DMI Blog

Amy Taylor

What Are the Candidates Saying About Immigration Reform? Senator Barack Obama

pic_obama_bio.jpgBy now we all now that Senator Obama is poised to officially enter the race for the Democratic nomination in February after announcing the formation of an exploratory committee this month.

So where does he stand on immigration?

Last Spring Senator Obama (D-Ill) supported the immigration reform bill that was passed in the Senate, stating that it would enforce immigration laws and also address the nearly 12 million undocumented immigrants living in the country. While Obama supported the enforcement provisions of the bill he also was clear on his commitment to comprehensive immigration reform. "[w]hile security might start at our borders, it doesn't end there. Millions of undocumented immigrants live and work here...they must pay a penalty, and abide by all of our laws going forward...we must allow undocumented immigrants to come out of the shadows...In fact, I will not support any bill that does not provide this earned path to citizenship for the undocumented population."

Senator Obama has also stated his support for a guest worker program. "[W]e must also replace the flow of undocumented immigrants coming to work here with a new flow of guestworkers. Illegal immigration is bad for illegal immigrants and bad for the workers against whom they compete. Replacing the flood of illegals with a regulated stream of legal immigrants who enter the United States after background checks and who are provided labor rights would enhance our security, raise wages, and improve working conditions for all Americans".

Senator Obama has acknowledged some concerns about temporary workers programs. "There are legitimate concerns on the part of some, including myself, that this is a way for corporations to avoid a unionized workforce, or a workforce that has the ability to demand proper wages and benefits. Nevertheless, there is a feeling that if we can at least provide for some of these guest workers to come in, they may not want citizenship; they may simply want the opportunity to work here, and then go home."

Senator Obama's answer to such concerns about guest worker programs was to offer an amendment to the Senate bill that focused on preventing employers from undercutting American workers' wages by hiring immigrants. His amendment would have extended the Davis-Bacon "prevailing wage" requirements under federal law (which currently require the payment of prevailing wages on the construction of federally-funded projects for certain professions) to guest workers. His amendment would have required the payment of "prevailing wages" (significantly higher than the minimum wage) to guest workers, but not just in federally-funded projects, in all jobs. His amendment was criticized because in some cases, the same protections would not have extended to American workers on the very same jobs.

Senator Obama seems to understand the role that employers often play in maintaining our current system to the detriment of immigrant and native-born workers alike. "Too often illegal immigrants are lured here with a promise of a job, only to receive unconscionably low wages. In the interest of cheap labor, unscrupulous employers look the other way when employees provide fraudulent U.S. citizenship documents". His answer to this problem is "a simple, foolproof, and mandatory mechanism for all employers to check the legal status of new hires."

In December, Senator Obama supported the Secure Fence Act of 2006, a move that angered many Mexican-Americans in his home state of Illinois as well as other opponents of an enforcement-only approach. Although many Democrats (including potential Democratic Presidential nominees Hillary Clinton, Christopher Dodd and Joseph Biden) voted for this enforcement-focused bill, it could cost him dearly. Furthermore, by supporting the Secure Fence Act, Obama broke a promise he made to voters never to support an enforcement-focused bill if it did not include a legalization component as well.

Senator Obama has been an important spokesperson for immigration laws that would reform our current system to better meet the demands of our economy, to regularize the status of undocumented workers thereby eliminating the downward pressure on wages for Americans workers and once reformed, to enforce our laws appropriately. His support for guest worker programs and increased border security, however, undercut his own statements concerning American workers and their current position in a two-tiered labor system. Guest worker programs would prolong the existence our current two-tiered labor system by providing a constantly renewable underclass of immigrant workers available for corporate profit. And increasing border security has only made the journey across more dangerous, increased smuggler fees and made apprehensions more expensive for American taxpayers, all while failing to reduce the population of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S.

Amy Taylor: Author Bio | Other Posts
Posted at 7:30 AM, Jan 31, 2007 in Immigration | Politics | The Candidates on Immigration
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Comments

What is your alternative to a guest worker program? A large percentage of the illegals coming here dont want citizenship and they dont care about a two-tiered labor system. They simply want money to send home to their families. In fact, remittances make up a substantial portion of Mexico's GDP.

Posted by: The Rational Republican | January 31, 2007 07:30 PM

The way to eliminate the two-tiered system which threatens to suppress wages for American workers and immigrants alike, is to legalize the status of the 12 million undocumented immigrants who currently live in the U.S. -- this could happen a number of ways. Even if certain immigrants chose to return to their home countries, there is nothing wrong with giving them the opportunity to legalize their status should they choose to do so. As for the future flow of workers, it would be wise to better align our immigration policies with our economic needs to avoid the situation we now have.

Posted by: Amy Taylor | February 1, 2007 01:21 PM

hey barack, i think you should be our next u.s president. You deserve it!

Posted by: michael whidden | February 8, 2007 09:02 AM

There is are PROBLEMS with allowing amnesty to all the illegals currently in this country.

One is that employers hiring them are violating U.S. Title 8...
TITLE 8 > CHAPTER 12 > SUBCHAPTER II > Part VIII > § 1324a. Unlawful employment of aliens

Another is that the illegals are compounding their crime (being here without due process) by violating U.S. Title 18...
TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 75 > § 1546. Fraud and misuse of visas, permits, and other documents

Granting ANY forms of amnesty to these illegal aliens is a slap in the face to those who have in the past and are currently, in the process of becoming LEGAL United States citizens by filing the correct paperwork.

Posted by: Aaron Daniels | February 22, 2007 11:15 PM

Ruth Calabria, Chairperson

We endorse Barack Obama as the next president of the United States.

This is the most important election America will ever have, possibly the last if Barack Obama is not elected.

The Evolutionary Party derives its politics from the equation for evolution shown on the flag that has been in the textbooks for the last eighty years. A mathematical elaboration of it supported by data ranging from chemical kinetics to the evening news indicates that our “war on terror” is slowly but surely escalating to World War III, a truly terrifying thought. For that reason we support Barack Obama, for he is the only real anti-war candidate.

Hillary? Before Hillary came Bill. Let us recall Bill Clinton and his lovely first lady with a clear eye. This all smiling couple sang their song of health care so sweetly to the public but delivered, not on an increase in medical protection, but an increase in prison building and in the number of police roaming the streets, federally paid, looking for a reason to hassle the public and put those who get annoyed rather than cowed into one of those new Clinton prisons. And we accepted it all because it came from such a nice American couple with such nice smiles. Hillary, show us that your showboat is something other than a total fake.

What the Clintons did very much pleased the conservatives, who believe in lock ‘em up law and order because our laws are made by and for the eternal betterment of the moneyed class in America. What the Clintons did took America to the highest per-capita prison population in the world, a statistic historically associated with police states like Stalinist Russia and apartheid South Africa. No, the Evolutionary Party is not saying that America is a police state, if it were, you’d have heard about it on the evening news.

The Clinton presidency also ended social protection for out of work people, again quite pleasing the conservatives. The Clintons ended Lyndon Baines Johnson’s war on poverty and put all the homeless people you don’t see on TV onto the streets of Las Vegas and Sacramento where they are as thick as flies and can’t be missed unless you are blind. As some in the media actually are. Have you ever noticed Carol Costello’s eyes? Right out of the Stepford Wives. She is blind. You are sure of that by what she and the rest of the show your tits newscasters don’t say. Nothing that you actually see on the streets of America and on its busses and in its workplaces is ever talked about on TV.

And you have to wonder who Carole is banging for in the front office. We are not picking on her for that reason, though. Working women all across America have to fuck for their bosses, one way or another, to get ahead in life. So it is very unlikely that Carole is alone as a CNN down on her knees newscastrix. No, we are picking on Carole and on Anderson and on the rest of the well paid greasy mouths on TV for not seeing the more stark realities we lesser people have to live with.

And to all you middle class who don’t care if the Clintons brought us the hoards of homeless beggars that don’t exist in your life, don’t turn your head so soon. It could be you and your family next. Either as one of the homeless, when the economic realities of our trillion dollar war rob you of your job and retirement savings when the market crashes. Or as a victim of the homeless when their rage at being kicked by the police on top of being starved reaches the mass murder point. As it has in a number of other sectors in America where control is abusive, as at work and in our well policed schools.

On a lighter note, Hillary does have a few things she can be proud of. She is a most talented actress and a profoundly adept social climber, our American Evita. But whatever Hillary’s personal accomplishments, she is never going to go against the wishes of the money class that created her and Bill and supported them as their adorable political puppets. Hillary would not show her tax returns, as Obama asked, because they would show the largess showered on the Clintons by the moneyed class. No, Hillary is not going to stop this war, whatever she may say to get elected and star her next movie: Figurehead President II.

Of course, there are those of you that think that Hillary would never lie to us. Bill said he would never lie to us. And he said it so well that I yet don’t believe he lied to us about Monica. Monica who? That is how good an actor Bill is. He’s even a better actor than Brad Pitt. One night Bill crawled into Angelina’s bedroom in Beverly Hills with a cigar in his mouth. Hey, Angelina, he said, my wife’s going to run for president this year. Open your legs and give us your vote. Pass the popcorn, please. It’ll be another four years of that movie, but with Hillary smoking the cigar.

Of course, transgressions are relative. Who is not totally revulsed by the smell of a public rest room fused to the Bible squeezing, boy hustling conservative senator from Idaho? Nobody has caught Bill at that yet. Still, what character is there in a first family when the head of the most powerful nation on earth sticks a penile object, not even his own, up some college kid’s vagina? If this were a movie, would they play the Star Spangled Banner during this scene?

And doesn’t it make you wonder about the guy’s wife? Does any sane female over the age of 22 really think Hillary felt bad about Bill and Monica? Behind all the media hype that protects those who help control the little people, you have to wonder:

A.) Is Hillary is lesbian, a married one, not that unusual in modern America. If Hillary was mad about anything with Monica, it was that she didn’t get a shot at her too. Watch one of Hillary’s lovers surface soon to clarify her tastes as to penile object.

B.) The smiling Clintons are so phony and so slimy underneath that one would not be surprised to find that the inarguably unconfident and possibly mildly retarded Chelsea Clinton was the product of her pervert parents abusing her when she was four years old, the age she seems to be stuck in. Certainly there is as much truth in this outrageous conjecture as the Clintons being good people because they go to church on Sunday. No, what the Clintons are is not good, but likable. Likable is a banana split. You just like how it tastes. You don’t need a reason. The Clintons are an imitation banana split, very likeable, like artificial sweetener that causes cancer eight years down the line.

You can trust what a Clinton says like you can trust what a Bush says. That whole family, George I, George II, Lady Barbara and Lady Laura, are all great actors too. And isn’t it interesting that the Bush daughters, Jenna and what’s her name, are as unconfident and inept as Chelsea. Makes you wonder if Bush uses a cigar too. But on Lady Laura, the Virgin Mary of conservatives?

True, this skit by the one writer’s guild writer who didn’t get rehired is a bit insane. But there are a lot of people around today that are actually insane, not the least of whom are the conservatives, all of which are unbalanced emotionally because of their castration in childhood from the pains of physical punishment and strict obedience. They are inherently defective however much their endless charades from Senate podiums and on Fox News try to hide it. And dangerous when they have weapons in their grasp.

If you want the war and the police state to end, vote for Barack Obama. Not for Hillary, who is so self-serving and devious that you wouldn’t be surprised if she teamed up with Huckabee as VP on a national reconciliation ticket. Or some such curve ball the moneyed class would use to block Obama from getting in and ending our descent into irreversible totalitarianism and worldwide war. Hopefully Obama will not be removed by assassination.

Who are we to say such dark things?

matrix-evolutionsdotcom

Posted by: Ruth Calabria | February 21, 2008 06:42 PM


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