do everything possible under the law to go even further.”
“There are more people like many parents of DREAMers and others with deep ties and contributions to our communities who deserve a chance to stay, and I will fight for them,” she continued, specifically referring to illegal immigrants who do not have children who are U.S. citizens. Obama’s Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) executive amnesty only covers illegal immigrant parents of U.S. citizens and excludes those who do not have children who are U.S. citizens.
Clinton said that “the law currently allows for sympathetic cases to be reviewed, but right now most of these cases have no way to get a real hearing; therefore, we should put in place a simple, straightforward, accessible way for parents of DREAMers and others with a history of service and contribution to their communities to make their case and to be eligible for the same deferred action as their children.”
“But that’s just the beginning,” she said.
Clinton called for expanding and enhancing “protections for families and communities” and reforms to “immigration enforcement and detention practices so they’re more humane, targeted, and more effective.” She also vowed to “fight for comprehensive immigration reform and a path to citizenship for you and your families across our country” and to “fight to stop partisan attacks on executive actions that would put DREAMers at risk” of deportation.
She then told a story about babysitting the small children of migrant workers when she was 12 years of age through her church. Clinton said when the bus stopped at the camp to let off the parents and brothers and sisters of the kids she was babysitting, the little kids started running down a dirt path to see their parents and brothers and sisters and were “scooped up by these really, really tired people.” She said, “I just watched this and thought, ‘They’re just like me and my brothers…when my dad comes from work and we go out there and see him after he’s come back from his day of doing what he has to do to support us.'”
Clinton is making a concerted effort to win the trust of pro-amnesty advocates who have been skeptical of her on immigration.
After her 2008 campaign arguably started to derail when she tried to have it both ways on driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants, Clinton’s campaign recently told the Huffington Post that “Hillary supports state policies to provide driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants.” During last summer’s border crisis, Clinton angered pro-amnesty advocates when she said the illegal immigrant juveniles “should be sent back as soon as it can be determined who responsible adults in their families are.”
After she dodged questions from DREAMers who confronted her at two events last summer, Clinton Tweeted her support of Obama’s executive amnesty and released a lengthy and lawyerly statement that amnesty advocates felt did not go far enough in expressing her full-throated support for Obama’s executive amnesty programs.
When Obama announced his most recent executive amnesty program last November, Clinton released the following statement shortly after her Tweet:
I support the President’s decision to begin fixing our broken immigration system and focus finite resources on deporting felons rather than families. I was hopeful that the bipartisan bill passed by the Senate in 2013 would spur the House of Representatives to act, but they refused even to advance an alternative. Their abdication of responsibility paved the way for this executive action, which follows established precedent from Presidents of both parties going back many decades. But, only Congress can finish the job by passing permanent bipartisan reform that keeps families together, treats everyone with dignity and compassion, upholds the rule of law, protects our borders and national security, and brings millions of hard-working people out of the shadows and into the formal economy so they can pay taxes and contribute to our nation’s prosperity. Our disagreements on this important issue may grow heated at times, but I am confident that people of good will and good faith can yet find common ground. We should never forget that we’re not discussing abstract statistics—we’re talking about real families with real experiences. We’re talking about parents lying awake at night afraid of a knock on the door that could tear their families apart, people who love this country, work hard, and want nothing more than a chance to contribute to the community and build better lives for themselves and their children.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...-exec-amnesty/
White House Not Sure How Hillary Would Expand Obama’s Executive Amnesty
by Charlie Spiering
6 May 2015
At the White House today, Obama administration officials asserted that the president went as far as he legally could to grant legal status to some illegal immigrants. They are unsure of how Hillary Clinton would expand his controversial executive actions.
“The president was determined to use as much of his authority as he could to try to bring some much-need accountability to our broken immigration system,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest explained to reporters during the daily press briefing when questioned him about Clinton’s remarks on immigration yesterday.
“If Congress refuses to act, as president, I would do everything possible under the law to go even further,” Clinton said during a Las Vegas campaign event, vowing to defend President Obama’s existing executive orders.
Earnest said the Obama administration was pleased that Clinton would stand up to critics of Obama’s actions, but asserted that Obama “absolutely” went as far as he legally could to help illegal immigrants.
He demurred, however, when asked about Clinton’s assertion that she would go further.
“I’m not a judge, I didn’t go to law school, so I’m not in a position to render a legal opinion…” he said referring reporters to the Clinton campaign for questions about the legality of her proposals.
“That will be something for future presidents and ultimately future courts to decide,” he said.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...utive-amnesty/
