Amnesty Would Spell Trouble for GOP in Future
“The recent Senate debate over immigration reform focused mostly on three issues: 1) the economic effects of legalizing millions of currently illegal immigrants while also increasing the rate of future immigration, 2) the possibility of achieving real border security and 3) the ethical question of offering the reward of citizenship to those who entered the country illegally.
Beneath it all was another factor, never far from lawmakers’ minds, but much less discussed: the electoral effects of reform,” says Byron York.
“The GOP faces a hard enough job improving its standing among the 15 million new potential immigrant voters who will be here if nothing is changed in the law. Adding another 17 million through comprehensive immigration reform would steepen the hill considerably. When Republicans debate the politics of reform, those are numbers they should remember.”
Pro-Amnesty Hecklers Disrupt Value Voters Conference
“Sen. Ted Cruz’s speech at the Value Voters Summit was repeatedly interrupted by immigration activists Friday morning — a rare flare-up for an issue that has largely laid dormant in Washington since the House of Representatives abandoned bipartisan efforts on immigration reform,” Buzzfeed reports.
“At least six protesters took turns standing up and interrupting Cruz’s speech, each beginning their comments with some version of, ‘Senator Cruz, why do you oppose a pathway to citizenship…” In each case, the crowd of conservatives drowned out the activists as security guards escorted them out.”
Immigration is One Reason America Ranks Poorly in Skilled Workers
Reihan Salam at National Review quotes from a new report ranking America among other first world nations by worker skills. “The US did manage to finish above average in one category – the percentage of our population that is low-skilled. Thirty six million Americans, one in six adults, lack basic literacy and numeracy skills, compared with one in twenty adults in Japan,” the New America Foundation report said.
Salam notes, “Immigration policy is one of the central ways we shape the future workforce, both directly — immigrants who arrive in the U.S. as adults immediately impact the skill distribution — and indirectly — the children of low-skilled immigrants are less likely to achieve academically than the children of skilled immigrants. Yet [the report author]only refers to immigrants once in her post — she briefly mentions educational programs that can benefit disadvantaged adults, including immigrants. The fact that McCarthy contrasts the U.S. with Japan, however, is telling. The foreign-born share of the U.S. population is, according to the OECD, 13.7 percent while the foreign-born share of the Japanese population is 1.7 percent.
Some Evangelical Groups Prepare New Amnesty Push
“Evangelical Christians will kick off a campaign on Saturday as part of an ongoing effort to encourage Congress to make changes to immigration laws. The Evangelical Immigration Table’s ‘Pray4Reform: Gathered Together in Jesus’ Name’ campaign will include more than 300 events in 40 states through Oct. 20,” Dispatch.com reports.
Visa Enforcement Hits Infosys Bottom Line in Earnings Miss
“Bangalore-based Infosys posted a scanty 1.2% increase in net profit for the three months to Sept. 30, falling short of analysts’ already-lowered estimates,” QZ.com writes. “The earnings miss was largely due to a 2.19 billion rupee provision for ‘visa related matters,’ stemming from a US investigation into whether Infosys broke immigration rules by bringing in full-time workers from India under short-term ‘business visitor’ visas.”
Bipartisan Policy Center Says Administrative Amnesty is a Mistake
“A bipartisan think tank is pushing back against immigration advocates who want President Obama to use his executive authority to expand a program to defer the deportations of undocumented immigrants. The nonprofit Bipartisan Policy Center said Thursday that doing so would undermine the public’s faith in immigration laws and undercut the legislative process in Congress, where lawmakers are debating a broader immigration overhaul,” the Washington Post writes.
“In a statement, the think tank’s immigration task force said that using ‘the president’s executive authority to sidestep Congress would undermine that trust and confirm the fears of those who believe the government is not serious about upholding all elements of reform, particularly the implementation of stronger border security measures and workplace screening of undocumented individuals.'”
More coverage at the Huffington Post as well.
UK Government Readies New, Strict Immigration Enforcement Measures
“In an attempt to counter concerns among British voters that foreigners are placing an unnecessary strain on public services at a time of spending cuts, the government Thursday published its Immigration Bill, which is designed to make it easier to remove illegal immigrants and to prevent them from using state-funded services such as health care,” the Wall Street Journal writes.
“The bill’s initiatives include a measure to require private landlords to check on the immigration status of tenants and to restrict access to bank accounts for people who don’t have permission to be in the U.K.”