Two Sides of the DREAM

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from President Obama's SOTU address: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/01/24/remarks-president-state-union-address

Let’s also remember that hundreds of thousands of talented, hardworking students in this country face another challenge: the fact that they aren’t yet American citizens. Many were brought here as small children, are American through and through, yet they live every day with the threat of deportation. Others came more recently, to study business and science and engineering, but as soon as they get their degree, we send them home to invent new products and create new jobs somewhere else.

That doesn’t make sense.

I believe as strongly as ever that we should take on illegal immigration. That’s why my administration has put more boots on the border than ever before. That’s why there are fewer illegal crossings than when I took office. The opponents of action are out of excuses. We should be working on comprehensive immigration reform right now.

But if election-year politics keeps Congress from acting on a comprehensive plan, let’s at least agree to stop expelling responsible young people who want to staff our labs, start new businesses, defend this country. Send me a law that gives them the chance to earn their citizenship. I will sign it right away.

read: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/01/24/remarks-president-state-union-address


from the Republican debate in Tampa, Florida - January 24, 2012:

REINHARD: I want to move on to a slightly different topic, the Dream Act, which, as you know, would provide a pathway to citizenship for children who have been brought to the U.S. illegally if they attend college or enroll in the military . . .

ROMNEY: . . .I would not sign the Dream Act as it currently exists, but I would sign the Dream Act if it were focused on military service.

SMITH: Let`s stay on immigration for a second.
Governor Romney, there is one thing I`m confused about. You say you don`t want to go and round up people and deport them, but you also say that they would have to go back to their home countries and then apply for citizenship. So, if you don`t deport them, how do you send them home?

ROMNEY: Well, the answer is self-deportation, which is people decide they can do better by going home because they can`t find work here because they don`t have legal documentation to allow them to work here (heavily Latino audience burst out laughing at the absurdity of this idea). And so we`re not going to round people up.

The way that we have in this society is to say, look, people who have come here legally would, under my plan, be given a transition period and the opportunity during that transition period to work here, but when that transition period was over, they would no longer have the documentation to allow them to work in this country. At that point, they can decide whether to remain or whether to return home and to apply for legal residency in the United States, get in line with everybody else. And I know people think but that`s not fair to those that have come here illegally.

read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22799665/ns/politics-the_debates/t/jan-republican-debate-transcript/

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2. Mitt Romney Talks “Self-Deportation”; More About What that Really Means

Since Monday night’s GOP primary debate in Tampa, Florida, the blogosphere has been buzzing over two words that Mitt Romney said in regards to immigration: “self deportation.”

Specifically, Romney was answering a question about how he planned to get undocumented immigrants already in the U.S. to leave the country, considering that he has pledged not to order mass deportations as president:

The answer is self-deportation, which is people decide they could do better by going home because they can’t find work here because they don’t have legal documentation to allow them to work here.

You can watch the video here.

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Here’s what self-deportation is: it’s finding a way, any way, to get millions of undocumented immigrants to remove themselves from the U.S.

Here’s why: despite how popular the “deport ‘em all” rhetoric is in certain circles, it would be a logistical and humanitarian nightmare to ever try and forcibly evict 11 million immigrants from their homes. Eleven million is how many people live in the states of Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, Alaska, South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, Hawaii, Idaho, and Nebraska combined. These immigrants speak English; they have American family members, American friends, American roots, American lives. Romney’s alternative to forcibly deporting them involves making life so miserable that they “self deport” themselves.

Here’s how: attrition. By any means necessary, Romney and his anti-immigrant cohorts want to make life in America simply intolerable for undocumented immigrants. Deny them work, withhold driver’s licenses, threaten to separate families, step up enforcement, obstruct children’s access to schools, bar landlords from renting to them, deny them access to heat and water—these aren’t theoretical ideas, they’re components of anti-immigrant policy in places like Alabama. As one of the original sources of the whole “self-deportation” concept, extremist Mark Krikorian, explains: “The objective is not mainly to identify illegal aliens for arrest (though that will always be a possibility) but rather to make it as difficult as possible for illegal aliens to live a normal life here.”

http://americasvoiceonline.org/blog/entry/mitt_romney_talks_self-deportation_more_about_what_that_really_means/