“We must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform,”

October 15, 2016 8:11 PM

Three years ago, the Republican-led House was close to reaching a compromise on immigration. This is the inside story of what went wrong. - Alec MacGillis, ProPublica

The Immigration Dilemma
Two Parties, Two Radically Different Visions on Immigration
What Comes Next After Obama's Major Immigration Loss At SCOTUS

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posted by the man of twists and turns (2 comments total)

Reading this it's absolutely heartbreaking. 36,105 racist assholes can come out to derail a process that would benefit millions of families. I really hope this election changes things. We are such a cruel country. We are vindictive to the point of letting our crops die on the vine than dare face up to the fact that we need hispanics to make our economy work just as much as they need us to make their economy work.

Mexico and the United States forever have their destinies intertwined. The second "Manifest Destiny" became official national policy it was inevitable. We can't just stick our heads in the sand with the notion that we're some equivalent to a WASP country club. The question is whether the representatives can not just extract themselves from the whim of the people that do try to maintain this delusion, but lead them with courage and say, "America is a better place with everyone in it" and have their own populace follow them.
posted by Talez at 9:25 PM on October 15, 2016 [14 favorites]

the propublica article is based on the premise that a bipartisan bill could have come out of the house with republican authors who thought Ronald fucking Reagan's immigration policy wasn't conservative enough. it's just unreal. but Macgillis is just reflecting the unchallenged belief in DC that there are no problems that don't have a sensible centrist solution.

I mean, in the next 4 years NYC is going to have to start planning to build a sea wall to keep the city from continually flooding due to global warming. experts are going to say it needs to be, say, 40 feet high. republicans are going to say we don't need it at all. and so they ll work out a compromise and build a wall that's ten feet high and only protects lower Manhattan.

that's the world bozos like macgillis live in. even the Senate bill, championed by Obama, was going to be terrible. the "guest worker" portions legalized labor abuses on a large scale and the "path to citizenship" lasted over a decade where one wrong move got you deported, or worse, you had to deport yourself in order to start the process at all. it's a product of the politics that led the Obama administration to deport more people than any other in the hopes of compromising with the republican party.

sometimes there are real problems which can't be solved by compromise.
posted by ennui.bz at 6:43 AM on October 16, 2016 [11 favorites]