Does Reform Have a Chance Now?

Something we have discussed in class is the chance of immigration reform passing during Congress's lame duck period.  Bill Richardson vocalized he believes that immigration policy change has a better chance of passing now than it did with the Democrat-run Congress before.  He stated that he feels Republicans might be more open towards the idea because they do not want to become a party that says no to every piece of legislation.  Despite this hope, he explained that it was legislation still had awhile to go.

I have to agree with Richardson that the chances are better.  A big reason the Dream Act failed was because it was too controversial for an election year.  Now that the election has finished, I hope that both parties have the will to create some bi-partisanship legislation that deals with immigration.

SB 1070's Effects

SB 1070 still had an affect on Latinos in Arizona, with around 100,000 leaving Arizona since the passing of the law.  It is estimated that around a forth of those moved back to Mexico, and the report did not include who was legal residents or not.  The report conducted also included that these migrations will actually hurt Arizona's economy.  The rest of the article goes on to explain SB 1070 and immigration law.

Even though many parts of SB 1070 were struck down, I feel the supporters of the bill are still reaping the benefits.  The law intended to scare illegal immigrants away, but unfortunately this report does not show how many legal residents left because of the legislation, also.  I also found it interesting that the report included an economic take on this massive migration because that is definitely an unfortunate side effect to cracking down on immigration.

Immigration and Sexism

Currently, the Supreme Court is hearing a case, where the defendant claims part of United State's Immigration Laws are gender discriminatory.  The law states U.S. citizen, unwed mothers can transfer their citizenship to their child if the child lives in the U.S. for just one year.  U.S. citizen, unwed fathers, on the other hand, need to have their child living in the U.S. for five years in order for the child to receive citizenship.  Ruben Flores-Villar is challenging this law because he was denied legal status, despite his father being a U.S. citizen.  Currently, he is claiming this law violates the 5th amendment.  The article also discusses how the justices appeared to feel with Sotomayor, Breyer, and Ginsburg appearing sympathetic.

I am not sure how this case will play out, but Chief Justice Roberts said the only way to fix this constitutionally was to "equalize" the law.  Overall, I feel the law does not make sense because it is completely biased towards mothers.  Personally, I feel it should be one year, regardless of the parent's sex.  I think it would be too difficult to move the mother's requirement up to five years.

Wrap-Up of Immigration in 2010 Midterm Elections

Here is a video from the New York Times; Lawrence Downes and David Shipley discuss how immigration has played out in this past election.




They discuss many issues that we have already covered in class.  Downes not only goes into the negativity surrounding immigration during the election, but he specifically acknowledges the extreme scare tactics that Sharron Angle used during her election.  He also discusses Obama's role, and he summarizes how Obama has made a substantial and clear stance on immigration reform but lacks in actual action.

I think this video was informative to watch from the standpoint of post-election.  I feel all these issues that have been discussed in this video and in class are unfortunately going to drop out of the pressing political discourse.  This may become beneficial to actually having something done in Washington, but it also might cause more apathy since the issue is not so pressing.

Something's Getting Done?

In the U.S., one of the biggest issues of immigration is the lack of changing the actual policy.  This is not a problem in the United Kingdom since they recently enacted a new immigration policy there.  A pivotal aspect of this legislation is to limit the amount of international students not studying in elite universities, such as Oxford and Cambridge.  As someone that did an exchange program over there with one of their standard universities, I was really disappointed to hear this piece of news.  I met some exceptional international students over at my school Leeds Met, and it is a shame that the opportunity might not be extended to them anymore.  I would be ashamed if the United States adopted a policy to lessen the amount of international students to come here and study.  I feel this kind of migration in the world is a great way for not only people to learn about different cultures, but it also helps exchange ideas and philosophies that might of not been discovered before.  I really hope the international students in the U.K. really push for the parliament to repeal this act because I do not feel this is the way to accurately address their increase in immigration.

SB1070 in Retrospect

Alia Beard Rau, from The Arizona Republic, looked into what SB1070 has done in the past three months.  Rau reports that there has been no arrests since the implementation of the law.  Along with this, not one Arizona citizen has sued an officer or police department because of not enforcing the law.  One thing to note, says Rau, is that Phoenix's law enforcement agency refused to report any arrests to the media.  I found this interesting since Apairo is responsible for that district and one of the most staunch advocates of the bill.  Also, Jan Brewer did not comment on the last three months, either.

It is interesting that the supporters of this legislation refused to comment on the last three months, and I feel it indicates some sort of defeat from those key players.  Although many portions went through after Susan Bolton's ruling, I, as an Arizonan citizen, do not even feel effected by the sections in effect.  It will be interesting to see if this law will cause any change in the next year or so because I feel if it does not, it really only functioned as a catalyst to the immigration debate for this election year.

Another "Angle"

Sharron Angle was back at it again with immigration by releasing this new ad campaign:



She first starts by stating illegal immigrants come over here and join gangs.  I am also in rhetoric class this semester, and I can already tell you she has committed two major logical fallacies in this accusation.  She has a slippery slope fallacy because she depicts this picture: illegal immigrant come here, then join violent gangs, and then cause worry to American families.  Obviously, this is a very narrow point-of-view on immigration, and it does not always follow logic.  She also commits a fallacy by making a hasty generalization that all Mexican immigrants want to join a gang and promote violence.  Again, there has been more than enough evidence that most illegal immigrants don't participate in violent, illegal activity.

She then uses the rest of this commercial to attack Harry Reid on his actions taken for illegal immigration.  Angle does not provide any sources for those accusations.  With the other aspects of this election that I have wrote on, I really feel Sharron Angle does not accurately know enough about the immigration debate to have proper public discourse on the matter.  Hopefully the voters in Nevada recognize her inconsistencies and unfounded opinions, also.