Immigration Bill is Dead

[Stinky The Clown]

Source: MSNBC

(11.27 AM EST) While the vote is still going on, NBC's Chip Reid says there are more than 40 opposition votes, making the bill's survival impossible. Leader Reid has said if this vote had more than 40 opposition votes (it does) he would not allow debate to move forward and would not even allow the threatened filibuster to occur.

This story is breaking, likely no story to be posted until the formal vote is completed.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/

[-..__...]

1. Finally... some good news from Congress.

:toast: :bounce: :headbang: :applause:

[conservdem]

33. Agreed. I thank talk radio for the defeat of this bad bill.

Too many politicians on both sides ignored what the people wanted. Boarder security first. Then deal with the other issues.

[Bluzmann57]

2. Make no mistake about it,

Corporate America does not want immigration reform. If there were true reform, they may not be able to hire illegals to work for next to nothing for many many hours a day. That is why I believe that as long as bush and co. are in office, true immigration reform will not happen.

[jefferson_dem]

3. Apparently, death threats and nativist, brown-hatin' demagoguery wins.

:puke:

Sad day.

[TwilightGardener]

10. On the good side, no one will need to tune in to Ingraham, Rush, Hannity, etc.

from now on--nothing left to rail against, no excuse to whip up hatred. The hate-monger radio folks will have to find something else to get worked up over.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

24. Nativist, brown-hatin demagogues aren't the only ones who didnt want this to pass -nt

[unlawflcombatnt]

40. Amen

Most Democrats didn't want it either.

[silverojo]

28. I'm not "nativist" or "brown hatin'"

I hate criminals of ALL races equally. And I welcome LEGAL immigrants of all races equally.

Hispanics shouldn't be given special treatment, and be allowed to cut in line, in front of all the people who are waiting to come into this country by the legal means. It's an insult to everyone who's ever come to America legally, including my own ancestors.

Bush just wants the cheap labor here to break the back of middle-class America. The high-powered Dems want it too (they're corporate whores), despite their hot-air claims that they care about poor people.

If they cared about the poor, they'd do something about Clinton and Gore's destruction of the welfare safety net.

[Imagevision]

4. Great! now let's get baqck to Rove's missing emails and Bush's refusal

to produce subpeoned documents!!!

[w4rma]

5. Good riddance to the cheap-labor promoting bill. (nt)

[kestrel91316]

7. Thank you. Sums it up nicely.

[sabbat hunter]

6. huzzah

thankfully. now maybe we can get a REAL reform bill. one that harshly punishes companies for hiring illegals, tighten up border security.

while at the same time increases LEGAL immigration with increased protection for new immigrants to make sure they arent exploited and protect existing jobs for US citizens.

[kestrel91316]

9. YES!

[pampango]

11. Good luck with a "real reform" bill.

Kennedy and other liberals will lead a filibuster of any bill that does not include "legalization" of the illegal immigrants already here, while focusing on building walls and backing them up with firepower and enhanced employer sanctions. That was his price to support this bill in the first place.

I assume nothing will happen now. Bush will call of the token enforcement that has been happening while the bill was under debate. No Democratic administration ever has or will propose a bill to wall off Mexico and Hispanics in general or put any significant pressure on employers regarding hiring illegal workers, since many activist Hispanic groups oppose this.

Welcome to the status quo. I guess everyone should be happy. The illegal immigrants get to stay here with defacto amnesty and employers get their ever increasing supply of illegal labor that can be exploited. There will be no more "reform" efforts for two years and it's highly unlikely a Democrat will lead the charge in 2009.

[depakid]

17. "I assume nothing will happen now."

How about enforcing the laws we already have?

Beats passing a bill that will only make matters worse.

[pampango]

21. If you believe that the laws we already have will now be enforced,

well....I admire your optimism. I hope you are right. We all know that Bush will not do that. Why should he? Even the token enforcement efforts of the past few weeks will end now. There goes the next 18 months.

Some here believe that the next Dem president will push a better bill. That seems unlikely to me since all our leading candidates (not sure what Edwards' position was on the bill) voted in favor of this bill. Also, a Democratic president is unlikely to offend Hispanic groups (the Congressional Hispanic Caucus was lobbying for this bill) to push a bill that is more border enforcement and employer sanctions oriented. It was Kennedy and other Democrats who were insisting on the legalization component of the bill.

"Enforce current laws" and then what? Do we hope that the illegal immigrants here already will become unemployed and so hopeless that they storm the border, with their American children, to get back to the countries they left because they were so impoverished there? That's a lovely image that I hope I never see. Also, does the "enforce current laws" tactic include proposals to increase legal immigration (remember most here profess to be opposed to "illegal" immigration, not to immigration, in general)?

[depakid]

26. One example:

Albeit a token one:

Federal Agents Raid Oregon Business Over Illegal Immigrants

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/june132007/immigrant_raid_61307.php

The next step would be to repeal NAFTA -it's been a disaster for everyone other than the large corporations that pushed it through. A responsible Democratic executive would take the lead and deal with that reality- which has been a major driving force in migration from Mexico.

See, e.g.

Immigrant Surge is Tied to the Failure of NAFTA
The trade agreement left rural and urban Mexicans worse off than they'd been.

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, the number of immigrants to the United States from Mexico actually decreased by 18 percent in the three years before NAFTA's implementation. But in the first eight years of NAFTA, the annual number of immigrants from Mexico increased by more than 61 percent.

The cause was twofold. First, NAFTA's agricultural provisions resulted in a flood of subsidized corn being imported into Mexico from the United States. The effect in rural areas was that some 1.5 million rural families -- and some researchers claim twice that -- were driven out of business. Their only options were to move to the cities and seek whatever work, at whatever wage, could be found, or to cross the border. A very large number chose the second option.

Because NAFTA's labor rules did not provide Mexican workers with gains in workplace rights, the trade deal also hurt urban workers. Deprived of their ability to join unions or to organize, Mexican manufacturing workers saw their real wages fall by more than 20 percent over NAFTA's first five years. Today, workers in the country's vast export manufacturing sector, the maquiladora factories, earn from one-fourth to half of their previous wages. Such pay does not even provide very basic necessities for a family. Many of these workers eventually choose the hardships and uncertainties of crossing the border over the certainty of long hours in unhealthy conditions for below-subsistence wages.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0422-28.htm

[pampango]

27. I suspect that the raid in Oregon was part of Bush's tactic to show

he was serious about enforcing the law in the months leading up to the immigration law debate. He knew he had to appease the "enforcement first" crowd, on the right and the left, to have any chance of getting the immigration bill passed.

I just don't see him continuing even this token enforcement now that the bill is dead.

I agree that NAFTA and earlier US "involvements" in Latin America play a key factor in the level of immigration. It seems to me that the "enforce current law" strategy is just treating the symptoms of the disease, instead of taking a comprehensive approach and dealing with the disease and its victims.

[silverojo]

30. Oh, yeah, NAFTA....

Another thing Bill Clinton did to f*ck up this entire continent. :mad:

[sabbat hunter]

38. NAFTA

was negotiated under bush I. remember all teh debates in 1992 between perot, bush and clinton over it?

at the time i supported it because i thought it would be good for all of north america. unfortunately the parts that are supposed to raise mexico wages, jobs have been ignored by mexico.

as a result i think we should pull out of nafta

[unlawflcombatnt]

41. Immigration

We don't need to increase "legal" immigration any whatsoever. Our population growth rate is higher than any other industrialized country at 1%/year. (Both China and Japan have population growth rates that approach 0.) We have 231 million working age Americans and only 146 million of them are employed. We have no labor shortage, and never will.

We need to reduce, if not eliminate, illegal immigration. And we don't need to do that by making more of them legal. We already allow more legal immigration than any other country on earth at present. Legal immigration does not need to be increased 1 iota. The only change necessary is reducing illegal immigration.

[silverojo]

29. Amen to that, sabbat hunter! n/t

[treestar]

8. It was dead a couple of weeks ago, too

Never underestimate the distracting power of the scapegoating of illegals for all the ills of America, while the war in Iraq goes on and * remains unimpeached.

The immigration situation has been the same for 30 years or so, suddenly now it's a big crisis and bigger than the killing in Iraq and having a President and Vice President who blatantly say the laws don't apply to them. :sarcasm:

[lovuian]

15. your right it was dead long ago

It was a failure from the beginning

[MrPrax]

16. Right said!!!...

Only sensible comment so far...

And a big fuck you to the racists and their bullshit unions posting in this thread.

They are lying to you again...

[Name removed]

32. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[silverojo]

31. The immigration situation has changed dramatically

Apparently, you live nowhere near a border state, do you? The immigration crisis wasn't created, as you imply--poll after poll reveals Americans (Republicans AND Democrats) are tired of what illegal immigration is doing to this country.

[Zavulon]

37. Including this Democrat.

I'm as happy about the failure of this disastrous bill as I was in November of 1992 and November 1996.

[bluestateguy]

12. Cheap Labor/Open Borders lobby loses

nt

[alcibiades_mystery]

25. I'm a labor solidarity/ open borders kinda guy myself

The only path to worker's rights is a globalized path. That it will pass through a regime of extreme exploitation is certain, but it will happen. The feudalists get to hold on to their protectionist dogma this time, but when they pretend to be populists in support of the "workers," it is truly to laugh. As long as caoital gets to cross borders at will while labor remains under the regime of the nation state, you will never have labor solidarity and worker empowerment. The Left gets fooled again, or at least those nostalgic imbeciles braying for closed borders, again and again, as if the oldest trick that capital plays on workers isn't setting them against each other on secondary matters.

[Tansy_Gold]

36. You and me make two.

If the money and the corporations can cross the border "legally" whenever it benefits them, should labor(ers) be treated any differently? I say, "no."

Of course, some will point out -- "some" always do -- that the corporation$ are crossing the border in one direction, and the "illegals" are crossing it in another, and that therein lies the difference. After all, the "illegals" are taking away jobs from "good Americans."

No, my friends, the corporations took all the "good" jobs, which were only "good" because they paid good wages, and gave them to "foreigners" to whom they did not have to pay good wages. Those jobs will never come back. Never.


Tansy Gold

[EFerrari]

43. Three. n/t

[sendero]

13. I am so happy..

... that enough Dems came to their senses.

After all, we bitch about Bush not paying attention to the will of the people, the people were CLEARLY against this legislation.

Excellent!

[ChazII]

18. Well said. n/t

[Recursion]

14. Bush supported the bill to help Republican candidates

Because they can put some daylight between themselves and Bush. Now basically every Republican in the Senate can say "I'm no pawn of Bush, look at how I stood up to his disastrous immigration bill, which would have forced us to speak spanish in church"

[underpants]

19. Funny and excellent post

speak spanish in church...what like the original settlers in Florida?? Oh cripes did I mention that outloud?
:scared:

[ChazII]

20. Arizona will be blue

as both our Senators sided with *.

[pampango]

22. Good luck with that.

"Siding with *" was the position that the Congressional Hispanic Caucus was lobbying for and that Democrats voted for 32-15. Democrats do come out of this looking more pro-Hispanic. Perhaps that will help turn Arizona blue. ;)

[triguy46]

23. A trojan horse...

by the same token, any demo who was for it will be branded as "pro amnesty, anti american...." This will come back and bite us, IMHO.

[unlawflcombatnt]

42. And they SHOULD be branded that way

The Dems who supported this were happy to sell out American workers for the benefit of Corporations and the cheap labor lobby.

I hope the Feinstein's, the Reed's, and the Kennedy's get thrown out of office. In Feinstein's case, her only concern is with her rich friends in the California Corporate Agriculture community.

[Robson]

39. Thank God

Now if only the many Democrats that voted for this Bush sponsored corporatist dream act would have done the same.

It disappoints me to see the so-called pro labor party being hypocritical.

[BushOut06]

34. Legalize all of them

The whole notion of "illegal" immigrants is bullshit. The people who founded this country never bothered getting permission before coming over here. This whole notion that you have to jump through so many hoops is a relatively new one.

[David__77]

35. No bill is the best solution.

We must not allow the institutionalization of peonage and modern-day indentured servitude.