Big Business Joins Soros Lobby to Pressure GOP on Amnesty
“Several corporate executives have joined forces with prominent local lawmakers, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, and George Soros’ National Immigration Forum (NIF) to organize a campaign on Monday to target GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill to get them to try to support amnesty. Those executives include Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Boeing CEO and chairman Jim McNerney, Marriott hotels chairman and CEO Bill Marriott, NewsCorp chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch, and Disney president and CEO Bob Iger,” Breitbart News reports.
Rubio Backs Away from “Comprehensive” Amnesty Bill, Favors Small Bills
“Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a key congressional Republican advocate of an immigration overhaul, is now calling for reform bills that are less sweeping than the comprehensive legislation he authored this year with a bipartisan group of senators,” Politico reports.
“His spokesman said in a statement Monday that Rubio wants to now zero in on areas of immigration reform where Republicans and Democrats on both sides of the Capitol could agree. While some facets of immigration reform enjoy broad bipartisan support – such as boosting the number of visas available for high-skilled immigrants – one major point of disagreement is what to do with the millions of undocumented immigrants in the country.”
Over the weekend, Rubio’s spokesman said the Senator opposed passing bills in the House as a method of conferencing with the Senate.
“‘At this point, the most realistic way to make progress on immigration would be through a series of individual bills,’ Rubio spokesman Alex Conant said in an email. ‘Any effort to use a limited bill as a ruse to trigger a conference that would then produce a comprehensive bill would be counterproductive. Furthermore, any such effort would fail, because any single senator can and will block conference unless such conference is specifically instructed to limit the conference to only the issue dealt with in the underlying bill.'”
Hispanic Donors for Obama Now Target GOP
“A network of Latino donors that played a pivotal role in raising money for President Obama’s reelection is now focused on a new campaign: an effort to oust lawmakers who stand in the way of overhauling immigration laws. The Latino Victory Project, a new political advocacy organization modeled after the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, is planning to spend as much as $20 million on campaigns targeting members of Congress who have sizable Latino communities in their districts but oppose comprehensive immigration reform,” the Washington Post writes.
New York Times Endorses End to “Needless” Deportations
“The deportation surge is fed by programs like Secure Communities, which does immigration checks on everyone arrested by local and state law enforcement, and Operation Streamline, in which border crossers in the Southwest are prosecuted en masse, with little access to legal representation. Mr. Obama turned the dragnet on, and can turn it off. In marches and vigils across the country, protesters have made one plea on deportations to Mr. Obama: ‘Not one more.’ He should heed it,” says the New York Times in an editorial.
Chamber of Commerce Sides With Indian IT Firms
“US industry representatives have assured India of strong and continued support against the discriminatory measures proposed in the Immigration Reform Bill that could hit Indian IT companies operating in the country,” The Hindu Business Line writes.
“IT majors such as Infosys, Wipro and TCS may have to end up paying steep penal visa fees for their employees, mandatorily raise the salaries of those on H1B visas and also stop hiring more H1B professionals from 2016, if the Bill becomes law.
US Chamber of Commerce chief Steve Van Andel, in a meeting with Commerce & Industry Minister, Anand Sharma, on Monday, said the negative aspects of the Bill needed to be articulated in a more vocal way.”
ICE Memo – Obamacare Signup Information Won’t Be Used for Immigration
“The Obama administration is assuring immigrants that applications for Obamacare will not be used to enforce immigration law,” the Daily Caller reported.
“‘[Immigration and Customs Enforcement] does not use information about such individuals or members of their household that is obtained for purposes of determining eligibility for such coverage as the basis for pursuing a civil immigration enforcement action against such individuals or members of their household,’ a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo reads.”
“The memo explains that such information may only be used for administering the Obamacare program and determining eligibility.”