From the outbox of Meyer’s inbox:
No matter which side of the debate you’re on over the recently passed Arizona immigration law, you have to agree that it has put that debate front and center. Defenders of the Arizona law state that it is needed because the federal government has dropped the ball. In other words, if the congress would get this fixed they wouldn’t have to. Well, from the files of “be careful what you wish for” comes the first new immigration policy outline put forth by the democrats. You can check out the specific details of the plan here. Good news: it’s only five pages. They should get a gold star for that right? Here’s the rest of the story:
DEMOCRATS OUTLINE PLANS FOR IMMIGRATION by Carl Hulse and David M. Herszenhorn writing for the New York Times
WASHINGTON — A coalition of top Senate Democrats laid out the contours of a proposed overhaul of immigration laws on Thursday — and appealed to Republicans to join them in pursuing it — even as doubts mounted about the prospects of winning approval of legislation this year.
Under the outline of immigration changes drawn up by Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Senate Democrat, the federal government would enhance border security and create a new fraud-resistant Social Security card.
Illegal immigrants who wish to remain in this country would have to admit they had broken the law, pay back taxes and fees, and pass a criminal background check to qualify for legal residency after eight years.
“Our immigration system is broken,” the majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, said late Thursday afternoon at a packed news conference. “We’re offering this framework as an invitation, an invitation to our Republican colleagues to work with us to solve this problem that has plagued our country for too long.” Even as the Democratic senators were still speaking, President Obama issued a statement praising the proposal as “an important step,” and he warned that lack of federal action would “leave the door open to a patchwork of actions at the state and local level that are inconsistent and, as we have seen recently, often misguided.”
Mr. Obama’s statement was a reference to the tough new law recently enacted in Arizona that many Democrats view as draconian and that helped prompt Democrats to take on the immigration issue sooner than some had planned.
“What has become increasingly clear,” Mr. Obama said, “is that we can no longer wait to fix our broken immigration system, which Democrats and Republicans alike agree doesn’t work.”
The statement contrasted with comments he made to reporters a day earlier on Air Force One, in which he suggested that Congress might not have the appetite for an immigration overhaul.
At the news conference, Democratic leaders said they were presenting the legislative framework in hopes of persuading Republicans to collaborate on the issue. They are also looking to sound out skeptical Democrats to gauge the prospects for support.
House Democrats have said they will not act unless the Senate moves first.
Read the rest here:
