Support for Immigration Reform Picks Up Steam

Apr12

Support for Immigration Reform Picks Up Steam
By Seth Hoy

Congress certainly has a lot on their plate as they reconvene from a long recess this week—a jobs bill, financial reform and now the confirmation of a new Supreme Court Justice. Over the weekend, however, congressional leaders put immigration reform at the top of their legislative to-do lists, calling for bipartisan cooperation to pass reform this year. Thousands of immigration supporters flocked to rallies in cities all over the country this weekend—in Las Vegas, Seattle, Chicago, Philadelphia, Providence, El Paso, New York and Lakewood—all calling on President Obama and Congress to fix our broken immigration system. The question remains, however, with midterm elections around the corner and a projected lower Latino turnout, will Congress have the courage to put aside partisan politics and actually tackle reform this year?

At a rally in downtown Las Vegas Saturday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) spoke to a crowd of more than 6,000 people and vowed to start working on reform:

We’re going to come back. We’re going to do comprehensive immigration reform now! We need to do this this year! We cannot wait. We’re going to pass immigration reform, just as we passed health care reform.

At a similar event in Chicago, Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D-IL) also pledged his support for reform and called for a more bipartisan effort.

We need that same determination and that same commitment to pass comprehensive immigration reform this year. That is our challenge—to bring together the Democratic voices as well as good-thinking Republicans to make this a reality of immigration reform. We can do this.

Immigration supporters have turned up the heat on immigration reform in recent weeks—first with Sens. Lindsey Graham and Chuck Schumer’s blueprint for immigration reform, then a pledge of support from Senator Patrick Leahy and a commitment from Senator Reid who promised to make time for legislation on the floor this year, followed by a large immigration rally in March in which an estimated 200,000 from at least 35 states gathered in Washington, D.C.

The questions now are whether or not Sens. Schumer and Graham can find more Republican support for their forthcoming reform bill and how much time and energy the White House is willing to spend in supporting the issue—especially with financial reform, a new Supreme Court nominee and the upcoming mid-term elections already on their plate. As evidenced by the large rallies and high turn out, immigration reform remains a top priority for many Americans—especially Hispanic voters, who, as NPR points out, need to be reminded why they turned out in such large numbers at the voting booth in 2008.

http://immigrationimpact.com/2010/04/12 ... -up-steam/

Seth Hoy /IPC, Joshua Holland outrageously mislead about Napolitano border comments - 4/24/2009

A few days ago, Janet Napolitano of the Department of Homeland Security said "crossing the border is not a crime per se. It is civil." See the link for an excerpt from the U.S. Code and a quote from the National Immigration Law Center showing how wrong she is: sneaking across the border is indeed a crime.

Now, illegal immigration supporters are outrageously misleading about her comments. Seth Hoy of the Immigration Policy Center offers the blog post "Move Over Malkin-ites: Napolitano Gets Immigration Law Right" [1] which is little more than a blog-style snarkfest. Despite accusing "conservative bloggers" of not "understand[ing] immigration law" he doesn't provide any citations showing how he thinks Napolitano could be correct. In lieu of any legal analysis, he links to another misleading post by Joshua Holland of Alternet. Holland admits that a crime is committed when someone evades a border checkpoint (as in sneaking across the border), but tries to pretend that Napolitano was simply referring to illegal presence:

But Napolitano had said that "crossing the border is not a crime per se," and she's 100% correct. She simply understands that around half of the "illegal immigrants" in this country (the exact number varies by study) entered legally and stayed when their visas expired. Being here without papers is a civil violation, not a criminal offense.

Perhaps Holland would then like to explain this 2008 ICE press release:

FT. SMITH, Ark - One hundred and twenty-three illegal aliens were processed here for removal between December 2007 and January 2008 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE's) designated Immigration Criminal Apprehension Taskforce (ICAT) in Northwest Arkansas... Most of the individuals encountered had entered the United States illegally, without inspection, and found themselves in police custody for various legal violations... The taskforce worked with the U. S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas to prosecute seven individuals for illegally re-entering the United States after being deported and one additional individual for entering the United States without inspection... [an illegal alien] who was charged with one count of entry without inspection...

In other words, their continued presence was a crime for which they were prosecuted. But, we already knew that. So, even if we play magical games and assume that - despite clearly referring to crossing the border not being a crime - she was actually referring to continued presence, Holland and Hoy are still wrong.

UPDATE: Holland has a reply to this post at alternet.org/bloggers/www.alternet.org/138630, and he's still wrong. Someone can in effect be criminally charged with illegal presence, even thought there's no law on the books against illegal presence per se. As pointed out at the last link and as illustrated in the excerpt above, illegal presence can be in effect a crime by charging someone with the crime of crossing the border illegally. The person above wasn't caught at the border and then transported to Arkansas. They were caught in Arkansas and thus their crossing of the border had occured in the past. Note also that as pointed out at the last link, that doesn't apply with those who've just overstayed their visas. In that case, it's just civil.

So, if Napolitano was referring to crossing the border, she was wrong. If she was referring to those who crossed the border illegally, she was wrong. The only way she could be right is in the case of those who came here legally and overstayed their visas. If they want to think that the latter is what she was referring to, then they're living in a fantasy world.

Note also that I'd leave a comment at the link above, except I was banned by Alternet several months ago after spending one too many times pointing out how they were wrong.

[1] immigrationimpact.com/2009/04/23/move-over-malkin-ites-napolitano-gets-immigration-law-right

[2] alternet.org/blogs/immigration/137733/napolitano_correctly_characterizes_immigration_law %3B_right-wingers_go_batty

http://24ahead.com/seth-hoy-ipc-joshua- ... bout-napol

Stories by Seth Hoy

Seth Hoy is a writer at Immigration Impact.


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http://www.alternet.org/authors/10735

Seth Hoy
http://media.linkedin.com/mpr/mpr/sh...99/16af978.jpg

Research and Communications Associate at the Immigration Policy Center
Washington D.C. Metro Area

Current Communications and Research Associate at Immigration Policy Center (AIC)
Past Volunteer English Teach at WorldTeach, Harvard University
Reporter/Staff Writer at Hippo Press
Editorial Assistant, Acquisitions at Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group
Editorial Intern at Boston Magazine
Editorial Intern at David R. Godine, Publisher

Seth Hoy’s Experience
Communications and Research Associate
Immigration Policy Center (AIC)
(Research industry)

October 2007 — Present (2 years 7 months)


Volunteer English Teach
WorldTeach, Harvard University
(Non-Profit; 501-1000 employees; Primary/Secondary Education industry)

June 2005 — July 2007 (2 years 2 months)

China/Marshall Islands

Reporter/Staff Writer
Hippo Press
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Newspapers industry)

June 2004 — June 2005 (1 year 1 month)

Editorial Assistant, Acquisitions
Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group
(Non-Profit Organization Management industry)

2004 — 2005 (1 year )

Editorial Intern
Boston Magazine
(Privately Held; Publishing industry)

January 2003 — May 2003 (5 months)


Editorial Intern
David R. Godine, Publisher
(Privately Held; Publishing industry)

January 2002 — June 2002 (6 months)


Seth Hoy’s Education
Boston College
1999 — 2003

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/seth-hoy/6/255/b04

Oh horse puckey! It is the rabid folks of La Raza slamming the idea that all Hispanic voters (at least the legal ones) want immigration reform. Americans of Hispanic heritage canNOT be lumped into a group sharing one opinion as dictated by La Raza and gang. For anyone to believe that is sheer stupidity.

And what about the ones now crossing over the border, and threatenning our lawenforcement officers? Is that a civil violation? If they are armed, isn't that a foreign invasion? Whether it is 2 or 20, it is an armed invasion, and it should be dealt with accordingly, by the placement of professional troops on the border.

But again, that won't happen. Why? Because DC could give a (censored) less about the American People. All they care about is their land of rainbow powered unicorns, and the fattest envelope of campaign contributions.