GOP Resistance to Amnesty Firming Up
“Resistance to a sweeping immigration overhaul is moving from conservative talk shows to the corridors of power.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives on Thursday rejected President Obama’s policy to stop deporting young people brought to this country illegally as children. With all but six Republicans voting against funding a policy that lets hundreds of thousands of law-abiding but undocumented youth enrolled in high school or the military to stay in this country, the vote spotlighted the long odds facing the much broader Senate bill to allow 11 million illegal immigrants earn citizenship,” the Washington Post reports.
Rasmussen: Odds Growing Longer for Amnesty Bill
“Many pundits assumed that this would be the year that comprehensive immigration reform became law. The conventional wisdom was that President Obama’s re-election and his strong showing among Hispanic voters would force Republicans to go along.
Now, halfway through the year, the prospects for immigration reform have dimmed significantly,” says pollster Scott Rasmussen.
“Americans overwhelmingly feel that legal immigration is good for the country and think highly of immigrants . . . But they also want the system to work so that the border will be secure enough to prevent future illegal immigration. That point has become a major political problem for those who favor reform. The so-called Gang of Eight proposal in the Senate legalizes the status of immigrants first and promises to secure the border later. By a 4-1 margin, voters want that order reversed.”
Amnesty Bill Will Hurt Low Income Workers
“Journalist John Judis points out that the immigration reform proposal making the rounds on Capitol Hill may mix with Obamacare to hurt the employment prospects of American citizens,” says John Carney of CNBC.
“The bill denies health insurance coverage to the 11 million undocumented workers, who will become ‘registered provisional immigrants’ (RPIs), and to over 100,000 guest agricultural workers (who will get ‘blue cards’ rather than ‘green cards’). Only after immigrants become permanent residents, which in the case of the eleven million undocumented will take a minimum of ten years and as long as 15 years, will they become eligible for Obamacare.”