Thread: Pro-amnesty lawyer, Rosenberg, makes the case for CIR

This blog comes from a BIG Pro-Amnesty lawyer.

Simon Rosenberg: Making the Case for Comprehensive Immigration

Reform this Year

Note: Originally posted yesterday, April 30th, at NDN's Blog.

Today in the Senate, Senator Schumer is holding an important hearing: "Comprehensive Immigration Reform in 2009, Can We Do it and How?" Here at NDN, we believe the answer to whether Congress can pass reform this year is "yes." Below are seven reasons why:

1) In tough economic times, we need to remove the "trap door" under the minimum wage.

One of the first acts of the new Democratic Congress back in 2007 was to raise the minimum wage, to help alleviate the downward pressure on wages we had seen throughout the decade even prior to the current Great Recession. The problem with this strategy is that the minimum wage and other worker protections required by American law do not extend to those workers here illegally. With economic times worsening here and in the home countries of the migrants, unscrupulous employers have much more leverage over, and incentive to keep, undocumented workers. With five percent of the current workforce -- amazingly, with one out of every 20 workers now undocumented, this situation creates an unacceptable race to the bottom, downward pressure on wages, at a time when we need to be doing more for those struggling to get by, not less.

Legalizing the five percent of the work force that is undocumented would create a higher wage and benefit floor than exists today for all workers, further helping, as was intended by the increase in the minimum wage two years ago, to alleviate the downward pressure on wages for those struggling the most in this tough economy.

Additionally, it needs to be understood that these undocumenteds are already here and working. If you are undocumented, you are not eligible for welfare. If you are not working, you go home. Thus, in order to remove this "trap door," we need to either kick five percent of existing American workforce out of the country -- a moral and economic impossibility -- or legalize them. There is no third way on this one. They stay and become citizens or we chase them away.

Finally, what you hear from some of the opponents of immigration reform is that by passing reform, all of these immigrants will come and take the jobs away of everyday Americans. But again, the undocumented immigrants are already here, working, having kids, supporting local businesses. Legalization does not create a flood of new immigrants -- in fact, as discussed earlier, it puts the immigrant worker on a more even playing field with legal American workers. It does the very inverse of what is being suggested -- it creates fairer competition for American workers -- not unfair competition. The status quo is what should be most unacceptable to those who claim they are advocating for the American worker.

2) In a time of tight budgets, passing immigration reform will bring more money into the federal treasury.

Putting the undocumented population on the road to citizenship will also increase tax revenue in a time of economic crisis, as the newly legal immigrants will pay fees and fines, and become fully integrated into the U.S. tax-paying system. When immigration reform legislation passed the Senate in 2006, the Congressional Budge Office estimate that accompanied the bill projected Treasury revenues would see a net increase of $44 billion over 10 years.

3) Reforming our immigration system will increasingly be seen as a critical part of any comprehensive strategy to calm the increasingly violent border region.

Tackling the growing influence of the drug cartels in Mexico is going to be hard, cost a great deal of money, and take a long time. One quick and early step toward calming the region will be to take decisive action on clearing up one piece of the problem -- the vast illegal trade in undocumented migrants. Legalization will also help give these millions of families a greater stake in the United States, which will make it less likely that they contribute to the spread of the cartels influence.

4) Fixing the immigration system will help reinforce that it is a "new day" for U.S.-Latin American relations.

To his credit, President Obama has made it clear that he wants to see a significant improvement in our relations with our Latin neighbors and very clearly communicated that message during his recent trips to Mexico and the Summit of the Americas. Just as offering a new policy toward Cuba is part of establishing that it is truly a "new day" in hemispheric relations, ending the shameful treatment of Latin migrants here in the United States will go a long way in signaling that America is taking its relations with its southern neighbors much more seriously than in the past.

5) Passing immigration reform this year clears the way for a clean census next year.

Even though the government is constitutionally required to count everyone living in the United States every 10 years, the national GOP has made it clear that it will block efforts for the Census Bureau to count undocumented immigrants. Conducting a clean and thorough census is hard in any environment. If we add a protracted legal and political battle on top -- think Norm Coleman, a politicized U.S. Attorney process, Bush v Gore -- the chance of a failed or flawed census rises dramatically. This of course would not be good for the nation.

Passing immigration reform this year would go a long way to ensuring we have a clean and effective census count next year.

6) The Administration and Congress will grow weary of what we call "immigration proxy wars," and will want the issue taken off the table.

With rising violence in Mexico, and the everyday drumbeat of clashes and conflicts over immigration in communities across America, the broken immigration system is not going to fade from public consciousness any time soon. The very vocal minority on the right -- those who put this issue on the table in the first place -- will continue to try to attach amendments to other bills ensuring that various government benefits are not conferred upon undocumenteds. We have already seen battles pop up this year on virtually every major bill Congress has taken up, including SCHIP and the stimulus. By the fall, I think leaders of both parties will grow weary of these proxy battles popping up on every issue and will want to resolve the issue once and for all. Passing immigration reform will become essential to making progress on other much needed societal goals like moving toward universal health insurance.

7) Finally, in the age of Obama, we must be vigilant to stamp out racism wherever it appears.

Passing immigration reform this year would help take the air out of the balloon of what is the most virulent form of racism in American society today -- the attacks on Hispanics and undocumented immigrants. It will be increasingly difficult for the President and his allies to somehow argue that watching Glenn Beck act out burning alive of a person on the air over immigration, "left leaning" Ed Schultz give air time to avowed racist Tom Tancredo on MSNBC or Republican ads comparing Mexican immigrants to Islamic terrorists is somehow different from the racially insensitive speech that got Rush Limbaugh kicked off Monday Night Football, or Don Imus kicked off the radio.

So for those of us who want to see this vexing national problem addressed this year, this important hearing is a critical step forward. But we still have a long way to, and a lot of work ahead of us if we are to get this done this year.

(Also check out our recently released report, Making the Case for Passing Comprehensive Immigration Reform This Year, which succinctly lays out our case for why Congress can -- and should -- pass comprehensive immigration reform this year).

http://24ahead.com/simon-rosenberg-ndn- ... migration-

Simon Rosenberg /NDN: seven good reasons *not* to pass immigration "reform"

Simon Rosenberg of the New Democratic Network offers "Making the Case: 7 Reasons Why Congress Should Pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform this Year" (huffingtonpost.com/simon-rosenberg/making-the-case-why-congr_b_193621.html). As one might expect from the source, all seven are actually reasons *not* to pass "reform".

His first reason is that we need "reform" in order to remove the "trap door" that allows employers to pay illegal aliens below the minimum wage:

it needs to be understood that these undocumenteds are already here and working. If you are undocumented, you are not eligible for welfare. If you are not working, you go home. Thus, in order to remove this "trap door," we need to either kick five percent of existing American workforce out of the country -- a moral and economic impossibility -- or legalize them. There is no third way on this one. They stay and become citizens or we chase them away.

1. Even if they aren't eligible for welfare, they can still get it either illegally or legally through their U.S. citizen children.
2. Many unemployed illegal aliens are remaining in the U.S., such as by being intermittent day laborers.
3. We don't need to "kick" that 5% out of the country at once. We could take steps to encourage them to leave over time if our political leaders would let us. Given the job situation and the fact that citizens can obtain a host of benefits, illegal aliens leaving and freeing up a job for a citizen would be a net economic gain. "Chasing them away" over time is not a drastic step, and it's the only realistic public policy.

He also says, "[l]egalization does not create a flood of new immigrants", which is obviously absurd. Then:

[Legalization] does the very inverse of what is being suggested -- it creates fairer competition for American workers -- not unfair competition. The status quo is what should be most unacceptable to those who claim they are advocating for the American worker.

That competition - fair or unfair - should not be here in the first place. And, a supply of millions of new legal workers would drastically lower the wages for those jobs that are only open to legal workers. Rosenberg is only concerned with race-based power, not the American worker.

His second point advocates a whopping gain of $4.4 billion per year from amnesty; the third falsely claims that legalization would reduce rather than increase illegal alien smuggling. An amnesty would cause a mad rush for the border. That point also claims that we have to give in to what he wants to lessen support for illegal activity in the illegal alien community; why would we even want to be presented with such a choice in the first place?

The fourth point is the message we'd be sending to Latin America. Contrary to what he says, the actual message would be one of capitulation and would make the Mexican government even more demanding and give them even more power inside the U.S.

His fifth point is that he wants a "clean and thorough" Census. He wants his race-based power, and he wants it now!

This sixth involves ending adding immigration-related amendments to bills. Apparently amnesty would have many powers.

The seventh and final is the most disreputable of the lot, called "Finally, in the age of Obama, we must be vigilant to stamp out racism wherever it appears":

It will be increasingly difficult for the President and his allies to somehow argue that watching Glenn Beck act out burning alive of a person on the air over immigration, "left leaning" Ed Schultz give air time to avowed racist Tom Tancredo on MSNBC or Republican ads comparing Mexican immigrants to Islamic terrorists is somehow different from the racially insensitive speech that got Rush Limbaugh kicked off Monday Night Football, or Don Imus kicked off the radio.

He's misleading about the Beck segment: the person being set on fire represented the average citizen who'd been a victim of Obama's policies. He's lying about Tancredo, and, while it's unclear which ads he's referring to, they probably don't exist in the form he claims. And, he appears to be advocating for silencing those on the other side, perhaps through some form of Fairness Doctrine-related legislation.

Even at the HuffPost, most of the commenters are strongly opposed to Rosenberg's misleading list.

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/indi ... indid=2389


President of the New Policy Institute, a leftist think tank whose mission is “to help Americans imagine and build a 21st century progressivismâ€

He forgot:

"MY INCOME WILL GO WAY UP!!!"

If Simon Rosenberg is willing to pay for all of the illegals and their extended families as well as repair all the damage they do to our environment and replace all the water, and infrastructural things they use and abuse throughout their life time, then we should give the illegals Amnesty.

Americans don't want to pay for illegals!

Oh my! The economic "shock" of losing five percent of our workforce!
And just how did we adjust following World War 2---and pull some sizable economies back to normality as well?

Mr. Greedy Lawyer, there has always been a certain amount of disruption to previous ways. That's called Progress. The illegal aliens and their "workers rights" hacks are keeping a brake on the forward movement of this society!