As Rodney King famously remarked, "Why can't we all get along?"
As Democrats and Republicans in Congress have spent the past year beating each other up regarding the health care bill, do we want the same thing to happen with immigration this year? At the moment, President Obama cannot even find two Republican senators out of 40 to support Comprehensive Immigration Reform. And anyone who thinks that all Democrats are united in support of CIR must be drinking the Kool-Aid.
But does this mean that immigration reform is DOA in 2010?
Not necessarily. There are individual pieces of immigration legislation which enjoy bipartisan support. Like what?
For instance, the DREAM Act. Students who have lived almost their entire lives in the U.S., excelled in school, and are pursuing their goals in universities should not be punished because their parents brought them to the Promised Land as toddlers. Senators on the left and the right are co-sponsoring the DREAM Act. Any piece of immigration legislation that is co-sponsored by Senators Richard Lugar (R-IN), Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and 31 of their colleagues should definitely be voted on in 2010.
The same thing with the AgJobs bill. On how many issues do agricultural employers and the United Farm Workers agree on? Congressmen Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Luis Gutierrez (D-Il) don't see eye-to-eye on CIR, but together with over 50 of their colleagues, they have co-sponsored this important piece of legislation. If ICE ever decides to audit farms as they have factories, their will be a lot of hungry children in America. I think we all know who is picking the crops.
And how about erasing the 20-year wait for Indian EB-3 workers with approved PERM applications? Is it the American Way to penalize a person solely because of their country of birth?
And who, in these terrible times of double-digit unemployment, could possibly oppose visas for investors who put Americans to work? Or for physicians and nurses who work in medically-underserved areas?
I say, let's see what we agree on, and move forward.
Let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
These senators who come up with the AgJobs and DREAM act should be packed and sent to Mexico - live there, stand for elections there and don't come back.
Posted by: John Estada | March 15, 2010 at 04:27 PM
The simple solution is to take your education and GO BACK to your real country and try and improve it so no more fathers and mothers bring their children here to leach off our taxes, use our food coupons, our hospitals and our WIC coupons.
Posted by: Ramirez Alberta | March 15, 2010 at 04:25 PM
This is sick for the Senator to say they brought their kids and failed to get permission and now the kids are being punished for their fathers sin, WHY THE HELL NOT. They have lived like leeches for their entire life sucking the blood out of our nation and now wish to continue even though we now know they are illegal. I SAY NOT ON MY DIME. Treat them as foreign students and let them pay their fare. Like I have had to all my life. I servered 8 years in the military and joined just after the May 31, 1955 GI Bill and when I went to college I had to pay and I had to pay out of state fees as I had graduated from high school east of the Sabine River. I went to U of H in Houston and they cut me no slack. So I say the damn illegal alliens go back to your native country and get a free education and quit depending on THE AMERICAN TAX PAYERS.
NOW IF SENATOR LUGAR AND SANDERS FEEL SO STRONG ABOUT THE DAMN ILLEGALS LET THEM PAY THEIR TUTION FROM THE FEES LA RAZA AND LULAC HAVE PAID THEM IN THEIR GRAFT OF ELECTION FUNDS. I feel the two need to be taken out behind the barn for a life time of pleasure with a two by four up side their heads. I have paid enough for the illegals let them start paying for themselves.
Frank Bowers Down in Austin, TX
Posted by: Frank Bowers | March 12, 2010 at 06:00 AM