You may have missed it amidst all the news about the health care reform debacle, but quite a bit has happened in the past week about immigration reform. Here is a quick round up of what's been going on on immigration.
It's long been said that once health care reform was dealt with, immigration would be the next big issue to tackle. Folks have also predicted that the fight for immigration reform will be even more difficult than health care (hard to fathom). The Obama Administration had made promises to tackle the issue this year.
Representative Gutierrez introduced a comprehensive immigration reform bill last week in the House of Representatives.
Others are claiming that the bill is DOA (dead on arrival) because the House leaders are hesitant to take on such a controversial issue during an election year. The Dallas Morning News reports:
Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi quietly assured freshman Democrats and other vulnerable lawmakers that she won't allow a floor debate on immigration unless the Senate acts first. Backbenchers are frustrated at being forced to cast politically delicate votes on issues like cap-and-trade, only to see the bills stall in the Senate.
USA Today caught flack for an article about immigrant students where it referred to them as "illegal students." A campaign called USA Today Fail has been created to fight back.
Finally, a check out the Media Consortium's blog The Diaspora for more on what's happening with immigration reform.
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The Health Care Debate has shown that any timetable is subject to change at any time and to expect the unexpected. In that spirit, I don't think anyone truly knows how Immigration Reform will go forward.
One way to support comprehensive immigration reform is to contact members of congress through this poll: http://www.qwanz.com/poll/746
Everyone must be warned before coming to the United States. Even if you have a visa, you are putting yourself at risk of Homeland Security ICE officers. I have a friend that is from Paris France here on an education visa to finish his degree. He has been here since 2005. His visa is valid until March of 2010, His passport is valid until 2014, and his I-20 is current. He is not illegal. In 2008 He fell in love and married a U.S. citizen that just happens to be addicted to Prescription medications, He knew nothing about this. But he was arrested due to her mistakes. He was placed in detention, scheduled for deportation. He has been in detention center in Pompano Beach Florida for 5 months now. All this because of her mistakes. She should be the one in jail not him. Please everyone coming to America. Think twice. This couple has lost all there savings on lawyers, she lost her job, and they are in the process of losing there home. All this was caused because ICE has the wrong person in jail. They make up any story they want and when they are questioned about it you get nowhere. I have written many letters to Janet Napolitano, Senator Bill Nelson, Representative Ginny Brown-Waite and even President Obama. But no one will listen. So please people think twice about coming to America for any reason. Our immigration system is broken ….they all agree, but you put your life at risk when you enter our borders. Even if you follow the rules you may also lose everything as this couple has. No one will listen, no one cares. This man has never even had a traffic violation and is 51 yrs old. He has never worked in America has always been self supporting and took nothing from Americans social services. His American dream has turned into a night mare. Shame on America. I think it is about time someone revised this immigration and ICE practice. What is illegal in this case is the way DHS is treating this guy. John Morton and Janet N. should be ashamed of themselves. This is just wrong. While in there detention center they have abused him, denied him food and proper medical treatment. He is diabetic and they will not give him the proper food or medical attention. I think it is terrible. The phone system is very poor and not working everyday. They plan it that way so they can not contact there lawyers and family. Someone needs to stop ICE, They are totally out of control. I fear He will be next on the long list of persons that have died while in detention. Until you go to one of these detention centers and see with your own eyes, you will not believe what America is doing. I was shocked, on my first visit and after almost 6 months of seeing what happens, how they have to live. I am still in shock. Trust me it is all about money. He is in a private prison owned by a company called GEO based near Miami Fl. They are paid very well by our tax dollars, but the treatment is unbelievable. I just have to close by saying shame on America. I have seen it with my own eyes.I wonder how many people in congress have stock in this company? They are doing quite well in a bad econemy. Just watch them its called GEO on the stock market.
This won't bode well in
Bakersfield.....Believe me
cmcginnis - it is terrible what I read about those detention centers -- all for greed, to make money for the owners of the companies that run the detention centers. It's the prison industry, the same as it ever was.
This is from an entry on my blog from a few weeks ago:
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This report, released on December 2, is all about these detention centers for illegal immigrants, it goes into some detail about how many come in, how many go out, etc.
Seems like, and I'm not making any guarantees about my reading comprehension at this hour – but seems like, if you get swept up in an immigration raid, you can argue that you shouldn't be deported because ________ . But you need a hearing, so they schedule it, then they can lock you up, or let you go on temporary probation type stuff with your promise to return for your hearing. The report says that something like 90% of the people come back without a problem for their hearing.
The report says that ICE prefers the option of putting people in detention centers, but more than that, ICE transfers these people about- willy nilly – away from lawyers and family members – they will send a person from Indiana to a facility in Texas, for example, for the hearing, and the person being detained has to contact a lawyer themselves- paying a hometown lawyer to fly in, or trying to find a lawyer in the new area when they have no contacts.
The result is that something like 60% of non-citizens end up without lawyers to represent them.
It says a bit about children who either are orphans, and how they try to place them in childfriendly settings but there aren't enough of those places (thanks, conservatives, for voting against funding), or how women get more flipped out when you try to take their children away to a different facility.
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I think that the window for acting on Comprehensive Immigration Reform is getting smaller, the introduction of a but Rep. Gutierrez's introduction of a bill is a great starting gun for that debate.
Also, Rep. Gutierrez and others have been very clear that this bill (H.R. 4321)is not the bill that will be moving through Congress. It's a marker bill, so the fact that everyone is calling it DOA isn't really indicative of what kind of fight we have on our hands.
Hopefully the bill we finally do end up with will allow members to take a positive vote on immigration reform. This issue doesn't have to be a poisonous pill, in fact it can be a real wild card for the dems should they play it right. Let's hope it does.