Time for immigration reform is now

[Jack and Barbara 0]

Commentary: Time for Immigration Reform is Now

SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) -- Obviously, President Obama has a lot on his plate: two wars, an ailing economy, the mortgage crisis and more. But that doesn't relieve him of the obligation to serve up his plan for immigration reform.

Sooner would be better than later. On that point, interestingly enough, you'll find agreement from both sides of the ideological divide. The problem is they don't agree on what "reform" means.

To enforcement-only restrictionists, the phrase "immigration reform" means securing the borders, continuing workplace raids, speeding up deportations of illegal immigrants and limiting the number of legal immigrants.

To immigrant advocates, it means a comprehensive approach that links enforcement, guest workers and earned legalization for some of the 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

While squeamish political strategists will tell you that it is never a good time to grab hold of such a thorny issue, Obama has some capital now. He should spend some of it on fixing the broken immigration system.

In doing so, he would avoid repeating a mistake by his predecessor. In one of his final interviews as president, George W. Bush said that he should have pursued immigration reform at the start of his second term instead of tackling the challenging issue of shoring up Social Security.

Besides, the political picture is only likely to get more complicated as the months pass. The more controversial the legislation, the less likely it is to get done in an election year. So if Obama doesn't put a plan on the table this year, it'll push the debate into 2011.

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By then, alliances will have shifted, and Obama might just find himself engaged in more skirmishes with his own party than with the opposition.

That could make it impossible for him to get anything through Congress until his second term, that is, if there is a second term. So if Obama intends to do something on immigration reform, he had better hurry.

The big mystery is what the president intends to do. No one seems to know, and he is not dropping any hints.

Obama campaigned for the Latino vote by portraying John McCain as a flip-flopper who went from co-authoring a comprehensive reform plan to parroting a secure-the-border-first approach and promising to be more consistent as president. And while Obama told three Latino organizations last summer that he intended to make immigration reform a top priority of his administration, early signs are causing worry among some immigration advocates.

First came his choice of Rahm Emanuel as White House chief of staff. While serving as Speaker Nancy Pelosi's lieutenant in the House of Representatives, Emanuel was a major obstacle to an immigration deal. Emanuel called immigration the new "third rail" of American politics, and he thought it belonged on the back burner, if not completely off the stove.

Then, there was Obama's equally tone-deaf decision to name Janet Napolitano to head the Homeland Security Department.

As Arizona governor, Napolitano signed the toughest employer sanction law in the country, hyperbolically declared a "state of emergency" along the U.S.-Mexican border and joined the clownish Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in condemning the Homeland Security Department -- the same agency she now heads -- for not doing enough to enforce immigration laws.

Personally, I'm convinced that the answer to America's immigration woes is a middle-of-the-road approach that combines enforcement measures (continued workplace raids, speedier deportations, more spending on tools and technology for border patrol agents, etc.) with guest workers, an increase in legal immigration, a tamper-proof ID card for all U.S. employees, tougher sanctions for employers and a path to earned legalization for illegal immigrants who came into the country after January 1, 2000.

That may be close to what Obama has in mind, and the best way for him to get a plan through Congress would be to make sure he keeps the language on guest workers (to get the votes of Republicans beholden to business) but also creates protections for these workers (to get the votes of those Democrats beholden to labor unions). Above all, he must act quickly.

In a recent interview with National Public Radio, Napolitano spelled out her department's priorities, which included "enforcement of our nation's immigration laws" and taking up the larger issue of immigration reform at "the right time."

Guess what, Mr. President. That time is now

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Ruben Navarrette.

[EstebanTrabajos 7]

Even if some people here hate the word,

Amnesty is coming!

P.S. AGAIN I'm for amnesty to those w/o a criminal record (besides crossing illegally I know I know), those w/DUI's, rape, burglary, etc can go and f... themselves

[Jasman0717 9]

Amnesty is coming!

Again

[Jack and Barbara 0]

This opinion piece got a lot of comments on CNN website, I think primarily because of the bolded part.

It does seem like immigraiton reform has taken a backburner (for good reason) to other more immeadiate issues, but it likely won't go away, and it is tied directly/indirectly to some of the economic crisis regardless of one's personal views on the matter.

Any ones thoughts?

Personally, I'm convinced that the answer to America's immigration woes is a middle-of-the-road approach that combines enforcement measures (continued workplace raids, speedier deportations, more spending on tools and technology for border patrol agents, etc.) with guest workers, an increase in legal immigration, a tamper-proof ID card for all U.S. employees, tougher sanctions for employers and a path to earned legalization for illegal immigrants who came into the country after January 1, 2000

[Jack and Barbara 0]

Even if some people here hate the word,

Amnesty is coming!

P.S. AGAIN I'm for amnesty to those w/o a criminal record (besides crossing illegally I know I know), those w/DUI's, rape, burglary, etc can go and f... themselves

How would one judge if one came here illegally without crossing the border - come to think of it, wouldn't most people here illegally have to cross the border illegally (besides those who overstayed visas)?

Edited February 20, 2009 by Jack and Barbara

[Ban Hammer 13,334]

Even if some people here hate the word,

Amnesty is coming!

P.S. AGAIN I'm for amnesty to those w/o a criminal record (besides crossing illegally I know I know), those w/DUI's, rape, burglary, etc can go and f... themselves

how would you know if they were guilty or not of any of that?

[dalegg 143]

This opinion piece got a lot of comments on CNN website, I think primarily because of the bolded part.

It does seem like immigraiton reform has taken a backburner (for good reason) to other more immeadiate issues, but it likely won't go away, and it is tied directly/indirectly to some of the economic crisis regardless of one's personal views on the matter.

Any ones thoughts?

Personally, I'm convinced that the answer to America's immigration woes is a middle-of-the-road approach that combines enforcement measures (continued workplace raids, speedier deportations, more spending on tools and technology for border patrol agents, etc.) with guest workers, an increase in legal immigration, a tamper-proof ID card for all U.S. employees, tougher sanctions for employers and a path to earned legalization for illegal immigrants who came into the country after January 1, 2000

Particularly with California's economic crisis the affects cannot be ignored any longer.

[almaty 19]

[NickD 202]

This opinion piece got a lot of comments on CNN website, I think primarily because of the bolded part.

It does seem like immigraiton reform has taken a backburner (for good reason) to other more immeadiate issues, but it likely won't go away, and it is tied directly/indirectly to some of the economic crisis regardless of one's personal views on the matter.

Any ones thoughts?

Personally, I'm convinced that the answer to America's immigration woes is a middle-of-the-road approach that combines enforcement measures (continued workplace raids, speedier deportations, more spending on tools and technology for border patrol agents, etc.) with guest workers, an increase in legal immigration, a tamper-proof ID card for all U.S. employees, tougher sanctions for employers and a path to earned legalization for illegal immigrants who came into the country after January 1, 2000

Particularly with California's economic crisis the affects cannot be ignored any longer.

We already have immigration laws, otherwise there wouldn't be such a thing as an illegal, and those that have brought relatives here already know that the legal system is quite burdensome. The question was, enforcing those laws, and since the feds that made these laws didn't elect to enforce them, that put the burden upon the states. Our state (WI) took two actions, first was to severely fine any employer for hiring an undocumented worker with this e-verify program. The employers are objecting to this, because they are in no position to determine whether a person is legally here or not. The second was the issuing or renewal of driver's licenses.

We had problems with both as my wife's conditional green card expired, and while we filed 90 days before the expiration, were honored with that stupid one year extension, neither her employer nor the DMV every heard of a one year extension, that took quite a bit of effort on my part to clear that up.

In dealing with my wife's employer legal department, took bringing in all of our immigration records, copies of the law where if married less than two years, a conditional green card would be issued, proof that we submitted the I-751 in a timely fashion, also had to explain the I-751, and showed all the proof we submitted, downloaded processing times, and also had letters from my congressman and senator they couldn't deny as to the efforts they were making to get my wife a valid green card. Then our governor appointed an immigration officer, new position, that didn't know anything about immigration, so had to go through that entire process again, but already gathered all the facts that I needed. I didn't know that he responded, but still asked me why the USCIS is so slow, how do you answer that question? Outside of the fact that it is a governmental agency.

It's well know that SS cards are easily counterfeited, even the state knows that. Ha, but wondered if they ever thought about counterfeiting a US birth certificate, sure a lot easier than counterfeiting a greencard.

But what they really need is access to the SS database and from the news, the SS won't even share their database with Homeland Security let along state DMV and especially employers, so it's a mess. And we learn that these agencies have more power than our government that certainly isn't good news.

Yet another factor is interpreting the 14th amendment, still doesn't seem right that a 14 year old illegal girl can come here, get pregnant and we have to pay to have her baby born, fed, and get free medical care and is a USC on top of all that. This alone is costing us a small fortune our Medicaid expense is almost as high as our crooked educational system they claim is the best in the world.

It's my understanding the state cannot deport an illegal, only detain them, county jail, where if and whenever the feds show up, will deport that person. Normally takes two for one person with a personal escort to the border with two round trip tickets and one one way ticket. Kind of expensive when you consider they are coming here by the truckload. But this is our government at work.

[Saddle Bronc 124]

Immigration needed reforming probably before 1986--but definitely, after Reagan's scamnesty of that year (for which potential legal immigrants are still paying through processing delays)--and even more so with Canada Free Trade (morphed to NAFTA) ramifications.

Basically, they could (but won't) study CIC's system for pointers.

[Jack and Barbara 0]

I didn't understand the comment in the article about why there should be a

path to earned legalization for illegal immigrants who came into the country after January 1, 2000

Does anyone understand why this date would be chosen, if any?

[alienlovechild 75]

I didn't understand the comment in the article about why there should be a

path to earned legalization for illegal immigrants who came into the country after January 1, 2000

Does anyone understand why this date would be chosen, if any?

Meaningless deadline dates are a staple of amnesty plans. If you arrived illegally after that date you just hang around for the next amnesty date.

[rebeccajo 14]

Jack and Barbara -

Probably because the last "amnesty" deadline was boondoggled:

106th Congress Extension of §245(i). The January 14, 1998 filing deadline

under §245(i) remained in effect until the end of the 106th Congress. The Legal

Immigration Family Equity (LIFE) Act Amendments of 2000, enacted on December

21, 2000 as part of the FY2001 Consolidated Appropriations Act, included a

provision to extend and modify §245(i).14 This provision extended the deadline for

filing immigrant visa petitions or labor certification applications until April 30, 2001.

It also added a new requirement that beneficiaries of petitions or applications filed

after January 14, 1998, had to be present in the United States on the date of

enactment of the LIFE Act Amendments.15

INS did not publish regulations implementing the new §245(i) provision until

March 26, 2001, a little over a month before the April 30, 2001 filing deadline.

Immigration advocates cited this delay in calling for a further extension of the filing

deadline. In a May 1, 2001 letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, President George

W. Bush similarly questioned whether eligible individuals had adequate time to apply

and expressed support for extending the filing deadline. He argued that it was “in our

national interest to legitimize those resident immigrants eligible for legal status,” but

that it would be impossible to do so if we required them to return to their home

countries and be separated from their families for up to 10 years (in accordance with

the 3 and 10 year bars, discussed above). While the President indicated his support

for extending the April 30, 2001 filing deadline, he did not recommend a new

deadline.17

Meaningless deadline dates are a staple of amnesty plans. If you arrived illegally after that date you just hang around for the next amnesty date.

Nope. There's a reason.

[alienlovechild 75]

Jack and Barbara -

Probably because the last "amnesty" deadline was boondoggled:

106th Congress Extension of §245(i). The January 14, 1998 filing deadline

under §245(i) remained in effect until the end of the 106th Congress. The Legal

Immigration Family Equity (LIFE) Act Amendments of 2000, enacted on December

21, 2000 as part of the FY2001 Consolidated Appropriations Act, included a

provision to extend and modify §245(i).14 This provision extended the deadline for

filing immigrant visa petitions or labor certification applications until April 30, 2001.

It also added a new requirement that beneficiaries of petitions or applications filed

after January 14, 1998, had to be present in the United States on the date of

enactment of the LIFE Act Amendments.15

INS did not publish regulations implementing the new §245(i) provision until

March 26, 2001, a little over a month before the April 30, 2001 filing deadline.

Immigration advocates cited this delay in calling for a further extension of the filing

deadline. In a May 1, 2001 letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, President George

W. Bush similarly questioned whether eligible individuals had adequate time to apply

and expressed support for extending the filing deadline. He argued that it was “in our

national interest to legitimize those resident immigrants eligible for legal status,” but

that it would be impossible to do so if we required them to return to their home

countries and be separated from their families for up to 10 years (in accordance with

the 3 and 10 year bars, discussed above). While the President indicated his support

for extending the April 30, 2001 filing deadline, he did not recommend a new

deadline.17

Meaningless deadline dates are a staple of amnesty plans. If you arrived illegally after that date you just hang around for the next amnesty date.

Nope. There's a reason.

If you could explain the rationale behind your cut and paste job without a source, maybe you could convince me.

[EstebanTrabajos 7]

U R THE MAN MISTER!!