Immigration

Now this is the kind of change we believe in:

The US has lifted a 22-year immigration ban which has stopped anyone with HIV/Aids from entering the country.

President Obama said the ban was not compatible with US plans to be a leader in the fight against the disease.

The new rules come into force on Monday and the US plans to host a bi-annual global HIV/Aids summit for the first time in 2012.

The ban was imposed at the height of a global panic about the disease at the end of the 1980s.

It looks like some Texas charities are trying to ascertain a child’s status as a legal resident or not before allowing them to receive gifts in their toy drives:

They don't claim to know who's been naughty or nice, but some Houston charities are asking whether children are in the country legally before giving them toys.

In a year when more families than ever have asked for help, several programs providing Christmas gifts for needy children require at least one member of the household to be a U.S. citizen. Others ask for proof of income or rely on churches and schools to suggest recipients.

The Salvation Army and a charity affiliated with the Houston Fire Department are among those that consider immigration status, asking for birth certificates or Social Security cards for the children.

Because it is the children’s fault that their parents brought them here and didn’t work to become citizens. We are becoming a nation of Scrooges.

None other than Lou Dobbs:

Friday, Mr. Dobbs told Spanish-language network Telemundo he now supports a plan to legalize millions of undocumented workers, a stance he long lambasted as an unfair "amnesty."

"Whatever you have thought of me in the past, I can tell you right now that I am one of your greatest friends and I mean for us to work together," he said in a live interview with Telemundo's Maria Celeste. "I hope that will begin with Maria and me and Telemundo and other media organizations and others in this national debate that we should turn into a solution rather than a continuing debate and factional contest."

Now what would cause that sudden 180? Oh yeah – his interests in running for office.

So was Dobbs against immigrants so much just to increase ratings, or is he lying now to get elected? Either reason is inexcusable and anyone running against him will mop the floors with his flip-flopping ass.

I blogged yesterday about Malkin blaming immigrants for the outbreak of swine flu. It now looks like she was just getting the ball rolling for the racist right.

The fact is that most people in America who have contracted the flu were recently in Mexico, or around someone who has been there. Facts like this quickly get lost when people like Malkin and Beck want to turn a potential tragedy into a reason to hate.

President Obama has decided to take up immigration, so we all need to keep an eye on Lou:

While acknowledging that the recession makes the political battle more difficult, President Barack Obama plans to begin addressing America's immigration system this year, including looking for a path for illegal immigrants to become legal, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

Obama will frame the new effort — likely to rouse passions on all sides of the highly divisive issue — as "policy reform that controls immigration and makes it an orderly system," said the official, Cecilia Munoz, deputy assistant to the president and director of intergovernmental affairs in the White House.

Obama plans to speak publicly about the issue in May, administration officials said, and over the summer he will convene working groups, including lawmakers from both parties and a range of immigration organizations, to begin discussing possible legislation for as early as this fall.

There could be something hidden in doing this right now – the fact that immigration is a much more divisive issue on the right than on the left. Let the debate go on for a few months, really heating up, and then all those Democrats running in the midterms will get some great ammo from the Republicans that can’t help but sound like racists.

Lou Dobbs has been foaming at the mouth nonstop over former border agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, who shot a Mexican drug smuggler in the buttocks and were convicted and imprisoned for it. Well Bush fed the base a little bit of out-going meat today:

On his last full day in office, President Bush commuted the controversial sentences of two former Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a Mexican drug runner in 2005.

The imprisonment of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean had sparked outcry from critics who said the men were just doing their jobs and were punished too harshly. They had been sentenced to 11- and 12-year sentences, respectively.

Their sentences will now expire on March 20 of this year.

Ramos and Compean were sentenced in connection with the shooting of Osvaldo Aldrete Davila, who was shot in the buttocks while trying to flee along the Texas border. He admitted smuggling several hundred pounds of marijuana on the day he was shot and pleaded guilty last year to drug charges related to two other smuggling attempts.

But will Lou be happy (and the base)? I except them to sing a little joy for a few minutes over this, but then start complaining that the sentence was only commuted and not a full pardon. Of course their felony convictions still stick and they can no longer work as border agents again.

Latinos is the fastest growing part of our population, so their vote is going to continue to grow in significance. That hasn’t mattered to the Michelle Malkins, Rush Limbaughs and Tom Tancredos of the world. They continue their demonizing of the Hispanic community through illegal immigration. Well it looks like some Republicans are worried about that and wondering what they can do to secure hope for their own survival:

Barack Obama won about two-thirds of the Hispanic vote this year, up from the 53 percent that John Kerry won in 2004.

And the Republicans are very, very worried about the Hispanic vote. They see the African-American vote as largely gone, but the Hispanic vote was a possibility in future elections. If only Republicans knew how to appeal to Hispanic voters.

(h/t Cesca)

The Hispanic support is what helped George Bush win. He is very popular with the Hispanic community, mostly because of his ties to Mexico. George Bush was also not a hawk on immigration, and that pissed off the voices of hate from the Republican Party.

How they can “appeal to Hispanic voters” is to publicly and strongly denounce the racists in their party. The Republicans always talk about improving their image, but they continue to prove Howard Dean right when he said that the Republican party was the party of old white men. Instead what they will do is continue attacking the group and when Hispanics go for the Democrats by even bigger numbers then the Republicans will yell voter fraud. After all, they are the party of the slow learners.

I am sure he will be very animated over this tonight:

A federal appeals court has refused to throw out lengthy prison sentences for two U.S. Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting an unarmed illegal immigrant and lying about it.

You can bet the right will also be in an uproar over it.

There is a saying about people in glass houses not throwing stones. The Republican Party has put themselves on such a high platform over the years, it's no wonder the entire thing is crumbling down around them. The latest from their conservative icon:

A former California Republican Party official who resigned last year in a controversy over his immigration status had no valid visa or work permit during his high-profile career as a Washington lobbyist for conservative icon Grover Norquist, newly filed court records show.

Michael Kamburowski, an Australian citizen who served briefly as chief operating officer of the state GOP, worked from 1995 to 2000 as a vice president of Americans for Tax Reform in Washington, D.C., an organization headed by Norquist - an architect of modern conservatism who has advised President Bush and top GOP political leaders.

For Norquist, Kamburowski lobbied Congress on dozens of issues, including immigration reform, according to his resume. He also directed the Norquist organization's Ronald Reagan Legacy Project, an effort to rename public buildings to honor the former president.

So he advised Bush, was a head of the state GOP in California and lobbied for immigration reform. I expect the wingnuts to circle the wagons around Grover on this, which will raise the question about the immigration reform. Exactly which immigration did he want to reform? This could have some serious racial implications.

Stopping the "flow of illegal immigrants" across the border is so damn important that they are building this wall. I guess seeing that wall will prevent them from going around holes like this:

While the border wall will go through her backyard and effectively destroy her home, it will stop at the edge of the River Bend Resort and golf course, a popular Winter Texan retreat two miles down the road. The wall starts up again on the other side of the resort.

"It has a golf course and all of the amenities," Tamez says. "There are no plans to build a wall there. If the wall is so important for security, then why are we skipping parts?"

Oh but wait - it gets even better. Look what happens if you have friends with the initials George W. Bush:

Just 69 miles north, Daniel Garza, 76, faces a similar situation with a neighbor who has political connections that reach the White House. In the small town of Granjeno, population 313, Garza points to a field across the street where a segment of the proposed 18-foot high border wall would abruptly end after passing through his brick home and a small, yellow house he gave his son. "All that land over there is owned by the Hunts," he says, waving a hand toward the horizon. "The wall doesn't go there."

In this area everyone knows the Hunts. Dallas billionaire Ray L. Hunt and his relatives are one of the wealthiest oil and gas dynasties in the world. Hunt, a close friend of President George W. Bush, recently donated $35 million to Southern Methodist University to help build Bush's presidential library. In 2001, Bush made him a member of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, where Hunt received a security clearance and access to classified intelligence.

Now here's the question. If stopping illegal immigrants is such a vital part of our national security, should Bush's friendships trump that security? I would love to see the Bush apologists defend this. Will Malkin take this on?

For someone who talks about law and ethics as much as Rudy, he sure is one crooked bastard.

I wonder if Lou will go after the wingnuts for supporting Romney's sanctuary mansion? Maybe people should write in and suggest he do just that (write in from this handy little link).

So one of the big stories today is that Mitt Romney still uses illegal immigrants to do his lawn work. I guess the wingnuts will disown Romney now - won't they?

Let's ask Erick at Redstate:

The Boston Globe has decided to stake out the Romney house and harass contract workers on their citizenship status. I find it highly ironic that a media company opposed to restrictive immigration policies and racial profiling would stand outside someone's house and harass hispanic looking workers to find out if they are illegal aliens.

I actually give Governor Romney credit for giving the company involved a second chance. To be sure, I would not have publicly released the address and name of the company today as it just sets Romney up for a vendetta by the guy.

WHOA - what's that? It isn't bad that illegal immigrants did the work, but it is bad that it was reported? Now certainly Malkin is opposed to Romney doing this - isn't she?:

And while it’s bad for police to ask suspected criminal aliens their citizenship status, it’s fine and dandy for journalists to ask lawn workers whether they’re here illegally…if it will embarrass a Republican presidential candidate.

For the record, Romney should have cut ties with the company a long time ago. Dumb decision. He should be embarrassed.

Oh so she is also upset that this got reported, but at least she is a little mad at Romney. Of course that doesn't stop her from thinking this will turn into a partisan issue:

But not as embarrassed as open-borders zealots and Dems should be. Watch as they exploit this report and then turn around and attack everyone other than liberal MSM journalists who advocates the repeal of sanctuary gag orders or uses the same basic investigative techniques to report a story. (Here’s a thought experiment: Imagine a Fox reporter hanging out at the Virginia DMV where the 9/11 hijackers bought fraudulent ID for two months, asking the day laborers if they’re here legally, snapping photos and shooting video of the parking lot transactions, and then reporting the results to DHS for comment on air. The spit would fly, I guarantee it.)

Now my head is really spinning. Did Malkin miss the YouTube debate she made such a big fuss about? I thought Rudy was the one going on about this.

There is an underlying point in all this - hypocrisy. Now if it was John Edwards caught using illegal immigrants, the right would be attacking him nonstop (including Mitt Romney). So you and me can't have illegal immigrants do our lawn work, but Romney can? As usually the talking points and outrage by Republicans smells of hypocrisy (see Larry Craig, Mark Foley, etc., etc. etc.) and their little puppets follow right behind them.

Malkin's final reasoning there also has me baffled. Has anyone ever been sent to prison for refusing to answer questions from a reporter? Does her dense little mind distinguish the difference between police and reporters? She has developed a pure straw man out of this just to protect Romney.

So to these wingnuts Romney's reputation trumps border security. How's that for a credibility issue?

UPDATE:

Add Hugh Hewitt to the list of Romney apologists (as well as Captain Ed)!

So goes it goes for Bush. He was planning on the immigration bill being his legacy. Well his own party just did him in.

The ironic part is how Bush is saying that Senate needs to work together to tackle tough issues. How many filibusters have the Republicans had this year? The same tactic they said should be done away with. Interesting.

Condoms!

A congressman is pushing a not-so-quick fix in the debate over illegal immigrants from Mexico: free contraceptives.

"A slower rate of growth of Mexico's population would improve the economy of Mexico. It would also reduce the environmental pressure on Mexico's ecosystem. But a slower rate of growth would also reduce the long-term illegal immigration pressure on America's borders," reasoned Rep. Mark Kirk, who also supports stronger border security in the short-term.

In reality, fertility rates have plunged in Mexico since 1980, when an average couple would have five or more children. Now, the country's fertility rate has dropped to 2.5 children, compared to 2.1 for the United States, according to United Nations data.

Kirk, an Illinois Republican, made the argument on Thursday during a heated debate in the House of Representatives over whether the U.S. government should be allowed to donate condoms and other contraceptives to family planning agencies abroad that also engage in abortion.

Now come on congressman. That goes against the GOP principal of "abstinence only".

Where in the hell does the GOP get these people?