Immigration reform foes count on House to kill the bill

[Lasher]

Source: CBS News

The introduction this week of a robust border security amendment to the Senate's immigration reform bill is likely to ensure its passage in that chamber, opponents conceded Sunday, expressing hope that the more-conservative House of Representatives will able to kill the bill when it lands in the lower chamber.

Sens. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and John Hoeven, R-N.D., unveiled a "border surge" plan on Thursday that, if adopted, would dramatically increase the resources devoted to border security under the Senate's immigration bill. The proposal would double the number of Border Patrol agents from 20,000 to 40,000, spend billions of dollars on enhanced surveillance equipment for the border, and double the amount of border fencing required by the bill, from 350 to 700 miles.

Crucially, the proposal would also require all the enhanced border security elements to be in place and operational before undocumented immigrants can receive a green card and begin trekking the path to citizenship.

In light of that amendment, foes of the comprehensive bill admitted, the bill is likely to pass the Senate, but it may yet falter in the House.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57590626/immigration-reform-foes-count-on-house-to-kill-the-bill/

[DallasNE]

1. The Hoeven-Corker Amendment Carries A $30 Billion Price Tag

And, of course, it is not paid for. Plus, it is a poison-pill Amendment because green cards and a path to citizenship cannot begin until it has been certified that the border is secure and that could take decades, making this amendment a terrible amendment.

Should this Amendment pass then the Immigration bill should be defeated as it would be worse than the current, broken law. While I could grudgingly support the wasted spending I cannot support a bill that does not contain a date certain for the path to citizenship to kick in. In fact, I think the more people learn about what the Hoeven-Corker amendment actually does the more strong opposition will become.

[elleng]

2. I don't think this is 'news,'

but pretty clear.

[pampango]

3. From Australia: The US tea party fights back on immigration

That’s a sign of how much strength the nativist element still commands in the GOP. For them, a “path to citizenship” for undocumented immigrants means rewarding the “invasion” of “illegals” from Mexico, who threaten their cherished picture of a white English-only America.

Which makes it topical that a new study of the “tea party” movement – Change They Can’t Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America, by Christopher Parker and Matt Barreto – has just been released. I haven’t seen the full version, but there’s an extensive review of it by Michael O’Donnell in the New Republic, and you can read an earlier version of the argument in this paper from 2011.

Parker and Barreto’s key finding is that opposition to Barack Obama, rather than any policy position, is the main factor uniting tea party supporters. In O’Donnell’s words:

The problem is not merely that Obama is a black man, but that he symbolizes everything that Tea Partiers dislike about the direction of the country. Thus Obama’s skin color is part of the equation, but so are his international background, his exotic-sounding name, his past work on behalf of the inner-city poor, his urban and openly intellectual affiliations, and the demographic change that he represents. As the authors put it: Tea Partiers believe that Obama is “conspiring with liberals and minorities to subvert the American way, ultimately stealing the United States from them, its rightful heirs.”

The media did a great disservice in 2009 when they took the tea party at its word and characterised it as a movement primarily about taxes, government spending and states’ rights. Tea party supporters may hold genuine views on those subjects, but clearly they are not what motivate them. No amount of concern about the deficit will impel someone to part company with reality in the way the tea partiers do. (Even the birthers are making a comeback.)

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/worldisnotenough/2013/06/24/the-tea-party-fights-back-on-immigration/

None of this is exactly news. Interesting that it is obvious even in Australia that the republican base is unhappy with the reality of the changing demographics of the US.