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posted by martyb on Saturday June 28 2014, @02:56PM   Printer-friendly

In a speech Wednesday on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) declared immigration reform dead. He chastised and baited Republicans in Congress for blocking reform, and declared that winning the White House without the support of a growing Hispanic population will become mathematically impossible. "The Republican Presidential nominee, whoever he or she may be, will enter the race with an electoral college deficit they cannot make up," said Gutierrez. Gutierrez didn't mention the H-1B visa in the speech, but if he's right, and comprehensive immigration reform is indeed dead, then so too is a provision in the bill that would have raised the cap on H-1B visas. Immigration reform advocates have successfully blocked any effort to take up the immigration issue piecemeal. They don't want support for broader reform to peel away.

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  • (Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 28 2014, @04:14PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 28 2014, @04:14PM (#61359)

    My personal problem with all this talk of immigration reform has been the consistent desire by both parties to make the expansion of E-Verify [wikipedia.org] a requirement of any bill. To sum it up, E-Verify is a way for the executive branch to block the employment of anyone that the database flags. Or more colloquially, you have to get permission from the president in order to feed and house your family.

    One of the biggest problems with e-verify is the false positive rate. Even if you assume absolutely no malice for adding people to the 'no-work list,' [washingtonpost.com] you can easily end up on the list by accident. [cato.org] Note, that's not a false negative as in giving people permission to work when they aren't permitted, it is stopping people who have done nothing wrong in the slightest.

    Requiring government permission to work is absolutely unacceptable policy in a free society. E-verify is a case where the cure is worse than the disease.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 28 2014, @10:06PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 28 2014, @10:06PM (#61418)

      I agree. As for immigration reform stalling? Good. I'm tired of qualified Americans being denied a job because companies know that they can hire an H-1B for cheaper (despite all the rules that supposedly prohibit this). All that immigration reform will do is screw over our existing, legal citizens, taxpayers, and voters. It is lovely how our congresscritters and senators are fairly and impartially protecting the future of our people and the long term viability of our economy, rather than focusing on short-term stuff, or sound bites about social issues that distract everyone from the real problems we're facing, right? Yay for rationality among our representatives and the voting public! More seriously, though, our politicians are acting rationally. The problem is that the incentives are skewed in such a way that acting in their own self-interest doesn't result in them acting in the interests of the voters or to maintain long-term stability of our socioeconomic system.

      Specifically discussing Mexico, if they want to come into the country, there's a legal process already in place for that. If they sneak across illegally and get found out, well, ship them back to Mexico and let their government deal with them. That includes all the kids. Yes, they're kids. That doesn't mean that they deserve a free pass into our country or that they deserve our tax dollars in the form of food and shelter. After being told that what they did is illegal and that they will not be allowed back in, they should be dropped off in front of the Mexican president's residence with a note saying "Here's your country's citizens back, safe and sound. They're your responsibility, not ours. If they want to move here legally, contact us and we'll be glad to help them through the process the right way. If they insist on doing this the wrong, illegal way... well. We have an awful lot of guns. Don't give us any more reasons to use them to stop illegal border crossings, okay? Lots of love, US Immigration and Naturalization Services."

      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by lonestar on Saturday June 28 2014, @10:30PM

        by lonestar (4437) on Saturday June 28 2014, @10:30PM (#61420)

        "Specifically discussing Mexico, if they want to come into the country, there's a legal process already in place for that. If they sneak across illegally and get found out, well, ship them back to Mexico and let their government deal with them. That includes all the kids. Yes, they're kids. That doesn't mean that they deserve a free pass into our country or that they deserve our tax dollars in the form of food and shelter. After being told that what they did is illegal and that they will not be allowed back in, they should be dropped off in front of the Mexican president's residence with a note saying "Here's your country's citizens back, safe and sound. They're your responsibility, not ours. If they want to move here legally, contact us and we'll be glad to help them through the process the right way. If they insist on doing this the wrong, illegal way... well. We have an awful lot of guns. Don't give us any more reasons to use them to stop illegal border crossings, okay? Lots of love, US Immigration and Naturalization Services.""

        Yeah but that would require a president and a congress who actually give a shit about our country's best interests.

      • (Score: 2) by tathra on Saturday June 28 2014, @11:26PM

        by tathra (3367) on Saturday June 28 2014, @11:26PM (#61435)

        Specifically discussing Mexico, if they want to come into the country, there's a legal process already in place for that.

        bahahahaha, i suggest you watch this [youtube.com]. so long as the legal immigration process remains completely broken, few will actually deal with the bullshit involved. the continued blocking immigration reform will only continue to make things worse, which means more illegals, and more "dey took err jeerrbs!", and of course, the ones who benefits the most, corporations, will continue hiring people for dirt-cheap and getting away with it. nobody's "taking" jobs from natural citizens, its seriously nothing more than the free market doing its thing.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by tathra on Saturday June 28 2014, @11:15PM

      by tathra (3367) on Saturday June 28 2014, @11:15PM (#61434)

      it would do little to solve the actual problem anyway, that E-verify system would only make things worse.

      lets go after the real issue, which is why so many people want to come into the country - because they're almost guaranteed to get hired, because companies always jump on the chance to pay somebody in pennies because they can get away with it. if they were forced to pay them the same as they're required to pay natural citizens, that shit would dry up almost overnight. IMMIGRATION PROBLEM SOLVED.

      but of course, nobody will actually go for that, because companies would throw a shit-fit if they couldnt get away with paying next to nothing to a large portion of their workforce.

      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday June 28 2014, @11:51PM

        by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday June 28 2014, @11:51PM (#61443) Homepage

        Another problem is that America is more lax than other countries in encouraging assimilation. Many people refer to America as a "melting pot," which suggests that immigrants should, you know, melt a little. Lack of a national language encourages immigrant enclaves which perpetuate often-undesirable behavior and cultural barriers. I've personally dealt with being unable to patronize a business because nobody on duty knew English. That is understandable in a place like the Imperial Valley, but totally unacceptable in a large fast-food franchise in an upper-middle class neighborhood (which was my experience). And, things are even worse in Los Angeles when the city is shut down because of a 500,000 man-strong [nbcnews.com] protest about perceived yet undeserved entitlements (and note that the L.A. Times version of the article fails to mention all the flags from other countries flown instead of the American flag). We have a process for immigration, and nobody like a line-jumper. Illegal immigrants are fucking over legitimate immigrants who choose to go through the motions. Nobody should feel entitled to immigrate anywhere without fulfilling all requirements, including the waiting.

        Canada [cic.gc.ca] requires knowing at least some English or French and the responsibilities and privileges of citizenship. America requires a half-ass 10-question test, where the immigrant can weasel around the English requirement by using an interpreter. We also need to get rid of "anchor babies" and require that at least one parent must be a citizen of the child is to be born a citizen. We need to scrap counterproductive vote-pandering shit like the DREAM act, [wikipedia.org] and remove all other incentives for illegal immigration.

        It used to be a good thing when America's Republicans and Democrats agreed on something, now, when they do it doesn't bode well for the common American citizen. Democrats won't enact productive immigration reform because Muh Latino votes and muh bleeding heart and Republicans won't because Muh big business.

         

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by tathra on Sunday June 29 2014, @12:05AM

          by tathra (3367) on Sunday June 29 2014, @12:05AM (#61449)

          Democrats won't enact productive immigration reform because Muh Latino votes and muh bleeding heart and Republicans won't because Muh big business.

          one of the most ridiculous things is that christian latinos are traditionally conservative, and would absolutely love to be able to vote conservative, but the GOP is honestly NOT a "conservative" party but a "rich white man" party, and only care about making things 'better' for other rich white men. if the GOP actually treated latinos like, you know, human beings, they'd have basically all the latino votes by default. the democrats dont need to go out of their way to keep latino votes, because the GOP is doing everything they can to drive all minority voters away.

    • (Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday June 29 2014, @01:14PM

      by RamiK (1813) on Sunday June 29 2014, @01:14PM (#61617)

      Considering I committed comments 3 times to git today that said //IGNOREME just because my team leader said I should do so* every few hours even if I haven't accomplished anything since that's what his boss asked him to do... Well, I can only imagine that if I worked in an office and my only job was to enter people into a nice/naughty list, I'd have a few in there each day regardless of any rules or guidelines.

      * No. Those aren't clever clues saying I'm working on the source file or doing anything meaningful in any way... I suspect these completely useless commits are to raise some crazy figure some clueless manager somewhere up the food chain asked about...

      --
      compiling...
  • (Score: 1) by lonestar on Saturday June 28 2014, @05:08PM

    by lonestar (4437) on Saturday June 28 2014, @05:08PM (#61365)

    I'd tell you what my problem is with the state of our borders and many of the proposed "solutions".... if I knew where to begin.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 28 2014, @05:39PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 28 2014, @05:39PM (#61370)

    heading, text are word for word identical with a post by Soulskill on Friday June 27, 2014 @04:16PM on That Other Site
    c'mon, we can do better than this?

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by hopdevil on Saturday June 28 2014, @06:37PM

      by hopdevil (3356) on Saturday June 28 2014, @06:37PM (#61378)

      I keep seeing these comments.. And every time I think the same thing, who cares? It's a news story from yet another website, does that bother you too? I get my news from many places, and I come here for the commentary and community. If every story was a copy from "that beta-site" I still wouldn't be bothered, hell its actually a good idea.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 28 2014, @06:52PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 28 2014, @06:52PM (#61379)

        I think it's an issue because plagiarism is wrong and makes everyone here on soy look bad.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 28 2014, @07:39PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 28 2014, @07:39PM (#61387)

          > I think it's an issue because plagiarism is wrong and makes everyone here on soy look bad.

          Who do you think submitted it to soylent in the first place?
          Hint, it was in the submission queue here before it was on the front page at slashdot.

      • (Score: 1) by CyprusBlue on Saturday June 28 2014, @07:24PM

        by CyprusBlue (943) on Saturday June 28 2014, @07:24PM (#61385)

        Yeah, why not set up the site for copyright headaches later on. Who does it really hurt after all?

        (The above was sarcasm)

        • (Score: 1) by hopdevil on Saturday June 28 2014, @08:31PM

          by hopdevil (3356) on Saturday June 28 2014, @08:31PM (#61395)

          You realize that the text in the description is a direct copy from the actual article right? And it almost always that way, and it is fair use.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by AnonTechie on Saturday June 28 2014, @08:54PM

      by AnonTechie (2275) on Saturday June 28 2014, @08:54PM (#61402) Journal

      When I submitted the story, it was not there on the green beta site. In any case, I thought it would be of interest to you all. As others have already mentioned, it is the comments and discussions that matter. There are stories that were submitted here first and then featured on the green site. I do not see your kind of comments on that site !!

      --
      Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
    • (Score: 2) by tathra on Saturday June 28 2014, @11:07PM

      by tathra (3367) on Saturday June 28 2014, @11:07PM (#61433)

      how do you know that AnonTechie and Soulskill arent the same person? and how do you know that they didn't plagiarize it from us, but posted it to their main page before we did? (you can view pending stories here [soylentnews.org], so people could easily be stealing our stories to post to the green site)

      • (Score: 2) by AnonTechie on Sunday June 29 2014, @08:56AM

        by AnonTechie (2275) on Sunday June 29 2014, @08:56AM (#61565) Journal

        That I can confirm .. I am NOT Soulskill ... I have never had an account on the green site. And, it is highly possible that people could be stealing our stories to post to the green site !!

        --
        Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 29 2014, @11:32PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 29 2014, @11:32PM (#61744)

          If the posts on both sites are NOT (almost) verbatim, there is NOTHING you can do.

          To stop the 'scoops' by the green site, all NCommander has to do is disable the
          'firehose' here.

          If that was done, I wouldn't mind as I do not read it -- I didn't even know it
          existed until now -- is it available to anonymous users? How do you get to it
          to read it?

          I come here for the NEWS presented to me in an appealing yet minimalist fashion.

          Before I left the green site, I had to deal with incessant
          'advertorial' stories, a crapy Javascript-driven user interface,
          and having to complete CAPTCHAs to post a comment while anonymous.

          Here on Soylent News, at the time of this posting, there are (very)
          few 'advertorials' that I encounter that can be ignored and
          I don't have to complete a CAPTCHA to post a comment.

          Most of the stories posted here are either worthwhile scientific stuff
          or stories that GENUINELY affect the reader in some way -- health, safety,
          rights, privacy, etc.

          ADVANTAGE, SOYLENTNEWS! :D