White House Plan on Immigration Includes Legal Status

[Pirate Smile]

Source: The New York Times

By JULIA PRESTON
Published: November 13, 2009

The Obama administration will insist on measures to give legal status to an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants as it pushes early next year for legislation to overhaul the immigration system, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Friday.
In her first major speech on the overhaul, Ms. Napolitano dispelled any suggestion that the administration — with health care, energy and other major issues crowding its agenda — would postpone the most contentious piece of immigration legislation until after midterm elections next November.

Laying out the administration’s bottom line, Ms. Napolitano said officials would argue for a “three-legged stool” that includes tougher enforcement laws against illegal immigrants and employers who hire them and a streamlined system for legal immigration, as well as a “tough and fair pathway to earned legal status.”

With unemployment surging over 10 percent and Congress still wrangling over health care, advocates on all sides of the immigration debate had begun to doubt that President Obama would keep his pledge to tackle the divisive illegal immigration issue in the first months of 2010.

Speaking at the Center for American Progress, a liberal policy group in Washington, Ms. Napolitano unveiled a double-barrel argument for a legalization program, saying it would enhance national security and, as the economy climbs out of recession, protect American workers from unfair competition from lower-paid, easily exploited illegal immigrants.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/us/politics/14immig.html?hpw

[ccharles000]

1. good

[sudopod]

68. Amen.

A permanent underclass is not a good thing.

[treestar]

82. Double Amen

Put an end to the exploitable permanent underclass.

Of course there will be that crowd of Duers that don't get that and would rather shoot themselves in the foot by making that class bigger and bigger every year.

[dhpgetsit]

69. They should focus on employers and mandate e-verify nationwide.

For immigrants who have otherwise obeyed laws, and who have immediate family members here, there should be a path to legal residency.

[glowing]

2. If they do allow legalization to stem the "cheap labor pool", then they need to make

sure that they really enforce the hiring of new illegals after this "amnesty". Make the punishments such that a company would lose its shirt in fines if it does employ illegal immigrants. There should be a way to figure out if a person is legal to work in the United States... Shit you need a passport to travel to Canada these days.. honestly, how hard is it to make a system that lets an employer know if a person they are hiring is a legal resident of this country?

[quakerboy]

31. take it a step further

Fines that really sting the companies and make it not worthwhile, but also add criminal penalties for individuals. When it can be shown that a person doing the hiring reasonably knew they were hiring illegally, they should be personally responsible, as well as having the company dinged financially. Make it bad for everyone involved.

[Go2Peace]

50. Yes, this will be what, the third amnesty? Only if it includes serious reform

designed to stem the problem. Continual amnesty only begets more illegal crossings.

[AlphaCentauri]

67. you got a point n/t

[FarLeftFist]

3. Obama +12million votes. GOP contender 0 votes.

[bluestateguy]

4. I'm not ready to support this yet

I'm just not there yet.

[PatrynXX]

6. As my uncle is homeless because of illegals, I don't support it either.

Make them, pay them to go thru classes to make them legal.

This isn't a one party issue. Republicans obviously are split, and democrats are split. It's a non party issue. It is a political stunt though. Only purpose is to gain votes.

[a la izquierda]

9. Explain how your uncle is homeless...

because of "illegals".

And I don't think it's a political stunt, but your cynicism is blatant. Perhaps, just perhaps, someone in the government would like to make sure that a percentage of the population that flies under the radar stops being exploited. That is, after all, what Democrats *theoretically* should stand for.

[imdjh]

11. So we give amnesty to the 12 million or so illegals here now. Should that reduce the total?

Should the people seeking legal immigration from the rest of the world just take a back seat to those who criminally immigrated to the US and who , with their amnesty will doubtless start filing millions of familial and hardship applications to bring in at least another 12 million? And will this stop the flow of illegals?

[JonQ]

14. As processing 12 million new "citizens" would take a great deal of

immigrations resources then yes, all those stupid suckers who tried to do it legally and through proper channels would get pushed to the back of the line.

I mean what were they thinking, following the law like that? Just come here and work illegally and demand we change the laws to suit them.

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[AlphaCentauri]

37. Productive people should be welcome

many legal immigrants end on the welfare payroll or getting medicare even a check from the SS administration without giving a dime to the economy so why not give the opportunity to people who is contributing to the economy with their hard labor.

[treestar]

92. just google "myths on immigration" to debunk this Lou Dobbs myth

[No Elephants]

85. Nothing in the story suggests that people seeking legal immigration will be pushed to the

back of the line because of undocumented immigrants.

[treestar]

91. No they wouldn't

You have no proof of that. The "line" is very long and who can get into it in the first place is very restricted. Our laws let very, very, very few people in legally. That's why we have so many here illegally.

If you look at who gets in legally, it's really a matter of luck. Just research the basics. Being related to the right person or being highly educated (the brain drain, which I'm sure you also would like to stop, again shooting us in the foot).

[No Elephants]

83. Where did you read that people seeking legal immigration will take a back seat to the undocumented?

[treestar]

84. Yes, since legal immigration from the rest of the world

is very restricted, that's why those who are here to be exploited are not here legally (it's not their choice) and for the millionth time, it is not a criminal violation.

It will not bring in another 12 million - go and research the basics of the laws(Lou Dobbs does not give you accurate information of any kind).

And why are these 12 million any worse than 12 million white babies (which I'm sure would be no problem).

[No Elephants]

86. There are many good reasons to be concerned about immigrants who enter illicitly,

no matter what color, race, ethnicity, etc. they are.

[boppers]

25. How does somebody's citizenship status affect another person's housing?

How can your uncle be homeless because of another person's paperwork?

I really don't follow.


edit:typo

[The Northerner]

5. The economy is a mess. Why now?

Why do this at a time when country has a 10.2% unemployment rate (17.5% in reality)? Shouldn't Washington be concerned about creating jobs for its own citizens?

I don't know about this. The economy is a MESS.

What about the unemployed Americans?

Why allow the illegals to keep their jobs when so many Americans are struggling/cannot keep their own jobs?

[amandabeech]

15. I agree. This is not the time.

If employers are (legitimately) screaming for employees and the economy looks like it is in a long-term upward swing, then I could see it.

IIRC, in the primaries he said that he would favor another amnesty, but that was before the economy cratered.

Times have changed, and so should his priorities.

[bjb]

41. Poor timing

With so many people unemployed right now, I would wait until next year to even bring up the issue. I think HCR will be a cake walk compared to the immigration issue.

[amandabeech]

47. Really.

I'm really beginning to wonder about Axelrod's judgment.

[boppers]

27. Why not now?

What about the unemployed americans? Do you think changing somebody's paperwork, and increasing their wages, is going to affect the job market?

Would you be against raising the minimum wage, too, because it might "decrease jobs"?

[C_Lawyer09]

53. I'd be against raising the fed minimum wage right now

Not only would it cost jobs in the short term, it would increase inflation, inflation that would affect the working poor more than everybody else. Bear in mind, I'm not saying this because I don't want everybody to have more disposable income, it just doesn't make sound economic policy. I'd grandfather amnesty along with a streamlined application process. The ability of the federal govt. to build an engine that could drum out millions of undocumented aliens is a pipe dream. The system is already rife with arbitrary abuse, like the chicken processing plant in Minnesota, wherein the end result was seperating families from the breadwinnner and deportations etc. I'm now ready for the peanut gallery to open up with both barrels.... Let 'er rip!!

[AlphaCentauri]

38. The other option is concentration camps

massive deportations and force americans to take the jobs that would become available.

[Zorra]

79. Because transnational corporations want to crush American workers into submission by

creating intense competition in the labor market by flooding the labor market with more workers.

Make no mistake, transnational corporations and financial institutions are in full control of our government. Crushing labor and democracy is what this current economic crisis is all about.

I expect the federal minimum wage will be abolished after our labor market floods.

Subcomandante Marcos explains migration and the global socio-economic and political situation here:

With different names, under a judicial differentiation, sharing an equality of misery, the migrants or refugees or displaced of all the world are "foreigners" who are tolerated or rejected. The nightmare of migration, whatever its causes, continues to roll and grow over the planet's surface. The number of people who are accounted for in the statistics of the UN High Commission on Refugees has grown disproportionately from some 2 million in 1975 to 27 million in 1995.

With national borders destroyed ( for merchandise) the globalized market organizes the global economy: research and design of goods and services, as well as their circulation and consumption are thought of in intercontinental terms. For each part of the capitalist process the "new world order" organizes the flow of the labor force, specialized or not, up to where it is necessary. Far from subject ing itself to the "free flow" so clucked-over by neoliberalism, the employment markets are each day determined more by migratory flows. Where skilled workers are concerned, whose numbers are not significance in the context of global migration, the "crossing of brains" represents a great deal in terms of economic power and knowledge. Nevertheless, whether skilled labor, or unskilled labor, the migratory politics of neoliberalism is oriented more towards destabilizing the global labor market than towards stopping immigration.

The Fourth World War, with its process of destruction/depopulation and reconstruction/reorganization provokes the displacement of millions of people. Their destiny is to continue to wander, with the nightmare at their side, and to offer to employed workers in different nations a threat to their employment stability, an enemy to hide the image of the boss, and a pretext for giving meaning to the racist nonsense promoted by neoliberalism.
snip----
"The global power of the financial centers is so great, that they can afford not to worry about the political tendency of those who hold power in a nation, if the economic program (in other words, the role that nation has in the global economic megaprogram) remains unaltered. The financial disciplines impose themselves upon the different colors of the world political spectrum in regards to the government of any nation. The great world power can tolerate a leftist government in any part of the world, as long as the government does not take measures that go against the needs of the world financial centers. But in no way will it tolerate that an alternative economic, political and social organization consolidate. For the megapolitics, the national politics are dwarfed and submit to the dictates of the financial centers. It will be this way until the dwarfs rebel . ."

http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/ezln/1997/jigsaw.html

[No Elephants]

81. Not following. Many people who are undocumented are already working and more are arriving daily.

Part of this plan requires cracking down on employers who are hiring undocumented workers. Why is now not a good time for that? I don't think immediate citizenship is any part of this plan.

[Flaneur]

95. I doubt many are arriving daily these days.

I suspect the flow is starting to go in the other direction.

[Lasher]

7. Amnesty. That will go over big.

It shouldn't take much effort to draft the legislation. Just dust off Junior's failed amnesty bill and they're good to go.

[pampango]

8. Good. With the number entering the US illegally down sharply, if those here are less exploitable,

that is good for everyone. That's why the major labor unions are behind reform this time. When workers are made legal they are less afraid to assert their rights and join unions and are less exploitable than illegal workers who fear detection.

Obama's policy of going after the employers, not the workers, is more effective than Bush's policy of workplace raids with mass arrests and deportations of workers.

The republicans will undoubtedly make hay with immigration reform as they did last time. The town forums will once again see the outrage of repubs who may be madder about immigration than they are about HCR.

Their strategy of divide and conquer with people never changes. It's us vs. them, you know. Plus, this time they have the bad economy (obviously the repub's own fault) to use as an additional argument in the "us vs. them" strategy. (There's an unfortunate irony in the repubs using the Great Recession that they caused as ammunition to convince people that "they" are to blame for making things worse for "us". "If you want to blame someone, don't put it on us repubs. Check out those folks sneaking across the river.")

If Obama brings this up in an election year, he is extremely brave (or something else - there being that thin line between the two :) ).

[imdjh]

10. SO you can't think of any downside, economically, environmentally, politically to this?

Integrity check.

[pampango]

12. Obviously, there's a big downside politically. That's why Obama has to be "brave" to

try this in an election year. The repubs proved what the downside looks like politically in 2007 so that won't be any surprise. My guess is the tea baggers go off on immigration reform more than they have HCR.

As far as making people who are here legal, I don't see the environmental damage from their legality, unless you're suggesting shipping all of them back to the Third World where they do less environmental damage. Dirt poor people are often quite environmentally friendly; well, maybe not in their locality - which can get pretty nasty - but as far as global environmental impact is concerned.

Economically there's always a trade off. The progressive integration (still incomplete) of women and minorities into the work force over the past decades undoubtedly had some "costs" or "downside" to white males, but on balance it was a positive force for the economy and the country. Economically there will be a "downside" for some and "upside" for others. On balance it will have a positive impact just like with women and minorities which, I think, is why organized labor is supporting Obama's reform plan.

Got to go. Talk to you tomorrow.

[imdjh]

17. The only demand for those people is exploitation, absent that then current US citizens would do.

Illegals are in demand because they are cheap, and they either can't or don't know they can access many of the remedies and systems available to US citizens and legal aliens. You take all that away, and why would anyone hire the Mexicans and Guatemalans? Diversity? The joys of learning pidgin Spanish?

[quakerboy]

32. Thats kinda the point

Make them less exploitable, and there may just be more jobs available to American citizens. Especially if you back it up by making it costly to bring in new workers not covered.

[WriteDown]

72. Wouldn't it make more sense to work on making them less

exploitable FIRST and then think about amnesty?

[AlphaCentauri]

76. without full rights they can't be less exploitable n/t

[WriteDown]

78. I was referring to enforcement....

Make workplace enforcement somewhere between 95-100%. Make it near impossible for employers to hire illegals. Then see what the unemployment rate is in the US and you can properly tailor an amnesty program.

[Flaneur]

97. Amnesty makes them less exploitable.

Then they have the rights of any other worker.

[Vidar]

29. Good Post. From what I know, I tend to agree.

[WriteDown]

74. If Obama actually makes sure that employer enforcement

is somewhere between 95 and 100% then it will be time to talk about amnesty.

[JonQ]

13. Yeah that's what we need to do right now

in the midst of 10% unemployment (much higher if you look at the un-finagled numbers) that hits the blue collar jobs hardest: add millions more unskilled minimum wage workers to the labor pool. Surely this will help matters.

And nothing will stem the tide of illegal immigration more than suggesting that if they do come here illegally we'll change the rules to make it kosher and they will then get paid more. That'll scare 'em off.

[imdjh]

16. Not to mention what it will do to, dare I even say it? Welfare.

I realize that the illegal aliens, unlike US citizens, are all industrious folks who wouldn't dream of being on welfare, but allow me a touch of paranoia since I experience it so rarely compared to many here. You make those 12 million illegals legal, and the applications for everything from Section 8 to public housing, to food stamps, medicare, medicaid, SSI, SSD, etc.... could they possibly go up?

[JonQ]

18. Surely all 12 million illegals

are hard working saints who would never use any social services if given the opportunity.

There are no criminals or layabouts in their midst. Unlike a similiar population of 12 million from any other group of people, these guys buck the trend.

[showpan]

19. The unions need to take off their beer goggle

laser vision glasses and get their heads out of their "market share" martini's. I am a union trades worker who now has to deal with the effects of allowing immigrants, who have not been through an apprenticeship and have no clue as to how we obtained our conditions and our pay, to "buy" their cards. The current administration and now our unions are once again showing how little they care about Americans and how much they care about profits. Adding another 12,000,000 people when there are over 15,000,000 unemployed is ridiculous. I guess it's one way to try to keep these greedy corporations from moving overseas, let the cheap labor come here as I loose my home and the ability to pay for my children's future.

[AlphaCentauri]

39. I did not know that Unions are accepting people who doesn't go through an apprenticeship

interesting

[C_Lawyer09]

54. Not making light of your statement but....

"market share martinis" That's a good one!!

[No Elephants]

87. Does current welfare law require anyone to be a citizen before receiving welfare, etc.?

That was not the case previously. You were eligible whether or not you were a citizen, but I have not looked at the law in a number of years.

[emilyg]

43. +1

[Flaneur]

52. The workers are already here. This would just protect them, and...

...by extension, US workers, who would no longer have to compete with a huge pool of docile, easily exploitable undocumented workers.

[Luciferous]

21. Why should we reward these people for breaking the law?

I can't see anything good coming from this.

[No Elephants]

89. They are already rewarded. They wanted to live/work here. They are doing that.

Our need to get a handle on this is more about our needs than it is about theirs.

[totodeinhere]

22. If we give amnesty to 12 million, then next we will have 24 million up here.

Reagan tried the amnesty approach and it didn't work. It only encouraged more to come, and I'm afraid that this is what will happen again if we try this.

With all of it's natural resources and oil revenue, there is absolutely no reason why Mexico cannot be self sustaining and take care of it's own citizens without so many coming up here. Then with a shrinking labor pool up here wages should go up to the benefit of all legal working US citizens.

The rich oligarchy that controls Mexico and keeps all of the resources to itself has got to be stopped. Until that happens there will be no bona fide solution to the immigration problem.

[Go2Peace]

51. Exactly. Amnesty should only occur if serious reform and serious enforcement

are truly part of the package.

[C_Lawyer09]

56. Serious reform and serious enforcement cost serious dollars

[C_Lawyer09]

55. amnesty or no amnesty those seeking and gaining illegal entry won't change

It's supply and demand. Got plenty of friends down on the S. border. We're just maintaining the status quo more or less.

[optimator]

23. Dems hate being in power

Do they sit in meetings thinking of ways to piss off their base and rally the opposition?
Might as well try to ban guns while they are on a rampage of slitting their own throats politically.

[AlphaCentauri]

64. I don't think Tancredo is part of the democratic base

unless it is now

[boppers]

24. Wow, I guess nothing brings out racism on DU like immigration.

I wonder how many of the anti-amnesty people got legal paperwork to be here from native americans?

[Abq_Sarah]

26. Racism?

Expecting people to obey the law and not screw over the taxpaying citizens and legal residents is racism?

The mental gymnastics required to come up with that claim boggles the mind.

[boppers]

28. I see your avatar is from a former mexican state.

Should people from New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, etc. be required to wait in line to apply for citizenship before working in the United States?

After all, they aren't from New England, and they were born in another part of the Americas. They must not be "citizens", then, and must not have the same human rights as other people.

[The Northerner]

30. The country is bankrupt!

If the economy wasn't in shambles, the deficit wasn't so high, and unemployment was way below 10.2% I might be able to support it.

BUT, the country is bankrupt! The middle class is shrinking and unemployment is at an all-time high.

Creating jobs for American citizens should be Obama's focus right now. He's supposed to help the average American keep/find a job, not the illegal immigrants.

The unemployed need jobs more than ever.

How can the president support such a plan when the average citizen is still suffering economically?

[quakerboy]

33. Because the average citizen is suffering

This could put US citizens back in the race for jobs that already exist. If you reduce the ability of companys to exploit an illegal workforce, you make it cost more to hire them. If it costs the same to hire a US VS mexican citizen, they might as well hire US, especially if the laws are changed to encourage that. But now, it costs less to hire an illegal, so they do. Lets change that equation with every variable at our disposal.

[The Northerner]

34. Agreed

The employers and exploiters of illegal immigrants should be punished to the maximum extent and laws should be enacted to ensure that they never hire illegal immigrants in the future.

The govt. also needs to repeal all of the free trade agreements as well.

Once all of that occurs, the problem will be solved and an amnesty will NOT be needed--especially when the economy and unemployment are in such horrific conditions.

[quakerboy]

45. People who are here are here

They are not going to just vanish, anymore than they just poofed in in the first place. Merely enforcing laws will not fix the whole problem.

[Pyrophile]

46. Enforcing the law would cause them to leave

If the govt. truly cracked down on businesses hiring illegal immigrants and enacted laws that complicated the hiring of illegal immigrants the vast majority of them would leave.

No supply = no demand

If the jobs run out, there's no where else they can go but home.

[amandabeech]

49. Undocumented immigrants are leaving. They're going home in the same way that they came.

There have been quite a few articles recently in major papers about undocumented immigrants leaving because they can no longer find work.

Immigrants leaving when the work dries up is nothing new. It happened to the "great wave" immigrants after WWI. Many had come here for construction jobs, and when the construction was done and the war jobs ended, there weren't enough jobs to go around. Others left because they never intended to stay permanently, and others left because they didn't like the U.S.

[C_Lawyer09]

58. You're all over it like a rash

Funny how millions of dollars of more personnel and enforcement made no impact, whereas a shrinking economy makes all the difference. You made a good point.

[JonQ]

35. Ah you're a hoot

keep it coming!

[boppers]

42. I am to please.

:evilgrin:

Myself, I was born in Arizona, which was effectively a Mexican state until 1847, so I think of myself as having dual citizenship.

[Abq_Sarah]

36. What in the hell does that have to do

With Illegal immigration?

Someone wants to come here? Apply and wait just like everyone else.

[AlphaCentauri]

40. The poor and hungry people don't have the opportunities to wait just like everyone else.

[Abq_Sarah]

44. Yeah, they do.

Unless you're advocating that people violate the law and do whatever the hell they want because they're poor.

If they want to go the anarchist route, they can do it in their own damned countries and change their governments.

[C_Lawyer09]

61. Advocation or no advocation

The reality will remain the same.

[AlphaCentauri]

65. Poverty is one of the courses that we have too many criminals

the majority of laws are made to control the poor

[C_Lawyer09]

59. Yet another good point

If my family was starving, I'd be all over that border.

[Flaneur]

96. So, Juan is sitting in his village in Michoacan...

...and his cousin calls and tells him there is paying work in El Norte. You want this poor guy to go to Mexico City and apply at the US Embassy for an immigration visa and then wait 10 or 20 years? Ain't gonna happen.

It's not a conspiracy; it's millions of people making decisions about what's best for themselves and their families.

Back in the 1950s, we had a guest worker program. Maybe we need to revisit that.

[mbperrin]

57. I make it a point to remind my US history students that if the native

Americans had only stuck with a tough green card policy that most of us wouldn't be here now.

But now, "we got ours."

And as I remind my economics students, people are a resource, not a problem, in an economic paradigm. Study the problems and lack of future of countries of declining population.

There's more work here to be done than can ever be done. What we've got to do is quit letting large corporations take labor for free.

Anyone for a little closer look at the use of prison labor competing with regular workers? A trailer manufacturing company in Lufkin recently went out of business because the state of Texas allowed their competitor to use prison labor at a considerably reduced price.

Workers are not the problem. Lack of work is not the problem. The taking of labor for free and prohibiting the use of labor for some tasks is the problem.

[C_Lawyer09]

60. I'll be damned

Never thought of the free prison labor as competition before, Good to know.

[totodeinhere]

70. The "R" word is used a lot when we try to discuss this topic.

But I don't think it's appropriate. Many undocumented workers from south of the border are white skinned Caucasians. This isn't about race. Many legal residents are people of color. On the other hand, some undocumented immigrants are blond haired and blue eyed. So how can it be racism to oppose illegal immigration by white Latins from south of the border? After all, "Mexican" is a nationality, not a race.

(Edited for typo.)

[AlphaCentauri]

71. When the news networks publish pictures of "illegal aliens"

they don't show Caucasians they show people that look like native americans.

[totodeinhere]

80. If that's the case, the news networks need to be held accountable for portraying an innacurate...

picture of illegal immigration. But that doesn't change the fact that Latin American immigrants are of all races and are not just brown skinned people.

[WriteDown]

73. I have a card I keep in my wallet.

:)

[AlphaCentauri]

75. those cards from the Pembina Nation Little Shell Tribe

:evilgrin:

http://www.aaanativearts.com/article1491.html

[WriteDown]

77. No, the Lumbi Indians....

Bwahahaha. Sorry, the Lumbi are a bit of a laugh for some other NA tribes.

[cstanleytech]

48. Well if they actually follow through on tougher

enforcement for future illegal immigrants and the people who knowingly hire them I suppose I could swallow allowing a general amnesty for anyone here before say 2008 provided they haven't committed any other crime and that they must pay all back taxes they may owe with penalties.

[C_Lawyer09]

62. Do you seriously think

With our current tax code, and massive federal backlog on virtually everything collection oriented, that we'd be capable of recouping those taxes. Maybe if the tax code gets re-written.

[AlphaCentauri]

63. Immigrants would have to pay their taxes before they get their visa

no need to spend tax dollars collecting taxes

[AzDar]

66. Amnesty: a bad idea under Bush...

And a bad idea under Obama.


(Reagan, too)

[Gin]

88. wonder what Mexico would offer me if I entered that country

by "sneaking" across the border....would I be offered anything other than jail time?

[No Elephants]

90. Let's discuss that when Mexico has 20 million undocumented immigrants.

One person sneaking across the border is very different from the issues presented by 12 to 20 million. We can't afford to arrest all of them, let alone jail all of them, not to mention it would take a while to build the prisons that would be required.

[Romulox]

93. If we "can't afford" to enforce our laws, we are no longer a sovereign country.

:shrug:

[Romulox]

94. Yet ANOTHER Bush policy that Obama is championing...

:eyes: