Rubio Invites Bill Critics to Suggest Changes
“Senator Marco Rubio, the leading Republican behind the Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform proposal, has often challenged those who criticize the bill to come up with ways to improve it. And not just his fellow lawmakers; Rubio has opened a new page on his Senate website asking for help from the public. ‘Visit our website and submit your ideas to Help Us Improve the Bill,’ says an announcement from Rubio’s office Friday. Since the immigration legislation was introduced, Rubio has received over 1,100 suggestions for how to improve the bill,” writes Byron York at the Examiner.
Immigration Bill a Bad Deal for GOP, Critics Say
“Some feisty Republicans are challenging a claim widely held among GOP leaders that the party must support more liberal immigration laws if it’s to be more competitive in presidential elections. These doubters say the Republican establishment has the political calculation backward. Immigration “reform,” they say, will mean millions of new Democratic-leaning voters by granting citizenship to large numbers of Hispanic immigrants now living illegally in the United States,” says Charles Babbington.
Assimilation Interrupted
“The [amnesty]bill has been written this way because America’s leadership class, Republicans as well as Democrats, assumes that continued mass immigration is exactly what our economy needs. As America struggles to adapt to an aging population, the bill’s supporters argue, immigrants offer youth, vitality and tax dollars. As we try to escape economic stagnation, mass immigration promises an extra shot of growth,” says Ross Douthat in the New York Times.
“Is there any reason to be skeptical of this optimistic consensus? Actually, there are two: the assimilation patterns for descendants of Hispanic (particularly Mexican) immigrants and the socioeconomic disarray among the native-born poor and working class.”
We’re Closer to Feudalism Than You Would Like to Think
“Similarly, in place of jus soli (citizenship based on birthplace) and jus sanguinis (citizenship based on descent), Prof [Ayalet] Shachar would prefer jus nexi (citizenship based on “the social fact of attachment”). This might improve the lives of well-assimilated immigrants who have faced legal obstacles to acquiring their full rights but it would do little for those who have not. Indeed, in Denmark, harsh immigration laws of recent years apply precisely the principle of jus nexi to turn away those waverers who are in the country but not of it,” says Christophe Caldwell in the Financial Times.
“Her readers, though, may draw conclusions other than Prof Shachar’s multiculturalist ones. If citizenship is indeed property, then today’s immigrants to western countries are receiving a very good deal. Citizenship-till-eternity for all the descendants of a foreign-born manual labourer is an exorbitant price for a western country to pay to fill a short-term personnel gap.”
“Render citizenship shaky and you will find this “trend” won’t last long. You will find people scampering back to feudalism. We are closer to the old, precosmopolitan rules of belonging than we think.”
Supreme Court Refuses Review of Alabama Harboring Law
“The Supreme Court on Monday rebuffed the state of Alabama, and gave a win to the Obama administration, by declining to review a lower court ruling that had blocked a controversial part of the state’s tough immigration law. Alabama had asked the high court to review an appeals court decision to stop enforcement of the ‘harboring’ provision that made it illegal to harbor or transport anyone in the state who had entered the country illegally,” Reuters reports.