07/13/09 Three videos to watch from today's hearing and a bonus (action) video from our friends at Presente.org. First, a clip of Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI), who speaks during the opening day of Judge Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearing. Before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he challenges the popular Republican theme that a 2001 speech that Sotomayor gave on handling issues of race and gender make her a 'reverse racist'-- Watch the video.
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07/10/09 On the macro-scale, these votes do not amount to much, with the major news this week that Senator Schumer is pushing for a comprehensive immigration bill by Labor Day. Notable, however, is that the GOP will not be stopped from serving up its distinct, if empty, brand of anti-immigrant rhetoric on the Senate floor. Not to mention one which Democrats like Senator Boxer (D-CA) and Senator Klobuchar (D-MN) should know better than to endorse. On the upside, kudos to newly-minted Senator Franken (D-MN) for taking some solid first votes this week.
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07/09/09 Right now Senator Grassley and other Republicans are submitting what amount to rhetorical amendments to the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2010. These amendments would do little to nothing to enact the real reform that we need, but they would blow a lot of hot air on the immigration issue while wasting taxpayer dollars. Say no to these nasty amendments now!
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07/08/09 In terms of immigration amendments getting tacked onto seemingly unrelated matters, it's business as usual for Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Republican Senator from Alabama who introduced the E-Verify measure today, which won by a voice vote on the Senate floor. Sessions has been a strong advocate against immigration reform, appallingly calling immigrants "terrorists" and "child molesters." Sessions was recently exposed as incendiary on immigration for his ties to White supremacist, John Tanton. Just today, the Center for New Community (CNC) released a new chart identifying Tanton as the czar of the anti-immigrant network.
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07/08/09 Today the Department of Homeland Security released a statement saying that it will scrap the highly inefficient and wasteful No-Match program. This marks a huge victory for workers' rights advocates and those who exposed the program's deep flaws. Unfortunately the Department of Homeland Security also decided it would focus on expanding the highly inaccurate E-Verify program without addressing what to do with the 12 million undocumented immigrants living, working, and contributing to our nation and without charting a path to fix our nation's broken immigration system in a true, comprehensive manner.
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07/01/09 Yesterday we were happy to note that the Minnesota Supreme Court ended an 8-month epic legal dispute to determine who would represent the great state of Minnesota in the United States Senate. We were even happier to note that the newest member of the Senate and the Senate Judiciary Committee, often responsible for deciding immigration matters, appears to take a common-sense approach to the frequently-demagogued issue.
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06/29/09 "The meeting was more encouraging than that. It led to a persuasive show of unity among Republicans and Democrats. Both sides made the case for getting a comprehensive reform bill written and passed this year, or early next. Mr. Obama announced that the homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, would lead a working group of both parties and houses of Congress to do that."
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06/26/09 Yesterday, the White House hosted a meeting of bipartisan lawmakers from both chambers of Congress to begin the conversation of how to move immigration reform forward this year. Kos, founder of the progressive blog Daily Kos, reports in "Immigration reform headed for passage this year:" "Both the White House and Senate Democratic leadership have reiterated that they expect to pass meaningful immigration reform this year or early next year."
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06/25/09 THE PRESIDENT: "Hello, everybody. We have just finished what I consider to be a very productive meeting on one of the most critical issues that I think this nation faces, and that is an immigration system that is broken and needs fixing. We have members of Congress from both chambers, from parties, who have participated in the meeting and shared a range of ideas. I think the consensus is that despite our inability to get this passed over the last several years, the American people still want to see a solution in which we are tightening up our borders, or cracking down on employers who are using illegal workers in order to drive down wages -- and oftentimes mistreat those workers. And we need a effective way to recognize and legalize the status of undocumented workers who are here."
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06/25/09 This afternoon, a select, bipartisan group of Members of Congress met with President Obama at the White House to talk immigration solutions. The President summed things up this way, according to a release from the White House: "After all the demagoguery, we've got a responsible set of leaders who want to get things done."
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06/24/09 Yesterday Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) reiterated that he's got the votes to move immigration reform forward, and soon. Today MSNBC's Mark Murray reports: Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, said it was smart policy and smart politics to take up immigration reform. He noted that Obama was elected in no small part because independent voters thought he and the Democrats were best able to find solutions to challenging problems like immigration. Roll Call's Jessica Brady reports in "Schumer Says Immigration Reform Will Happen:"Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) maintained Wednesday that Congress will tackle comprehensive immigration reform this Congress, and perhaps even this year.
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06/24/09 On June 25th, President Obama is convening a bi-partisan meeting to discuss the prospects for moving on comprehensive immigration reform later this year. If he asked me about the politics of immigration reform in this economic climate, this is the memo I would send to him: "Reform advocates point to the pledge you made on the campaign trail, to make immigration reform a "top priority in my first year." Yet skeptics argue that the economic crisis makes your campaign promise moot."
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06/23/09 Just in case there was any doubt the first time around... In "Reid claims he has votes for reform," Politico's Alex Isenstadt reports: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said once again Tuesday that he has the votes to pass comprehensive immigration reform." As Thursday's White House meeting on immigration approaches, reform advocates will be looking to the President and Congress to provide a road map for getting it done.
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06/22/09 While Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has come out swinging in support of moving comprehensive immigration reform this year, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs seems equally determined to lower advocates' expectations in advance of this Thursday's big White House immigration meeting.
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06/13/09 Yesterday the White House rescheduled the immigration meeting set for next Wednesday, June 17th to the week of June 22nd. The meeting will bring together key leadership in Congress and kickoff the Adminstration's work on immigration reform. It was originally scheduled for June 8th, but was delayed as a result of the President's travel schedule abroad. The stakes are high. (But you wouldn't know it to hear the political class chatter).
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06/09/09 Another positive ruling yesterday, from the Associated Press, overturning some of the worst of the worst of the failed Bush-era immigration enforcement policy: "HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) � Federal agents violated the constitutional rights of four illegal immigrants in raids that critics say were retaliation for a New Haven program that provided ID cards to foreigners in the country illegally, a federal judge has ruled. The sweeps in New Haven on June 6, 2007, came two days after the city approved issuing identification cards to all city residents, regardless of immigration status."
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06/05/09 Yesterday Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) committed to making the reform of our nation's dysfunctional immigration system a top priority in Congress, after healthcare and energy. Well, today Cecilia Mu�oz, Director of Intergovernmental Affairs at the White House, summed up a week's worth of townhalls, testimonies, and strategy sessions with a simple message. Watch part of her keynote address to the Reform Immigration for America Summit today.
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06/03/09 It's not just the Wall Street Journal. Kos, founder of the progressive political site Daily Kos, digs into our new polling figures today: "So check it -- conventional wisdom is that tough economic times generates anti-immigrant sentiment, but these numbers are stellar. And that's just asking people about "comprehensive immigration reform". Look what happens when they are told what that actually means..."
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06/03/09 New public opinion research by Lake Research Partners showed up in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, ripping to shreds the conventional wisdom that immigration reform can't happen in a down economy: "If anything, the economic climate has actually improved the environment for immigration reform, at least as far as the public is concerned," said Celinda Lake, who heads Lake Research Partners."
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06/01/09 In case you missed it, the race-based attacks on Presiden't Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, got very, very ugly last week. NYT: "Some of Judge Sotomayor’s detractors seem uncomfortable with her Puerto Rican heritage. Tom Tancredo, a former Republican congressman, raged about her ties to the National Council of La Raza, calling it, absurdly, a “Latino K.K.K.” A writer on the National Review Web site fretted that the accent on the final syllable of Sotomayor might mean she is insufficiently assimilated."
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05/29/09 Earlier today we asked, "Will Washington Republicans Repudiate Race-based Attacks on Sotomayor?" While Tancredo has come out swinging again, even refusing to apologize on CNN, NCLR is going on the offense. They are demanding that Republican Party leadership say "enough is enough." Sign the petition! Take a stand against the politics of division and fear.
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05/29/09 Last night we reported on former Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo's attack on Judge Sotomayor, in which he called NCLR "the Latino KKK Without the Hoods..." The story spread out long and wide yesterday (The Politico, Think Progress, Huffington Post, Talking Points Memo, Daily Kos, the Colorado Independent, and more), and Rachel Maddow wasted no time in setting the record straight. Watch the video and ask yourself, why hasn't there been an apology?
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05/28/09 It's clear that immigration hardliners just can't seem to stop attacking Judge Sotomayor, the President's nominee for the highest court in the United States, on race. Tancredo calls the President's nominee a "racist" and the largest latino civil rights organization in the United States, NCLR, a quote-unquote: "Latino KKK without the hoods or the nooses." What's not clear is how these absurd and incendiary remarks help their cause one bit.
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05/28/09 This week, departing only slightly from his anti-immigrant agenda, Krikorian annointed himself a key leader in the GOP opposition to the confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Krikorian's main line of attack against Sotomayor? It wasn't about her immigration-related rulings, or even her experience or capacity as a judge. Nope, he took offense at how she pronounces her name. Seriously. Today's new report highlights five facts you should know about Krikorian.
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05/27/09 In the wake of divisive immigration wedge politics that left the GOP abandoned by Latino voters, cooler heads within the Party have called for a ceasefire and for more and better Hispanic outreach. Well, enter the Sotomayor debate: "Anything in this must-see Latino political event resembling the anti-immigrant rhetoric that has been Sessions' trademark will cost his party for years to come. Such concerns about GOP leaders among Latinos, who are only beginning to realize their enormous political potential, pose a gigantic dilemma to a Republican Party that must make inroads among Latino voters if it is to have a political future."
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05/26/09 In “First thoughts: It's Sotomayor,” MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro announce today’s historic nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, a Yale Law School graduate and Princeton undergrad who the President notes, has more experience �than anyone currently serving on the Supreme Court had when they were appointed.” Impressive stuff. None of these credentials seem to top the fact that Sotomayor is a Latina woman, however.
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05/21/09 Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration held a hearing about border policy. Its chairman, Chuck Schumer (D-NY), has declared �game on’ for immigration reform. This is the same Schumer who was architect of the Democratic takeover of the Senate, who always has his eye on what the party needs to do in order to win. As such, it takes a sledge hammer to the tired conventional wisdom that immigration reform is “too hot to handle,” and instead confirms that the time is most certainly now.
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