The Approaching Tempest: Immigration Reform

by Sunnyjane

The President's Second Term Domestic Policy Agenda

Mitt Romney (R-Failed Presidential Candidate) had a Day One To Do List that would have repealed everything President Obama had fought for to make life better for the American people. Fortunately, the President won that little battle, and is going forward in his second term to continue making life better for everyone in this country.


One of those issues is Immigration Reform.  The so-called Gang of Eight is already working on a nonpartisan (ahem!) bill.  Frankly, from my point of view, this does not look promising.  I hope that I'm wrong.

Those People Actually Voted!

How dare you people exercise your right to register and vote!

The 2012 Presidential Election proved that there is no resurrection from blatant political hubris.  After disregarding, demeaning, or dismissing  every needed-to-win demographic voting bloc in the country, the Republicans' arrogance still led them to believe victory would be theirs -- in a landslide, no less.  Their thinking was, to put it mildly, somewhat flawed.   According to their thought processes, Obama had done nothing for those who Rick Santorum insisted were blahs, not blacks, whose lives he didn't want to make better by giving them someone else's money.  I must have missed that particular segment of the electorate; was there an exit poll that singled out the blahs?  No, I didn't think so.  

But what of the Latino vote?  The Republicans actually believed that their candidate could win the Latino vote after refusing to endorse the President's Dream Act; insulting them by saying that, had his father been Mexican, he'd have a better chance to get their vote; praising Arizona's severe SB1070 immigration law as a model for the rest of the country; and advising undocumented immigrants to self-deport and get in line in their own countries for American citizenship. 


Where Have All the Angry White Guys Gone?

Lord, let the angry white men rain down upon us -- and be quick about it!

Just so we're straight here, there is no truth to the rumor that the GOP-run House of Representatives is going to introduce a bill to change the bronze plaque on the Statue of Liberty to read: Give me your energetic, your rich, your white guys yearning to own guns and stamp out the brown folks... etc.

Since there are enough over-paid white men  -- and women -- flapping their yaps on anti-American far-right "news" stations to colonize New Gingrich's moon base, one has to do some head-scratching to ponder the where have they gone? question.  I suggest we just send the GOP the 2010 Census.  The angst-filled lamentations after President Obama got between seventy and seventy-eight percent of the Latino vote (figures vary according to exit polls and sponsored polls) in the November 6 election would be amusing if they weren't so damned daft. 

Ann Coulter makes no pretense of being fair and balanced in her rants.  What she does not admit, however, is that she's a loud-mouthed racist liar: frequently wrong, but never in doubt.  To far-right conservatives such as herself, research (a valuable guide to the truth) is an abomination.  Labeling immigrants from Latin America nitwits who deserve lives of misery and joblessness confirms that.  In truth, Latinos use fewer benefits to which they are entitled than do non-Hispanic whites.  Another truth Coulter refuses to acknowledge:  while calling Latinos a deluge of unskilled immigrants pouring into the country, the inconvenient fact is that, since 2000, they have created twice as many businesses as the general public.
 

Cartoon from 1850 -- Irish Immigrants Coming to America: Oh No!

Watching Bill O'Reilly mourning over the loss of traditional America is a sight to behold.  This descendent of Irish immigrants who came to America during the Eighteen Hundreds is one of the loudest critics any pathway to citizenship for Latinos.  At the time of the Irish influx into this country, Protestant whites were outraged and fearful. The Irish were stereotyped as  uncivilized, unskilled and impoverished and were forced to work at the least desired occupations and live in crowded ethnic ghettos.  Irish immigrants often found that they were not welcome in America; many ads for employment were accompanied by the order "NO IRISH NEED APPLY."    

O'Reilly is consistent in his racism, you have to give him points for that, I suppose.  He took up vital oxygen shortly after the election to ponder why Hawaii always votes Democratic.  Noting that thirty-five percent of Hawaiians are Asian, he declared that Asian people are not liberal, you know, by nature. They're usually more industrious and hard-working.  The message, of course, is twofold: Liberals and Latinos are not industrious and hard-working.  Got that?

Oh Baby, No Anchor Baby!

I'm not a racist, I just don't want "people of color" in my country!

Far-right white Christians lustily sing on Sunday mornings that Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world; red and yellow, black and white -- so long as He loves the reds, yellows and blacks in any country other than America.  

Ignoring the fact that the Supreme Court has consistently maintained that anyone born in the United States, regardless of their parents’ immigration status, should receive citizenship under the 14th Amendment,  Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa Bigot) already introduced a bill to -- wait for it -- clarify those classes of individuals born in the United States who are nationals and citizens of the United States at birth.  Translation:  White people, Citizens; Colored people, Not Citizens.

There, wasn't that easy?

End Note