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In the Crossfire: is there a compromise on immigration?
Tonight on Crossfire, the President has made immigration reform one of his top priorities and it seems Republican House Speaker John Boehner might agree with him. But will conservatives let their leaders make a deal? Should they?
At 6:30pmET we have Amy Kremer of the Tea Party Express and Neera Tanden, the President of Center for American Progress joining guest host Donna Brazile and Newt Gingrich.
We want you to weigh in on tonight’s Fireback question: Do you think Congress will pass immigration reform this year?
Vote by tweeting Yes or No using #Crossfire or comment on our Facebook post. View results below or through our Poptip results page.
Meet the Hosts
Author, documentary filmmaker, historian, Speaker of the House (1995-1999), and 2012 Republican presidential candidate
Fmr. Obama Deputy Campaign Mgr. and W.H. Sr. Adviser, founder of Precision Strategies, fmr. Sr. Adviser to Maj. Leader Reid and Sen. Kennedy
Conservative columnist for New York Daily News, contributing editor at Townhall Magazine, commentator and author
Former Special Adviser for Green Jobs under President Obama, co-founder of Rebuild the Dream, author and attorney
When we sing the National Anthem the Star Spangle banner at baseball games and football games in stadiums across America, we are saying as a nation that we support open immigration for all immigrant's across the world to come to our great nation and bring their talents either by the automotive trade or medical field and making this country strong for the futures the second class American immigrant generation. America has always been a country which has been dived on the immigration issue from the Republicans to the Democrats, we need as Americans to come together to solve this issue like our health care system which now provides millions of middle class American family's with health care instead of making poor people pay for major surgeries at hospitals across this great country. As Americans we need to ask our congress leaders some tough questions, why is that we can spend millions of dollars on the latest weapons to kill terrorist's overseas, but we can't attract the best immigrant workers to America to make her a strong contender on the world industrial global market's for years to come.
Unfortunately mass immigration is a direct cause of the United States having over 20 million* of its own equally talented citizens unemployed.
Frankly the US should be concentrating on getting its current citizenry back to work and not inviting in million of foreigners each year to flood the already deeply underwater US labor market.
Why should the United States steal the talent from foreign countries when those people would be better used to raise the standard of living in their home countries?
It is not as if we are in anyway restrictive right now with immigration, in fact quite the opposite, allowing the monthly importation of 125,000* foreign workers clutching one of the alphabet soup of work visas.
To allow the unrestricted importation of foreigners into the United States as you propose would crush average incomes and consign not just our current 20 million* unemployed citizens to that status in perpetuity but most of the rest of us as well.
Lets get our own citizens back to work and let talented foreigners remain in their home countries where they can do the most good.
Support sensible immigration reform as promoted by fairus.org
*numbersusa
20 million or more criminal illegal invaders in the USA. In So. California anyone else notice that illegal Chinese move in and the neighborhood values go up but when the Mexican invaders move in the neighborhood turns into a gang infested slum?
What if all your credit/debit cards be linked to the other databases, including your immigration status, driver's license, car and health insurance card, social security card, and school ID? They would replace current credit/debit cards with an encoded chip credit/debit cards by let us say by 2015, to keep it more secured. They say there is a big problem of so many people driving on our roads with revoke driver's license and no car insurance, as well as people here in the states illegally. They say many identity thefts are made from kid's IDs as well. Now will the following new policy help catch human trafficking as well? I have no clue. Only emergency managers may know this. Then whenever you get gas, if you do not have a legal immigration status, valid driver's license or current car insurance, you get no gas. The same can be said if you were to get money out of the ATM machine. Thus, if the driver's license, social security card, immigration status, school ID does not match of the location of the use of these financial transactions, the credit/debit card will be void of use. This may help reduce this problem of identity thefts. If you do go out of town, this link to your health insurance card will help EMTs in case you need medical assistance. Perhaps to make your all-in-one card to work whenever you do go out of town, you will indicate on line where you are going. Will these “all-in-one card” help with the problems of people driving without a valid driver's license/car insurance, identity thefts, and human trafficking, I have no clue. Only emergency managers may know this.
Finally, they say out of 200 ideas, 2 may be doable. The concepts above may be one of those winning ideas to help solve many problems. If this concept of having your credit/debit cards linked to various databases as listed above is not doable. If nothing else, this post will make you think.
The are NO new issues on border security on the states bordering Mexico. The illegal crossing are the lowest in decades, yet the Republicans just will not take off their blinders or listen to those officials on the ground on the border. They want to make border security a big issue knowing their is no problems. Why don't the new media make a trip along the border and report what they see and hear. Why do they listen to the LYING Republicans. The borders are as secure as they can get, but Republicans want to make this an issue while Obama is President. Obama has deported more illegals than any other Presidents, yet Republicans say he is not doing enough.
The is NO new issues on border security on the states bordering Mexico. The illegal crossing are the lowest in decades, yet the Republicans just will not take off their blinders or listen to those officials on the ground on the border. They want to make border security a big issue knowing their is no problems. Why don't the new media make a trip along the border and report what they see and hear. Why do they listen to the LYING Republicans. The borders are as secure as they can get, but Republicans want to make this an issue while Obama is President. Obama has deported more illegals than any other Presidents, yet Republicans say he is not doing enough.
Here's the problem.
The GOP has two branches of their party in regards to immigration. The first is the wealthy businesses who want cheap labor. They don't want amnesty because they'd then have to pay LEGAL wages to the people they were paying much less to today. But they don't care if there is a focus on deporting illegals because they know more will always come through.
The second is more working class and don't want any immigrants taking their jobs.
While the second group would support harsher penalties on hiring of illegals, the first group would not. So they settle on deportation and border security, as well as "immigrant checks" like Arizona instituted. These keep those hiring illegals still with an inexpensive workforce, and keep those who want illegals gone feeling like their party is working toward that goal.
Of course it doesn't work. Because without going after the employers, there will still be a draw for illegals to find a way across.
In reality, the working class portion of the GOP really shouldn't be afraid of amnesty. With amnesty, they'll get to compete with the current illegals for those jobs at an even wage scale... because employers will have to obey the same wage laws that are in existance for everyone else. And frankly, for most positions if they're paying the same, most employers are going to take a worker who speaks better english and is more in tune with the US culture.
Right now those jobs aren't available because they are currently filled by an ILLEGAL workforce making less then the minimum wage. Legalization of those immigrants actually opens those job opportunities to american citizens... right now they are only available for illegal immigrants.
The solution:
1. Legalize/Grant Amnesty to as many illegals as you can.
2. Change the law so that hiring illegals going forward carries huge punishments (jail time or at least gigantic punitive fines)
3. Require companies to follow employment law.
4. Legalized immigrants who are not working follow the same rules as other legal immigrants without jobs (eventually leading to deportation)
THis opens all of those jobs currently filled by illegals to US citizens. It requires you to be working to stay in the country. It keeps companies from using new illegals to continue paying below minimum wage salaries.
Competing with immigrants willing to work isn't something we should be afraid of. US citizens have all the advantages in an open competition like that. If everything else is even, the citizen will be hired more often then not. If they don't want to work as hard as the immigrant... well isn't it the GOP way to simply tell them to work harder? You know... self reliance and all that?
Life in the slow lane. My born in the usa life is on the back burner with no flame so that the eleven million illegals can continue to have my job suck up my my tax dollars to be granted first in line to all the fed. State county and city resources i may need. And now possible and most likely amnesty? What is the real story behind the stoooories? Deportation cost? Have theire countries come get them, particularly mexico! Drug industry-cartel backlash if mass deportation would occur? Oh my God, poor U.S. without that insatiable supply! and other commerce from mexico? We can do without! Us locals are already starved because our very country is being stolen from US in more ways than one. Don't get US started. Amnesty undernational. Ha! Ha! To keep from crying.
Over 20 million* US citizens are unemployed, getting good paying jobs for our own citizens should be priority1
How amnesty for illegal aliens and opening the flood gate more to allow an additional 33 million* foreign workers into the US labor market became a priority is beyond reprehensible.
The way the immigration debate has been framed is completely wrong.
Immigration should never be detrimental to the interests of the vast majority of US citizens, for at least the last 20 years it has been nothing short of catastrophic.
Excessive immigration is the chief cause of the huge unemployment problem in this country and the rampant income suppression evident to most workers.
Stop the immigration nonsense, support fair wages, join numbersusa and or fairus
*numbersusa
It's funny how illegals and their families think "reform" means amnesty. Reform means fixing the system, i.e. punishing illegals for their CRIMES and discouraging future illegal immigration.
Personally I am surprised Congress and the Senate get absolutely anything done while there are opposing parties in each entity. Why? Because none of them can go about getting the business of the American people done while the main thing in their mind is reelection. With opposing parties the only way to get things passed is through the use of compromise; and that word seems to be completely foreign to our representatives. They forget that once they are elected they have the responsibility to represent ALL their constituents, not just their party.