The GOP is is a pretty tight box on this one. Its pretty much a lose-lose for them either way they go.

If they oppose, they lose a big chunk of the voting block.
If the accept, they lose a big chuck of the voting block.

Amnesty, I believe, is pretty much an inevitability. I’ve not read enough about the proposals to actually have a deep understanding. Personally, I think that border enforcement and entitlement reform should come first. I don’t really have a problem with someone coming in to the country to work and join in the American Dream. I have a HUGE problem with someone coming in and collecting benefits from the taxpayers. We’ve already got enough “Obama-phone” takers. I don’t think there is a way to have one without the other.

The GOP will definitely need to cultivate their younger Hispanic members and find more. I just wonder how much compromise of economic/small government values that will entail? Will that just push them further into the Democrat-light trajectory they’re already on? It’s really hard to compete against free stuff.

Of course, if these people had the right to vote in Mexico then they’ve already proven they make poor choices judging by the state of affairs there. It’ll probably just be one more nail in the coffin.

I’m honestly not sure what the answer is for the GOP???

According to the senators pushing this plan, nothing will happen until there is “verification” that the borders are secure. As if…

IIRC, the last Republican who made a point of “verification” was Ronald Reagan, who, when dealing with the USSR, famously said, “trust, but verify!” Reagan won the Cold War. He also said that the one thing he regretted MOST about his Presidency was agreeing to the first amnesty bill.

Rinse, lather, repeat. It’s always the same. Taxes, debt ceiling, budget, immigration. Every situtation is lose-lose. So how come? Maybe ’cause the Republicans can’t/won’t play to win. As I’ve commented before, merely slowing the direction which we are headed only delays the inevitable. True compromise with the statist, collectivist, freedom hating progressives would be no net movement – zero – in their direction. Slowing their advance in any area is only a victory if offset by a subsequent reversal of greater magnitude in that or some other area. It’s this reversal that doesn’t seem to be happening. [CUE MUSIC] When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?

You said they need to “cultivate their younger Hispanic members and find more.”
That means that they are conservative or it means that Republicans should lower their standards. Which of course they have already done.

Rubio is mouthing the Bushies in their never ending push of amnesty. He sounds conservative, but is sounding more and more like a Big Gov Repub. Seems to be a disease in Wash DC. Come in Conservative and end up a flaming Lib. NO immigration reform until we see a few years of major enforcement. Obama will simply ignore what they pass and you WILL see 12 million new Democrat voters, the welfare rolls exploding and Obama-care sinking under the weight of 12 million new citizens demanding more care and more taxes. here in California, all the health clinics are flooded with illegals and seeing a very young mother with 3 kids hanging on her and pushing a baby cart with another one in it , is very common. I don’t even want to think about the chain migration this will cause. You can see the Dem’s behind McCain just laughing as they know darn well, that this will finish the GOP and give the Dem’s years of Low Info Voters in elections. Unless we see major enforcement first, the party of stupid had better really think about this long and hard. I’m gearing up to write my Representatives to say no. They are never going to enforce any laws and just end up again with millions of more illegals demanding amnesty in the near future. Here in LaLa land, they are putting up huge outdoor screens in the streets for the illegals to watch Obama demand amnesty.

How can you cherish the Constitution and DofI and then deny people rights endowed by their creator?

Well, there is a history of Americans believing those exact things deciding to be insurrectionists…

You do realize that the US Constitution only guarantees those rights to US citizens and to US persons who are here legally for a reason? Without sovereignty and the rule, the US Constitution becomes meaningless and its principles unenforceable, and as such, it can no longer guarantee those cherished rights for anyone.

The next shoe to drop will the the O trying to make sure he wrests the baton from the Republicans and casts them as the villains. He sees this as one of his “signature” issues and a vehicle to use against the Repubs. Ergo, he will do everything possible to add provisions which he knows the Repubs can’t accept just so he can make them the “enemy” to the Hispanic population. Just wait and watch…

I’ll withhold judgment on Sen. Rubio until the legislation is written. He said today on Rush, and I’m paraphrasing, that the final legislative language must include all of the principles outlined by the Gang-of-Eight, that congressional legislative intent must be clear, unambiguous and enforceable, or he would walk away.

I totally agree with that. I think if Marco Rubio doesn’t pass your “conservative purity test” then the problem is more likely with your test than with Rubio. I don’t agree with him on everything, just like I don’t agree with any politician or “conservative” on everything. We are individuals. But I agree with Marco Rubio on an overwhelming majority of things — I’d say he is a conservative. Hyperbolic histrionics declaring otherwise brands the conservative movement as rather irrelevant in politics, if that is mainstream.

Let’s not confuse fighting for independence from unjust government with trying to come here and reclaim to the southwest for “The race”.

What about the Declaration of Independence?

yep. It is contrary to all laws of morality and ethics to reward with
enormous lifetime boons and benefits trespassers breaking our laws and trampling over those who have morally and ethically followed the rules, spending years of their time and resources responsibly vying for the blessings of US citizenship.

Forgiveness is often offered as the remedy for the PC/liberal horror of the concept of wrong-doing, hoping that the application of ‘compassion’ and ‘understanding’ will somehow effect a re-definition and nullification of the notion of crime, sin or evil – as if understanding causes might somehow magically undo effects. Having compassion or understanding for the weakness and desires that underlie unethical, immoral or illegal acts should never be conflated with, or defined by, rewarding them. Nor does belief in forgiving the sinner imply that the moral and/or legal code that recognizes, punishes and prevents further wrongdoing (including causing suffering to the innocent) ought to be trivialized or dismissed.

Or it means people’s political views are permanently fixed and its possible to persuade people.

I think you missed my point.

Again, what does that have to do with people breaking our laws? Do you stand for letting all criminals out of jail? They were only pursuing their own form of happiness? How about dropping all laws because by gosh we would not want to keep a phedophile from pursuing his “right” to be happy?
Stupid runs deep, so very very deep in you.

“The proposal subtly implies that Arizona-style enforcement laws (which
have actually worked) are tantamount to racial profiling. So how will
any of their proposed mechanisms not fall under this same charge? Any
workplace enforcement will be subject to legal challenges from the
truculent immigration attorneys, and they might succeed in striking down
the laws.”

This alone is sufficient reason to demand this: Workplace enforcement bill NOW, first, and then and only then, after it is actually in USE for a year, and only AFTER it is actually in use, working and proven, take up anything relating to status of current illegal aliens.

“Maybe Rubio acknowledges that they are in the county and are human.”

As a conservative, I know that there are 6 billion plus humans on this planet. All of them are deserving of human rights, compassionate and consideration. … But it’s a big fat non sequitor to turn that fact into a ‘right’ to be American, irregardless of what immigration law says… the fact is that we cannot allow unlimited immigration into our nation. Now do all of them have the right to be Americans? Of course not, if we are a sovereign country, we must decide that. even worse, it’s a lie to turn that into some ‘right’ for someone to break the law and then demand redress for the consequences of their violation of law.

It’s like the the kid who killed his parents and then pled mercy on account of being an orphan. If they come to America without legal right.

So, in fact, there is nothing remotely conservative, compassionate or ‘rights based’ in the proposition that violators of law are entitled to a redress for their situation.

Poor under educated Irish, Poles, Chinese, Russian Jews, Italians etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.
All came to this country and were turned in Americans.

We’ve done ok with them.

He must be a troll. no conservative is that clueless. I hope!

“Hispanics are not conservatives.”
Funny, but Senator Ted Cruz may have something to say about that.
Stop being a foolish overgeneralizer – the racist-b-gone spray needs to be used against such bad phrasing and terminology.
If you MEAN that ON AVERAGE, larger percentages didnt vote a certain way, then phrase it that way.

The numbers dont agree with your point, we had under 40% of hispanic vote in 1988. Had Romney improved to 40% of hispanics in 2012 – he still would have lost. OTOH, we need to think about getting more than that for Asians, or aspiring to 40% of african-American vote. Why not?

bah humbug – Republicans will NOT get credit for a bill Obama signs and any bill Obama signs will be as bad as Obamacare, dodd-frank, stimulus, etc. etc. Lets not be clueless and get real, it would be nice to get a ‘good’ and real reform, but Obama doesnt want real immigration reform – his goal is turning illegal aliens into govt dependents and Demcorat voters. oh, plus letting gays import their lovers. that’s what the bill will do and real immigration reform will go hang.

While correct, those people came into the US when we didnt have the welfare state we now have. Studies clearly show more poverty among illegal aliens and more welfare use among legal immigrants than among native-born Americans.

you are correct that there is no more natural inclination for laziness among one ethnic group than another – you can confirm this by reading up on England’s white underclass moochers, created so by their welfare state, alongside Jamaican and ‘Asian’ (Pakistani) immigrants in England in the same state.

SO … the bottom line is legalizing millions of illegal aliens will make millions of them wards of the state in many ways, costing billions, expanding the welfare state, bankrupting our treasury and disturbing our politics for decades, as we spend/waste most of our time trying to clean up the mess of massive govt dependency, just as we spent 80s and 90s trying to correct the mess of 60s Great Society liberalism effect and creation of the ‘underclass’.

Its sad that after cleaning that up somewhat we are now about to take a big step BACKWARDS and recreate more of the underclass.

They came here legally, respected the rule of law, voluntarily worked long and hard without complaint, rejected the welfare state and willingly assimilated into American culture before becoming US citizens.
Prove that the current generation of Hipanics who are here ‘illegally’ are willing to do the same.

Not only stupidity, but misdirection, logical fallacy, and the vain hope that changing the argument will somehow win it through sheer persistence (perhaps the poster’s sole rhetorical asset).

When I came back to check up on the thread, timmcg’s remarks and questions under my original post appeared to have so little to do with my comments that I had no idea they were intended as a response to me until I got to reading the arrow’d fine print. I had concluded that the poster was talking to him or herself.

Italian, Irish, Chinese, Russian did not come here legally. Not by the millions.

WOP meant With Out Papes and became a slur for Italians because

The Page Act was about stopping Asian because they were “undesireable”

Most ethnic groups were thought to be not really ever going to assimilate. But they did.

I live in California and its hard to find 2nd generation Latinos who don’t speak English. They go to school. They study. They succeed.

In 2009 Congress granted amnesty to law breakers who avoided taxes with
Swiss bank accounts. I don’t recall any outrage then.

Sure, maybe he’s Conservaive on the votes. But it’s the ideas that matter, and he has had no good ones whether in Tallahassee or D.C.

Conservatism is not just Goldwater’s cause, it is also Burke’s philosophy.

The House should pass a plan based on the Sensenbrenner bill, and create a temporary program for probationary legal status with the fine and all. After five years, if enforcement targets are achieved, current illegal immigrants who registered within the first year or so will be allowed to go to the back of the queue to apply for permanent legal residency (not citizenship) and immediate deportation will take place for any others who are caught. If not, the program will be teminated and we would then have a mixture of mass deportation and self-deportation. Those who registered for the program in the first or second year will still be allowed to apply through the normal process.

It will be a different matter for the DREAMers and all others.

Well, we could always send them to Puerto Rico or give them California.

Eh, tax avoidance is, by definition, legal.

It was helpful in that Rubio is making clear that the bill has not even been written, yet. And I liked this part: “The next step in this process is to craft a starting point of
legislation, and then after that it’s gonna have to go through
committees and people are gonna have their input. There’s gonna be public hearings. I don’t want to be part of a process that comes up with some bill in secret and brings it to the floor and gives people a take it or leave it. I want this place to work the way it’s supposed to work, with every senator having input and the public having input. And then obviously the House is gonna have their imprint on this as well.”

However, it is still very troubling to me that he has flip-flopped on amnesty — he was against it before he was for it. I am already very clear on my position and I really resent when the politicians selfishly pander about the poor illegals and never address the burden they place on taxpayers. It is a very easy concept to grasp that America can only absorb so many poor, uneducated immigrants. I have seen up close the effects of having a sanctuary state and believe me, illegal aliens cost Calif. taxpayers over twenty billion per year. We have several million of them here and they have nearly destroyed our schools trying to accommodate them. The drop out rate and quality of the education is the worst it has ever been due in large part to too many Spanish speaking children whose parents don’t speak English I’m tired of coddling them and paying for their illegal behavior. And most people here feel that way, but the bully left keeps pushing for more and more open borders and immediately start the victim card over how mean we are to the poor illegals when we try to stop it. Real tired of it all.

So, I don’t know why Rubio’s coming off like he has had some new revelation that the rest of us should get behind now. The only explanation is that he has bought into the fear the RINOs he’s working with feel if we don’t pander to the Hispanics. I say stop it.

I’m not talking about people living in Africa or Asia.

I’m talking about the millions already living here. For years.

Recent report, survey and data analysis regarding California’s demographics and welfare use by immigrant households with children do not back up your claim.

“U.S.-born Hispanic households in California already use welfare programs (such as cash welfare, food stamps, and housing assistance) at twice the rate of U.S.-born non-Hispanic households, according to an analysis of the March 2011 Current Population Survey by the Center for Immigration Studies. Welfare use by immigrants is higher still. In 2008–09, the fraction of households using some form of welfare was 82 percent for households headed by an illegal immigrant and 61 percent for households headed by a legal immigrant.”

Report: California’s Demographic Revolution

Survey and data analysis: Welfare Use by Immigrant Households with Children

According to the report, it’s only going to get worse for the Hispanic population because they refuse to assimilate, and the poverty rate for 3rd generation Hispanic immigrants is higher than that of 2nd generation immigrants.

The original act of 1790 said that if you lived here for two years, of good moral character and were a white male, you can become citizen.

So it didn’t need to be for illegal immigrants. They already had a path to citizenship.

Meaning the Democrats still had an 8 percentage point advantage, and that was the *best* case.

The Naturalization Act of 1790 required no notice of intent and a 2 yr. residency. It was found to be unsustainable because unrestricted immigration overwhelmed the system, so it was superceded by the Naturalization Act of 1795, which added a 3 yr. notice of intent and increased residency to 5 yrs. It too was found to be unsustainable, so it was superceded by the Naturalization Act of 1798, which increased notice of intent to 5 yrs. and increased residency to 14 yrs. It was superceded by the Naturalization Law of 1802, which added the requirement that all aliens entering the US be documented and tracked.

In short: It was quickly found that unrestricted immigration is unsustainable, and the sovereign State has a compelling interest to know who is entering and what is their intent.

Hispanics actually aren’t socially conservative and they’re not especially religious either.

I find myself in an odd spot on this one. I have no problem with what Rubio is proposing. None whatsoever. It is common sense, Conservative, and attempts to solve the problem.

BUT a plan is only as good as how it is implemented. Does anyone honestly believe that this Administration who is thumbing their nose at the current immigration laws will actually secure our borders first before implementing the path to citizenship? Because if you do, you are crazy. Do you think they will actually make them go to the back of the line and re -enter legally before receiving benefits and voting rights? Of course not!

They will destroy the ideas that Rubio has or create loopholes to avoid enforcing it. I cannot support his plan because of this. Not because it is a bad plan, but because Washingon is full of dishonest, power-hungry bureaucrats (the chief one being in the WH) with no respect for the rule of law. The bottom line is thaf I do not trust them at all.

This is how this is a win for us: next election there WON’T be any reporters asking the “what is your stance on immigration” question. There WON’T be a parade of primary republican candidates trying to out conservative each other on the immigration issue. Thus we WON’T end up with a candidate that publicly had to support “self deportation” in order to falsely appear tough on immigration to the base. That is what we get out of this, and if you don’t think it is a big freaking deal you are sadly mistaken.

I can support it if the actual plan is specific enough. Right now all there is is a very vague set of ideas and no actual legislation has been drafted. There is no plan to support or oppose. Like you, I agree with the principles. I personally am waiting for the details.

I couldn’t agree more.

As soon as you start on the comprehensive stuff you give away any bargaining position you have to get the border secured. Democrats don’t want a secure border, we do. This is actually an issue we have some bargaining power on if we stick to the “border security first, period,” position.

And I disagree with the idea that Americans are clamoring for a “solution” for the 10 to 20 million illegals already in the US.

I believe the fact is that NOBODY is much exercised in any but the most theoretical sense about the presence of people who are here illegally but peacefully. Those 10 to 20 million Mexicans are in reality a gigantic barrel of red herring, designed to be rolled in front of any attempt to secure the border. We’re told that we can’t stop the inflow unless the barrel of fish are also dealt with, which simply isn’t true.

Senator Rubio says that nothing will happen until the border is secure, and I believe he’s sincere. But he’s also wrong. If HIS bill is passed, the immediate result at least will be to tell millions of potential interlopers exactly what they have to do to achieve legal residency in the US, followed by eventual citizenship. They will know FOR SURE they won’t be deported.

But why do we have to grant them a place in that citizenship line at all? Why not simply say, “You got here illegally, so part of the deal is that you can stay here but you NEVER will become a citizen of the US.” I suspect that most honest illegal immigrants would gladly accept that deal, because it takes them out of illegal status. I also suspect that no Democrat, honest or dishonest, would.

Details like this are why “comprehensive” is a synonym for “never get done right.” Take it one step at a time, and we can avoid a 2700 page immigration reform act that nobody can understand. Logically, the first step has to be border security, and as you rightly stated, it can be done separately.

We don’t even have to ask that. We can just ask, “Is it the best way to fix the problem?” Answer: “No.” So, don’t vote for it.

We could overcome that 8 percent deficit in 2004, but not after we legalize an additional 10-20 million people who will vote 60/40 Dem/Republican.

Actions speak louder than words. It strikes me that the next Republican nominee supported by conservatives won’t be someone that imposes a devisive law on American Citizens and associates with the Republican responsible for handing over the white house, and two of the most hated liberal Democrats in the senate.

I agreed with most of Rubio’s principles in the interviews and all. I cannot bring myself to agree with John McCain’s claptrap, even if it has Jeff Flake’s stamp on it. The devil’s in the details, and this leaves a lot of devils.

Not a terrible idea. I imagine over time though that someone here on a greencard or whatever will be seen as being exploited and ultimately granted citizenship…
I like the idea of tying it to entitlement reform! If they don’t have easy access to the government benefits fairy, i’d be a lot more inclined to discuss citizenship/residency.

According to the report linked below, 95% of illegal families with children have someone working.

How do you think your food gets to you? How do the toilets in hotels get cleaned? who does the gardening and maid work at many of the nicest neighborhoods?

From my experience in CA, illegals work hard. Extremely hard.