Rand Paul isn't backing "path to citizenship"
UPDATE: Confusion strikes. Tuesday morning, everyone (Slatest included) reported that tea party darling Sen. Rand Paul was backing a path to citizenship. It’s the latest example of GOP turnaround on immigration as a way of capturing Latino voters! Eh, not so fast. Even though Paul did say illegal immigrants should be allowed to become taxpayers, he never actually said “citizenship” in his 17-minute speech, and aides quickly went out of their way to insist that all the path-to-citizenship talk was misguided. Instead, the important part of his speech, they argued, was that Paul was backing an idea to give probationary legal worker status to illegal immigrants while increasing the focus on border security. Part of the confusion seems to be that the Associated Press was the first to use the path-to-citizenship language based on a copy of the speech Paul’s office gave the news agency Monday night. In that version, Paul specifically made a mention to working on a way that would allow illegal immigrants to obtain green cards. But there was no reference to green cards when he actually spoke Tuesday morning, explains the AP.
Paul told the Washington Post that he never used the word citizenship on purpose. ”Basically what I want to do is to expand the worker visa program, have border security and then as far as how people become citizens, there already is a process for how people become citizens. The main difference is I wouldn’t have people be forced to go home. You’d just get in line. But you get in the same line everyone is in.” So, Paul’s plan would make it easier to become citizens, but he doesn’t want to hear any of this path-to-citizenship nonsense. Um, OK. The obvious question: Why? Oh, it’s semantics. “I think the whole debate on immigration is trapped in a couple of words: path to citizenship and amnesty,” he said. “Can’t we just have reform and not refer to them by names?”
So, in conclusion, what did we learn today? It’s still awfully difficult for Republicans to talk about immigration reform. Here might be a good time to point out that the report the GOP released Monday on how the party can move forward after its devastating November losses pointed out Republicans “must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform.” Seems a new vocabulary has to be written up first.
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Full article:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/03/19/rand_paul_endorses_a_path_to_citizenship_for_illegal_immigrants.html?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content
= new reply since forum marked as read
"We'll let you become taxpayers and work (for slave wages) but, sorry, no chance in hell of you becoming citizens! MwaHahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!"
I'm still not understanding how teabaggers go from "path to citizenship" (that involves several steps and includes some fines and penalties) to "amnesty" (which implies that they're going to automatically be granted citizenship w/o preconditions)
