Immigration

Report: Immigration Reform Push To Begin This Month

/ The Old Crank

An Obama administration official has told the Huffington Post that despite the likelihood of another time-consuming fiscal confrontation with Republicans later this winter, President Obama still plans to push for immigration reform in January:

An Obama administration official said the president plans to push for immigration reform this January. The official, who spoke about legislative plans only on condition of anonymity, said that coming standoffs over deficit reduction are unlikely to drain momentum from other priorities. The White House plans to push forward quickly, not just on immigration reform but gun control laws as well.

Bu the story goes on to say that the path to an approved bill could be a long one:

Aides expect it will take about two months to write a bipartisan bill, then another few months before it goes up for a vote, possibly in June. A bipartisan group of senators are already working on a deal, although they are still in the early stages. Rep. Zoe Lofgren D-Calif. will likely lead on the Democratic side in the House. While many Republicans have expressed interest in piecemeal reform, its still unclear which of them plan to join the push.

Senate Leader on Immigration Issues Will Not Be Chairing Judiciary Committee After All

/ The Old Crank

Politico is reporting tonight that Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy is turning down the chairmanship of the Senate Appropriations Committee in order to remain as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee—which I gather comes as something of a surprise. (The Appropriations Committee spot opened up following the death of Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye.)

Leahy staying put is sort of interesting from the perspective of immigration reform, because the assumption was that California Senator Diane Feinstein would take over as Judiciary chair once Leahy moved over to Appropriations. Feinstein is a strong proponent of comprehensive immigration reform, and was the sponsor of the DREAM Act and other immigration bills in recent years.

English-Only Laws Are Divisive and Ludicrous

/ The Old Crank

Fredrick Kunkle wrote a story for The Washington Post earlier this week about a proposed English-only ordinance in Carroll County, MD. Kunkle finds it curious that English-only would be much of an issue in a county where only about 2.6% of the resident are Latino. There is no mention in the article of the recently enacted Maryland DREAM Act, and whether the controversy over that measure over the last year or so might have anything to do with the timing of this proposal.

Later in the story we learn that the ordinance wouldn’t actually do anything:

Kim Propeack, political director of CASA of Maryland, said the proposed ordinance’s only significance is its symbolism. Federal and state laws require that services they fund must be accessible in languages besides English. It’s also meaningless in the private sector, where businesses that are eager to win new customers have embraced bilingualism.

“On a policy level, this is just ludicrous,” Propeack said. “You have to wonder what they’re really trying to say.”

Two paragraphs later, we have our answer:

“Send them all back where they came from,” said store owner Shane Fitzgerald, 33.

One other point that can’t be made enough, apparently. If universal, free, English-language instruction were suddenly made available to all, and everyone who wanted to learn English enrolled tomorrow, (and plenty of people would) that would not remove the obligation to provide government services and information in multiple languages, because it actually takes some time to learn a new language. And you’d need to keep those services and information resources accessible to non-English speakers even after all your current residents have learned English, because more non-English speaking people will be coming along right behind them.

That is, unless you take the position that non-English speakers simply don’t have the same rights as those who do.

There just isn’t any remotely legitimate policy interest behind English-only laws. The government has an obligation to treat people equally and fairly, and not every one of us at any given time speaks/read/understands English. It’s pretty simple.

Most non-english speaking people want to learn English. The way to support people to do this is to invest in programs that will help them to learn. I don’t know about Carroll county, but recent reports are that Maryland has an adult education waiting list at any given time of about 1,200-2,700 people. (And a report from a few years earlier had that number at about 5,000, with the vast majority waiting for ESL services.) Waiting list numbers always underestimate the actual demand for services, because many people have given up looking, or can’t find a suitable program in their community to begin with.

h/t @JohnSegota

President Obama Expects Immigration Reform Legislation “Very Soon” After Inauguration

/ The Old Crank

Via The Washington Post‘s transcription, here is the full text of President Obama’s comments on immigration reform during his news conference yesterday. The question was posed by a Telemundo reporter. I’ve bolded the parts I thought were most interesting.

QUESTION: On immigration reform, the criticism in the past has been that you did not put forth legislation with specific ideas and send it up to the Hill. This time around, you have said again that this will be one of the top priorities for a second term. Will you, then, send legislation to the Hill? And exactly what do you envision is broad immigration reform? Does that include a legalization program?

And also, what lessons, if any, did Democrats learn from this last election and the Latino vote?

OBAMA: Well, I think what was incredibly encouraging was to see a significant increase in Latino turnout. This is the fastest-growing group in the country and, you know, historically what you’ve seen is Latino vote — vote at lower rates than the broader population. And that’s beginning to change.

You’re starting to see a sense of empowerment and civic participation that I think is going to be powerful and good for the country. And it is why I’m very confident that we can get immigration reform done. Before the election, I had given a couple of interviews where I predicted that Latino vote was going to be strong and that that would cause some reflection on the part of Republicans about their position on immigration reform. I think we’re starting to see that already.

I think that’s a positive sign. This has not historically been a partisan issue. We’ve had President Bush and John McCain and others who have supported comprehensive immigration reform in the past. So, we need to seize the moment.

And my expectation is that we get a bill introduced and we begin the process in Congress very soon after my inauguration.

OBAMA: And, in fact, some conversations I think are already beginning to take place among senators and congressmen and my staff about what would this look like. And when I say comprehensive immigration reform, it’s very similar to the outlines of previous immigration reform. I think it should include a continuation of the strong border security measures that we’ve taken. Because we have to secure our border. I think it should contain serious penalties for companies that are purposely hiring undocumented workers and — and taking advantage of them.

And I do think that there should be a pathway for legal status for those who are living in this country, are not engaged in criminal activity, are here to — simply to work. I’ve — it’s important for them to pay back taxes. It’s important for them to learn English. It’s important for them to potentially pay a fine, but to give them the avenue whereby they can resolve their legal status here in this country, I think is very important. Obviously making sure that we put into law what — the first step that we’ve taken administratively dealing with the DREAM Act kids is very important as well.

The one thing that I’m — I’m very clear about is that young people who are brought here through no fault of their own, who have gone to school here, pledged allegiance to our flag, want to serve in our military, want to go to school and contribute to our society, that they shouldn’t be under the cloud of deportation. That we should give them every opportunity to earn their citizenship. And so, you know there are other components to it, obviously. The business community continues to be concerned about getting enough high-skilled workers.

And I am a believer that if you’ve got a PhD in physics, or computer science who wants to stay here, and start a business here, we shouldn’t make it harder for them to stay here, we should try to encourage him to contribute to this society. I think that the agricultural sector, obviously has very specific concerns about making sure that they’ve got a workforce that helps deliver food to our table. So there’re gonna be a bunch of components to it, but I think whatever process we have needs to make sure border security’s strong, needs to deal with employers effectively, needs to provide a pathway for the undocumented here, needs to deal with the DREAM Act kids.

And I think that’s something that we can get done.