It's a side benefit to the staged and scripted production over in Boston.
"Bombings could have impact on immigration bill; Foes say debate must include recent events" Associated Press, April 22, 2013
WASHINGTON — Two senators who helped write bipartisan immigration legislation said Sunday that the Boston Marathon bombings should expedite an overhaul of the system rather than stall it.
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said on CNN’s “State of the Union’’ that the bombings that left three dead ‘‘should urge us to act quicker, not slower when it comes to getting the 11 million identified,’’ referring to the estimated number of immigrants living in the country illegally.
Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, who also appeared on the CNN program, said keeping the status quo is not a very good argument, given what happened in Boston.
Well, giving illegals amnesty and letting slews of them in to take away American jobs isn't the way, either.
Schumer said critics are using the bombings to oppose a proposal they disliked from the start. He said that if they have suggestions to make the proposal better, they should speak up....
Well, maybe the government picked a wrong time to run a false flag up the old propaganda pole.
Some conservative commentators and congressional Republicans want to shift the focus away from economic and humanitarian concerns to border security and the potential threat from terrorists entering the country.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, the older brother suspected in the Boston bombings, had an application for US citizenship placed on hold after the FBI questioned him on potential Islamic extremist ties.
Why? The FBI said nothing turned up.
Tsarnaev, who was shot to death by police on Friday, was a legal permanent US resident.
His younger brother, Dzhokhar, 19, who is in custody, became a naturalized US citizen in 2012.
And they denied him his Miranda rights.
The Tsarnaev brothers and their two sisters came to the United States from the Russian region of Dagestan in 2002, after leaving the central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan. They followed their parents, who had been granted political asylum in the United States.
Grassley opened a hearing on the immigration legislation Friday by stressing that the issue was important ‘‘particularly in light of all that’s happening in Massachusetts right now and over the last week.’’
“Given the events of this week, it’s important for us to understand the gaps and loopholes in our immigration system,’’ Grassley said in his opening statement. ‘‘While we don’t yet know the immigration status of people who have terrorized the communities in Massachusetts, when we find out it will help shed light on the weaknesses of our system.’’
Representative Mario Diaz-Balart, Republican of Florida, who is part of a group working on similar immigration legislation in the House, criticized Grassley’s remarks. “Linking something like that to other legislation I think is probably not appropriate at this time,’’ Diaz-Balart said.
These guys are incredible down there.
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Related:
Sunday Globe Specials: Waves of Immigrants
Sunday Globe Special: H1-B Hijacking
What the Immigration Bill i$ Really About
Also see: Pet Projects Sprinkled in Immigration Bill
Again?
See: Sunday Globe Specials: Fiscal Cliff Fraud
Here's another Sunday Globe Special:
"Expand paths for legal immigration" by William F. Weld and Susan J. Cohen | April 21, 2013
It’s time for both Democrats and Republicans to recognize the many compelling reasons for overhauling our current immigration system.
Start with the economic arguments, which are overwhelming. Our high-tech visa backlog is driving Microsoft and Facebook jobs to Dublin and Vancouver. Our rules on foreign graduates in countless fields, including engineering, mathematics, and computer science, are sending young people home who would rather stay and work here. Instead of benefiting from our beacon of freedom, we are literally educating our competition, at the expense of US innovation and exports.
We have been just as shortsighted when it comes to attracting foreign entrepreneurs: Our system lacks a start-up visa for those seeking to found companies here.
Meanwhile, our annual caps on the number of all kinds of visas, from H-1B (specialty occupation) visas to permanent resident visas, are unrealistic. Many people become frustrated by the multiyear delays and give up their dream of trying to make a contribution here.
Oh, wow. I hope you checked out my links above, because both of them are furiously shoveling shit.
Over half of our agricultural workers are undocumented. In a country that prides itself on the rule of law, that’s a joke. We need a robust temporary guest worker program for farm workers....
Similarly, we need a year-round visa category for unskilled workers in fields such as health care, food service, construction, and property maintenance, and it should provide a mechanism to move from temporary to permanent status.
Americans don't want to be catering jobs, construction jobs, or lawn care jobs?
Related:
"illegal immigrants,
who mow the lawns, trim the hedges, clean the swimming pools, park the
cars, serve the hors d'oeuvres, tidy up the mansions, and do many of the other things that make life so enjoyable for the rich"
Aaaaaaaaaaah! Now we see what Weld and Cohen want and why they want it.
The wages of all these workers would be fully taxed, for the first time. Once out of the shadows, workers in legal or probationary status will be able to move from job to job, increasing their earnings. And yes, they should be free to join unions if they choose. Labor unions should no more oppose immigration reform than they should oppose an increase in the country’s population.
Beyond the economic benefits of reform, there’s another compelling reason for an immigration overhaul. Our current patchwork immigration system has all the disadvantages of “de facto legalization” for illegal immigrants, but none of the advantages.
I agree with that. Not illegal to hire an illegal?
Those 11 million undocumented workers manage to escape detection, so that’s legalization of a sort. It sure beats being deported. But they don’t get the benefit of legalizing their status, which would mean squaring their accounts with the government and being able to emerge from the shadows and strive openly to succeed here. Those 11 million people don’t all need to become US citizens. They just need to start feeling that they can advance themselves without worrying that someone might notice and report them....
There’s a third compelling reason to support reform: It would be political suicide not to....
That's not a good reason to do anything.
Conservatives who currently oppose such an overhaul should consider this: Hispanics are hard-working, patriotic, strongly committed to family, and by and large socially conservative. Fix this problem and they might well become Republican voters.
Republican congressmen, meanwhile, are committed to progrowth economic policies, hard work, self-reliance, entrepreneurship, innovation, and American exceptionalism. They are — or should be — natural supporters of a comprehensive overhaul of the US immigration system.
Given all those arguments, both sides of the aisle should be pushing for immigration reform.
Of course, they didn't present one fact. It was all conventional, agenda-pushing myths.
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NEXT DAY UPDATES:
"Fallout from bombings threatens immigration measure; Tempers flare at Senate panel hearing on bill" by Tracy Jan and Michael Kranish | Globe Staff, April 22, 2013
WASHINGTON – The fallout from the Boston Marathon bombings is threatening passage of immigration legislation, as conservative Republicans said on Capitol Hill, talk radio, and Twitter that the alleged participation of ethnic Chechen brothers shows the need for slowing down or halting the bill.
Well, you reap what you sow, lying, agenda-pu$hing pukes.
Tempers flared in a Senate hearing room on Monday when Senator Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, asserted that unnamed people are trying to use the Boston tragedy as an “excuse” to stymie the bill, prompting his colleague at the dais, Senator Charles Grassley, the Iowa Republican, to respond angrily, “I never said that, I never said that!”
We know what the excuses are used for, folks.
The outburst came after a parade of conservative commentators – many of whom have been bristling at the sight of one of their favorite Republicans, Marco Rubio of Florida, leading the call for immigration legislation – used the Boston bombing as evidence that Rubio should stand down.
Ann Coulter, who specializes in vocalizing conservative outrage, tweeted: “It’s too bad Suspect number one won’t be able to be legalized by Marco Rubio, now.” That suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, died in a shoot-out early Friday. Coulter’s comments came after radio host Rush Limbaugh, in an on-air interview with Rubio, said he couldn’t see how the legislation helps Republicans.
They aren't my voice. Coulter and Limbaugh are all part of the big show.
The flare-ups demonstrated anew how immigration remains one of the most volatile issues facing Congress, with divisions within the Republican Party barely beneath the surface, ready to bubble over with any new event.
Hey, if the agenda was so damn important then you made your bed. Now lie in it.
Supporters of the legislation sought once again Monday to play down conflicts, while Rubio took the unusual step of putting up a website dedicating to debunking what he calls “myths” about the legislation.
Wow. These guys are running scared. They KNOW no one is buying any of this.
The Boston bombing “certainly is a distraction and offers a foothold for people who don’t want this to pass,” said Ross Baker, a congressional scholar at Rutgers University who is monitoring the debate. “It would be very hard to argue to pass this thing immediately. The bombings give opponents a much more plausible reason to say, ‘Hold on, let’s wait until all the facts are known,’ which of course takes momentum out of the bill.”
Not going to find them in the Glob or any AmeriKan ma$$ media mouthpiece, although I agree that the scripted cover story that is reading like a movie script more every day is a distraction.
The Republican Party has been through a series of internal debates about the legislation since the GOP’s failed 2012 nominee, Mitt Romney, lost the presidential election. Romney had said during the campaign that undocumented immigrants should self-deport, a comment widely viewed as costing him considerable Hispanic support.
Who?
A report by the Republican National Committee said the party must find a way “to embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform.” That was followed by Republican efforts to support a compromise version of the bill, which in turn alarmed some in the party who viewed the legislation as tantamount to amnesty.
Under the latest version of the bill, most of the 11 million undocumented immigrants would be eligible to apply for a green card after 10 years and eventually could obtain citizenship after paying a fine, back taxes, learning English, and passing a criminal background check.
The bill would also nearly double the number of high-skilled visas and create a new visa program for low-skilled jobs. The Department of Homeland Security would also have to establish a tracking system to monitor those who overstay their visas.
Senator Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican and a leader of the Tea Party movement, called on Monday for Congress to focus on strengthening national security before considering comprehensive immigration reform, noting that the Marathon bombings were allegedly done by immigrant brothers from Kyrgyzstan.
“The facts emerging in the Boston Marathon bombing have exposed a weakness in our current system. If we don’t use this debate as an opportunity to fix flaws in our current system, flaws made even more evident last week, then we will not be doing our jobs,” wrote Paul, in a letter to Senate majority leader Harry Reid.
Russian authorities in 2011 had flagged Tamerlan Tsarnaev as a follower of “radical Islam” and warned the FBI, which said it investigated the man but did not find evidence of terrorist activity.
Translation: that is when they put him on the payroll.
Tamerlan, 26, had a green card but questions about his “moral character” were raised in the review of his application for citizenship. His younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, became a naturalized US citizen on Sept. 11, 2012.
The brothers are ethnic Chechens who immigrated to the United States about a decade ago from Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet Republic in central Asia. Their aunt, Maret Tsarnaeva, has said she wrote the refugee petition in April 2002 for Dzhokhar and their parents to receive asylum in the United States. Tamerlan and his two sisters joined the family later.
Paul is the latest in a string of conservative Republicans seeking to use last week’s Boston terrorist attacks to delay comprehensive immigration reform.
This is distasteful, the propaganda prism whining like this.
The Senate Judiciary Committee continued debating the bipartisan immigration bill on Monday, its second hearing following the bill’s introduction last week. The committee is expected to continue vetting the bill through May, with the full Senate slated to begin debate in June.
Plenty of time to kill it.
Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Monday accused opponents of immigration reform of using the bombings as an excuse to thwart change.
“Last week opponents of comprehensive immigration reform began to exploit the Boston Marathon,” he said as he convened Monday’s hearings. “I urge restraint in that regard.”
Like exploiting the lie of 9/11 to invade Afghanistan and Iraq?
Paul said no further changes should be made to immigration “until we understand the specific failures of our immigration system” and possibly an intelligence failure given that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had already been flagged by the FBI.
In his letter, Paul suggested temporarily suspending student visas from high-risk countries and called for heightened scrutiny before accepting refugees from such countries.
“The Senate needs a thorough examination of the facts in Massachusetts to see if legislation is necessary to prevent a similar situation in the future,” Paul said. “National security protections must be rolled into comprehensive immigration reform to make sure the federal government does everything it can to prevent immigrants with malicious intent from using our immigration system to gain entry into the United States in order to commit future acts of terror.”
It already has been.
During a Senate hearing on immigration last Friday, Grassley recommended that the Senate not rush to pass immigration reform before determining how people such as the Tsarnaev brothers “who wish to do us harm” will not stand a chance to benefit.
But House Speaker John A. Boehner, in a sign of solidarity with Rubio and other Republicans who support the bill, said on Fox News that “if we fix our immigration system it may actually help us understand who all is here, why they’re here, and what legal status they have.”
Translation: it is going through anyway.
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So the Boston bombing made Rand flip?
"Paul favors path to citizenship for illegal immigrants" Associated Press, March 20, 2013
WASHINGTON — Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky said Tuesday that illegal immigrants should be allowed to become US taxpayers and ultimately get a chance to become citizens, a significant step for the Tea Party favorite amid growing Republican acceptance of the idea.
‘‘Let’s start that conversation by acknowledging we aren’t going to deport’’ the millions already here, the potential 2016 presidential candidate told the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. ‘‘Prudence, compassion, and thrift all point us toward the same goal: bringing these workers out of the shadows and into becoming and being taxpaying members of society.’’
Except that is not what this is about.
It was the latest sign that the Republican Party is moving to broaden its appeal to politically influential Latinos and other ethnic minorities after significant election losses last fall. Paul spoke a day after a Republican National Committee report called on the GOP to support comprehensive reform, though without specifying whether it should include a pathway to citizenship, which is decried by some conservatives as amnesty.
Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of senators is nearing agreement on sweeping legislation to overhaul the nation’s immigration policy, an effort that could get a boost from Paul’s stance.
‘‘Immigration reform will not occur until conservative Republicans, like myself, become part of the solution. I am here today to begin that conversation and to be part of the solution,’’ Paul said....
Underscoring the political risks conservative Republicans face in embracing citizenship for illegal immigrants, Paul never used the word ‘‘citizenship’’ in his warmly received 17-minute speech, and aides sought to emphasize that his focus is on border security and on getting illegal immigrants into a probationary legal worker status....
Cut:
"Indeed, amid concern from GOP activists after early reports on the speech by The AP and other outlets, Paul offered different explanations of his proposal....
For Paul, there are political overtones to his newly articulated stance, since he's viewed as a potential presidential candidate and Hispanics are an increasingly important part of the electorate. Latino voters overwhelmingly backed President Barack Obama last year, helping seal his re-election, and Paul said the GOP needs to reverse that trend or risk "permanent minority status."
His speech was peppered with Spanish phrases from his youth in Texas, references to his immigrant great-grandparents and praise for Latino culture."
I guess the Globe didn't understand the Spanish.
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I'm not a Rand Paul fan, folks; I see him as nothing but a political opportunist under the cover of his father's name. Brennan still sailed through despite his filibuster.
UPDATE: Rand Paul Thinks it’s OK to use Drones to Kill U.S. Citizens on U.S. Soil (video)
Suspicions confirmed. What an asshole.
