Immigration is another area, like the economy, where we need to frame the issue correctly. For example, I did not know until reading Heather Cox Richardson's newsletter today that President Biden submitted an immigration bill right after he took office. Yet Republicans didn't move on that, nor do they confirm judges which would help the backlog of cases. All they do is scream about the border crisis. We need to "get loud" about this too.
The easy way to deal with the border crisis is to pass a national, mandatory E-Verify. The House has just passed HR 2. I doubt the Senate will, but maybe.
The impetus for more immigration is that big business likes and excess of cheap, easily exploitable labor. In 1980, Meat Packers were Black, and they earned good middle class wages. By that decade's end, they were mostly immigrant, toiling under atrocious conditions for barely more than minimum wage. See: Back of the Hiring Line: A 200-Year History of Immigration Surges, Employer Bias, and Depression of Black Wealth.
In the HCR newsletter, I particularly liked the mentions of VP Harris' efforts regarding migrants and the causes of migration. I like that she is diligently working with small Central American nations. These efforts ring true to me; this is not a crisis limited to the US. It is international in its scope, and it is particularly a socio-political issue (including climate chaos) stemming from poor and often corrupt governments. Can you imagine the Pubbies joining in a uniform approach to this multinational problem? Well, maybe if immigration were framed as a WAR on its causes.
Yes, it is badly broken. Whose fault is that? Here is what I believe is the truth that both Democrats and Republicans refuse to acknowledge - both Democrats and Republicans are at fault over decades of refusal to address the issue, and each accuses the other of being the problem. Both are dug in and refuse to accept any legislation that addresses the claims or priorities of the other side.
Bipartisan legislation that provides solutions to America’s challenges has always required negotiated compromises incorporating elements in a solution favored by each side of a controversy. However, when both sides of a controversy are unwilling to incorporate any of the priorities of the other side compromise is impossible, and we are unable to make any progress on a solution. What happens in such situations is the problem gets worse and is even more difficult to control let alone solve.
What will it require to address our broken immigration system? Reasoned people of goodwill who will incorporate as many of each side’s priorities as possible in a compromise immigration legislative solution. It is likely that such a solution will require several rounds of such legislation as neither side is likely to get everything it desires in the first steps of addressing the problem. Is such a step-by-step set of compromise legislation to address immigration possible? Yes, of course, it is possible. Is it likely? Sadly, probably not with the current members of Congress and the American public so divided.
So what should we do?
Stop, listen, and learn. Talk about the problems, all of them. Try to examine the concerns of each side and possible effective solutions to deal with them. Find opportunities to address some, though not likely all of them. Incorporate elements favored by each side in a series of legislative steps. As this process proceeds, legislators from each side need Congressional leadership to take responsibility for educating and informing a divided public in a transparent and bipartisan manner to build public support for a series of steps. We could do that with reasoned men and women of goodwill. So let's start sending that kind of legislators to Congress.
I do believe that Biden has tried to take this approach, however, it requires the participation in the process of both sides of the aisle in Congress to accomplish anything. Will they come to the process? If not we need to send different people to get the job done.
Bruce while I agree with the sentiment of these words, need to correct some facts. We passed truly bi-partisan immigration legislation in the Senate in 2006 and 2013 and both times the House Republicans blocked it. The CIR framework was always bipartisan. Bush would have signed it in 2006 and lobbied for it. The current, antiquated, inadequate system we have is 100% the fault of GOP extremism on the issue.
Ever since the Obama admin. republicans have refused to negotiate with dems on immigration
legislation. Not only that, it’s my impression
they’ve refused to submit their own draft legislation
after Pres.Obama invited them to do so. Instead, they vote against every dem attempt to modernize
and improve our immigration system.
Pres. Biden requested money from Congress specifically for immigration issues on his first
day in office and republicans blocked it. The
only conclusion that makes sense to me is republicans are deliberately using immigration
as a tool to batter democrats politically, when it’s their own intransigence causing the problems.
One big reason people are leaving Central American
nations is because climate change has caused severe and prolonged droughts. My understanding is most families grew a lot of their own food but they can no longer do that because of droughts. My point is, it’s only going to get worse due to climate change. What would you do if you couldn’t grow enough food to feed your family and you couldn’t afford to buy food grown or imported by others?
I see no way to seriously put a dent in immigration other than to work w/Central American governments on things like how to raise food using as little water as possible. I don’t know if the Peace Core still
exists, but it or an organization like it could be key
in transitioning certain nations to raise drought resistant food and the use of solar and other green energy technology to improve their lives so they
aren’t interested in traveling to our border for a better life.
Immigration is another area, like the economy, where we need to frame the issue correctly. For example, I did not know until reading Heather Cox Richardson's newsletter today that President Biden submitted an immigration bill right after he took office. Yet Republicans didn't move on that, nor do they confirm judges which would help the backlog of cases. All they do is scream about the border crisis. We need to "get loud" about this too.
The easy way to deal with the border crisis is to pass a national, mandatory E-Verify. The House has just passed HR 2. I doubt the Senate will, but maybe.
The impetus for more immigration is that big business likes and excess of cheap, easily exploitable labor. In 1980, Meat Packers were Black, and they earned good middle class wages. By that decade's end, they were mostly immigrant, toiling under atrocious conditions for barely more than minimum wage. See: Back of the Hiring Line: A 200-Year History of Immigration Surges, Employer Bias, and Depression of Black Wealth.
In the HCR newsletter, I particularly liked the mentions of VP Harris' efforts regarding migrants and the causes of migration. I like that she is diligently working with small Central American nations. These efforts ring true to me; this is not a crisis limited to the US. It is international in its scope, and it is particularly a socio-political issue (including climate chaos) stemming from poor and often corrupt governments. Can you imagine the Pubbies joining in a uniform approach to this multinational problem? Well, maybe if immigration were framed as a WAR on its causes.
Dr. Heather Cox Richardson provided an objective summary last evening of the status of our broken immigration system at present:
https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/may-11-2023?r=6imm2&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Yes, it is badly broken. Whose fault is that? Here is what I believe is the truth that both Democrats and Republicans refuse to acknowledge - both Democrats and Republicans are at fault over decades of refusal to address the issue, and each accuses the other of being the problem. Both are dug in and refuse to accept any legislation that addresses the claims or priorities of the other side.
Bipartisan legislation that provides solutions to America’s challenges has always required negotiated compromises incorporating elements in a solution favored by each side of a controversy. However, when both sides of a controversy are unwilling to incorporate any of the priorities of the other side compromise is impossible, and we are unable to make any progress on a solution. What happens in such situations is the problem gets worse and is even more difficult to control let alone solve.
What will it require to address our broken immigration system? Reasoned people of goodwill who will incorporate as many of each side’s priorities as possible in a compromise immigration legislative solution. It is likely that such a solution will require several rounds of such legislation as neither side is likely to get everything it desires in the first steps of addressing the problem. Is such a step-by-step set of compromise legislation to address immigration possible? Yes, of course, it is possible. Is it likely? Sadly, probably not with the current members of Congress and the American public so divided.
So what should we do?
Stop, listen, and learn. Talk about the problems, all of them. Try to examine the concerns of each side and possible effective solutions to deal with them. Find opportunities to address some, though not likely all of them. Incorporate elements favored by each side in a series of legislative steps. As this process proceeds, legislators from each side need Congressional leadership to take responsibility for educating and informing a divided public in a transparent and bipartisan manner to build public support for a series of steps. We could do that with reasoned men and women of goodwill. So let's start sending that kind of legislators to Congress.
I do believe that Biden has tried to take this approach, however, it requires the participation in the process of both sides of the aisle in Congress to accomplish anything. Will they come to the process? If not we need to send different people to get the job done.
Bruce while I agree with the sentiment of these words, need to correct some facts. We passed truly bi-partisan immigration legislation in the Senate in 2006 and 2013 and both times the House Republicans blocked it. The CIR framework was always bipartisan. Bush would have signed it in 2006 and lobbied for it. The current, antiquated, inadequate system we have is 100% the fault of GOP extremism on the issue.
Ever since the Obama admin. republicans have refused to negotiate with dems on immigration
legislation. Not only that, it’s my impression
they’ve refused to submit their own draft legislation
after Pres.Obama invited them to do so. Instead, they vote against every dem attempt to modernize
and improve our immigration system.
Pres. Biden requested money from Congress specifically for immigration issues on his first
day in office and republicans blocked it. The
only conclusion that makes sense to me is republicans are deliberately using immigration
as a tool to batter democrats politically, when it’s their own intransigence causing the problems.
One big reason people are leaving Central American
nations is because climate change has caused severe and prolonged droughts. My understanding is most families grew a lot of their own food but they can no longer do that because of droughts. My point is, it’s only going to get worse due to climate change. What would you do if you couldn’t grow enough food to feed your family and you couldn’t afford to buy food grown or imported by others?
I see no way to seriously put a dent in immigration other than to work w/Central American governments on things like how to raise food using as little water as possible. I don’t know if the Peace Core still
exists, but it or an organization like it could be key
in transitioning certain nations to raise drought resistant food and the use of solar and other green energy technology to improve their lives so they
aren’t interested in traveling to our border for a better life.
Should note that I talk a lot about immigration in my presentation, With Democrats Things Get Better. Consider it another reason to check it out!
How refreshing to read a sensible editorial! Thanks for sharing.