Immigration USA: The New Political Currency?
How does one become President in a country with more than 20 million illegal immigrants? Well, the issue is not so simple as it isn’t something that people tend to be bothered by too much. In a VOA article on the Democratic Candidates and Swing States in the US they note that only 20-25% of people would not vote for a candidate if they disagreed with them on immigration. Voters, according to the article “..by and large don’t dislike illegal immigrants..” which Senator Clinton, Giulani and Obama have taken to a new level, pushing immigrant issue into the spotlight to earn the votes of the American Hispanic community, while not offending many other Americans in the process.
This soft strategy has not been absorbed into the Republican ranks so far. Rep. Tancredo did not attend a televised Spanish Language debate to make a “mute” point, while Senator John McCain has become the immigration darling of the Republican party supporting much of the immigration reforms discussed in the policy debates this past summer. These two pariahs in the Republican Party on immigration may hinder the Republicans as a whole by alienating the Hispanic vote, with little support for immigration reform from most of the candidates, not helped by Tancredo’s silly boycott. Alternatively, McCain may give some Hispanics a reason to have faith in his party, but may alienate more hardline Republicans on the immigration issue. He is often mistaken as a Democratic-Republican, with the exception for his support on Iraq he could be an ideal running mate with a Clinton if the proposal was a realistic one.
In the middle of the debate is Romney and Huckabee, using the immigration issue to take each other to task as the polls heat up in Iowa. Immigration issues in Iowa may become a microcosm for the GOP and the Presidential election in the near future as the interest in Iraq is becoming slowly displaced with the immigration debate. Despite problems in Iraq, no candidate wants to dwell on the issue in order to distance themselves from Bush and dive into another unsolvable debate. Immigration is something candidates can use as ammunition it seems without having anything blow up in their face…a luxury which the soldiers in Iraq do not currently possess.
April 30th, 2008 at 5:59 am
Regardless of their country of origin, an “undocumented alien” or “undocumented immigrant” is, after all, an illegal alien. On a global scale, citizenship is defined by the local government, and the rules for traveling to, and remaining in, foreign countries is set up by those governments. No country on the planet has a problem ejecting, deporting or even incarcerating those who attempt to remain in-country with expired, forged or nonexistent papers such as a travel visa or passport.
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anna
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New York Immigration Lawyer Marina Shepelsky, located in Brooklyn, assists clients from the New York metro area and across the United States in all immigration and naturalization matters
http://www.e-us-visa.com
May 1st, 2008 at 11:44 am
I couldnt agree with you more, but the problem with considering immigration from a purely legal perspective is that it does not reflect the reality of the situation of many immigrants living in the United States. The situation has really gone so out of the control of many authorities because many of the immigrants are invisible to the system, and ones voting for the increased status of those immigrants are for rights for non documented people. If there is no visa, no papers or passports there, and it becomes a human rights issues when creating a mass re-importation of many people outside of the US, then what good are visas and laws that are unable to be implemented. The issue has become very political as it allows for invisible currency in dealing with an issue that not a single politician knows how to tackle in a simple way. This was the point of the statements of these candidates. They need to address the issue, as opposed to forcing solutions that everyone knows that would not work in any practical way. It is clearly an unsolvable issue for now as no one has figured out how to do this in a meaningful way, and the only result is a continuation of the inequal status quo. I too have worked in the legal field with immigrants and refugees, and it works for those in the system, but to be realistic, there are whole communities numbering over 15 million people that are not going anywhere and have no legal status. A legal based solution must also address the real problems, otherwise it is just simply poorly written legislation. New forms of policy must be created to deal with illegal immigration, and the candidates know this.