Republicans roll off the Hill, while Democrats traverse Mt. Everest
By Melanie Nathan, February 17, 2015.
Republicans would be calling the Judge who barred President Obama’s Immigration Executive Orders ‘an activist Judge’ – albeit tit-for-tat – indeed he may be – but did the Judge fall into a trap? Do we really think the appeals will be worth more than just a show for a fight? Do we not really need an immigration overhaul with the EO, while helping millions, a mere bandaid and ploy toward what we can truly accomplish?
Obama’s Executive directives would make 5 million undocumented immigrants in the United States eligible for three-year deportation stays and work permits. Mostly those are people who have been in the country for more than five years and have children who are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents. Applications for the first phase were to begin Wednesday, when as many as 300,000 immigrants brought to the country as children could begin applying for an expansion of Obama’s 2012 program aimed at the younger immigrants known as Dreamers.
NPR Reports:
Two days before the first of President Obama’s executive actions on immigration were to take effect, the new rules have been put on hold by a federal judge’s ruling in South Texas. U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen said the president overstepped his authority.
In more than 120 pages of court documents issued late Monday, Hanen halted both the new Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents as well as the expansions Obama had planned to make to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
If the executive actions providing legal status to millions of people were to take effect, Hanen wrote, “The genie would be impossible to put back into the bottle.”
Update at 1:50 p.m. ET: Homeland Security Delays Implementing Plan
“I strongly disagree with Judge Hanen’s decision, says Homeland Security Secretary Jeh C. Johnson. But he adds that because of the injunction, his agency “will not begin accepting requests for the expansion of DACA tomorrow, February 18, as originally planned. Until further notice, we will also suspend the plan to accept requests for DAPA.”
Johnson also stated that the court’s order “does not affect the existing DACA,” and that it will not change the enforcement priorities he outlined when President Obama set his plan in motion last November.
Several anti-Immigrant politicians and Congressional obstructionists – yes I mean Senators and Congress members have been actively courting social media with rhetoric, false terminology and fabricated scandals that can all but NOT influence “activists” judges, fueled by a conservative vote bloc. (oops I did it…!) -leading to today’s ruling.
Visit the Facebook pages and websites of Jeff Sessions, the rabidly anti-immigrant racist who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee – responsible for Immigration issues. This is what you will see:
- Made up scandals;
- A barrage of terminology such as “amnesty” – when referencing President Obama’s Executive Orders on Immigration, when if fact those executive orders do not provide amnesty;
- Non-contextualized and hence phoney stories that “illegal immigrants” will receive federal money
Sessions notes on his Facebook page today:
Sessions responds to the Texas court’s temporary stay of executive amnesty, and underscores the urgent need for Congress to block funding for its implementation: “The court’s ruling is yet further affirmation that the President’s action – as the President himself admitted many times – is illegal. President Obama has suspended some 500 pages of existing immigration law passed by the representatives of the American people, and replaced it with the very measures those representatives have repeatedly rejected. The President’s action violates our laws, our Constitution, and the centuries of legal heritage that yielded our Republic.
Congress, so threatened, can never acquiesce to this action by funding it. The President has acted unconstitutionally, and it is the President – not Congress – who must back down. We are a coequal branch of government, delegated with the powers necessary to defend our institution and our Constitutional role. We cannot and must not establish the precedent that we will fund illegal actions on the hope that another branch of government will intervene and strike down that illegal action at some later point. To establish such a precedent would be to empower any future President to demand Congress fund any unlawful decree, and then assert that Congress is ‘shutting down the government’ unless this illegal, off-the-books program is funded. Congress must reassert its waning power. We must reestablish the Constitutional principle that the people’s representatives control the purse.
This ruling is not an escape hatch for Democrat lawmakers who have been filibustering the House bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security and block illegal amnesty. Congress cannot fund the very action which dissolves Congress’ lawmaking powers. Rather, today’s ruling should furnish our colleagues with yet one more reason to end their filibuster. President Obama has already shut down the Department of Homeland Security by ordering tens of thousands of immigration officers and agents to violate our laws and their oaths, sabotaging immigration enforcement and border control. Republicans are trying every day to restore Homeland Security – only a Democrat filibuster stands in the way.”
I see it differently. The President is not breaking any law, but rather providing the executive order to remedy a situation where there is no existing law to fix it. And the Anti-Immigrant Republicans are furious. And so the President is indeed acting as partner – and in Session’s own words, in accordance with his powers as a participant in “a coequal branch of government….” .The President has the right to attend to a matter that needs urgent attention. The Republicans have refused to fix the broken immigration law for years and years, despite legislation being on the table, despite warnings, despite a pretense by Congressional Republicans of interest to legislate remedies.
Republicans will continue to roll off the tiny little Hill, while the Democrats continue to pursue the peak, Mt. Everest:
Personally I think the Executive Orders are bandaids that may just slip off far to quickly, anyway, and I do not see them as the fix our immigration law and system really needs. So in fact if the conservative forces succeed in keeping the EO at bay, they may be doing undocumented immigrants and the system a huge favor in the long run. The law does not provide the amnesty the Republicans pretend it does, and it is real amnesty many of us would like to see. Now America sees the Republicans for who they are and how hard the President tried. Or was it all a ploy?
Perhaps the Republicans and the silly judge in Texas have fallen into a well strategized trap; first the challenge, then Republican failure to act, then the bold action of the President, then Republican war against it – speaking volumes – so while they romp around rolling off the little hill, we continue to head toward the peak!
They fell for the ploy of thinking that they are hurting immigrants by taking this away, where in fact the President and Democrats have provided the perfect set-up and are rolling up their sleeves for 2016 and a voting bloc they have now just secured.
It is after the Republicans lose seats and the next Presidency that we may finally see true immigration reform.
So the good news is that notwithstanding the decision by the Judge and regardless of where the appeals may lead – President Obama will come out victorious. The President’s EO actions have not only cast a very bright – almost blinding- light on the Republican inability to serve up some very basic immigration reform, to meet a critical challenge, but also their out and out refusal to provide a basic fix to our immigration system.
Now it could not be more evident that the Republicans have absolutely no interest in fostering immigration reform in the United States, and no interest in providing some form of basic humanity to millions of predominantly Latino people. This will play out well for the Democrats in 2016. Whether the President wins or loses on this now – ultimately the right thing will happen – and system will get the real fix it needs. In essence the President and Democrats cannot lose, regardless of the outcome on the EO issue – because he has proved that he and the Democrats are willing to take risks and go the extra mile to push for reform and to make a difference in the lives of millions of children. We are now 100% clear that the Republicans do not give a continental F^ck about helping immigrants in any way shape or form. They will lose BIG in the next election- mark my words!
Nonetheless with all this said, sad is the day that any single child is separated from a parent because of the callousness of the likes of Sessions, his henchmen and this activist judge.
Melanie Nathan
[email protected]
When our “real” unemployment rate hovers around 15%, it’s hard to find a reason to give jobs away to others. My own fiancé is coming from the Philippines, and we are doing it the lawful way, submitting an I-129f fiancé visa. I will be with him in 7 days and cannot WAIT! I’m also going to hit the White Bird with him and my gay friends, and maybe find a good dance discotec, where we can chill ’til all hours of the morning.
Jay’s parents are coming to Manila – for the first time in their lives – and I am very excited to host them. We have the blessings of Jay’s mother and entire family. The father, welllllllllllllllllllllll. . . . Keep praying for us!
I do understand permitting gays escaping persecution to come to the USA, HOWEVER, the solution for Jews is not to emigrate to Israel and the solution for my fellow homosexuals is NOT to emigrate to the USA: the solution is for all of us to confront hatred and bigotry and intolerance wherever it rears its ugly head. Here’s what I posted to HuffPo, earlier today, when I found out that Pastor Phillips of Portland, Oregon had lost his funding from Evangelicals because he supports LGBTQI rights:
“James Wherry · Top Commenter · University of Iowa College of Law
“I started out thinking that perhaps the Pastor should have started with ‘Hey, guys, this is Oregon.’
“But then I thought, ‘Hey, guys: the is the planet Earth!’
“If ISIS has taught us nothing else, it is that ‘tolerance’ is the bedrock of human civilization.”
JIM SAID: When our “real” unemployment rate hovers around 15%, it’s hard to find a reason to give jobs away to others.
MELANIE ANSWERS: When our unemployment rate hovers at 15% (which it is not) all the more reason to boost the economy as immigrants have been proven to do. They do not take away jobs they do jobs Americans wont do and they create more in tech field by way of business – enabling us to hire more people. Time and time again this conservative viewpoint has been proven to be nonsense. Immigrants do not take away jobs. They improve the economy and hence increase job prospects for all. A thriving economy is a thriving job market. 1 + 1 =2!!!
Immigrants start businesses. According to the Small Business Administration, immigrants are 30 percent more likely to start a business in the United States than non-immigrants, and 18 percent of all small business owners in the United States are immigrants.
Immigrant-owned businesses create jobs for American workers. According to the Fiscal Policy Institute, small businesses owned by immigrants employed an estimated 4.7 million people in 2007, and according to the latest estimates, these small businesses generated more than $776 billion annually.
Immigrants are also more likely to create their own jobs. According the U.S. Department of Labor, 7.5 percent of the foreign born are self-employed compared to 6.6 percent among the native-born.
Immigrants develop cutting-edge technologies and companies. According to the National Venture Capital Association, immigrants have started 25 percent of public U.S. companies that were backed by venture capital investors. This list includes Google, eBay, Yahoo!, Sun Microsystems, and Intel.
Immigrants are our engineers, scientists, and innovators. According to the Census Bureau, despite making up only 16 percent of the resident population holding a bachelor’s degree or higher, immigrants represent 33 percent of engineers, 27 percent of mathematicians, statisticians, and computer scientist, and 24 percent of physical scientists. Additionally, according to the Partnership for a New American Economy, in 2011, foreign-born inventors were credited with contributing to more than 75 percent of patents issued to the top 10 patent-producing universities.
Immigration boosts earnings for American workers. Increased immigration to the United States has increased the earnings of Americans with more than a high school degree. Between 1990 and 2004, increased immigration was correlated with increasing earnings of Americans by 0.7 percent and is expected to contribute to an increase of 1.8 percent over the long-term, according to a study by the University of California at Davis.
Immigrants boost demand for local consumer goods. The Immigration Policy Center estimates that the purchasing power of Latinos and Asians, many of whom are immigrants, alone will reach $1.5 trillion and $775 billion, respectively, by 2015.
Immigration reform legislation like the DREAM Act reduces the deficit. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, under the 2010 House-passed version of the DREAM Act, the federal deficit would be reduced by $2.2 billion over ten years because of increased tax revenues.
Comprehensive immigration reform would create jobs. Comprehensive immigration reform could support and create up to 900,000 new jobs within three years of reform from the increase in consumer spending, according to the Center for American Progress.
Comprehensive immigration reform would increase America’s GDP.The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that even under low investment assumptions, comprehensive immigration reform would increase GDP by between 0.8 percent and 1.3 percent from 2012 to 2016.
JIM SAID: “My own fiancé is coming from the Philippines, and we are doing it the lawful way, submitting an I-129f fiancé visa.”
MELANIE ANswers:Thank G-d for President Obama and Democrats. If not for the President and Ediw Windsor’s case DOMA would be alive and well and you would not be able to bring your same sex fiance to the USA on a FIANCE VISA – yet you say you are a conservative and a Republican!
JIM SAID: I do understand permitting gays escaping persecution to come to the USA, HOWEVER, the solution for Jews is not to emigrate to Israel and the solution for my fellow homosexuals is NOT to emigrate to the USA: the solution is for all of us to confront hatred and bigotry and intolerance wherever it rears its ugly head. Here’s what I posted to HuffPo, earlier today, when I found out that Pastor Phillips of Portland, Oregon had lost his funding from Evangelicals because he supports LGBTQI rights:
MELANIE ANSWERS Of course Jews emigrating to Israel or LGBTI emigrating is not the answer to hatred anti semitism and bigotry – A big DUH on that one Jim and of course hatred and bigotry must be fought where it is found. BUT Emigrating is the ONLY answer in the now for those suffering persecution who wish to choose to live their lives in freedom and happily. If the 6 million Jews had had access to Israel they would not have been slaughtered and had the gays and lesbians and transgender people in Africa had special visas to the USA they would not be the current Ann Franks of Africa that they have become. We must open our doors to the persecuted and we must embrace them and at the same time we must fight against the hate at the root.
Are you having the audacity to suggest that we should not show our fellow minorities the hospitality and respite from persecution that they deserve? Another conservative viewpoint that would rather see humans suffering than helped! Do you honestly think we can eradicate anti-semitism and homophobia and transphobia overnight? SO YOU ARE DEAD WRONG on this while it is a series of solution emigrating is indeed a critical option and a solution for those suffering persecution as we speak.
Melanie,
Yes, when illegal aliens are not given work visas, they DO only do the lowest of work, but when they are given work visas, they are permitted to take ANY job!
We have too many instances of U.S. citizens who have lost their jobs to illegal aliens doing landscape work and doing construction work. If you don’t believe me, look no farther than Newsweek in 2009. On the last page of one issue, they showed a Mexican illegal immigrant and his U.S. wife. He mourned the $40,000 a year construction job that he had been laid off from.
Wait a second! “$40,000 a year?!?” I thought these folks were cleaning out toilets and doing work that “no American” would want to do!!!!!!!!!!! How’s come I wasn’t told about this?!?
Sorry, we should take care of our “own,” first. The Congressional Budget Office tells us that, if we legalize the 15,000,000 illegal aliens in the USA, in 10 years, 9,000,000 jobs will have been created as a result. That’s a LOSS of 6,000,000 jobs. The CBO also tells us that ANOTHER 10,000,000-12,000,000 illegal aliens will take THEIR place.
And what do you do with the LEGAL aliens let into the USA to work agriculture jobs???? Their visas do not permit them to work other jobs. Shouldn’t the people (like my gay fiancé) who play by the rules, be given the right to reap the rewards FIRST?!?
YES! Immigrants DO “create their own jobs!” Example: NPR reported on one Mexican who had a company installing fire security systems in buildings in the USA. He was an illegal alien who lived in Mexico, but drove over the boarder every day and under-bid U.S. citizens. The same is true for the landscapers who undercut and ran out of business U.S. citizens: they didn’t have to pay those pesky income taxes or Social Security/Medicare taxes! Of course, they were “entrepreneurs!”
As to the Dream Act and “increasing revenues,” WHAT?!? You mean that illegal aliens are not paying their taxes?!? Isn’t that a CRIME?!?
Can I get the same deal?!?
It turns out that we exported jobs overseas. That enabled “the rich” – who own stocks – “to keep getting richer.” These illegal aliens are simply “the ground troops, ‘sent in to kill off the survivors.'”
– Jim
This is the most inane and incomplete response to what I posted in reply to your comments Jim. You need to try harder. firstly most of this makes no sense – it fails to counter my contentions and those of the proven commentary below. The Dream Act – do you understand what it means who it impacts before you make such a nonsensical response? They are kids who could be denied the permits to work or the higher education that could make them equal with you -does that bother you? They will increase revenue does not mean they robbed you when unable to pay taxes because they were ONLY 14 at the time …..
Please refrain from using terminology: “illegal Alien” which I find highly offensive – I wont your the post to go up if you use that wording again- my blog-my rules.. if you choose to use that terminology – YOU too are illegal There is NO CRIME in being undocumented – none on the books whatsoever. It is merely a deportable and not criminal action. And people cannot be illegal. On this BLOG it will be “undocumented immigrant.” Thanks for the consideration.
Immigrants start businesses. According to the Small Business Administration, immigrants are 30 percent more likely to start a business in the United States than non-immigrants, and 18 percent of all small business owners in the United States are immigrants.
Immigrant-owned businesses create jobs for American workers. According to the Fiscal Policy Institute, small businesses owned by immigrants employed an estimated 4.7 million people in 2007, and according to the latest estimates, these small businesses generated more than $776 billion annually.
Immigrants are also more likely to create their own jobs. According the U.S. Department of Labor, 7.5 percent of the foreign born are self-employed compared to 6.6 percent among the native-born.
Immigrants develop cutting-edge technologies and companies. According to the National Venture Capital Association, immigrants have started 25 percent of public U.S. companies that were backed by venture capital investors. This list includes Google, eBay, Yahoo!, Sun Microsystems, and Intel.
Immigrants are our engineers, scientists, and innovators. According to the Census Bureau, despite making up only 16 percent of the resident population holding a bachelor’s degree or higher, immigrants represent 33 percent of engineers, 27 percent of mathematicians, statisticians, and computer scientist, and 24 percent of physical scientists. Additionally, according to the Partnership for a New American Economy, in 2011, foreign-born inventors were credited with contributing to more than 75 percent of patents issued to the top 10 patent-producing universities.
Immigration boosts earnings for American workers. Increased immigration to the United States has increased the earnings of Americans with more than a high school degree. Between 1990 and 2004, increased immigration was correlated with increasing earnings of Americans by 0.7 percent and is expected to contribute to an increase of 1.8 percent over the long-term, according to a study by the University of California at Davis.
Immigrants boost demand for local consumer goods. The Immigration Policy Center estimates that the purchasing power of Latinos and Asians, many of whom are immigrants, alone will reach $1.5 trillion and $775 billion, respectively, by 2015.
Immigration reform legislation like the DREAM Act reduces the deficit. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, under the 2010 House-passed version of the DREAM Act, the federal deficit would be reduced by $2.2 billion over ten years because of increased tax revenues.
Comprehensive immigration reform would create jobs. Comprehensive immigration reform could support and create up to 900,000 new jobs within three years of reform from the increase in consumer spending, according to the Center for American Progress.
Comprehensive immigration reform would increase America’s GDP.The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that even under low investment assumptions, comprehensive immigration reform would increase GDP by between 0.8 percent and 1.3 percent from 2012 to 2016.
I dont have time to respond to diversions. So comments are closed for this topic. Perhaps Jim you should write a blog with your viewpoints.