Immigration Issue Not Shaping Up to be the Republican Electoral Wedge Some Predicted

Nice analysis by National Immigration Forum of Florida's results.  Romney spent the day before Florida touting his endorsement of anti-immigration "expert" and former candidate Kris Kobach.  We'll see what happens on Super Tuesday after Romney spent today being endorsed by anti-immigration Congressman and former FAIR lobbyist Brian Bilbray.  Here's the full piece.

Based on exit polls provided by CNN, which included questions about immigration and ethnicity, the results of the Florida primary are further evidence that the immigration issue is not shaping up to be the wedge issue some had hoped it would be. In fact, the deportation-only approach favored by many candidates seems to be more of a liability than an asset.

The exit polls show that the deportation-only approach to immigration was favored by a minority of Republican voters (40%), with the majority (58%) selecting either a temporary legal status (29%) or a path to citizenship (29%) for immigrants in the country illegally. Gov. Romney captured 38% of these deportation-only voters, compared to Sen. McCain's 26%. Meanwhile, Sen. McCain captured a majority of the majority of voters who selected temporary or permanent legal status for immigrants here illegally.  

Posted on Friday, February 01 | 1 comments | Permalink

Luis Guitterez UNENDORSES Lipinski

Here's something you don't see everyday, a sitting member of Congress actively unendorsing another member of his own party from the neighboring distirct. 

“He cannot look past [Lipinski’s] voting record on immigration,” Gutierrez spokeswoman Rebecca Dreilinger said Thursday.

Here it is at:

Capitol Fax Blog

DownWith Tyranny

DailyKos

Posted on Friday, February 01 | 0 comments | Permalink

Illegal Immigrant Turned Surgeon

Usually I just look at Reader's Digest for the jokes, but really interesting piece last month on an illegal immigrant who became a brain surgeon.  Here saved $8,000 after one year of makin $155 a week to put himself through school.  If you do the math that means he spent about $60 of what came in and saved the rest.  Read the whole article: http://www.rd.com/stories/inspiration/illegal-immigrant-turned-brain-surgeon/P1/article.html

 

Posted on Friday, February 01 | 0 comments | Permalink

FAIR Admits that unauthorized immigrants pay taxes

Anti-immigration groups rarely, if ever admit that unauthorized immigrants pay taxes.  So i was pretty surprised to see a message from FAIR in my inbox today that talked about illegal immigrants getting a tax rebate.  It is all well and good to complain about them getting a rebate, but by making that an issue you are essentially admitting that they pay taxes in the first place.  

Here's the text of their message:

Congress Poised to Give Tax Rebates  to Illegal Aliens
Call Your Senators Now!

The economic stimulus package traveling through Congress right now does nothing to stop the IRS from issuing rebate checks to illegal aliens. Please call your Senators now and urge them to take action!

Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed H.R.5140, the economic stimulus package, by a vote of 385-35. As many of you have already learned from news outlets, the economic package includes tax rebates of $600 for individual taxpayers and $1,200 for couples. However, this package—thrown together within days—allows the IRS to send tax rebate checks to illegal aliens!

The issue stems from defining who is eligible for a tax rebate. In drafting H.R.5140, Congress left gaping loopholes. Section 101 excludes "nonresident aliens" from being eligible, but this is essentially meaningless as the IRS does not determine whether an individual is a "nonresident alien" based on his or her immigration status. Moreover, it does not address the eligibility of illegal aliens who send in tax returns using stolen or false social security numbers.

At a minimum, the IRS should be required to screen the numbers (whether individual taxpayer identification numbers (ITINs) or social security numbers (SSNs)) used to issue the checks to ensure they match the name of the taxpayer in question. If a name and number do not match, the IRS should be prohibited from issuing a tax rebate check. Senator John Ensign (R-NV) has filed an amendment to affect this change, but we do not know whether he will even be allowed to offer it. 

H.R.5140 is now in the Senate and will go through the Senate Finance Committee this afternoon. From there, Senate staffers indicate it will go quickly to the floor.  PLEASE TAKE ACTION NOW!

We urge all FAIR members, activists and friends to call their Senators now and urge them to fix the loopholes in H.R. 5140 that allow illegal aliens to get tax rebate checks. After calling your own Senators, please call the Senators who sit on the Finance Committee and urge them to take action too.

 

Posted on Wednesday, January 30 | 1 comments | Permalink

Down With Tyranny on Lipinski & immigration

Here's what Down w/ Tyranny had to say last night:

The immigrants in the campaign have recruited Immigrants List to make this campaign a national target. An e-mail fundraising request went to over 18,000 people nationally and raised an additional $14,000 for the immigrant organizing in the Pera campaign...

There has never before been this type of alliance between the progressive community, the national netroots community, and the immigrant’s rights movement to punish an anti-immigrant incumbent Congressman. Lipinski is faced with a vigorous and well financed primary. The immigrant’s rights movement has organized candidate forums; educational mailings that informed the immigrant electorate of the incumbent’s anti-immigrant record; local and national fundraising; a staffed field operation with Mexican and Muslim voter i.d. and GOTV efforts; and targeted partisan mail that held the incumbent accountable for his anti-immigrant record.

Posted on Wednesday, January 30 | 0 comments | Permalink

Dems & Immigration

Today The New York Sun ran a piece on the Clinton campaign about immigration advocates being upset with her stump line on immigration:

Anybody who committed a crime in this country or in the country they came from has to be deported immediately, with no legal process. They are immediately gone," Mrs. Clinton told a town hall meeting in Anderson, S.C., Thursday. On Wednesday, she told a crowd in North Bergen, N.J., that such criminals "absolutely" need to be deported. A day earlier, she told a rally in Salinas, Calif., that aliens with criminal records "should be deported, no questions asked..."

"It's disturbing that she would make a statement like that, that we should deport everybody without due process of law," a vice president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, David Leopold, said. "That's a very disturbing statement. This country is all about due process of law."

On the Obama front, the SF Chronicle reports that:

Sen. Barack Obama easily won the African American vote in South Carolina, but to woo California Latinos, where he is running 3-to-1 behind rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, he is taking a giant risk: spotlighting his support for the red-hot issue of granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.

It's a huge issue for Latinos, who want them. It's also a huge issue for the general electorate, which most vehemently does not. Obama's stand could come back to haunt him not only in a general election, but with other voters in California, where driver's licenses for illegal immigrants helped undo former Gov. Gray Davis.

The Chronicle report comes only days after polls showed that Senator Clinton won Nevada while carrying 64% of the state's Hispanic/Latino population.

 

Posted on Monday, January 28 | 0 comments | Permalink

Immigration fails as campaign issue

I grew up in New Bern, NC, the colonial capital of North Carolina in the district of Walter Jones Jr., a member of the anti-immigration Immigration Reform Caucus.  I was surprised to see this piece in the local paper, the Sun Journal.  Looks like the need for reform and failure of anti-immigration rhetoric is becoming clear to more and more people:

The economy pulls immigrants in to give us a working class, and a base of consumers to help support the businesses and fill the homes that resulted from a large class of baby boomers, most of whom are moving past their most consumptive and productive years.

Americans know instinctively that politicians cannot, and should not, stop an immigration tide that's pulled by the gravity of economic want and need. Most Americans know the immigrants who fix their leaking roofs and mop the floors at their children's schools. Business leaders know the immigrants who buy their goods and services, and they're thankful.

Presidential candidates will probably continue ignoring the debate, viewed as a proven campaign failure.

As a result, the country will continue with inane immigration laws that mischaracterize a legitimate reaction to economic demand as a dark and unlawful attack on our country.

Open, honest political dialogue about the causes and benefits of immigrant consumers and workers - and ways to curtail the liabilities associated with them - could be the first step in saving us from recession, or worse. Unfortunately, such conversations don't conform to the emotional and expedient nature of presidential politics. Neither, however, does tough-guy anti-immigrant talk.

Posted on Friday, January 25 | 0 comments | Permalink

Check Out American Apparel’s New Ad

One of the more interesting stories I've read recently in the NY Times.  For anyone that doesn't know, American Apparel is a clothing company based in Los Angeles, CA.  They pride themselves on making all of their clothing in America. According to the article:

American Apparel, which operates the largest garment factory in the United States, has long advocated fair treatment of workers and in the past has run ads in local publications about immigration. American Apparel went public in December, and Mr. Charney said that has allowed him to take the company’s advocacy to national outlets. He said he planned to continue to try to spark debate on the topic.

 

Posted on Friday, January 18 | 1 comments | Permalink