U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants to demand deportations end

Families head to D.C. to protest deportations

Several South Florida families are planning to travel to the nation's capital this week to demand an end to deportations of undocumented parents who have U.S.-born children.

BY ALFONSO CHARDY
achardy@ElNuevoHerald.com



Every night before she falls asleep, Marlene de León worries whether she'll be jarred awake the next morning by immigration agents banging on the door to deport her mother who for years has lived in Miami without papers.

The fear inspired the talented 13-year-old middle school student to write a song about deportation that has become the anthem of a contingent of U.S.-born children who will travel to Washington, D.C., this week with their undocumented parents to march in front of the White House and demand an end to deportations.

Marlene and her mother Lily de León, 48, are among dozens of families planning to board buses in Miami Tuesday for the overnight trip to Washington to take part in the 2 p.m. event Wednesday.

Nora Sándigo, executive director of Miami-based American Fraternity, is the South Florida organizer for the Washington march, which is expected to draw dozens or hundreds of other children and parents from across the country.

The majority of participants will be like Marlene and her mother -- U.S.-born children accompanied by undocumented foreign parents.

more...

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/07/25/1746539/families-head-to-dc-to-protest.html

It is a good and high-minded goal but the world has changed too much from the time it was written. It has served its purpose in making America a fully developed nation from sea to shining sea but that time has passed. You also have to consider that in the past no person would think to just enter a country without doing the legal and honorable thing of following that country's laws and regulations, getting permission in other words.

No nation can absorb unlimited numbers of unskilled laborers that also demand social services. It's not cruel or inhumane to ask that everyone follow our laws. There are probably millions of people in Asia who would love to just come here without permission and expect us to educate their children, provide health care and look the other way as they use fake social security numbers (or none at all) to take the jobs that our current citizens need to help feed their families.

Those of us who live in border states are paying the high cost of the influx of illegals more than any other states. I don't like having higher taxes, higher insurance rates and higher medical costs so some other group can get for free what the rest of us pay through the nose for.

What would that do to Dred Scott v. Sandford or Brown v. Board of Education? Don't you agree this amendment is for protection of citizens, including the children of immigrants? I'd prefer new immigration reform that allows anyone who wants it a legal, rapid path to citizenship providing all the laws are followed.

And what about the Americans in the OP? What do you suggest be done with them? Should we repeal their right to be here, too?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution, which was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.

Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), which held that blacks could not be citizens of the United States.

Its Due Process Clause prohibits state and local governments from depriving people (individual and corporate) of life, liberty, or property without certain steps being taken. This clause has been used to make most of the Bill of Rights applicable to the states, as well as to recognize substantive rights and procedural rights.

Its Equal Protection Clause requires each state to provide equal protection under the law to all people within its jurisdiction. This clause later became the basis for Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Supreme Court decision which precipitated the dismantling of racial segregation in the United States.

The amendment also includes a number of clauses dealing with the Confederacy and its officials.

Poe's Law points out that it is hard to tell parodies of fundamentalism (or, more generally, any crackpot theory) from the real thing, since they both seem equally insane. Conversely, real fundamentalism can easily be mistaken for a parody of fundamentalism. For example, some conservatives consider noted homophobe Fred Phelps to be so over-the-top that they argue he's a "deep cover liberal" trying to discredit more mainstream homophobes.


I never knew about this site; thanks for the tip!

Glad to be of help.

The point is the 14th Amendment has been changed in the past and the country is still here. I take your comment as constructive criticism, however, and would change my opinion to say that the 14th Amendment should be amended to remove the automatic citizenship clause.



Since the 14th has already been amended we simply need to gather the will to make one slight addition to it.

People are still being born in this country. No need to "amend" the rest of the 14th Amendment, especially since the racists are still with us.

dg

You could equally be accused of being racist against Africans, Cambodians, Vietnamese, Portuguese, Mongolians, Filipinos, etc.

See comment #33. Allowing one racial group unfettered entry while blocking and limiting all others is itself discriminatory.

I am for fair immigration policy. You are for one-sided discriminatory immigration policy. Who's the racist?

Your "fair" immigration policy calls for re-writing the criteria for becoming a citizen because YOU don't like Mexicans. The 14th A applies to EVERYONE born in the US, regardless of where their parents are from. I fail to see how that is "one-sided." But then, I'm not spouting off right-wing talking points for $.

dg

Your incorrect assertion that I don't like Mexicans is not only wrong but dead wrong. Before I married my wife I dated exclusively Hispanic women, most of whom were of Mexican decent. All you can come up with in defense of a discriminatory policy is to falsely accuse me of hating Mexicans. Your argument holds no water.

I quoted a statistic that clearly showed how our current lack of enforcement of immigration policy is discriminatory toward peoples of all other countries, all other races including other Hispanics not fortunate enough to share a land border with the USA. When you limit all other races but one you are effectively creating a special class among all races, a class which receives benefits that the others are denied for no fault of their own except the circumstances of their birth (their geographic location in relation to our southern border).

Your failure to see reality is of no concern to me. Your blind obedience to a perverted and discriminatory policy earns you my pity, nothing more.

Question: who do you think wanted millions of unskilled workers flooding into the country more than anyone? Answer: Raygun and his corporate thugs. Turning an intentional blind eye and a wink and a nod to the influx across the border wasn't an accident. Raygun didn't give amnesty to the first wave in order to be a kind and gentle soul. Illegal immigrants serve one purpose: to destroy the economic prospects of the Black community and to break the unions. Two right wing "birds" killed with one "stone" I'd say. They wanted to illegally deflate wages in the US. What better way to do so than with 25 million workers who will work the hardest jobs for peanuts -- and will never talk back to the "boss" because they fear deportation.

How we Democrats fell in love with Ronny Raygun's favorite union-busting policy is beyond me.

what you advocate.

these are KIDS, for gods´sake.

but they're kids who only have what they have (US citizenship) because their parents broke the law.

If my parents, on their deathbeds, revealed to me the location of the cash they stole in a bank robbery that they pulled off even before I was born, would I have the moral right to keep that money?

Here's the classic dilemma:

A woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug.

The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: "No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it." So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's store to steal the drug for his wife.

Should Heinz have broken into the store to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_dilemma

(Note: the actual answer's not important- it's how ya get there).
-------

More akin to the OP, there's a little deal I like to use (on both continents)

BOAT PEOPLE

I was just trying to make an analogy. The citizenship of those children is a direct result of the criminal behavior of their parents. Somewhere between revoking it (if that's even possible) and allowing the parents to stay just because they have citizen children is the middle ground of sending the parents to the back of the line, and allowing them the option of either finding legal relatives, friends, or even orphanage-like organizations to take the kids in, or having the kids go back to the parents's home country. Then the children could re-emigrate when they are old enough to be independent.

Here's another analogy for you: Having illegal immigrant parents claim that they have a right to stay in the US because they have children that were born in the US, is like a man who was convicted of murdering his parents asking for mercy from the judge because he's an orphan.

The answer is no, in case you need it spelled out.

I was merely suggesting that citizenship should not be automatically given. It is illegal to make a law retroactive and it would be highly problematic and IMO immoral to remove US citizenship from millions of innocent children. Pass a law or amend the 14th Amendment to remove that clause to stop the practice from the date it passes onward.

save me your sanctimony. i don´t argue with people who use the term illegals. your ignorant, uncaring attitude is quite apparent, TXLIBDEM.

save me your sanctimony. i don´t argue with people who use the term illegals. your ignorant, uncaring attitude is quite apparent, TXLIBDEM.

how much are they paying you to post here & pretend you're a liberal from Texas?

dg--a REAL liberal from Texas who thinks the 14th Amendment is fine the way it is

Are we all required to think alike on all issues? That sounds like you're a Republican, not a Democrat at all. We Democrats are proud of our big tent.

I did, however, change my opinion on repealing the 14th. I spoke hastily, mea culpa. I meant that only the portion of the 14th that grants automatic citizenship to a child born on US soil should be changed. A one sentence clarification would suffice, maybe something like: children born on US soil to a parent who is either a citizen already or is in the process of legally becoming a citizen shall be granted citizenship.

Any person who blindly supports illegal immigration is themselves discriminating against the other racial groups who cannot migrate here illegally and are limited by our current immigration policies. Why is one racial group allowed unlimited numbers of entrants to the US economy while all others are blocked entirely or are severely limited. Total legal immigration from all other countries in 2008 was approximately 1 million, while in the same year a reported 1.5 million illegal immigrants crossed into the US. There are 143 countries whose citizens may wish to have a better life by coming to the US. Why are you discriminating against all of them in favor of one racial group?

Why can't they?

How, pray tell, could a Cambodian with no money get here? How could a Mongolian?

Your logic fails even the most cursory inspection.

The Boat People.

Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

The coast guard rounds up all boat people on the water before they can get to our shores. They spend millions if not billions to keep the boat people out. It is only once they hit land that they are no longer pursued.

So if you are honestly interested in being fair, in not discriminating AGAINST the boat people that you claim to be championing, you must then be for a policy of spending equal amounts of money, billions in equipment and vehicles, and manpower each year to interdict those crossing our southern border.

But you won't do that because you are just fine with the current discriminatory policy.

I was referring to the Boat People of the early seventies-- refugees from Cambodia and Viet-Nam. THE Boat People.

However, if your presumptions about my alliance with discriminatory policy and lack of honesty are somehow denied by this point, please feel free to ignore it.

You are trying to claim that Vietnamese and Cambodian boat people were allowed unfair access to citizenship. It wasn't unfair IMO because they were escaping a dangerous regime, it was humanitarian and we've had that policy since the Vietnam war at least. Case in point, the Hmung people of Vietnam fought alongside our soldiers against the Vietcong and would have been wiped out by the regime. So we gave them LEGAL authority to come here and they were granted citizenship in thanks for their service to this country - they fought and died alongside our boys over there.

Thousands of Vietnamese and Cambodian boat people were given citizenship in the US for humanitarian reasons.



Far from supporting the current discrimination against other races, your mention of the Vietnamese Boat People supports my argument quite nicely. Thank you. They were required to GO BACK HOME and apply for legal entry into the US -- if they were deemed to be eligible to be re-settled in the US.

I thought you were referring to Cuban boat people, who are the only ones doing that nowadays. Sorry I missed your meaning.

I am claiming nothing of the sort. You do appear to read quite a lot of what isn't actually there. I was merely responding to your statement, "how, pray tell, could a Cambodian with no money get here? How could a Mongolian?" My statement simply answered that one, and only that one statement.

So you continue to miss a clear meaning, and take exception to my imaginary opposition to your position.

Might I suggest the following: Voices of Vietnamese Boat People: Nineteen Narratives of Escape and Survival by Mary Terrell Cargill and 'Boat People' Edited by Carina Hoang for a somewhat broader view than the confines of Wikipedia seems to allow you.

Do they have to pay you extra for that?

You do realize that once you give the government the okay to start tinkering with the 14th A, they can continue to tinker with it to the point they exclude you from citizenship.

And gotta love the false concern over the 143 countries whose citizens can't come to the US. Shows you know squat about human trafficking. You don't give a flip about those people; you just hate Mexicans.

dg

all you do is accuse me of being a paid typist. Attacking your opponent is a clear sign that you know you have nothing that can justify your position, you've run out of words and now you attack. For the record I'm not being paid by anyone to type here.

Please formulate a rational argument for why one race gets preferential treatment over all other races and I'll continue the discussion with you.

Is that fair enough for you? Are you capable of understanding that (since you have somehow come to the conclusion based on nothing I have said that I only favor immigrants from Mexico)?

Man, you earned your paycheck today!


dg

I pity your poor mother.

Ahem. You claim not to be favoring immigrants from Mexico yet you suggest the Dry Foot rule which is the current policy on Cuban boat people: if they can make dry land they are not deported. Let's just see how your plan works in practice then, shall we? Take immigrants from various countries as follows:

Mexico. Cost = Free, Distance to travel = 1 mile+ (walking distance)
Cuba. Cost = Must pay someone for a boat (hundreds of dollars), Distance to travel = 90 miles
Korea. Cost = Must buy a plane ticket (up to a thousand dollars), Distance to travel = 4500 miles to Hawaii, 5500 to Los Angeles

Yup. There's no built-in bias there. Totally fair to all races. Free to one group and equal to another group's annual salary. Why, you're right. I must be an idiot to think there is bias there!

isn't that what you call "racism?" Why do you favor Cubans over any other group? Is it because they primarily vote Republican? :think:

dg

that Wolverine is not also in favor of bringing in 10,000,000+ Chinese people every year too, and at least that many Filipinos at full taxpayer expense. After all, they just want to have jobs and a good life, so why shouldn't they be able to. After all people are people, and everyone deserves love and respect except for white people who were born in America and are just a bunch of racist and ignorant a-holes. The best policy for immigration is laissez-faire which makes us all better off as if by an invisible hand anything else is just racist and xenophobic.

I got no problem with that.

Your nativist "sea to shining sea" screed really pisses me off. Just a few of the outright misrepresentations:

"Unlimited numbers of unskilled laborers..." There is a large number of undocumented aliens in the country doing unskilled work, since many of our economic areas demand such labor and there is no US labor force to satisfy it (picking fruit, housekeeping, etc.). However t is also true that there is a large number of skilled professionals who simply have not been able to even GET on the miserly quota lists much less actually live long enough to get a shot at a visa.

"expect us to educate their children, provide health care and look the other way as they use fake social security numbers". Education for all without regard to immigration status is a right confirmed by the US Supreme Court. Repealing the 14th Amendment as you seem to desire would do nothing to change that. If by 'providing health care' you mean that the ondocumented worker is free to go and languish in the Emergency Room of a public hospital in order to get some type of rudimentary care, why then you're right. Who wouldn't dream of having such a lavish health plan. (You should note that most of these immigrants come from countries who have a health system which covers them, poor or not).

"Using false Social Security numbers" is a case of 'no harm, no foul'. So what if they do? These undocumented people pay in to Social Security just as everone else, but when the time comes for benefits, they cannot collect. There are estimates that Social Security holds billions of dollars from these phantom workers.

"I don't like paying higher taxes, etc. etc. ad nauseam so some other group can get for free what the rest of us pay through the nose for". 100 proof Teabag special. "Them damned furriners are gettin' the free stuff while we Murkans have to work for it"
I'd love to know just what those 'freebies' are - by law, all undocumented aliens and, even more shameful many legal residents are not eligible for most social services at all. Additionally, just as you demand services from the government in retrun for the taxes you pay, these people also pay taxes. In return they receive nothing.

You need to take your post to FreeRepublic - you'll get a warm reception there.

1. There is no US labor force to pick fruit and do housekeeping?
A. I think we both know that is a right wing talking point. You may find YOUR reception over at FreeRepublic to be warm indeed. Those jobs were being done by poor white and black workers before Raygun threw the doors wide open so what happened to those families who were relying on those jobs. Now the illegals have almost completely taken over the construction industry jobs as well. Do you honestly expect me to believe that no other Americans would like to work in construction? That is so easily disproven as to be laughable.

1.a. It is also true that there is a large number of skilled professionals who simply have not been able to even GET on the miserly quota lists much less actually live long enough to get a shot at a visa.
A. Thank you. That is all I'm saying. Anyone who knows a LEGAL immigrant to this country should be familiar with the difficulty, the time and paperwork, the expense involved in getting to come legally to the US. Yet one group of people gets unlimited entry and an eventual easy path to citizenship, this is not the first go around with this. Raygun started with amnesty in 1986. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Reform_and_Control_Act_of_1986

2. Education and Health Care costs for "undocumented" workers and their families.
A. I never brought this up. You did, but I'll answer with my honest opinion. A few years back California did a tally of the costs of illegal immigration and came up with something like $8 to $10 Billion each year in California alone. Google california cost of illegal immigration.

That cost has to be made up by someone and that someone is the taxpaying citizens of California. Those without papers go to the emergency room and receive treatment for free, the hospital doesn't even ask for a dime from them. Why don't you go to the emergency room sometime and pay cash. Find out how much it costs you. The ones using a stolen social security number cause financial ruin to the people whose number they stole. That is identity theft and it costs thousands of dollars and years to clear your credit history of these false entries. Let's have a little sensitivity towards the real victims, those whose lives and financial futures are destroyed by these crimes.

3. Stealing someone's social security number is a no harm no foul thing?
A. Not on your life. See above.

3.a. They pay in to social security.
A. Those with stolen social security numbers do, yes, but the reason businesses wanted to hire them in the first place is to reduce wages for all Americans so they ultimately decrease the money going into social security and for tax revenues. Undocumented workers have no papers and therefore work under the table. They pay no social security, no medicare contribution, no federal income tax. If the employer had, instead, hired a US citizen the state and federal government would be receiving funds from unemployment compensation insurance (you know, the thing that Rethugs fought so hard to pay the unemployed in this country), social security, medicare and income tax. So the drain on the deficit is greater than what you may think.

4. Your bigoted portrayal of residents of the south and your claim that illegals receive no services.
A. You have obviously never lived in a border state. I'm saddened that so many people are insensitive to the Billions of dollars this issue has cost, and those in the border states are paying a disproportionately high percentage of these costs. If you'd like to support legislation to share among all the states the cost burden that we have been saddled with all these years then I'll be onboard with you.

The only people denying the huge cost of illegals receiving services are Ronny Raygun's minions and the other corporate thieves who love the cheap labor and workers who keep their mouths shut.

You seem like a nice person and I'm sure you mean well. On the surface it sounds like such a humane policy, "let the illegals come here whenever they want to" and "give them citizenship." What you are forgetting is that there have been 2 or 3 rounds of this already and the only winners are the corporate thieves, union busters, and the corrupt Mexican government which taxes the money the remit back to their "home." The American worker has suffered enough in this 30 year class war that the psycho right has waged against us.

If your only response to my call for fair policies that are equally applied to all races is to insult, cast dispersions on my character, and to spout right wing talking points in support of your views then I'm not sure you're ready to discuss things rationally.

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/whats-next-arizona-efforts-repeal-14th-amendment-rights

‘Show Me Your Papers’ proponent sets new goal

"Republican Senator Russell Pearce of Arizona, the man who shepherded SB 1070 through the Arizona legislature, dubbed the ‘Show Me Your Papers’ Bill, has set his sights on an effort to gut the portion of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1868, that bestows citizenship to persons born in the United States."

"emails released by State Senator Russell Pearce reveal a rather stunning claim to his supporters: “I intend to push for an Arizona bill that would refuse to accept or issue a birth certificate that recognizes citizenship to those born to illegal aliens …"

"The most prominent United States organization leading opposition to immigration is the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). The organization has a long, contentious history of advocacy against the immigration of non Whites into the U.S."

"“To govern is to populate. Will the present majority peaceably hand over its political power to a group that is simply more fertile? As whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night or will there be an explosion?”" (We want our country back! :) )

Congressional Progressive Caucus' position on immigration reform is here: http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?ContentID=205&ParentID=0&SectionID=93&SectionTree=93&lnk=b&ItemID=203

No mention of changing the 14th Amendment.

Nice. Again I refer folks to the big tent. I don't fall lock step in line with everything the Congressional Progressive Causus says, sure, but that doesn't make me a teabagger. As a citizen of a border state I simply have a different perspective on the issue than you. We can peacefully agree to disagree on the illegal immigration issue and that's ok. If you'd like to rationally debate the issue I will explain my position as best I can. If you simply want to broad brush me into the tea loony bin just because I disagree with you then I can't help you.

As for the link you gave, it is merely a series of bullet points like "Protecting workers." What does that mean? How are they planning to protect workers? Does that mean they want to protect American citizens from losing their job due to illegal immigration? Or does that mean that they want to keep the illegals from having accidents on the job (that they took from a current US citizen). There is no mention of what they would do or how they would do it.

Raygun's wholesale importation of cheap labor was just one weapon the Rethugs and corporate zombies used to kill unions in this country, lower real wages, and keep African Americans from progressing out of poverty. What a wonderful policy to be for as a Democrat!

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

At least until he can start his own thread? :rofl:

Besides the entertainment value, just think--you wouldn't have to worry about any communists under the bed! On the other hand, you'd have to curtail all your Unamerican Activities... :rofl:

after we humiliate them they can go back and tell their friends who evil we are....:evilgrin:

:rofl:
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:puke:

nice profile.
:sarcasm:

:rofl:

Your entire outlook on this issue is based on the fact that the Communist Economic system was viable. It Wasn't, It Isn't and It Never Will Be!


Communism is fundamentaly flawed and rewards doing less in your life because you are compensated the same as those who do more.


Reagan did nothing more than force an unnatural end to a system that would have died of it's own accord if left alone.

This also caused the problems we now have with the old USSR nuclear weapons since the government fell apart quickly instead of dying back slowly.


Reagan did not defeat one missle or one bomber or one tank or one submarine or one troop or one gun. They all still existed after "the wall fell" and nothing was done to deal with the threat they still posed.



Reagan also armed Iran, which is now a terrorist state developing nuclear weapons. He also armed Ossama Bin Laden and we know how well that worked out.


Reagan did more long term damage to our nation and our planet than anyone else in recent history.


You should change your screen name and go take a serious look at what happened under that loser.

because Communism has never been tried. The USSR was state controlled Capitalism, there was no Communism there to defeat. We were able to bankrupt the USSR because they allowed us to control the value of their currency. Anyone want to guess why China isn't letting us dictate the value of THEIR currency?

Refer to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism for a definition of Communism.

Capitalism is the systematic removal of wealth from the poor and its subsequent transfer to the rich. The many boom and bust cycles are merely one tool in the arsenal of the aristocracy that they use against us. Your indoctrination into Capitalism was obviously quite successful. Brainwashing often is. I hope one day you will learn how you have been used, a puppet for the rich who pull your strings this way and that to watch you dance or twitch and squirm as their whims change.

In true Communism the workers have other motivation besides money and gathering wealth to themselves at the expense of others. In Capitalism, cash is King, money is the only motivation and the only morality. Capitalism is a perversion of the human spirit that I would wipe from the face of the Earth if I could.

End this nightmare.

More often we see that on the other side of the aisle, but hey, I guess it just goes to show....

why are you on DU again?

dg

I imagine the use of metonymy may sometimes and quite easily speak much more about the person stating it than it does for the actual metaphor itself...

ed: sp

I respect what they are trying to do but a citizen can't simply confer status to someone else.

has`t stole and goods and services from the taxpayers. her daughter seems to be a pretty dam good kid who was raised by a very caring mother.

sometimes i think we forget why we are here.

:thumbsup:

the parents of these children are undocumented, therefore not legal residents.

for their parents during his first year in office.

I wonder how many of those children will be old enough to vote in Nov. or in '12?

they old enough to be the sponsors for the parents to enter legally?

Bringing People Out of the Shadows
Barack Obama thinks it is important to document all of the undocumented people living in the United States. He proposes that we give these people provisional status and a chance to apply for citizenship if they will come forward and pay a fine. Obama does not believe that deportation is the answer, especially because these immigrants play an important role in our society.

http://us-elections.suite101.com/article.cfm/barack_obama_on_immigration

ETA: This was repeated ad nauseum on Univision, and people believed him

undocumented should be documented, there is a proposal by a candidate, and he doesn't believe deportation is the answer. If this is an accurate excerpt provided, where does it say "This is what I will do, bearing in mind that I don't write the bills, congress does that, but I can propose stuff" or words to that effect.

A pony is closer.

and then doing the opposite is perfectly acceptable. People believing his words meant something were just fantasizing with no base.


Here's more from Candidate Obama:

Obama Woos Latinos, Attacks McCain on Immigration (Update1)

``Senator McCain used to buck his party by fighting for immigration reform and I admired him for it, Obama said last night at a rally in Albuquerque. ``But when he was running for his party's nomination, he changed his tune. How can you trust him to make sure we finally solve this problem instead of using it as a wedge issue?''

``

Latino community, you hold this election in your hands,''

Obama said last night at the Albuquerque rally. The event also featured New Mexico's Bill Richardson, the country's only Hispanic governor, and comedian George Lopez. The Democrat also urged New Mexico residents to vote early.

Obama, a first-term senator from Illinois, pledged yesterday to protect the U.S. borders and crack down on employers who hire undocumented workers, while also ensuring that the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already in this country are provided a path to citizenship"

``When it was time to write his party's platform, comprehensive immigration reform never made it in,'' Obama said. ``If Senator McCain won't stand up to the opponents of reform at his own convention, how is he going to stand up for it when he's president?''

From another source:

Obama said that he admired it when McCain had bucked his party on immigration reform in the past, but said that was a stance McCain walked away from when running for president.

“When he was running for his party’s nomination, he abandoned his stance, and said he wouldn’t even support his own legislation if it came up for a vote,” Obama said to the audience. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I think it’s time for a president who won’t walk away from comprehensive immigration reform when it becomes politically unpopular.”

Wooing the key demographic, Obama told the crowd that he’s not taking one single Hispanic vote for granted this election, referencing John Kerry’s close loss in New Mexico in 2004.

“I need you. I need you to win,” Obama said in closing.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/09/obama-blasts-mc.html

Stuff like this kept playing on Spanish language networks throughout his campaign. Today's top news on Univision and Telemundo is that this is a record year for deportations. That newscliphas been playing all day. A recent poll on Univision showed that immigration regorm is the top priprity among hispanics. But perhaps Obama thinks giving hope in pretty speeches during campaing season is enough

BTW, that pony reply is really cute. Two can play that game. Next time he says how important the hispanic vote is and how much he needs it, it would be so cute to reply with "would you like a pony too?"

Another Reagan Amnesty is not on the table. Nor should another Reagan Amnesty be on the table.

Bringing People Out of the Shadows
Barack Obama thinks it is important to document all of the undocumented people living in the United States. He proposes that we give these people provisional status and a chance to apply for citizenship if they will come forward and pay a fine. Obama does not believe that deportation is the answer, especially because these immigrants play an important role in our society.

Is that clear enough for you?

to persecuting the fastest growing demographic in the nation....

turning into a voting block which could become so huge and formidable that the Democratic Party could stay in power for a generation. The immigration policies and persecution of Hispanic undocumented workers by the Bush administration drove Latinos to vote Democratic more than any other issue. The Republican Party took notice and that's why they are fighting tooth and nails against comprehensive immigration reform. They realize that if the Dems legalize millions of people it will spell disaster for them.

But now this will be remembered as the worst year (so far)of persecution against a group.

Dumb, dumb move, because this will not be forgotten.

Rewarding lawbreakers with another Reagan Amnesty would be even more foolhardy this time around than it was 25 years ago.

Instead, they should be granted legal residency and a path to citizenship.

Policy arguments are not rightly dismissed by pointing to facts about the status quo that people are trying to change. That lets the status quo justify itself.

http://www.scrippsnews.com/content/delaisla-its-time-washington-acts-immigration


I guess this is the beyond the pale idea that is supposed to make another amnesty program for up to 20 million illegals sound like a mainstream idea. Dialectic douchbaggery.

Why is it that some on the far Left are sounding more and more like far right Neocons? We've got two wars to insure bankruptcy, a bloated and unaffordable expansion of heath care, and now proposing the SPP (Security Perimeter Partnership), a Bush wet dream that was once derided as a right wing tin foil hat fantasy of the "black helicopter" variety until Vincente Fox spilled the pinto beans on Larry King.

very useful to see these threads develop and then learn whom to ignore!

and I demand an end to deportations too.

NOW.