| In response to huge pro-immigrant rallies this spring and the draconian, cruel, inhumane, and unenforceable House Bill 4437 that focuses only on a punitive approach to immigration reform, the Senate passed its own more moderate Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill, which -- even though has many flaws -- at least has some positive provisions for granting many undocumented workers the opportunity to regularize their situation and perhaps some day, become full American citizens. But when the House Republican leadership, and in particular Wisconsin Representative James Sensenbrenner, Jr. left Washington in August, they pledged to undermine that bill and refused to enter into Conference to iron out the glaring differences between the two bills. Thus, they decided to take their dog and pony show on the road, claiming to want to "hear" from their "constituents" what to do with the immigration legislation. What they did instead was to fabricate a series of "hearings" all over the country where the people that they were supposed to listen to weren't even allowed to speak. They lined up time after time "witnesses" that would respond as they wished them to respond on what should be done about undocumented immigrants. In essence, hoping to paint immigrants are criminals, and the Senate bill as a bad bill, so that they could come back in the fall and start moving through the House more punitive and enforcement-only bills with the excuse that it is what the "people" want. In reality, as mentioned before, the real people were not allowed to testify, and when one of the selected "witnesses" at the hearing in Georgia did not tell Rep. Charles Norwood (R-Georgia) what he wanted to hear, the Georgia Representative said, "What I wanted was witnesses who agree with me, not disagree with me." This same scenario was repeated in many other cities. Fortunately, with some pressure from real constituents, some pro-immigrant witnesses were allowed to testify. However, they were always in the minority -- 4 to 1. This was the same scenario at the hearing staged by Rep. Sensenbrenner and Rep. King (R-Iowa) in Dubuque last month. All the witnesses but one were there to tell the panel of House Representatives and Rep. Sensenbrenner in particular, what they wanted to hear. Fortunately, they allowed a Dubuque Alderwoman to testify on behalf of her immigrant constituents. And she painted a very positive picture of their enormous economic and civic contributions to her city. On the panel as well, was Democratic Represetative from Texas Sheila Jackson who is an outstanding defender of immigrant rights and who didn't allow Rep. Sensenbrenner or any of the other panelists to control the procedures as they would have liked. Unfortunately, in an election year when many expect a close race for control of the House of Representatives, Republicans will continue their immigrant bashing in the hope of diverting attention from the real issues like the war in Iraq, health care, etc. It is my sense that most people with common sense already realized that the voices that these representatives heard are not those of the people, but just a facade, and that after the November election, most of those whose only goal is bigotry and political posturing will be gone. |
| House Republicans finish rounds of immigrant bashing by Salvador Carranza |
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