06/14/13 This week, the Senate began debate on the immigration reform bill. If you’ve been watching, you’re seeing just how complicated the process in the Senate can be. It’s subject to a lot of delaying tactics and procedural games. As you can imagine, opponents of reform–led by Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (R-AL)–are using every possible [...]
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06/06/13 Update: King’s amendment passed 224-201.  Seven Republicans voted no, four Democrats voted yes.  More analysis on what’s next and what this means, forthcoming. Last night, Steve King renewed his push to drive Republicans off the demographic cliff, by introducing a hateful amendment to a homeland security appropriations bill (HR 2217) that would cut off all [...]
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06/05/13 The anti-immigrant group NumbersUSA, a creation of white nationalist John Tanton, held a webcast yesterday during which a speaker admitted their full reason for opposing immigration reform—because they believe that all immigration is bad for America. The call featured Robert Rector, now of ‘I wrote a paper with a guy who thinks Hispanics have low IQs’ fame; [...]
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05/31/13 This week, longtime conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly issued a call for the Republican Party to abandon immigration reform and Hispanic outreach in favor of a strategy focused on white voters.  Talking Points Memo reports: “Phyllis Schlafly of the ‘pro-family’ group Eagle Forum called the GOP’s need to reach out to Hispanic voters a ‘great myth’ during a conservative radio program [...]
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05/30/13 Shortly after introduction of the Gang of 8 immigration reform bill this year, Senator John McCain said this about the GOP and the importance of passing immigration reform in order to attract Latino voters: “I think we can compete,” McCain said. “But if we don’t do this, we can’t begin the conversation with our Hispanic voters, and [...]
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05/30/13 A Tea Party-sponsored call last night featuring Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)’s communication director and the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector also featured an alleged “joke” about shooting Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) over her potential support for immigration reform. According to Think Progress, this is what happened when the moderator opened up the phone lines to callers: [...]
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05/29/13 Roll Call: Reid: 60 Votes on Immigration ‘Pretty Easy’ By Niels Lesniewski Wall Street Journal: Immigration Bill Slow to Stir Foes’ Passion By Miriam Jordan US News and World Report: Anti-Amnesty Groups Face Mounting Odds in Immigration Fight By Lauren Fox Bloomberg: Senate Democrats Plan June 10 Start on Immigration Bill By Kathleen Hunter Daily Kos: Dear GOP, [...]
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05/28/13 Last summer, we covered a civil rights trial against Arizona’s notorious Sheriff Joe Arpaio and allegations that he and his Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office have been discriminating against Latino drivers on the basis of race.  Last week, a federal judge officially found that the anti-immigrant practices of Arpaio and MCSO amount to the racial profiling [...]
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05/23/13 There has been a persistent myth in the immigration debate that the anti-reform side is large, powerful, and organized.  However, the 2013 immigration debate is revealing that assessment is profoundly untrue. According to Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America’s Voice: The Senate Judiciary Committee markup confirms what we already knew – this year’s reform debate is [...]
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05/23/13 Update: He’s doing it! Tom Tancredo said that he will soon officially announce his bid for Colorado Governor. From the Denver Post: Tancredo last week indicated he is strongly considering a run for governor in 2014. As of Wednesday night, Tancredo had not filed the necessary paperwork with the secretary of state’s office. Tancredo did note, however, [...]
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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 A coalition of immigration reform opponents called Ban Amnesty Now has announced a number of anti-immigrant events for tomorrow, May 21, at Senators’ offices and state capitols around the country.  They haven’t announced that 20,000 people nationwide will be participating, perhaps because that would be hard to believe considering the support their social media numbers [...]
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05/17/13 On her radio show yesterday, conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham said that immigration reform would turn the US into a “third world,” if passed. Ingraham was commenting on a clip of Marco Rubio describing the IRS news as “things you typically see in the third world.”  Ingraham added, “Well, we’re going to become 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 We’ve written several times about the growing scandal swirling around the Heritage Foundation, its deeply flawed immigration report and the disturbing views of Jason Richwine, one of the study’s authors. Perhaps most interesting is the potential for the Heritage story to taint other “think tanks” whose “scholars” also hold questionable views on minorities, immigrants, and [...]
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04/30/13 Yesterday, speaking with New Orleans radio talk show host Garland Robinette, Mark Krikorian, head of the anti-immigrant think tank Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) and the intellectual author of the “self-deportation” strategy, offered a fresh reminder why Latino voters have rejected candidates and parties who listen to him. According to a transcript and recording of [...]
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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 Edit: Steve Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies testified today as well.  That makes THREE CIS-related witnesses, and two other Tanton-network witnesses, for a total of five. Today’s Senate Judiciary committee hearing on immigration and the bill released last week will be a jam-packed event, featuring four panels filled with business owners, former elected officials, [...]
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04/19/13 The continuing events in Boston loomed large over the Senate Judiciary hearing on immigration reform and the Gang of 8’s newly released legislation today, after DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano was called away from her scheduled testimony. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), one of the Gang of 8, gave a strong opening statement discouraging spectators from linking [...]
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04/19/13 In response to inquiries regarding how the continued events in Boston may affect immigration reform, Frank Sharry, the Executive Director of America’s Voice Education Fund, issued the following statement: Our hearts go out to the people of Boston.  They have been attacked, they are under lockdown and our thoughts and prayers are with them. The [...]
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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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04/18/13 If you caught the buzz about the “Marcophone” yesterday—the false story about how the Senate immigration reform bill would grant undocumented immigrants a free cell phone—you can thank our favorite Gang of 8 member, Sen. Jeff Sessions. We like to call it WWJD—What WOULDN’T Jeff Do to try and sink immigration reform?  This week alone, [...]
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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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04/12/13 House members opposed to immigration reform are apparently so marginalized now that the leader of their own specifically designated space for hating on immigrants, the House Immigration Reform Caucus, doesn’t agree with them. Some of the most notorious anti-immigrant Republicans in the House, all with their own storied history of saying and supporting outlandish things [...]
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04/11/13 Yesterday’s “Time is Now” rally for immigration reform was a huge success, drawing as many as 100,000 immigration activists, advocates, and supporters to the Capitol lawn.  But of course, not everyone there was fighting for immigration. By our count, about 3-5 people weren’t–and they turned out to be pretty questionable.  An article at the Washington Post by [...]
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04/03/13 Update: Lamar Smith’s office has announced that he plans to keep using the term “illegal immigrant”–”and trusts the the AP will keep quoting people who do so as well.” Immigration activists and advocates yesterday were abuzz with excitement when the Associated Press announced it was dropping the use of the term “illegal immigrant.”  The change comes [...]
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