Monday, October 7, 2013

Fixing Immigration From the Ground Up

The immigration marches and vigils that took place across the country on Saturday, uniting tens of thousands of people in more than 40 states, were a plaintive reminder that immigration reform — remember immigration reform? — is among the many pieces of business that remain unfinished while Congress is in lockdown.
Even though the bill passed the Senate, 68 to 32, in June, then entered the abyss of the Republican-controlled House. Last week, House Democrats offered their version of the Senate bill, but House leadership refusals to allow a vote on any measure that includes possible citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants and their preference for piecemeal measures, dealing largely with enforcement.
As this standoff continues, A Democratic governor in California, Jerry Brown,
 Signed the Trust Act, a law that will make it harder for federal agents to detain and deport unauthorized Californians who are non-criminals or minor offenders and pose no threat. “We’re not using our jails as a holding vat for the immigration service,” Mr. Brown said. That same day he signed a bill to allow qualified undocumented immigrants to become licensed as lawyers.
On Thursday, he signed a bill to allow driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants, which advocates welcomed as a means to safer roads and greater economic opportunity. This followed earlier bills allowing legal permanent residents to work in polling places for elections and granting new labor rights to domestic workers, a largely immigrant work force whose members are often exploited and abused. A measure that awaits his signature would allow legal permanent residents to serve on juries. Together the bills put California far on the leading edge of expanding immigrant rights while finding humane, sensible solutions to a problem Washington refuses to solve.

This author was claiming that people in office have forgotten about Immigration reform, except one person (democratic governor in California, Jerry Brown). The governor have taken steps to insure the security of the Californian residents and those steps have gotten the illegal immigrants close to citizenship. The author has made it very clear that the House leadership does not want to take a chance of giving citizenship to 11 million undocumented immigrants.  The conclusion is valid. “President Obama is on the brink of setting an ugly record — the deportation during his time in office of two million people, of whom only a fraction are dangerous criminals. More than 100,000 people have been deported since the Senate passed its bill in June.” The Obama administration was supposed to deport less people. 

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