Washington Republicans Agree with the President in Moving Forward with Immigration Reform and the "Kid's Act" for Dreamers

Many Republicans in Washington are speculating that some type of Immigration Reform bills will move forward before the end of 2013. Republican Eric Cantor is planning on introducing the “KIDS Act,” which gives citizenship to one million DREAMers.

National Review reports: Cantor made his most impassioned public case for the legislation yet at a press conference this morning, saying that addressing the fate of the so-called DREAMers – a reference to the DREAM Act, another bill that would afford citizenship to illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children — is “an issue of decency, of compassion.”
“Where else would these kids go? Again, they’ve been brought here as a minor in many instances having no idea what was going on, knowing no other place than America as home,” Cantor added.
Speaker John Boehner is also supporting the legislation. “This is about basic fairness. These children were brought here of no accord of their own. Frankly, they’re in a very difficult position and I think many of our members believe that this issue needs to be addressed,” he said.

Washington Post reports: Byron York reports that the prospects for reform are still alive, noting there is a core group of House Republicans still working on a series of proposals, though they are shrouded in great secrecy. These efforts, York reports, have the blessing of GOP leaders.''
...Frank Sharry tells me that if Eric Cantor goes through with his plan to introduce the “KIDS Act,” which gives citizenship only to the one million DREAMers, immigration advocates and many Dems probably would be prepared to accept it — if Republicans are also willing to go to conference negotiations. “If the KIDS Act is good on the substance, Republicans will be surprised at how much love it gets from immigration reform advocates,” Sharry tells me. “Many of us would encourage Democrats to vote for the KIDS Act, if in exchange Republicans agree to a bicameral negotiation where all issues are on the table, including legalization and citizenship for the 11 million. This would be a stepping stone (to overall Comprehensive Immigration Reform).”

Angry Tea Party Republicans Vowing to Stop Immigration Reform and Alienate Latino Voters before 2014 Elections!

This morning, with the Shutdown Fight OVER, President Obama said he wants Congress to get a bill to his desk that will fix the Immigration system. The President said, “Let’s get this done!”

However, Tea Party Republicans, angry with their Government Shutdown LOSS, are plugging their ears and throwing tantrums. Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), who earlier this year quit working with the bi-partisan congressional team to write an immigration bill, said that President Obama’s "refusal to negotiate" with House Speaker John Boehner over funding the government and increasing the country’s borrowing limit made him unwilling to enter into talks over immigration.

“After the way the President acted over the last two or three weeks where he would refuse to talk to the speaker of the House … they’re not going to get Immigration Reform. It’s Done!” Labrador screamed, walking off the House floor Wednesday night after voting against the measure to open the government and increase the debt limit.

The Senate passed a broad immigration overhaul bill in June with the votes of every Democrat in the chamber and 15 of its Republicans. But Boehner has refused to bring the bill to a vote on the House floor because it is unlikely to receive the support of the majority of GOP House members. House Republicans have long said they want to pass a series of bills that overhaul different parts of the immigration system. The House Judiciary Committee has held hearings this year on increasing the number of visas given to high-tech workers, ratcheting up requirements for employers to check the immigration status of new hires, and allowing immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to apply for legal status, among other measures.

But none of them have been brought to the floor for a vote. Now, the Crybaby Tea Party caucus is stomping their foot and Saying No!

Careful Republicans. Your approval level is at an ALL TIME LOW. Now, are you going to allow your Tea Party Brats to alienate ALL LATINOS against you? Just in time for the 2014 elections? We are ALL WATCHING WHAT YOU DO NEXT!!

Guest Voz - Dee Dee Garcia Blaze: Naive Dream Act Activists Should Not Ask Rep. Nancy Pelosi to Pull Partisan Immigration Card Prematurely

In a demonstration recently in a Phoenix Field Office for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, DREAMers, undocumented moms, and U.S. citizens laid siege to the facility, in one instance blocking a bus filled with ICE detainees.
In a Guest Voz, Deedee Garcia Blaze explains this is a premature move by the Dreamers:

Mexican-American Times Dee Dee Garcia Blaze reports: Naive Dream Act activists should avoid asking Rep. Nancy Pelosi to pull a partisan comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) card until all bipartisanship means have been exhausted.  It is important to foster a bipartisanship spirit first and avoiding premature moves that will only anger Republican leadership and GOP votes we need in order for CIR to progress.  We cannot get past the government shutdown yet and the last thing we need to do is start the CIR conversations on the wrong foot — particularly with a looming Oct. 17 debt ceiling deadline when the Treasury says the government will be in danger of defaulting on its obligations.

 A discharge petition move like this signals a cute procedural gimmick essentially indicating party leaders are unable to sit down together and work out their differences.  Reasonable GOPers acting behind the scenes are not going to throw Boehner under the bus so early in the CIR game.
What made the Senate Immigration reform bill successful was it was supported in a bipartisan fashion.  We had Republican Sens. John McCain, Jeff Flake and Marco Rubio who supported fixing the clearly broken system.  Most importantly, it is important for Dream Act activists to understand one thing:   Democratic Congressmen and women are not in control of the House of Representatives.   Republicans own the House.

And while students and youth in support of DREAM Act and Immigration Reform are trying to encourage Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Xavier Becerra to facilitate a discharge petition right now, it will only be met with premature anger particularly when there is a substantial threat that the United States might refuse to pay the debts.  This is why we witnessed Republican Senator John McCain refusing to support a government shutdown Tea Party Sen. Ted Cruz was advocating for.
As such, and in order to see progress of CIR at the Republican-led House of Representatives level and to also satisfy the proactive attempt by DREAMers with a discharge petition idea, we might suggest they begin micro-targeting vulnerable Republicans with a high Mexican-American/Latino population.   A discharge petition should be used as a last resort in light of the impending debt talks.
We ought to work smarter — not harder.
Independent registered voters are will be hawkish on vulnerable Republican  lists, since it is evident obstructionism is at the Tea Party Republican level:
Latino Decisions has identified 44 GOP-held House seats in which Latino voters could influence the outcome of elections in 2014 and beyond. This includes districts where the Latino voting-age population exceeds the 2012 margin of victory or swing districts won in 2012 by President Obama and the House Republican candidate that also have notable Latino populations. If the GOP loses just 17 seats in 2014, the Democrats will regain majority control.
While Latino Decisions has identified 44 GOP-held House seats we can influence, twelve of the 23 members live in districts where Hispanics make up more than 10 percent of the voting age population according to a chart below:

Target List of Republican Representatives Mexican American / Latinos are calling on.

Those members are California Reps. Jeff Denham, David Valadao, Buck McKeon, Gary Miller, Colorado Rep. Mike Coffman, Florida Reps. Dan Webster, Mario Diaz-Balart, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, New Mexico Rep. Steve Pearce, Nevada Rep. Joe Heck, and New York Reps. Peter King and Michael Grimm.

Ailing Midwestern Cities Extend a Welcoming Hand to Immigrants (Documented and Undocumented)

NYT Reports: DAYTON, Ohio — Fighting back from the ravages of industrial decline, Dayton adopted a novel plan two years ago to revive its economy and its spirits: become a magnet for immigrants. The Dayton City Commission voted to make the city “immigrant friendly,” with programs to attract newcomers and encourage those already here, as a way to help stem job losses and a drop in population.       

In north Dayton — until recently a post-apocalyptic landscape of vacant, gutted houses — 400 Turkish families have moved in, many coming from other American cities. Now white picket fences, new roofs and freshly painted porches are signs of a brisk urban renewal led by the immigrants, one clapboard house at a time. “We want to invest in the places where we are accepted better,” said Islom Shakhbandarov, a Turkish immigrant leader. “And we are accepted better in Dayton.”       

 

Other struggling cities are trying to restart growth by luring enterprising immigrants, both highly skilled workers and low-wage laborers. In the Midwest, similar initiatives have begun in Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Lansing, Mich., as well as Detroit, as it strives to rise out of bankruptcy. In June, officials from those cities and others met in Detroit to start a common network. “We want to get back to the entrepreneurial spirit that immigrants bring,” said Richard Herman, a lawyer in Cleveland who advises cities on ideas for development based on immigration.       

 

... Concerns about uncontrolled illegal immigration, which produced strict curbs in Arizona and other parts of the country, have not been an issue in Dayton. Officials here say their goal is to invite legal immigrants. But they make no effort to pursue residents without legal status, if they are otherwise law-abiding. The momentum for change in Dayton came from the immigrants. In 2010, Mr. Shakhbandarov told the newly elected mayor, Gary Leitzell, that he was thinking of asking Turkish immigrants across the United States to settle here. Most of the Turks in Dayton are refugees who fled persecution in Russia and other former Soviet bloc countries. Mr. Leitzell was intrigued. “I said, the worst thing that could happen is that 4,000 Turkish families could come to Dayton and fix up 4,000 houses,” the mayor recalled. “So how do we facilitate their success?” With 14,000 empty dwellings in the city, officials were open to trying something different.       

 

Officials quickly realized that this city of 141,000 already had a small but fast-growing foreign-born population: more than 10,000 Muslims from different countries; refugees from Burundi and Somalia; college students from China, India and Saudi Arabia; Filipinos in health care jobs; and laborers from Latin America, many here illegally. “The hospitals, the police, the libraries, the service agencies, the landlords, they were all dealing with immigrants, but no one was talking about it,” said Tim Riordan, the city manager. “So we brought it out of the shadows.”       

 

... In October 2011, the City Commission voted unanimously for the Welcome Dayton plan.

Working with local organizations, the city found interpreters for public offices, added foreign-language books in libraries and arranged for English classes. Teachers went back to school to learn other languages. Local groups gave courses for immigrants opening small businesses and helped families of refugees and foreign students. City officials worked with Wright State University, a public institution, to find ways for immigrant doctors and engineers to cut through bureaucracy and gain certifications so they could practice in the United States.

 

The police chief, Richard S. Biehl, ordered officers to no longer check the immigration status of crime witnesses, victims and people stopped for minor traffic violations or other low-level offenses. The police union and sheriffs from nearby counties denounced the policy, saying Dayton had become a “sanctuary city” where immigration law was not enforced.

 

But Chief Biehl defended his approach, saying it allowed the police to focus dwindling resources on serious crimes. Immigrant leaders, especially Hispanics, embraced it, becoming less wary of the police. “If we have any group of citizens who are afraid to talk to us or don’t trust us,” Chief Biehl said, “that’s going to compromise our ability to produce public safety.”

 

...“It’s all about attitude,” Mr. Shakhbandarov said. “Americans maybe have seen better days of Dayton, a better life, better economy. But we never seen that. We have learned to appreciate what we have. And what we have here is much beyond what we ever had before.”

 

..In a national study published last month, Jacob L. Vigdor, an economics professor at Duke University, found that over the last four decades, immigrants helped preserve and in some cases add manufacturing jobs in cities where they settled, sustaining employment for Americans. They also added to local housing values. For every thousand immigrants who moved into a county, 270 Americans moved in after them, Mr. Vigdor found.  Dayton’s immigrant experiment is particularly close to home for one lawmaker who will most likely have a major impact on the debate in Washington: the Republican speaker of the House, John A. Boehner. His district wraps around the city on three sides. But Dayton officials said they were not waiting for Congress. “We’ve found that we can repopulate our city and we can educate the people and inspire them to employ themselves,” Mayor Leitzell said. “In 10 years, when the federal government figures everything out, we’ll be thriving.”

TeaParty Republicans Responsible for the Shut Down of the Government, Admit It and are now Splintering Apart!

The TeaParty is running the Republican Party and they have SHUT DOWN our Government. As the saying goes, "The Inmates are Running the Asylum." The shutdown began at midnight Monday. Millions of government workers have been furloughed. Thousands of government services have been stopped.

However, the Program the Crazy Teapartiers wanted stopped rolled out Tuesday. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) (aka Obamacare) Exchanges Healthcare.gov have officially opened and millions of people are accessing the websites and enrolling in plans. ACA is the Law of the Land. It was enacted in 2010. Americans are experiencing many of the benefits of ACA now, including:
1. Insurance coverage from their Employer Healthcare Plans for their children until 26
2. Closing the donut hole for Seniors enrolled in Medicare
3. Prohibiting pre-existing conditions denials.

With the shutdown, National Parks and Monuments are closed. The employees have been furloughed and there are no security guards available to safeguard the monuments or visitors.

Today, the wacko Teaparty Republicans who led the charge in shutting down the government went to the Veterans Memorial today and removed the "Do Not Enter" Safety Tapes. Wackos like Michelle Bachmann and Louie Gohmert, the very proponents of the government shutdown, proclaimed they were not going to allow the Veterans to be turned away from these sites. Rance Priebus said the RNC (responsible for shutting down the government) would pay to keep the sites open. At the same time, they are allowing the elderly and babies to starve and wounded vets not to receive their medical services, yet -- they were taking a stand to remove the yellow tape so tourists could visit the very sites they shut down.

As if to make matters worse for the duplicitous republican party, 16 republican congressmen today said they did not stand with the Teaparty Republicans and would vote FOR a Clean CR. Also Grover Norquist spoke out today and said Ted Cruz was WRONG and was the instigator behind the shut down and was at fault for leaving Congressional Republicans high and dry.

The McClatchy poll which came out Tuesday said 72% of Americans are AGAINST the shutdown and they blame Republicans for the shutdown.  Teaparty Republican Steve King said today the Republicans WERE RESPONSIBLE for the Shut Down and would keep it going for at least 3 more weeks in order to allow the Government to Default during the Fiscal Cliff.