A campaign stop on immigration
Two years ago, the issue of immigration reform jolted communities nationwide and polarized Congress. But this election season, immigration has quietly taken a back seat to other concerns, like the ongoing financial crisis and health care.
Immigration does, however, still matter to immigrants. And so Barack Obama and John McCain have finally gotten around to engaging new American communities, particularly Latinos, as a voting bloc.
Both candidates have run Spanish-language campaign ads attacking each others' stances on immigration reform. And both recently gave interviews with the influential Spanish-language television network Univision. And both have garnered criticism from all sides for being deceptive.
McCain's advertisement portrayed him as a champion of immigration-reform legislation while accusing Obama of sinking reform efforts by supporting "poison pill" amendments (translation here):
As various factchecks have pointed out, the amendments pushed by Obama and other Democrats were hardly the straw that broke the camel's back; the bill was ultimately blocked by Republican hardliners. McCain, despite his earlier support for immigration reform, ended up joining his party in suffocating the bill.
The Obama camp has also taken heat for an incendiary ad tying McCain to hard-right anti-immigrant views. The ad (translation here) attributes xenophobic language (which seems to be taken out of context) to ultra-conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh, even though McCain has previously taken a moderate stance on immigration.
In the Wall Street Journal, Limbaugh lashed out at Obama for "stoking racial antagonism." (He meanwhile tepidly defended McCain's position by pointing out that he hasn't agreed with him.)
In fact, there seemed to be more agreement, at least on the surface, between McCain and Obama on Univision, as both expressed support for reforms to legalize undocumented immigrants.
But they both drew partisan divides in their overarching attitudes toward reform. Obama criticized Republican lawmakers for "trying to stir up fear" and antipathy toward Latinos. And after distancing himself from his earlier support for a plan to build a giant border fence, McCain accused Obama of opposing free trade deals--pro-business policies that, in McCain's view will "[improve] the lives of the people of Mexico and our hemisphere, so they don't have to come to the United States of America."
The immigrants who are already in the United States, however, aren't feeling too great about being here, according to a recent Pew Hispanic Center survey. Nearly two in three Latino immigrants say "the situation of Latinos in this country is worse now than it was a year ago." Major sources of anxiety include law-enforcement crackdowns and job and housing discrimination.
Those worries are what the Republicans will contend with in seeking to dent the wide lead Obama now has among Latinos.
Blogging at the Guardian, Damarys Ocaña says the harsh anti-immigrant policies under the Bush administration may overshadow McCain's attempt to grab Latino votes:
"The Spanish ad may work on some Latino voters, but it won't be enough to sway most, who overwhelmingly decry the current administration's brutal enforcement policies, including workplace raids in which thousands of illegal workers have been rounded up and summarily dumped in detention centres to await deportation. The feds have racked up a few thousand arrests via the raids, but have wreaked untold havoc on Latino families. Parents and their US-born children have been separated due to the raids and deportations, which are covered extensively on the same Spanish-language TV networks on which McCain's ads are running. I'm betting those images are a lot more powerful."
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Comments (21)
Hey newsday staff, when are you gonna pony up some balls and admit that it's ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION American taxpayers are concerned about? Call a spade a spade for once.
What's the point of this opinion blog anyway? You know both parties is going to pander to hispanics just to get their votes meanwhile the American taxpayers get stuck with the check as always.
At least have the balls to own up to the fact that hispanics are blatantly racist because they only give a damn about illegal immigrants that are of hispanic descent. I don't see thousands of Asians marching the streets waving the flags of their nationality demanding freebies at other people's expense.
Americans are tired of being exploited and we can't afford it anymore.
What part of "solutions" don't you understand?
We are not going to deport our way out of this mess. 12 million people are here, contributing with their sweat, and they are undocumented. We will not waste 45 billion (govt. estimate) turning the U.S. into a black helicopter police state to track them down, just so we can destroy their families.
So the solution is legal status for those that are contributing, with conditions so that they pay taxes, learn English, etc. Any other tactic is just preserving the status quo.
And by the way, the status quo stinks for our country and for Latinos, and they are going to do what every other ethnic group in this country does - voter their interests and throw the Republican bums out!
Well this is all the current administration fault, i can't think of one thing that Mr. Bush has done for this country, with him it has always been "screw everyone else mentality" and that "if your not with US your against US" was truly a narrow thinking of a person who seats on that office.
Now all this is backfiring and its effecting everyone, can't think of one good thing that this administration has done, that terrorism BS that has pushed us in to war with no good end results has undermined US as a leader of the world, not to mention the "tough immigration" policy against hard working immigrants ,they are illegal because all the avenues to gain naturalization are unrealistic especially if immigrant happened to live for many years and has established a family.
If McCain wins it will be i would give no more then year then a depression like the one in 1930 . bailing out banks its not how capitalism works.If Obama wins most likely a better future for us,choice is yours !
We do not have to deport 20 million illegal’s; if we just go after the greedy businessmen that hire these illegal’s, and make it impossible for them to find work at lower wages, then they will leave of their own accord. It is already happening. Many local’s across this nation are fed up with downward effect these people cause. People are tired of the drain they cause to the taxpaying public. And what makes you think that Black and White American’s aren’t going to vote the opposite, and kick these democrat’s out of office. This issue can go both ways. I know let’s bring racism into the equasion.
We real AMERICANS don't really care what Latinos think if they are backing Illegal immigration. Keep pandering to this nonsense and keep watching the American lifestyle go down the tubes.
I feel great pity for those that come after us. Shame on us for allowing this to happen.
If they are not in this country legally kick them out. They should get no social services, no medical or anything else. We would get nothing in their country except jail time for doing what they do here. I fully agree with Rob Koz, Steve, and Felon above.
My family came here, undocumented, except for the ancestor who was brought here on a slave ship from west Africa. They proceeded to create havoc, introduced new diseases, caused great social upheaval, and oh, they also signed the Constitution, waged the revolutionary and civil wars, and looked down on the Irish, Polish, Italian, Greek, Jewish and other newcomers, in their turn. They came from England between 1650 and 1750.
The solution lies in free trade, amnesty for those who pay taxes and contribute (and most do), and immigration reform that recognizes the flatness of the world's economy. Xenophobic fears that we'll all be speaking spanish in 10 years are merely good old American fear of those who are different. Encourage education and assimilation, and watch as our lives are enriched, as they have been by the countless generations of immigrants (legal, illegal and forced) before them.
My family also came from the England, Manchester in fact, sometime just prior to the Civil War. A member of my family has fought in every war this Country has engaged in since. That gives me no more insight to this problem then anyone else, nor does it give me a better right than others to argue for or against illegal immigration.
I suppose thanks is in order for your claiming those that argue against illegal immigration are just old fashion Xenophobic Americans, and not just racist bigots. But as others have argued, even on these boards, most of the evidence shows just the opposite; that illegal immigration, now in an era of vast social programs, is a drain on the infrastructure, and those very programs created for the American poor.
What bothers me, is that it is both political parties, that have allowed this massive migration for their own perceived benefit; under the influence of lobbyist funds and special ethnic interest groups politics. Simple economic theory suggests that in a capitalist economy such as ours, the more workers available to work, the lower the wage scale, economics 101. This will not change no matter what the New York Times, or La Rasa says.
I also don’t necessarily agree with your conclusion, ala Thomas L. Freidman, that the World is Flat. When this is the only Country practicing free trade, the world is only flat for the rest of the countries importing their products into the U.S. I would be happy with a flat world, but alas, the average American workers’ world is truly shrinking.
This Government should be on the side of the average middle class worker. Both outsourcing, and illegal immigration have done the opposite. It is about time, that this Government provide incentives for American Corporations to hire American workers first, and to keep good paying jobs in this Country. I do not believe it is in the average American workers interest, to have to compete with the slave wage scale of some Vietnamese worker. And for anyone to argue the opposite is just stupidity.
Illegal Aliens are just what they are, ILLEGAL!!!!
Call your congressperson and call the presidential candidates and tell them you will vote for the other retards if they continue to pander to people that are ILLEGALLY in your country. It is easy, it takes one minute of your time and it is painless to call them and voice your frustrations.
If you do not want an amnesty tell your low life elected civil servant.
They tried an amnesty last year and the year before and it went bust because people called and wrote to their low life elected civil servant and told them NO, NO, NO, NO.......
No matter who gets elected to be the president, they are going to try again and again with an Amnesty and we will still have up to 20+ million Illegal Alien S C U M in our country.
God damn it this is our country not the governments, not La Raza's and most definitely not the Illegal Alien S C U M.
Having just come back from OUT of the country and seeing how a country actually enforces IMMIGRATION I get to come back to the 'lawlessness' of the US immigration system.
Again, NEWSDAY, we do not want ILLEGAL immigration, we are tired of you and the left wing liberal's grouping both legal and illegal into one group. They are clearly different and as such, should be spoken about differently. Legal immigrants, of which the US accepts more legal immigrants every year than any country on the face of the planet, are welcome to come here, abide by our laws, learn and speak english and make a wonderful life for yourself. THOSE that sneak/climb/swim and ignore our borders or those that over-stay their visas, quite simpley are NOT welcome!
Can we round up 20 million? Of course not, however, if we enforced our existing laws, if we PUNISHED the businesses that HIRE them they would leave on their own, or at least a HIGH percentage. ICE should be doing raids on ANY business that hires illegals, clearly they take away jobs that Americans want as was evidenet by the recent raids in Mississippi where Americans were clapping as the illegals were taken away....why were they clapping? Because for YEARS legal Americans wanted the jobs but the company only took in the slave labor (aka illegal immigrants). The very next day, LEGAL Americans lined up for those jobs...there goes the theory Americans won't do the jobs. It is clear Americans will not, and should not, do the jobs at a slave wage. The liberal left basically wants you to accept that hiring illegals at slave wages is ok???? That as long as they want to work for slave wages there is nothing wrong with that...as Americans go without jobs and lose benefits and fall down the ladder of success.
It is shameful that our elected officials no longer listen to 'We the people'..the tax-paying people and instead listen to Big Business and special interest groups. It is more shameful that La Raza (The Race) gets US tax dollars to support it's RACIST position and if this was an ALL WHITE group it would be equated to the KKK.
Those that think there is nothing wrong with ILLEGAL immigration do not think about the consequences, diseases, over-crowded schools, flooded emergency rooms all at the expense of the US taxpayer...after all, illegal aliens all think Americans are RICH and that we should pay for them.
The motto should be "ILLEGALS GO HOME" you are not welcome here unless you come here LEGALY
To all the posters that yell the same old BS about "xenophobia" and "our ancestor were immigrants" garbage let's get one thing straight, the immigrants that made this country great didn't ask for handouts at the expense of other peoples hard work.
Unlike the freeloading illegal immigrants of today, the immigrants of past didn't send the money they made back to their home countries, or marched in the streets demanding taxpayers give them what they want, or demand we speak their language.
Comparing immigrants of today is a insult to the immigrants of past that made this country what it is today.
There is no question that this illegal immigration has caused more problems than anyone could have ever imagined. With the Arizona State Illegal Immigration Law upheld in the courts last Wednesday, there is no excuse for any State not to have a State law to get rid of the ILLEGAL ALIENS.
The problems they are causing WILL NOT go away until each and every ILLEGAL ALIEN is out of this Country and back in their own country where they belong. Then, and only then, will these problems go away. America has a lot of problems right now, and ILLEGAL ALIENS do not have to be one of them.
I'm working on Delaware to get a law, and I wouldn't stop until a law is passed here.
It's time for these ILLEGAL ALIENS to pick up their ANCHORS and ship out! CLEAR ENOUGH?
I love how most people commenting here think that immigration is a cut and dry issue that can be solved with a single simple solution. Guess what? There is no single solution and until people realize that it's going to take a lot of work and a lot of input from a lot of different people, all with different concerns, the issue won't go anywhere.
To Rob Koz just because today's immigrants are not the european rejects from the past does not mean that they are not human beings. And you did not now latino voters are AMERICAN CITIZENS just like you. IDIOT!!!!!
To Rob Koz just because today's immigrants are not the European rejects from the past does not mean that they are not human beings. And you did not know latino voters are AMERICAN CITIZENS just like you. IDIOT!!!!!
Here is an excerpt from Last Weeks Rush Limbaugh Show...he was basically outlining the Mexican Immigration Laws in a Rhetorical Manor.
"Everybody's making immigration proposals these days. Let me add mine to the mix. Call it the Limbaugh Laws. First, if you emigrate to our country you have to speak the native language. You have to be a professional or an investor. No unskilled workers allowed. Also there will be no special bilingual programs in the schools with the Limbaugh Laws, no special ballots for elections, no government business will be conducted in your language, foreigners will not have the right to vote or hold political office. If you're in our country, you cannot be a burden to taxpayers. You are not entitled to welfare, food stamps, or other government goodies. You can come if you invest here an amount equal to $40,000 times the daily minimum wage. If not, stay home. But if you want to buy land it's going to be restricted. No waterfront, for instance. As a foreigner, you must relinquish individual rights to the property. And another thing, you don't have the right to protest. You're allowed no demonstrations, no foreign flag waving, no political organizing, no bad-mouthing our president or his policies. You're a foreigner, either shut your mouth or get out. And if you come here illegally, you're going to jail. You think the Limbaugh Laws are harsh? Well, every one of these laws I just mentioned are actual laws of Mexico today. That's how the Mexican government handles immigrants in their country, yet Mexicans come here illegally and protest in our streets. How do you say double standard in Spanish? How about no mas?"
Well Said Rush...lets see how long it takes Newsday to delete this...
Yoy say it will cost $45 mil to send the ILLEGALS back. So big deal. What do you think it's costing us to let them stay? While we are at it why don't we send these incompetent politicians who are stealign us blind and sitting there laughing their a-s-s-e-s off. Vote out ALL incumbents.
Round them up and send them home. As the 'host' country we should get the right to limit the number of immigrants we allow in, to review the backgrounds and health or those we approve, and require that they assimilate to the laws, customs and language of this land. Then we can all welcome the new Americans together.
Until then, send them home.
Latinos are foolish to think or vote any other way. It is their citizenship they are cheapening. Shame on our politicians for pandering to these people. Both candidates are wrong on this issue. (as is Newsday of course, and I see we have even dropped the 'undocumented' term. What?, too harsh?)
The article is factually incorrect.
John McCain voted to advance the bill for a full Senate vote.
The Senate failed by 14 votes to advance President Bush's immigration reform bill. Fifteen Democrats, representing about 30% of them, voted to kill the measure.
Newsday should fact-check their own fact-checks.
Here's an additional factcheck, just for your reference, from factcheck.org, 9/19/08:
"McCain's ad blames 'Obama and his Congressional allies' for the failure of the bill, but the truth is that it was a Republican-led filibuster that stymied it in the Senate and forced Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid to pull the bill from consideration. On the final cloture vote on June 7, 2007, not a single Republican supported cutting off debate and allowing a vote on the bill. (McCain was absent, but his vote would not have changed the outcome.)
"McCain himself credited Republican opposition for the bill's demise. 'I just think the opposition to it was very strong,' he told Congressional Quarterly Weekly in July of 2007. 'A lot of the Republican base was passionate about the issue, and they made their influence felt.'...
"...earlier, while still contending for Repubican primary votes to secure the party's nomination, McCain said that he would not vote for his own immigration legislation if it came up again."
I'm tired of the "America was built on immigrants" bulls**t. Since the days of Plymouth Rock the Dutch/Englsh propertied class tried to work the varied indigenous populations to death while stealing their land. Then while expanding westward, laws were changed to make imported West Africans and their descendants permanent slaves instead of indentured servants for 3-5 years. The "remember the Alamo" lie was for Texan farmers to bring slavery on Mexican territory. After the Civil War when the slaves were allegedly freed, the ruling class allowed immigrants from China and Europe to become the new cheap labor, since more laws were passed prohibiting blacks from getting jobs in many sections. Then to add insult to injury, these immigrants formed unions that shunned blacks in industries like coal mining, steel manufacturing, etc.