Don't Get it Twisted
It occurs to me you may have your immigration bills confused (occurs to me because I did). So I want to clarify:
The bad bill, HR 4437, has been passed by the House. Yesterday the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to approve another bill (name as of yet unkown) which is a good bill, and send it to the full Senate for debate. The Senate bill must then be reconciled with the House bill, and vice versa, until finally it goes to the preznit. (For a refresher on this, iTunes is selling the "I'm Just a Bill" episode of Schoolhouse Rock - go get it!)
The vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee went 12-6. NOT because it was a bad bill steamrolled through by republicans, but because it was good and had the support of all eight dems plus four brave republicans (committee chairman Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Mike DeWine of Ohio and Sam Brownback of Kansas). The Senate bill gets rid of the bad parts (making it a felony to be in the country illegally, making assisting illegal immigrants a crime) and adds a process to legalize currently illegal immigrants (if they meet certain requirements) and a large guest-worker program. Read all about it here.
What's especially interesting to me is the idea that the giant demos over the weekend had an actual effect on policy. We always say that demonstrations are more to make us feel good than to create any real change. But these demonstrations seemed to have worked!
Why? It's worth pointing out, as Keith did last night, that although many immigrants can't vote, the fact that there's a huge number of hispanic high school students (many/most of whom are citizens and about to start voting) walking out of classes over this is vital. These kids are the key to future elections. Just to make it clear, not only are there large numbers of hispanic immigrants in Florida, but also (of all places) Ohio. You see why this has the GOP spooked, doncha?
The bad bill, HR 4437, has been passed by the House. Yesterday the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to approve another bill (name as of yet unkown) which is a good bill, and send it to the full Senate for debate. The Senate bill must then be reconciled with the House bill, and vice versa, until finally it goes to the preznit. (For a refresher on this, iTunes is selling the "I'm Just a Bill" episode of Schoolhouse Rock - go get it!)
The vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee went 12-6. NOT because it was a bad bill steamrolled through by republicans, but because it was good and had the support of all eight dems plus four brave republicans (committee chairman Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Mike DeWine of Ohio and Sam Brownback of Kansas). The Senate bill gets rid of the bad parts (making it a felony to be in the country illegally, making assisting illegal immigrants a crime) and adds a process to legalize currently illegal immigrants (if they meet certain requirements) and a large guest-worker program. Read all about it here.
What's especially interesting to me is the idea that the giant demos over the weekend had an actual effect on policy. We always say that demonstrations are more to make us feel good than to create any real change. But these demonstrations seemed to have worked!
Why? It's worth pointing out, as Keith did last night, that although many immigrants can't vote, the fact that there's a huge number of hispanic high school students (many/most of whom are citizens and about to start voting) walking out of classes over this is vital. These kids are the key to future elections. Just to make it clear, not only are there large numbers of hispanic immigrants in Florida, but also (of all places) Ohio. You see why this has the GOP spooked, doncha?
posted by chiniqua at 11:07 AM
1 Comments:
As I understand it, the Senate bill isn't that great either, because after being a guest worker for a while you can only become a citizen if you didn't - among other things - ever commit fraud. There is hardly an undocumented worker who didn't have to commit fraud to get a job, often instructed to do so by the employer (such as giving them a fake social security number to write down). There are other mean things in it too.
As for Bush being on the right side, as I understand his, he only wants to have a guest worker program, and when your time is up you have to leave, period, no opportunity for citizenship or staying on - thus you just become illegal again. He is for guest workers because business is for them.
It seems to me the only solution is enforcement of a universal minimum wage, so US workers will indeed take those jobs, and employers have no incentive to hire undocumented workers.
Post a Comment
<< Home