Immigration Reform All But Dead for 2013 and 2014

Shocked by their poor showing in the 2012 presidential election, Republicans looked for ways to change their brand. The first idea: Embrace immigration reform. A slew of Republican lawmakers and influential conservative intellectuals came out in favor of granting citizenship to illegal immigrants. Even Sean Hannity said that he had “evolved” on the issue. The once unthinkable—Republicans supporting amnesty en masse—became a political reality.

Efforts to reform the system began in the U.S. Senate. Republican Sens. Jeff Flake, John McCain, Marco Rubio, and Lindsey Graham worked with four Democratic Senators to draft immigration legislation. Ultimately, the 844 page bill could be summarized thusly:

The Gang of Eight bill would essentially revamp every corner of U.S. immigration law, establishing a 13-year pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants, with several security benchmarks that have to be met before they can obtain a green card. The measure would not only increases security along the border, but requires a mandatory workplace verification system for employers, trying to ensure no jobs are given to immigrants who are not authorized to work in the United States.

It also includes a new visa program for lesser-skilled workers – the product of negotiations between the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and labor unions. And it shifts the country’s immigration policies away from a family-based system to one that is focused on more on work skills.

It passed the Senate in June 68-32, with 14 Republicans going every Democrat in supporting the bill. The compromise was such an accomplishment that the New Yorker even wrote a long piece describing how it came about. Then all eyes turned to the Republican-controlled House.

Most, if not all, Democrats have supported immigration reform that includes pathway to citizenship provisions. House Republicans also showed a relatively strong amount of support for reform. Last month, CalWatchdog wrote about some California Republicans moving to the left on immigration reform, despite the small likelihood of any legislative action actually occurring:

Although Issa, Valadao and Denham all would like to see some form of immigration reform happen soon, it’s unlikely to occur this year. House leadership has indicated that their focus will be on passing fiscal reforms over immigration, and the recent government shutdown left many Republicans unenthusiastic about compromising with their Democratic colleagues.

Via: California Political Review

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Immigrant advocates aren’t ready to give up on changing law BY FRANCO ORDOÑEZ

WASHINGTON — While Republicans may have shut the door against an immigration overhaul this year, advocates who want a new law have stepped up their lobbying efforts in an almost mad dash to reignite negotiations before next spring – when, they fear, time completely runs out as the 2014 campaign season kicks into high gear.

This week, a group of activists, faith leaders and union organizers is fasting and sleeping in a tent outside the U.S. Capitol. President Barack Obama earlier asked church and business leaders to send a “clarion call” to leaders in the House of Representatives. And dozens of children knocked on the office door of House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, last Thursday morning.

“Politicians are human. He’s a father,” said Jennifer Martinez, a 16-year-old from Redmond, Wash., who approached Boehner when he was having breakfast at a Capitol Hill diner and told him her story of being separated from her father for several months. “Yeah, in politics, people do things that benefit them. But at the end of the day when they go to sleep at night, is it really going to fulfill them? I really doubt that.”

Via: MCClatchy

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Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/11/20/209062/immigrant-advocates-arent-ready.html#storylink=cpy

Obama rallies supporters Monday evening to save Obamacare

President Barack Obama will ask his most ardent followers on Monday evening to help bail out his rapidly sinking Obamacare project.

The 8:15 p.m. online speech will be delivered to Obama’s Organizing for Action supporters, and Obama is expected to ask them to save the Obamacare program, which has eliminated health insurance plans of at least four million Americans.

Obamacare’s launch has been so politically painful that many Democratic legislators have threatened to abandon ship even before it becomes operational on Jan. 1.

Obama will also try to go on the political offensive by urging his followers to push for the Senate-passed, business-backed immigration reform bill.

Democrats say the bill is popular and will help Americans. But GOP leaders in the House have temporarily stalled it because of opposition from voters who are already worried about unemployment, outsourcing and automation.

If it becomes law, the bill would provide a work permit to one extra Democratic-leaning immigrant or guest-worker for every American who turns 18 during the next 10 years.

On Friday, Obama held an emergency Obamacare meeting with his allies in the health-benefit companies, including the CEOs of Aetna, Humana, CareFirst and Cigna Healthcare.

That meeting came one day after Obama tried to blame the companies, not his regulations, for the millions of policy cancellations. In a White House press conference, he announced he would not prosecute executives who violate the 2010 Obamacare law by selling popular, low-profit pre-Obamacare insurance policies during 2014.

Via: Daily Caller

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OBAMA RELYING MORE ON IMMIGRATION RULE CHANGES

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration will allow some relatives of U.S. service members living in the country illegally to stay, according to a policy directive issued Friday.

The nine-page memorandum is the latest in a series of immigration policy changes made by President Barack Obama since he took office. The department has long had the power to stop deportations for relatives of military members and veterans, but Friday's memo lays out how and when it can be used.

The latest order gives U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials the power to "parole in place" immigrant spouses, children and parents of current U.S. service members, reservists and veterans. The change means that those immigrants can apply to legally live in the United States.

Margaret D. Stock, an Alaska-based immigration attorney and retired Army reserve lieutenant colonel, said the latest directive would likely impact thousands of military families. "It is very significant," Stock said. "It will ease the strain on so many families and military members."

Peter Boogaard, a Homeland Security Department spokesman, said the policy change would help "reduce the uncertainty our active duty and retired military personnel face because of the immigration status of their family members."

Via: AP

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CANTOR: MANY SENATORS 'REGRET' VOTING FOR AMNESTY

In a House floor debate on Friday where he squared off against House Minority Whip Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) said that “many” U.S. Senators who voted for the Senate “Gang of Eight” immigration bill now “regret” having done so.

“Certainly there are differences on how to go about doing that, but we remain committed, as does the chairman, in trying to move in a step-by-step manner, to address the various issues involved with immigration reform, but not to do it the way the Senate did, because as we've seen, many of those who actually voted for the senate bill in the other body have now said they regret that vote or they perhaps would do something differently,” Cantor said on the House floor.

Cantor did not specify who specifically he meant. Fourteen Senate Republicans—including each of the four Republican members of the Gang of Eight—joined all Senate Democrats in supporting the over one thousand-page bill. 

That number of Republicans who Cantor is likely referring to at least includes Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), the lead GOP sponsor of the Senate bill who effectively unendorsed it in an exclusive Breitbart News story by publicly opposing conference committee between the House and any Senate bills. All of House GOP leadership except for House Budget Committee Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) joined Rubio’s disavowing of the Senate bill and any efforts to save it in a conference this week. Ryan is on record as supportive of efforts to save the Senate bill via conference and has not walked them back.

None of the other 14 Republicans who voted for the amnesty bill—Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Dean Heller (R-NV), John Hoeven (R-ND), Bob Corker (R-TN), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), or Susan Collins (R-ME), or now former Sen. Jeff Chiesa (R-NJ), who since been replaced by now Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) after the state’s special election—have publicly expressed regret over voting for the bill.

Via: Breitbart

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Obama Warns GOP: “A Price to Pay” for Defying “the American People”

 President Obama warned Republicans Friday that there will be “a price to pay” for defying the will of the American people, which apparently, He Himself embodies.

Obama’s l’état, c’est moi moment occurred during a Miami fundraiser for House Democrats, whom he is desperate to install as the majority in the House so he can revive his agenda, which has inconveniently been beached on the shoals of Republican opposition.

So he’s pushing the line that in defying The Leader, it must be that Republicans are defying America itself.

Obama centered on the cornerstone of his failed agenda, the immigration bill.

The only way we can continue to place pressure to get that bill done is by making sure that the other side — or at least that small faction on the other side — understands there’s a price to pay when you don’t act on the basis of the interests of the American people. And so that’s something that I hope we can still get done by the end of this year.

This is typical Obama. Conservatives – forget for a moment he’s supposed to be their president too – are just a faction of heartless bastards who hate the “American values” Obama thinks he represents.

What’s more, they have no principles, and are mainly trying to stick it to Obama:

And right now, it’s being held up. It’s being held up not because it’s not a good idea. The majority of the American people support it. It’s being held up because there’s a small faction in the other party that has decided we don’t want to do anything and our main goal is obstruction.

Obama then proclaims himself as above politics even as he practices its lowest arts:

And, by the way, if the Republicans decided to pass it — and nobody would be happier than me — even though it would be to their political advantage to do it, because ultimately I’ve run my last election.

Well, he hasn’t run his last election. He’s campaigning for House Democrats. He suggests he’s ready to put politics aside even as he hurls calumnies, shedding his responsibility as president to be at least a step out of the mud.

Via: White House Dossier

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HOUSE MAJORITY WHIP KEVIN MCCARTHY: AMNESTY DEAD IN 2013

House Majority Whip Rep. Kevin McCarthy said, with only 13 congressional working days left in the legislative calendar this year, immigration reform efforts in the House are dead for 2013. McCarthy’s comments came during a meeting with amnesty advocates, but the Associated Press reports that McCarthy’s office confirmed them.

“California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the majority whip, said in a meeting with immigration proponents that there weren't enough days left for the House to act and he was committed to addressing overhaul of the nation's immigration system next year,” the Associated Press reported on Friday evening. “The congressman's office confirmed what he said.”

McCarthy is Majority Whip, the third highest position in GOP Leadership, and his view that no votes on immigration will happen before 2014 is significant. It means President Barack Obama’s signature second-term agenda goal—comprehensive immigration reform complete with an amnesty, or pathway to citizenship, for America’s at least 11 million illegal aliens—will not happen this year.

“What he said was, there's 13 days left, it's very hard to do anything in 13 days,” Angelica Salas,   the chairwoman of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, said about McCarthy’s meeting with pro-amnesty advocates at which he made the declaration.

Amnesty advocates had stormed McCarthy’s office demanding a meeting Thursday, prompting police to respond to the scene. After they remained in his office for hours that evening, McCarthy and his wife Judy eventually came down to meet with them. It was there, they said, he told them immigration reform efforts in the House are dead this year.

Via: Breitbart

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Obama grasps for climate legacy as second-term agenda crumbles

President Obama has a chance to craft a second-term legacy on climate change even as the rest of his agenda runs aground in Congress.

Gun control legislation is dead; immigration reform is on life support; and reaching a fiscal deal with Republicans appears to be a long shot.

To make matters worse, what was supposed to be his signature first-term achievement — ObamaCare — is suffering from a disastrous rollout.

But there’s one thing that’s going right for Obama: Executive action on climate change is moving full-speed ahead at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

“He may be able to do more through climate change [rules] because the EPA has the authority,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told The Hill on Thursday.

The most far-reaching piece of Obama’s climate plan is carbon emission standards for the nation’s fleet of existing power plants, by far the largest single source of industrial carbon emissions. The EPA is also writing standards for new plants.

“I think climate change, immigration reform are both sort of legacy issues,” Blumenthal said. “The measure of his presidency will be whether he has left changes in law and regulation, but also a heightened awareness, which I think he has been doing.”

Princeton University professor Julian Zelizer said the push on climate change through executive action could shape Obama’s legacy — but only to a point.

“There are limits to what it will mean to his presidency,” said Zelizer, who teaches history and public affairs.

Via: The Hill

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Amnesty Activists Storm GOP Headquarters

A protest erupted at the Washington state Republican Party Headquarters in Bellevue Thursday.

According to reports, approximately 100 women in favor of immigration reform showed up at the offices, with about 40 protesters forcing their way inside the building.

The demonstration was part of what activists said would be multiple acts of civil disobedience across the U.S. Their purpose in gathering at the GOP offices was to bring attention to an immigration reform bill House Republicans have been reluctant to support.

When the crowd refused to disperse upon requests from the owner, authorities began rounding up demonstrators and placing them under arrest.

The activists involved came from all walks of life. According to reports, even Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn’s wife was present for the impromptu rally.

The issue of immigration was on Barack Obama’s agenda Thursday, too, as he met with Arizona Sen. John McCain to discuss a path forward on that and other topics. Both men support the overhaul bill currently waiting for action in the House.

Via: Western Journalism

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[VIDEO] Obama: No Reason We Can't Do Amnesty Before End of Year

I'LL GIVE YOU 11 MILLIONS REASONS WHY WE SHOULD NOT "EVER" !!!!

(CNSNews.com) - Speaking to a group of business leaders at the White House on Tuesday, President Barack Obama said he did not see any reason a "pathway to citizinship" for illegal aliens could not be enacted before the end of this year.

To make his point, he argued that there are "some very conservative folks" who "believe that now is the time to get this done."

Obama said that businesses "understand" the economic benefits of legalizing people who are currently breaking U.S. immigration law.

"These businesses understand that," he said. "They understand that if we are serious about border security, if we do a better job of streamlining the legal immigration system, if we are holding employers who aren’t doing the right thing accountable, and we provide a pathway to citizenship for those who have paid a fine, learned English, are getting to the back of the line, taking their responsibilities--that all together, these businesses are going to have more customers, we’re going to see people who are currently working here, out of the shadows, paying taxes and getting right with the law."

Obama further said that providing an amnesty to illegal aliens--n.b. a "pathway to citizenship"--would grow the U.S. economy above "the growth that's already taking place," and reduce the federal deficit.

Via: CNS News

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Obama’s new pledge: It’ll be ‘easy’ for Republicans to back immigration reform

President Obama met with top U.S. business leaders on Tuesday in an effort to drum up more support for an immigration reform bill that’s already cleared the Senate but faces an uncertain future in the Republican-controlled House.

GOP House Speaker John A. Boehner and others in his party have indicated they won’t take up the Senate bill — which includes tighter border security but also contains the controversial pathway to citizenship provision — and instead will consider a piece-by-piece approach to immigration reform, rather than a sweeping bill such as the one that has emerged from the Senate.

But the president argues the Senate measure already has enough House support to pass.

By again highlighting the wide support for immigration reform, Mr. Obama said he’s looking to make it “easy” for Mr. Boehner to simply bring up the Senate bill before Dec. 31.

“Although right now there has been some resistance from House Republicans, what’s been encouraging is there have been a number of House Republicans who think this is the right thing to do, as well,” Mr. Obama said just before the meeting began. “It’s my estimation that we actually have the votes to get comprehensive immigration reform done right now. The politics are challenging for the speaker and others. We want to make it as easy for him as possible. This is not an issue where we’re looking for a political win. This is one where we’re looking for a substantive win.”

Via: Washington Times

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Issues Split CA GOP Delegation in Congress

Typically, congressional delegations can be divided into two camps, Republicans and Democrats. Some smaller states — such as Massachusetts or Rhode Island — are only represented by one party. But more populous states like Texas and Illinois typically bring both Republicans and Democrats to the House, even if the state as a whole is decidedly blue or red. The California House delegation, for example, is composed of 38 Democrats and 15 Republicans.

Partisan congressional delegations typically stick together, as they share not only a party and general political ideology, but the interests of the state they represent. But as the chasm between moderates and conservatives grows, California’s Republican delegation is slowly becoming more of two delegations.

Consider how different California Republicans handled (and are handling) two of the most politically charged issues in our country today.

First, consider the government shutdown. All of California’s Republicans voted to defund, and then to delay, Obamacare — prompting the shutdown to occur. But as the days went on, and it became clear that Republicans were taking a political hit for closing the government over Obamacare, some Republicans began to openly criticize their party.

Rep.  Devin Nunes of Tulare, a moderate, compared his fellow Republicans to terrorists, calling them “lemmings with suicide vests”:

“They have to be more than just a lemming. Because jumping to your death is not enough. …

“You have this group saying somehow if you’re not with them, you’re with Obamcare. If you’re not with their plan — exactly what they want to do, you’re with Obamcare. It’s getting a little old.”

The real test came on Oct. 16, when the House voted on a clean continuing resolution, which reopened the government without any changes to Obamacare. The delegation split almost perfectly in half.

Eight Republicans voted in favor of reopening the government, Reps: Ken Calvert, Paul Cook, Darrell Issa, Kevin McCarthy, Buck McKeon, Gary Miller, David Valadao and—not surprisingly—Devin Nunes.

Seven Republicans voted against reopening the government, Reps: John Campbell, Jeff Denham, Duncan Hunter, Doug LaMalfa, Tom McClintock, Dana Rohrabacher and Ed Royce.

Via: California Political Review

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Latino donors set sights on GOP lawmakers who oppose immigration overhaul

A network of Latino donors that played a pivotal role in raising money for President Obama’s reelection is now focused on a new campaign: an effort to oust lawmakers who stand in the way of overhauling immigration laws.

The Latino Victory Project, a new political advocacy organization modeled after the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, is planning to spend as much as $20 million on campaigns targeting members of Congress who have sizable Latino communities in their districts but oppose comprehensive immigration reform.

At a private meeting for about 30 donors, fundraisers and union leaders Friday, leaders of the group laid out a strategy to make the issue central in next year’s midterm elections if Congress does not pass a bill, identifying 10 House Republicans who would be vulnerable to pressure from Latino constituents.

Members of the group agreed to spend $1 million to $2 million in each of the targeted districts. The effort will begin in coming weeks with a campaign aimed at persuading the lawmakers to back an immigration measure this year. If that fails, the group plans to run a barrage of radio and TV ads against them next year.

“We’re all very united,” said Amalia Perea Mahoney, an art gallery owner in Chicago, who joined donors from Washington, Florida, Texas, California, New York and Massachusetts at Friday’s gathering at a hotel in the District. “I think it’s a pivotal moment.”

Tom Snyder, the AFL-CIO’s immigration campaign manager, said, “There was agreement in the room that if we don’t see action in the House, we know who we’re going after.”

Via: Washington Post

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