BlogStorms  

I thought no way.  No way would Americans embrace the scandal-ridden President for a second term.  The GOP put up war veteran Bob Dole, a fellow great on military experience, leadership and Washington politics -- oh yeah, he had a crippled arm and he was ohhhhld.

GOP deja vu all over again.  There is no way Americans will embrace an embarrassingly under-informed, inexperienced, radical lightweight like the junior Senator from Illinois.  Here comes the GOP putting up a different version of military experience, leadership and Washington politics, John McCain -- but he's just as stiff and just as old as Ole Bob.

If the war were still perceived as a threat, then security would be issue 1.  For 2008, "Change" will be issue 1 and no amount of rational thinking and no amount of Obama gaffes will get in the way of the GOP getting crushed in this election.

La Shawn has a great blog, but she is in tow with other conservatives who take great offense over Obama's claim of terrorism by ICE officials.  The link is here.

It's the comments where the action is.  I've selected from them (my comments in bold).  I have no problem with sealing borders.  My problem is the cruel treatment of low income Latino families that love this county, that earn a living (supplying work we all benefit from), and that have children born here with every right to grow up as U.S. citizens.  The new policy causes fathers to be turned over to ICE  on the slightest of infractions, leaving the children without support.  These policies also harass Latinos who are bona fide citizens, who have to continually prove their status.  There are a lot of Latinos who vote, and they will remember the cruelty Conservatives have brought them.

What upside is there to this slapping around of resident Latinos?  Are school budgets more balanced?  Welfare expenditures down?  What's the downside - we probably won't win back the House of Representatives for 20 years.  Nice trade smart guys.

#21

The current policy does terrorize the Hispanic community. In Cobb County, Georgia local police inquire on immigration status in all instances, and the US citizen children that are supported by their working fathers bear the brunt of this witch hunt. Car tag wrong? deported. Mom calls the police because dad’s drunk? deported. Car accident? deported. It’s so bad that one illegal fled the scene of a fender bender. A high speed chase ensued and a collision killed a father and son who were just driving down the road.

I am embarrassed by my fellow conservatives who have no appreciation of how this policy punishes the children who are US citizens. I see it with my own eyes, these are children who are polite, respectful, do good in school and are now without the support of their fathers. Does ICE inform them of where their father is? no. Does the father have right to legal counsel? no. If legal counsel calls ICE to intervene, will they acknowlege they even have the person? no. It’s a soviet justice system for illegals, make no mistake.

I have no problem with sealing the border and allowing no more, but the ones that are here deserve better - especially US citizen children of illegals. We are all the descendants of immigrants that came here for a better life. But conservatives need to mete out some sort of blame and punishment on illegals — they are here because they love our country and they are willing to earn a living. How miserable they’ve become because they don’t fit in the immigration quota. How many of our immigrant ancestors had to comply with a quota?

Many of the Hispanics that are here because of the Reagan amnesty are citizens and vote, and their children vote, and the US citizen children of illegals vote (if they’re old enough). Reagan endeared them; Bush tried to hold them with a guestworker program — but conservatives blasted it. Forget about getting more Hispanic vote over to the conservative side. The KGB/ICE has turned their hearts for generations.

Comment by Mark30339 — 07.14.08 @ 6:12 pm


#24

re:mark #21; Apparently you have not read the constitution recently. If you had you MIGHT understand the 14th amendment which explains how children of illegal border crossers are NOT citizens of this great country. They are actually citizens of whatever country their illegal parent is from. Do yourself a favor and at least read the source material first!

Comment by Richard — 07.14.08 @ 7:10 pm
#25

#21 Mark30339 asks us to put a human face on the illegal immigration problem. I think that we should do just that. There are lots of issues in this mare’s nest that need our thoughtful attention.

However, Mark30339 claims that we are running: “…. a soviet justice system for illegals, make no mistake.” I won’t get stuck on the hyperbole, if we can also be adult about the fact that people who are here illegally are fully aware of and responsible for their own actions.

Mark30339 paints an honest picture of some of the illegal alien situations. It is not the only picture.

Our enforcement people are not terrorists. An ICE agent has likely encountered hundreds of situations that advise him how to approach the next encounter. I doubt that an ICE agent goes to work hoping to terrorize someone or considers himself a rogue with extraordinary police power.

Part of the problem here is the heated rhetoric. A Presidential candidate talking about ICE terrorizing people is a good example of the demagogue’s art.

Comment by heliotrope — 07.14.08 @ 7:24 pm
#26

La Shawn knows the story of my wife, who is a legal immigrant from Africa. In the immigration debate legal immigrants are sometimes lumped together with illegals. I insist on the distinction.

The calls for “comprehensive immigration reform” would be funny if they were not so personally painful. Who are we kidding? The present system cannot handle the relatively small load of legal applicants it has now - it took the intervention of two different Members of Congress to get my wife’s visa and green card applications unstuck, and her story is far from unique. Now imagine dumping an addition 5 to 20 million (the precise number of illegals who would be eligible under a “reformed” system has never been made clear) onto a bureaucracy that already moves at glacial speed. Are you worried yet?

Either the immigration system will grind to a complete halt (it is barely moving now) or bureaucrats will be pressured into rubber-stamping applications to clear the titanic backlog. So if you are lucky enough to live in Central America legal residence in the US could be yours in the post-reform era by crossing a largely unguarded border and gaming the system long enough to get some harried USCIS official to sign off (Africans and Asians may have to swim an ocean or two to get here, however).

Comment by Mwalimu Daudi — 07.14.08 @ 8:04 pm
#27

>>I see it with my own eyes, these are children who are polite, respectful, do good in school and are now without the support of their fathers.>>

So…why don’t they join their fathers? Where are their mothers?

Comment by suek — 07.14.08 @ 8:48 pm
#28

Mark30339, if YOU’re embarrassed by your ‘fellow’ conservatives, just try to imagine the flip side of that coin. Your examples of “deported” are GOOD examples of what SHOULD happen to “ILLEGAL” aliens, regardless of nationality. And don’t call me LA RAZAist, because you see, I hate everyone equally.

Comment by Atom&Yves — 07.14.08 @ 9:05 pm

#29

Richard at post 24 reads the constitution with such compassion - his would not be the majority view but no Supreme Court Case has expressly put out the US born babies of illegals (so for conservatives like Richard, there’s still hope). In the meantime, 8-U.S.Code-Sec.1401 is quite clear:

Ҥ 1401. Nationals and citizens of United States at birth

The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:
(a) a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof; . . .”

A birth certificate is the practical document that establishes one’s US citizenship — now if Richard wants to amend the law to say there’s an exception for offspring of illegals, Nathan Deal is already trying - the cold heart caucus doesn’t seem to have the votes yet.

Comment by Mark30339 — 07.14.08 @ 9:43 pm</span>

My fellow conservatives have a lot of back-slapping going on with the new get tough on illegals policies cropping up everywhere.  There's just something that warms their heart about enforcing a long unenforced set of laws, human carnage notwithstanding.  I don't get the payoff, is the slap on the back worth what we are getting for slapping around the Latino community resident here?  [I'm all for sealing the borders, but we are mistreating the Latinos already here.]

WaPo has the best summary.  It sees the right's immigration stance as the gift that just keeps giving (to borrow a Rove phrase).  The article is here (but you have to pay for it).

This is my abstract:

ABSTRACT OF

Division Problem; The GOP's Ruinous Immigration Stance
The Washington Post - Washington, D.C. Author: Michael Gerson Date: Sep 19, 2007 Start Page: A.23

Author Michael Gerson states that immigration is an issue among Republicans and is used as a weapon to focus grass roots anger on the immigration problem.  Romney and Giuliani each tried to paint the other as soft on illegals.

He states that it is strange for conservatives to try a broader appeal across all demographics and simultaneously attend to this grass roots anger.  The effect is to reverse remarkable Republican gains among one of the fastest-growing groups of American voters.  G.W. Bush appealed to Latinos with a middle of the road worker policy proposal to good effect.  Dole got 21% of the Latino Vote.  Bush 2000 got 35% and in 2004 Bush and the Republican Congress got 40% -- the high water mark.  After conservatives voiced strong support for deportation policies, the party got only 30% of the Latino vote in 2006 – the year they lost both houses of Congress.  Further Hispanic media reinforces the Republicans as the party of Tom Tancredo and his harsh deportation policy proposals.

The core of Gerson’s piece is this: “I have never seen an issue where the short-term interests of Republican presidential candidates in the primaries were more starkly at odds with the long-term interests of the party itself. At least five swing states that Bush carried in 2004 are rich in Hispanic voters -- Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and Florida. Bush won Nevada by just over 20,000 votes. A substantial shift of Hispanic voters toward the Democrats in these states could make the national political map unwinable for Republicans.”

For more see Hispanics and the 2008 Election: A Swing Vote? by the Pew Hispanic Center