05/21/13 The rest of the world is learning something we’ve known for awhile: Alabama Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions is extremely and obsessively anti-immigrant. And his behavior being noticed.  During the mark-up of the Senate’s “Gang of 8″ bill, Sessions has stood out – often on his own. Dana Milbank at the Washington Post wrote: Not since [...]
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05/20/13 Today, as the Senate Judiciary Committee continues its markup of the Gang of 8 immigration bill, the committee may consider one of the most nefarious amendments filed: Ted Cruz’s amendment 3, which (as we’ve written) “would prohibit anyone who had been undocumented for any period of time ever from becoming a United States citizen in the future.  [...]
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05/20/13 If you think the Senate Judiciary Committee’s markup of the Gang of 8 bill has been intense so far, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. As the SJC moves into Titles II and III of the bill—which cover everything from E-Verify to detention policy to family immigration to agricultural workers, not to mention the path to [...]
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05/16/13 Update: According to the DRM Action Coalition, Sen. Heller is liking the Gang of 8 immigration bill so far: @americasvoice @senatorreid @sendeanheller said tday he is supportive & likes #Gangof8 proposal so far. @astrid_nv twitter.com/DRMAction/stat… — DRM Action Coalition (@DRMAction) May 16, 2013 Today on the Senate floor, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid spoke about [...]
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05/14/13 Today, one of the leading anti-immigrant voices in the country, Rep. Steve King (R-IA), hosted a press conference to rail against the Senate’s immigration reform bill. In its coverage of the event, Buzzfeed reported a “Small Turnout For Anti-“Amnesty” Leaders In Congress.” If you’re so inclined, watch the presser here. We heard something we hadn’t heard for a [...]
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05/13/13 Last week, Jason Richwine, who co-authored the deeply flawed report on the costs of immigration reform the Heritage Foundation, made big news when we learned that his 2009 dissertation was on IQ and immigration and included this: No one knows whether Hispanics will ever reach IQ parity with whites, but the prediction that new Hispanic immigrants [...]
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05/09/13 Senator Jeff Sessions has established himself as one of the leading opponents of immigration reform. We expect him to put on quite a show against immigration reform as markup continues over the next few weeks. Today, Sessions began challenging Chuck Schumer over aspects of the “Gang of Eight” bill. But Schumer was having none of [...]
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05/08/13 As the mark-up of the Senate immigration begins in the Judiciary Committee tomorrow, advocates for reform got some very significant news today on the economic benefits of the bill. Via the WSJ’s Washington Wire: The Senate immigration bill will help improve Social Security’s long-term solvency and reduce the number of immigrants entering the U.S. illegally, [...]
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05/03/13 Outside of a few right-wing outlets, like National Review, Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions doesn’t have a lot of allies in his quest to stop immigration reform these days. This week, he took to the airwaves in Boston to spew his vitriol about immigrants and immigration with notorious radio host Howie Carr. In the twenty minute [...]
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05/02/13 Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid appeared at an immigration reform rally in Las Vegas. He has for years been an outspoken advocate for immigration reform – and made that clear again yesterday: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., promised Wednesday to use the power of his office to get immigration overhaul legislation through Congress. “I pledge [...]
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04/26/13 Cross-posted at Burnt Orange Report Today, The Houston Chronicle published a searing op-ed from Cesar Vargas of the DREAM Action Coalition, which targeted Texas Senator John Cornyn on immigration. At America’s Voice, we consider Cornyn to a big hypocrite on immigration, so big of a hypocrite that we even gave him an award for it. You’ll like this [...]
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04/26/13 Cross-posted at Daily Kos. This was a big week in anti-immigrant ranting for Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions (R-AL), the leader of the “Gang of Hate.” It’s becoming more and more clear that Sessions is on a mission to defeat immigration reform. You might even call it an obsession. At the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing earlier [...]
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04/22/13 Today, at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on immigration reform, the Ranking Minority member, Chuck Grassley, invited Kris Kobach, the former General Counsel of FAIR, the author of Arizona’s SB 1070, the architect of self-deportation and the immigration advisor to Mitt Romney, to testify. Senator Dick Durbin asked Kobach a series of questions about the [...]
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04/22/13 Today, former Congressman Jim Kolbe gave powerful testimony at the Senate Judiciary Committee about the need to make sure the immigration reform legislation includes all families, including his own. The “Gang of Eight” bill did not include the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA), which has the support of America’s Voice and many of our allies. From [...]
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04/22/13 Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing on the immigration reform legislation drafted by the “Gang of Eight.” As we noted in the post below, the anti-immigrant Senators, led by Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and leader of the “Gang of Hate” Jefferson Beauregard Sessions (R-AL) on the panel invited several witnesses from the Tanton [...]
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04/18/13 Yesterday, the Senate Gang of 8 introduced its long-awaited bipartisan immigration bill. Tomorrow, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold its first hearing on the bill, with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. The hearing will probably double as our first chance to see the anti-immigrant “Gang of Hate” in action on the Senate bill. [...]
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04/17/13 Some people never learn. After the 2012 elections, in which Republicans lost Hispanic voters by more than a 3-1 margin, many Republicans started coming around on immigration reform and accepting the need to move forward on legislation.  The Republican National Committee admitted the party needed to rebrand itself with Latinos and released a whole “autopsy” [...]
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04/16/13 Over the weekend, the notoriously anti-immigrant Senator from Alabama, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions (R), appeared on ABC’s “This Week” to assert his role as the leading opponent of the Senate bipartisan reform bill. As Think Progress noted, the main thrust of Sessions’ economic claim wasn’t even true – and was debunked by conservative columnist George Will [...]
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04/13/13 I can’t stop smiling! Yesterday, Senator Bob Menendez announced that he and the rest of the Senate’s bi-partisan “Gang of 8″ plan to introduce their immigration bill on Tuesday. >Most importantly, Senator Menendez said the Gang of 8′s immigration bill will have a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million Americans currently without papers. We are just [...]
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04/11/13 Colorado DREAMer Fabian Dominguez wrote a great op-ed in the Denver Post about what the Colorado ASSET bill means to him: Last month, when I sat in the gallery of the state Capitol to see the Colorado ASSET bill finally pass after 10 years of trying, it was one of the most amazing feelings in the world. [...]
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04/08/13 This next few days will be pivotal in the effort to reform immigration. There’s a major rally in front of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, April 10. And we’re expecting to see actual legislation soon–with language from both the House and Senate that includes a path to citizenship. But Ted Hesson at ABC News/Univision notes, “the path [...]
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04/02/13 Yesterday, TPM’s Benjy Sarlin took a closer look at Senator Marco Rubio’s latest delaying tactic on immigration: You’d expect Sen. Marco Rubio to be elated by the news over the weekend that labor and business groups reached a deal on a guest worker program, given that he’d identified their slow progress as one of the [...]
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03/18/13 You can’t make this stuff up. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) has been living in his anti-immigrant bubble for so long, he has no idea how much the world has changed. Further proof was provided today. On the very day that the Republican National Committee tried to distance itself from its anti-immigrant record, Senator Jefferson Beauregard [...]
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03/15/13 As we’ve mentioned many, many times, there’s growing momentum for real immigration reform. Over the past couple days, we’ve added some new allies from the environmental community. Yesterday, writing in the Los Angeles Times, Bill McKibben, the founder of 350.org and one of the leading voices in the environmental movement, issued a powerful call for [...]
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03/05/13 Last month we brought to you the story of Jessica Bravo and anti-immigrant super-hardliner Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA).  When Jessica, a DREAMer, came to Rohrabacher’s office to ask him to support immigration reform, he screamed at her that he “hate[s] illegals” and told her “now I know where you live.” The story of the sitting [...]
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02/25/13 This weekend, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and one of the key players in the effort to pass immigration reform, appeared on CNN’s State of the Union. He expressed hope that a reform bill can be passed, noting “The time is now.”  Chairman Leahy is a longtime immigration reform champion [...]
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02/22/13 This afternoon the Washington Post published an article “Immigrants, advocates grow impatient with Obama on pace of changes to laws“, which explores the frustration immigration advocates have for the Administration’s record-breaking deportations.  From the article: The anger at President Obama’s deportation polices among some of his otherwise most ardent allies could pose a surprising complication [...]
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