National Suicide: Expelling Non-Criminal Immigrants

National Suicide

La política del gobierno federal de Estados Unidos de expulsar inmigrantes que no han cometido ningún delito en medio de una frágil economía es equivalente a “un suicidio nacional”, afirmó este lunes el alcalde de Nueva York, Michael Bloomberg.
“Esto es un suicidio nacional, estamos deliberadamente enviando a nuestro futuro fuera del país”, aseguró el edil durante su aparición en el programa de televisión Morning Joe en el canal MSNBC.
El alcalde indicó que lo que el país necesita en momentos de dificultades económicas son más inmigrantes, “que crean más empleos de los que toman”.
“Necesitamos más inmigrantes. Lo dije antes y he sido ampliamente criticado por eso. Si quieren impulsar la economía de las ciudades, hay una solución muy simple y es que el gobierno otorgue visas para que la gente pueda entrar aquí”, manifestó el funcionario.
El alcalde explicó que el gobierno federal debería comenzar un programa para dar visas de trabajo por siete años a trabajadores inmigrantes, lapso después del cual podrían obtener la ciudadanía completa tanto ellos como sus familias.
Advirtió sin embargo que aquellos inmigrantes que cometieran un crimen bajo este esquema serían rastreados y deportados sin dilación.

  BBC Mundo:   http://mexico.cnn.com/mundo/2011/08/08/el-alcalde-de-nueva-york-considera-un-suicidio-expulsar-a-los-migrantes

Texas Gov Still Supports Dream Act: Immigration

Republican Gov. Rick Perry is finding common ground on some immigration issues.  More of this kind of thinking and acting would go a long way in solving our broken system which stresses deportation and encarceration.

In sharp contrast to the national Republican Party line, Texas Gov. Rick Perry still supports his state's version of the so-called DREAM Act, which permits foreign-born children of illegal immigrants to pay in-state college tuition. "To punish these young Texans for their parents' actions is not what America has always been about," the potential dark horse GOP candidate told the New Hampshire Union Leader in his first New Hampshire interview of the 2012 campaign cycle.

Perry has not yet announced whether he will run for president, but he polls well. Real Clear Politics's average of polls, for example, puts him in fourth place behind former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Rep. Michele Bachmann, and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who is also undeclared. Perry opposes passing such legislation on the federal level, but his stance on immigration could tarnish his star among conservatives, who have fought efforts in other states and the U.S. Congress to pass similar legislation. Critics see such laws as a giveaway to people who have broken the law and unfair to American citizens who have to pay out-of-state tuition to attend universities across state lines.[See a roundup of political cartoons on the 2012 GOP primary candidates.]
In 2001, Perry signed the Texas DREAM Act, which allows in-state tuition for students who have lived in Texas for three years and either have obtained a GED or graduated from the state's public or accredited private schools. The state legislature had passed the law with bipartisan support. [Check out a roundup of political cartoons on immigration reform.]
The act is different from the nation version, which Republicans in Congress have battled. The national DREAM Act would provide a pathway to citizenship to some young undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as minors but who demonstrate "good moral character" and who go to a four-year college or join the military. The act was reintroduced in May after it failed to pass in the last Congress—it passed the House late last year when Democrats were still the majority, but Senate Democrats did not have enough votes to get it through. Opponents call the federal DREAM Act amnesty.

Source:
        

By Mallie Jane Kim

Posted: July 25, 2011

 US News    http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2011/07/25/rick-perry-stands-by-texas-dream-act

Why Does America Welcome Immigrants

Matthew Spalding, Ph. D., has given us a very well thought out description of why America welcomes immigrants.

By the very nature of the principles upon which it was founded, the United States—more than any other nation in history—beckons to its shores the downtrodden, the persecuted, and all those “yearning to breathe free.” It embraces those who come to this country honestly, armed with their work ethic, in search of the promises and opportunities of the American Dream. Why does America welcome immigrants?

The key to the uniquely successful story of American immigration is its deliberate and self-confident policy of patriotic assimilation: America welcomes newcomers while insisting that they learn and embrace its civic culture and political institutions, thereby form­ing one nation from many peoples—e pluribus unum. While there are differences of opinion about the number of immigrants the nation should accept and the process by which they should become citizens, there has always been widespread, bipartisan agreement that those who come here should become Americans.
The overwhelming result of this policy of assimilation, throughout American history, has been a strengthening of our social capital, the continuing expansion of our economy, and the constant renewal of our national purpose. America has been good for immigrants, and immigrants have been good for America.
Rather than assuming that civic allegiance rests on an ancient claim to divine right, or ethnic or religious identity, the American Founders began with equal rights and consent. As the Declaration of Independence states: “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” All men—not just all Americans—are equal, because all possess fundamental rights that exist by nature.

Legitimate government is instituted to secure these fundamental rights, deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed. “The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs,” as Jefferson put it, “nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.”[1] This new form of civic obligation creates not sovereigns and subjects, but equal citizens who rule in turn. The requirement of consent and the practice of self-government creates the conditions of citizenship.

Other excerpts of this article will be posted later.  To see the complete article click::  The Heritage Foundation

Supreme Court on Immigration

Supreme Court Upholds Arizona Law Penalizing Businesses For Hiring Illegal Immigrants

Protesters in Phoenix rally against Arizona's new immigration law July 29, 2010. (AP)

BOB CHRISTIE and MARK SHERMAN   05/26/11 08:07 PM ET  

PHOENIX — The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld an Arizona law that penalizes businesses for hiring workers in the country illegally, buoying the hopes of supporters of state crackdowns on illegal immigration.
They predicted the ruling would lead to many other states passing laws that require employers to use the federal E-Verify system to check that workers aren't illegal immigrants. And some said the ruling bodes well for the prospects of a much broader and more controversial immigration law in Arizona, known as SB1070, to be found constitutional.
The state is appealing a ruling blocking portions of that law from taking effect.
But some legal experts said the ruling should not be read as a broad validation of such tactics. While they acknowledge that other states will now pass similar employer sanctions, they cautioned that the court did not make any sweeping endorsement of states' rights to enforce federal immigration laws.

See more of this and other articles on :  The Huffington Post

AMERICANS ON BOTH SIDES OF THE FENCE

Some Americans have to cross the Border Fence to get back into America.

According to Reform Immigration for America, The federal government has spent over $2 billion already building a border fence with Mexico that even Sen. John McCain called ineffective. And for what? Apparently, to keep Americans on the other side:

Lately, though, there’s been a distinctly surreal flavour to Ms Taylor’s colourful display of patriotic identity. About 350 metres from her porch, an imposing metal fence looms into view. It is supposed to divide the US from Mexico, but by a cruel twist of fate, the 83-year-old grandmother’s family home has ended up on the “wrong” side. Four years ago, amid the seemingly endless hand-wringing over the flow of drugs and illegal migrants across their southern border, Washington politicians voted to erect a tall fence that would stretch thousands of miles from San Diego, on the Pacific coast, to Brownsville, on the Gulf of Mexico. The best-laid political schemes do not always work out as planned, though. When government engineers arrived in Ms Taylor’s neighbourhood, their plan hit a snag: the Mexican border follows the meandering Rio Grande in this area. And the river’s muddy banks are too soft and too prone to flooding to support a fence.
As a result, this corner of south-eastern Texas had its barrier constructed on a levee that follows a straight line from half a mile to two miles north of the river, leaving Ms Taylor’s bungalow – along with the homes and land of dozens of her angry neighbours – marooned on the Mexican side.

Click to see the rest of this story:  Reform Immigration For America

How Assimilation Works

—and how multiculturalism has wrecked it in California

17 May 2011

by BRUCE S. THORNTON
City Journal California

California is a concentrated example of the time-honored idea that America is an immigrant nation. From its beginnings as a territory through the twentieth century, California comprised a riotous variety of ethnic groups, nationalities, and religions. The whole world, it seemed, was coming and contributing to the state’s ethnic tapestry: Mexicans, Irish, Australians, South Sea Islanders, Italians, Basques, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Armenians, Volga Germans, Filipinos, Hmong, Laotians, Punjabis, Vietnamese.

And for a long time, immigration worked, because everyone was expected to assimilate, more or less, to the American paradigm.

 http://www.city-journal.org/2011/cjc0517bt.html

Click on the link above to read more of this story.

ICE Raids on Elem Schools

Another Side of the Broken Immigration System

May 02, 2011 - Posted by Maurice Belanger

National Immigration Forum

At the end of March, and again in early April, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents conducted enforcement actions at two Detroit elementary schools.  These actions unleashed a firestorm of public criticism, and resulted in a decision by ICE headquarters to investigate these and other incidents in Detroit.

The ICE union, in a statement, denied allegations that the school was being raided and blamed ICE headquarters for indicating the agents may have been acting against ICE policy.

ICE agents are, according to their union, feeling besieged. The publication Working In These Times reported on an e-mail interview with the ICE union president Chris Crane.  Mr. Crane noted that, in a survey of local ICE union leaders, the number one issue the leaders felt needed addressing was “redefine officers, agents and employees to the American public.”  A couple of excerpts from that interview:

ICE employees are ridiculed and hated by all; from the public, to special interest groups, to other law enforcement agencies and the media, to politicians and our own president.

Our employees are incredibly understaffed and absolutely overwhelmed with their workloads, but remain dedicated and work extremely hard for extremely long hours every day, but in the end practically everyone has some type of negative opinion about them.

Here is the real problem: ICE agents are charged with enforcing broken immigration laws that Congress has, for the past 10 years, refused to fix. 

Ordinarily, a law enforcement agent might expect public appreciation for arresting a criminal who might pose a threat to the public.  ICE agents do some of that, but they also arrest community members who  pose no danger and are loved and respected by a lot of people.  To the extent that ICE agents stray from the agency’s own rules and priorities, they are, in the public’s eye, not arresting people who are public safety threats, but people who are friends, co-workers, classmates and parents of classmates, employees, parishioners, neighbors.  These are people who, having lived in the U.S. for years and who have been contributing members of communities all across the U.S., should be given a way to gain legal status.  That’s Congress’ job, and it doesn’t look like Congress will be doing their job anytime soon.

ICE Raids

Click to see more of this and other articles from the National Immigration Forum