11/07/2013
Over in the Republican House, the establishment leaders have been quietly huddling to crank out measures of immigration non-enforcement that they hope will be attractive to the highly sought hispanic voter. The new thing is the Kid Act, a downsized DREAM Act, which would amnesty the kiddies but would not allow the young newbies to sponsor their lawbreaking parents, thereby breaking the line of chain migration based on illegality.
Remember the main argument of DREAMers has been that they are guiltless little victims, dragged as children against their will to the USA by adults. When the young foreigners arrive, however, they just happen to get a raft of benefits like free K-college education on the back of the unwilling taxpayer.
Unsurprisingly, the anti-borders zealots aren’t interested in an unduly generous amnesty for the innocent children: the leading raza types want the whole enchilada or nothing. Anti-borders forces are fully subscribed to the marxist globalist agenda, which includes extra permissiveness for designated victim classes, with special attention given to illegal alien criminals. Equality under law is not what they want, quite the opposite.
And anyway, why are Republicans bent on handing out rewards to lawbreakers just because of their age? Kids suffer all the time because of their parents’ bad choices, like the 2.7 million children with a parent in prison. Amnesty for the moppets would mean the adults had been successful in grabbing American benefits for their family through breaking the law.
In fact, deporting DREAMer types is not the end of the world for them. Mexico is improving economically with a growing middle class, where opportunities exist for ambitious young people.
In addition, turning childhood into an amnesty excuse essentially moves the goalposts of birth citizenship, the wrong interpretation of the 14th Amendment that has allowed any baby plopped out on American territory to be a citizen, which is a huge magnet. Gradual surrenders of sovereignty and law are not seen by the Marxicans as American generosity, but as weakness to be further exploited.
And while birth is an easily defined event time-wise, the definition of “children” according to amnesty hacks is flexible indeed. A 2010 version of the DREAM Act put the acceptable age at up to 35. And who would check the veracity of the age being claimed? One remembers the mature Honduran crack dealers in San Francisco who said they were teens in order to get the cushy treatment available there.
Back to the Republicans’ Kids Act — or maybe it should be called the “You must be kidding” Act:
Parent Sponsorship Stalls Kids Act, National Journal, November 3, 2013
The House Republicans’ Kids Act — a path to citizenship for undocumented youth brought here as children — has hit a stumbling block over whether those “kids” would be able to sponsor their undocumented parents for green cards after they become citizens themselves, according to people close to the negotiations. How the GOP sponsors, led by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, come down on the question could affect whether the legislation is taken seriously by Democrats and the immigrant community.
The Kids Act is viewed by many lawmakers involved in immigration talks as the fulcrum on which the entire House negotiation turns. The bill addresses the dicey question of legalization for at least one group of undocumented immigrants, and it has Republican support from rank-and-file members and party leaders. The Kids Act, combined with a border security/enforcement measure and a narrow work-visa proposal, could form the three pillars of an immigration package that would signal to Latino voters in particular that House Republicans aren’t ignoring the issue.
The problem comes when lawmakers start asking what happens to the children who eventually become citizens under the bill. Under current law, they would be allowed to sponsor family members, including parents, for green cards. That worries some Republicans who have long questioned the utility of family-based immigration in the United States. It also is of concern to any member who justifies support by saying that unauthorized immigrants brought here as children were not at fault, their parents were.
Democrats are angered by this line of reasoning, pointing out that Republicans repeatedly say they support a path to citizenship for people without papers if those people become citizens using existing law. Yet they would be changing existing law by including a provision in the Kids Act that bars these particular citizens from sponsoring their family members. What’s more, advocates say the provision would codify a basic unfairness into the concept of citizenship. Some citizens — i.e., the “kids” — would have fewer rights than others.
Some Democrats and immigrant-advocacy groups have privately told Republicans that they would happily support Cantor’s legislation if it did not touch citizenship rules. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., a leader in the bipartisan efforts to pass immigration overhaul in the House, is watching the back-and-forth on the Kids Act carefully, hoping that it could jump-start a stalled conversation on immigration. But even for Gutierrez, tinkering with existing citizen-sponsorship rights is a deal breaker. “The congressman would support the Kids Act if it is serious and the reform elements are good enough and doesn’t contain poison pills, like a prohibition on citizens sponsoring family members for legal immigration,” his spokesman, Douglas Rivlin, said in a statement.
A Kids Act that is supported only by Republicans would signal that bipartisan negotiations on immigration are essentially over for the current Congress. It is the only House bill being worked on by Republicans that addresses Democrats’ core issue on immigration, the status of undocumented immigrants. Without it, it’s hard to see anything happening.
The bipartisan opportunities for immigration reform are breaking down anyway, but a few lawmakers on both sides of the aisle don’t want to slam the door completely. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., is one of them. She declined until last week to cosponsor House Democrats’ broad immigration bill mirroring a Senate-passed measure because she wanted to keep open the possibility of bipartisan negotiations.
She says the Democrat-sponsored bill won’t make a “material difference” in the immigration debate. The bill is widely viewed as Democrats’ political tool to pressure Republicans on immigration. That narrative was put into sharper focus when the bill was unveiled by the figure who is least trustworthy to House Republicans, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.