Regardless of the specifics of the comprehensive immigration reform bill (which would have evolved over time) today's vote in the U.S. Senate to end the debate should be considered as the failure of the American political system to deal with the issue of immigration reform.
The 46 senators who voted "yea" clearly stated that they want to work towards a solution by voting on Senate Bill 1639 (a bill to provide for comprehensive immigration reform and for other purposes). The 53 senators who voted "nay" (including Utah's Senator Orrin Hatch) have clearly stated that illegal immigration and boarder security are not enough of a problem to deal with now. Basically they are saying, "we are unwilling to fix the problem!"
A "nay" vote was wrong if done for purely political posturing. It doesn't matter whether the bill simply was deemed too harsh on undocumented workers and their families, viewed the passage of this bill as a win for the current president, or concern about right-wing delegates who won't be happy, as Doug Wright said this morning, until every undocumented immigrant is taken to the town square and shot.
Either way the politics surrounding this issue is once again blocking any reasonable solution to a problem that the American public wants fixed.
Today's vote also proves that there are those in the Senate that are fine with the status quo, and de facto amnesty for those here illegally and those that employ them contrary to the intent of law, and lack of control at the boarder.
9 comments:
the only bill that will work is legilsation where we send them all home...NO AMNESTY.
God bless Sen Hatch.
Did anyone see "Last Comic Standing" last night? One comic brought up a strong point.
"I wonder if the Native American's wish they would have had a stronger immigration policy. Turn around cortez this isn't the new world."
Made me laugh.
I'm in agreement with you, Rob? We need to make coming here illegally as hard as possible, and make coming here legally several times more simple. You are dead on Rob - the politics surrounding this issue are blocking any reasonable solution.
I don't know why I included a question mark behind:
"I'm in agreement with you, Rob?" Maybe it was to astonishing for me to consciously bear in light of our voucher disagreements.
Thanks, maybe you could write a post about it.
:P
I have to disagree. This was a bad bill, and after the next election, when we have more Democrats in the Senate and a Democratic President, we can and will pass a better bill.
You are right in that the status quo is untenable. But this bill would have made things worse, creating a congressionally-approved permanent second-class group of people, among other things.
Unlike anonymous, I am not afraid of brown people and welcome those who want to a part of our great country (so long as they are willing work hard, obey the laws once they are here, and pay for entering/staying without permission).
We must attempt to move the ball forward on this bill. To simply let this fall through because of political posturing is only harmful to our democracy.
No matter where you fall, we can all agree that something needs to be done. Today the Senate effectively shut down any further debate until some time in the future when something changes.
I say the best way to go about immigration reform is to: a) know who is here illegally b) allow those who are here to ether chose to become citizens, become guest workers, or leave and c) make it much easier to become a citizen while cracking down on those who enter illegally.
Today our country stagnated under its own political hubris.
I too am very disappointed that the Senate has once again failed to act on our immigration problem. Though I agree with you, Dave Oldenburg, that this bill is far from ideal, I lack your optimism that a better one is on its way. I fear that the political winds are such that the brown shirts who want to shoot brown people are actually the ones drafting the agenda.
Entonces, tenemos trabajadores que quiren ser americanos, pero no puedan ser residentes de los Estados Unidos porque los elefantes no gustan los immigrantes morenos.
Parece que algunos de los burritos no tiene gusto de los morenos tampoco. Por lo menos, yo soy un elefante que quiere los Latinos mucho.
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