Liberals Against Immigration Reform

For John, BLUF:  We might not get immigration reform this year, and we need it.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

The Atlantic Monthly has an article out, by Ms Molly Ball, asking if [modern day] liberals are turning against Immigration Reform.  The lede:

The Senate passed a sweeping immigration reform bill Thursday that now faces an uncertain future.  In the weeks ahead, the central challenge for immigration reformers will be finding a path through the Republican-led House.  But behind the scenes, they are also scrambling to shore up support from liberals who see the current legislation as too slanted toward border security and away from citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Here is a sample of the leftist opposition, as expressed by in the article:

Most of the groups remain reluctantly supportive of the overall bill even as they condemn the Corker-Hoeven amendment.  A group called 18 Million Rising♠ issued a statement saying the amendment "will only further hurt immigrants, families, and the economy by making the path to citizenship more onerous and expensive, and by exacerbating the climate of fear created by criminalization and overreaching surveillance."  It was joined by MoveOn.org, Credo Action, and United We Dream in its stance.

I do think that concern about "overreaching surveillance" isn't very impressive, given the recent revelations about NSA and Government surveillance of American Citizens—supposedly protected by the Fourth Amendment.

I am hoping that some sort of immigration reform bill passes the US Congress this year.  We have a major problem with people illegally entering the country and settling in and not going home.  Those people come for jobs and contribute to our economy and help make up the deficit in reproduction on the part of the citizenry.♥

There are a lot of side issues that bother me.  For example, if you are French and come over on a work visa and your work visa expires, why should you go to the end of the queue, after some illegal immigrant from Ireland, who is going to get a green card and a patch to citizenship out of the immigration reform bill.  That is just a case of punishing the law abiding and rewarding those who break the law.  I don't care if the guy is French.  Then there is the question of the tsunami of close relatives back home, waiting for our illegal immigrants to become Citizens and able to sponsor those relatives to travel to the US.  I have heard the number 40 million mentioned with regard to this little glitch.

All that said, we need immigration reform and we need to regularize the situation of those currently in this country illegally.  What we don't need is a thousand page bill that gives endless employment to lawyers, accounts and social workers.  Are our Congresscritters and their staffers totally incapable of writing something simple and understandable?♦

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  18 Million Rising would be an Asian and Pacific Islander Group, not an Hispanic Group.  Credo Action is more like MoveOn.org.  As for United We Dream is a youth oriented immigrant reform organization.
♥  In case you forgot, the magic number is 2.1 and if you and your spouse are not pumping out a pair and a spare, some other couple needs to make up the difference.  It isn't about morality.  It is about demographics, and who is going to pay for your Social Security.
♦  Apparently.