Showing posts with label Immigration. Show all posts
Senate passes immigration reform bill
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| U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) talks to reporters after a procedural vote to move forward on immigration reform legislation at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, June 27, 2013. (Reuters / Jonathan Ernst) |
The United States Senate approved a landmark immigration bill Thursday afternoon after lawmakers in Washington voted 68-to-32 in favor of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013.
The Senate put its collective support behind the bill, a bipartisan effort that has been at the center of discussion on both sides of the aisle since it was introduced in Washington in April of this year.
Should the bill clear both chambers of Congress, President Barack Obama will be asked to ink his name to a comprehensive immigration reform bill that will provide new opportunities for unlawful residents to stay in America legally, while at the same time pumping millions of dollars into the United States’ border with Mexico in an attempt to limit the influx of illegal aliens.
"We're on the edge of passing one of the most significant pieces of legislation that this body has passed in a very long time," Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-New York) told Senate colleagues on Capitol Hill Wednesday. "The vast majority of members in this body realize that the immigration system is broken and needs fixing."
Early Thursday morning, every voting member of Schumer’s Democratic Party and 14 Republican senators gave the bill a final go-ahead after deciding to end debate on the act’s amendments.
"There is no reason after these votes today to delay this,” added Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada). "We're poised to pass a historic immigration bill. It's landmark legislation that will secure our borders and help 11 million people get right with the law,” he said
If the bill passed today by the Senate is signed into law by Pres. Obama, millions of presently illegal immigrants would be granted lawful status to stay in the United States. Currently around 11 million residents of the US reside there illegally, and new mechanisms would provide a pathway for citizenship in many cases, albeit not without hurdles. Illegal immigrants would be required to pay Uncle Sam back taxes before being presented with permanent legal status, a measure which is expected to bring in nearly one trillion dollars during the next 20 years. Additionally under the bill, 20,000 new Border Patrol jobs would be created and a 700 mile fence would be erected on the US/Mexico border. Businesses would also have to check on the legal statuses of prospective employees, and lower-skilled and farm workers would be admitted legally into the US under only a temporary program.
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| S Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, speaks on immigration during a briefing for reporters at the Capitol on June 27, 2013 in Washington, DC. (AFP Photo / Mandel Ngan) |
That morning decision set the stage for a 4 p.m. vote, which ended as predicted with the Democrat-controlled Senate signing off on the bill which will next be sent to the House of Representatives. Once that chamber and its Republican majority have its hands on the act, however, the bill is expected to stall and come short of ever being sent to the White House.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), an outspoken opponent of the act, said Thursday that “Today’s vote is largely symbolic.”
Other Republicans who spoke up early Thursday include Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), who said he’d be casting a ballot against the bill “with a great deal of regret.” Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Georgia) was not able to have his amendments involving agricultural workers tacked onto the bill and said Thursday he was left feeling “terribly disappointed and frustrated.”
At the same time, however, GOP support on the act has so far surpassed what pundits had predicted. Both votes in the Senate on Thursday suggest that the Republican Party is willing with some degree to work towards immigration law reform, and the securing of more than a dozen GOP lawmakers could put the pressure on the rest of the party to act swiftly in adopting a bill that’ll suite the Senate version.
Of particular contention among GOP lawmakers is the balance between amnesty for currently illegal immigrants and what some have called the militarization of the US/Mexico border. More hawkish conservatives are calling for a bill that will focus more heavily on securing the Mexican border, whereas Democrats seem content with their current plan, which will indeed bring added fortification while also emphasizing a program that will allow illegal aliens to stay in the US.
On Thursday, House Chief Deputy Whip Peter Roskam (R-Illinois) told reporters that the current bill is a “pipe dream” and said, “Our conference is all about trying to get a deal with a secure border.”
“Once there is a level of confidence on a secure border then you can deal with moving forward on these other elements,” Roskam said.
The last time Congress was asked to rewrite federal immigration laws came in 2006, but that attempt died in the Senate before ever being sent to the House. Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), the speaker of the House, said his chamber will ignore the Senate approved-bill and will draft its own version that will more heavily emphasize border security.
"Apparently some haven't gotten the message: The House is not going to take up and vote on whatever the Senate passes. We're going to do our own bill -- through regular order -- and move the legislation that reflects the will of our majority and the will of the American people," Speaker Boehner said during a Thursday press briefing.
New Jersey hospital deports unconscious stroke victim
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A US hospital deported an unconscious stroke victim after noticing that the patient was an undocumented immigrant from Poland. Polish health officials are furious that the man was “dumped on their doorstep” before the transfer was approved.
“Imagine being carted around like a sack of potatoes,” Polish Consul General Ewa Junczyk-Ziomecka told New York Daily News, describing the incident in which 69-year old Wladyslaw Haniszewski was unconsciously deported to his homeland.
Haniszewski, who suffers from a blood disease, lived in Perth Amboy, N.J., for 30 years. He recently lost his job, apartment, and health insurance, and was forced to move into a homeless shelter, the Daily News reports.
After the man suffered a dangerous stroke, a friend named Jerzy Jedra took him to the New Jersey hospital for treatment. When officials at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital noticed that the patient had no health insurance and lived in the US without documentation, they sent the comatose man to Poland. US hospitals are legally required to provide emergency care to anyone who needs it, but are allowed to deport stabilized undocumented immigrants.
But in order to deport someone, a US hospital must first get consent from either the patient, a family member, or a court guardian. Officials at the Polish consulate claim that no one was contacted, and that Haniszewski’s family was never informed that the man was deported.
Meanwhile, Haniszewski was left at the doorstep of a hospital in Boleslawiec, Poland. The facility is now being forced to take care of the man’s medical payments, which have cost “a few hundred dollars” a day, the hospital’s deputy director told TVN.
Junczyk-Ziomecka, who works at the Polish consulate in New York City, said she was trying to help the comatose man, only to realize last week that he was gone. Polish officials are furious about the deportation, especially since the 69-year-old patient was not in a healthy state to sign off on the transfer.
“Behind our backs they transported the unconscious man to Poland,” she told TVN, noting that she was most furious about the hospital’s decision to dump the man at the facility. “I cannot imagine such a situation that the decision about transporting an unconscious person could be made without agreement. Between the two institutions must be a contract, there must be documents. You cannot simply leave a patient at the door and drive away.”
At least 800 people have been deported from US hospitals without consent over the past six years in 15 states, the Associated Press reported in April. Medical repatriation has become increasingly common, but AP suggests that the actual number of such hospital deportations is much higher than figures show. Some health advocates are afraid that repatriations will occur more frequently after major components of Obamacare are implemented in 2014, since the US government will reduce its payments to hospitals that care for large numbers of uninsured patients.
Shena Erlington, director of the Health Justice Program, told the Daily News that although hospitals may face the burden of paying for uninsured patients, medical care providers should not have the ability to deport patients.
“It’s an incredibly disturbing case,” Lori Nessel, director of the Center for Social Justice at Seton Hall University School of Law, said about the Haniszewski repatriation. “This kind of action seems clearly illegal and also not ethical, but it’s hard to bring forth a legal action.”
The New Jersey hospital denies any wrongdoing and claims that the patient was informed of his discharge and care plan. The patient is awake, but unable to speak or communicate with doctors.
McCain: US will have 'the most militarized border since the fall of the Berlin Wall'
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| John McCain (Win McNamee / Getty Images / AFP) |
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said that an amendment to a US immigration bill would cause the US to have the “most militarized border” since the Berlin Wall came down in 1989.
A bipartisan amendment to the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill would double the number of Border Patrol agents from 20,000 to 40,000, fund construction of 700 miles of fencing along the US-Mexico border, and provide billions of dollars for advanced surveillance equipment.
Many Republican lawmakers have refused to support the immigration reform bill as it currently stands, arguing that it does little to enforce the border. The Senate advanced an amendment to the legislation with a 67-27 vote last Monday, winning significant support from Republican lawmakers and instilling hope that the immigration reform bill could make it through the upper chamber. But although the amendment would strengthen the border, it would also rival the security at the former Berlin Wall, McCain said in a CNN interview.
"The legislation concerning beefed up border security removes any validity to the argument that border security is not sufficient," McCain said of the amendment, which was authored by Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and John Hoeven (R-N.D.).
"I mean this is not only sufficient, it is well over-sufficient,” he added. “We'll be the most militarized border since the fall of the Berlin Wall. That's why I think this amendment was very important.”
The most secure version of the Berlin Wall, which formerly served to prevent emigration from East Germany, was reinforced with a smooth pipe to make it difficult to scale. It was surrounded by mesh fencing, trenches, barbed wire, attack dogs, and beds of nails under balconies that were hanging over the border. Border security guards were stationed at 116 watchtowers and 20 bunkers, and received “shoot to kill” orders if anyone tried to illegally cross it.
According to the Centre for Contemporary History, 136 deaths have been attributed to border crossing attempts at the Berlin Wall. And although the US-Mexico border would use different security methods than East Germany, it would be the most secure since the fall of the Berlin Wall – a comparison that McCain believes would garner support for the amendment.
"This is a border security measure which I think should suffice to satisfy any critic and it is a tough way forward and it is a way forward, a tough way forward so that we can resolve this and bring 11 million people out of the shadows," McCain said.
If the amendment is passed and the reform bill implemented, the US border fence would be seven times as long as the Berlin Wall and have four times as many agents to guard it.
Atheist seeking US citizenship told to join church or be denied
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| image from Margaret Doughty facebook page |
A 65-year-old British atheist who has lived in the US for 30 years has been denied US citizenship, unless she joins a church by Friday. During her application process to become a naturalized US citizen, Texas resident Margaret Doughty did not agree to bear arms to defend the country, claiming that she was morally opposed to killing. In order to gain citizenship, naturalization applications are required to take the oath of allegiance, swearing to support the Constitution and agree to bear arms for the US Armed Forces, if necessary. As a result, US Citizenship and Immigration Services told the woman she could not gain citizenship unless she provided documentation proving she was “a member in good standing” of a church that morally opposed the bearing of arms. But since Doughty is an atheist, providing such documentation is impossible unless she takes up the Christian religion by Friday. “The truth is that I would not be willing to bear arms,” the British native explained on her application. “Since my youth I have had a firm, fixed and sincere objection to participation in war in any form or in the bearing of arms. I deeply and sincerely believe that it is not moral or ethical to take another person’s life, and my lifelong spiritual/religious beliefs impose on me a duty of conscience not to contribute to warfare by taking up arms.” The USCIS officers’ request has enraged atheist groups, who believe that nonreligious morals should be just as valid as those held by church members. The Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a letter to the USCIS, calling their actions “illegal and unconstitutional.” “It is shocking that USCIS officers would not be aware that a nonreligious yet deeply held belief would be sufficient to attain this exemption,” Andrew L. Seidel, a staff attorney at the atheist group, wrote in the letter. “This is a longstanding part of our law and every USCIS officer should receive training on this exemption.” The Daily Kos, a political news and opinion blog, has launched a petition urging the Department of Homeland Security to grant Doughty citizenship and to reverse the policy that allows discrimination against atheists to ensue. The petition had more than 5,000 signatures as of Thursday morning. A similar case made it to the Supreme Court in 1970, after naturalization applicant Elliot Ashton Welsh II requested conscientious objector status for refusing to bear arms. Welsh said he did not know whether there was a Supreme Being, and said his moral beliefs against killing were based upon “reading in the fields of history and sociology.” In Welsh vs. United States, the Supreme Court ruled 5-3 that Welsh could be declared a conscientious objector, even though his beliefs were not based on a religion. The Court also noted that basing the exemption solely on religious beliefs is a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which prohibits the establishment of a national religion or the government’s preference of any one religion over another. The ruling indicates that applicants like Doughty should similarly be able to request conscientious objector status, despite a lack of religious involvement. “Either the officers in Houston are inept, or they are deliberately discriminating against nonreligious applicants for naturalization,” Seidel added.
130,000 leave Germany due to failing economy, lack of business opportunities
Thousands are emigrating from Germany, one of Europe’s strongest economies, to seek opportunities elsewhere, citing “no safety for the future” and overcomplicated business legislation as the reasons behind their decision. Some 130,000 people – the most in a generation – left Germany in 2012, RT’s Peter Oliver reported. Recent government data has shown that unemployment in Germany climbed by 21,000 in May – four times more than economists forecast. At the end of May, the Federal Labor Office published unemployment statistics showing that 2.96 million Germans (3 percent of the country’s population) are currently jobless. This, combined with mounting economic problems, has forced some Germans to look for career opportunities elsewhere, with Switzerland, the US, Australia and Canada among the top destinations. Business owner Jens Blecker and his family have chosen to leave Germany for Canada; he will also be relocating his €2 million business.“Germany is a nice place but right now the future looks really dark, so we are getting out,” Blecker said. “All they are doing is taking the debt higher and higher, and breaking their own rules. Look at the laws prohibiting bailouts, as soon as it suited them politically this just went out of the window. As a business man there's no safety for the future.”A Bavarian lawyer identified as Dr. Roth is moving to New Zealand. He slammed Germany’s current economic system for its bureaucracy.“Look at the ten commandments, there are probably around 500 words there,” Roth said. “Then look at the regulations on something small, like producing candy in the EU, it's over 10,000 words, most of them nonsense. This will leave Europe like a banana republic with so many laws no one can follow them.”Reports from Moody’s Investors Service have reaffirmed this gloomy outlook: In April, Moody’s predicted that Germany’s gross domestic product (GDP) would only grow 0.4 percent in 2013. Germany’s economic growth declined to 0.7 percent in 2012, down from 3.0 percent in 2011. Economists say that the country has begun to feel the pinch of the eurozone debt crisis, which has devastated the European Union since 2009. Germany is considered one of strongest economies in Europe. However, in 2012 its GDP declined more than other member-states such as the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium and Sweden, according to Eurostat.
