Comments on: A 21st Century Immigration Policy: How the GOP can dominate the issue.

By: Ron Smith

Ron Smith — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 16:49:41 +0000

Thank you Mr. Alghawi. I am sharing this article with some establishment folks in my county republican party. It is refreshing to see some sanity applied to this issue after both sides have been fumbling over it for so long.

By: Max T. Russell

Max T. Russell — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 15:22:31 +0000

I would have a better opinion of what you’re saying, Dave, if you didn’t talk about weaknesses in the law. The issue of immigration is unbe-l-i-e-v-a-b-l-y complex. It’s a greased pig that you can never hang onto, because human need is complex, and because opinions are widely different and impossibly different, and because situations in different states and towns are different, and because lots and lots of citizens of any political leaning WANT immigrants to be here and will not wait for legalization, which would take forever or not at all. Another law won’t fix that without causing other problems. If we treat our immigration laws like they’re weak and in need of what you refer to as “good government”, we’re still going to have a mess on our hands. But I know, from gathering information from people around the country, and from testing arguments on them, that even people who consider themselves hardliners against immigration status quo are easy to switch from “against” to “for”. They don’t really need “better” laws to come to a fairly happy resolution. The secret to this is knowing EXACTLY what bothers people and EXACTLY what unbothers them. It’s a simple matter to do this, and I’ve done it lots and lots of times. It is not about laws.

By: Jason Robinson

Jason Robinson — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 20:30:57 +0000

The Idaho Republican Liberty Caucus was officially chartered at the Idaho Republican Party State Convention, just three days ago. I am this chapter’s newly elected secretary. More info to follow!

By: Dave Nalle

Dave Nalle — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 15:20:23 +0000

While it is obviously illegal to cross a nation’s border without permission, that does not mean it is morally wrong to do so. There are many laws which are on the books which do not follow reason or morality, but were implemented for other less laudable reasons. When such laws exist, breaking them falls into a gray area because in breaking them you are not just committing a crime, you are also registering the fact that he law is wrong, and when a law is morally wrong breaking it is an act of righteous protest even if it is technically a crime.

The rational response to a situation where a law is broken over and over again in millions of instances where no direct harm is done to any individual is not to pursue more enforcement, but to reevaluate the flaws in the law and alter it to be more in line with peoples’ behavior. This is a fundamental principle of good government.

By: Madison Reed

Madison Reed — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 15:31:15 +0000

Mr. Aghawi, if you would incorporate into your market based immigration proposal a solution for married or unmarried “same-sex binational couples,” your proposal would be meritorious, and I would enthusiastically support it.

Especially since passage of the infamous Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, a law that was devised to prevent gay Americans like me from bringing our foreign partners to the United States for family unification, we, LGBT binational couples have been forced to live and die separated from each other, by country or continent, to live as love exiles, or to live under constant threat of arrest and deportation.

Since the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) denies to same-sex couples more than 1,100 federal rights, benefits and privileges (including the right of an American’s foreign spouse to immigrate) available to heterosexual married couples, LGBT binational couples need the help of progressive Republicans like you, to make sure that a solution to our problem is included in your organization’s proposals. We also ask you to join with the rapidly advancing numbers of people and organizations that are calling for the immediate repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, because it is unconstitutional and ideologically motivated.

I agree with your ideas. They sound refreshing to me. We do need a new, 21st century, enlightened market-based solution to our current immigration nightmare. But our immigration system has always been about family unification, first and foremost. I’m sure you would agree with me on that.

For more information about the LGBT binational immigration problem, a good place to start is Lavi Soloway’s StopTheDeportations blog: http://stopthedeportations.com

Thanks,

Madison Reed

By: Max T. Russell

Max T. Russell — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 21:16:44 +0000

Aaron, I have studied immigration for 30 years or so. I interview people all over the country. I have accumulated a massive amount of information from immigrants and citizens and a mixture of both. The word “illegal” is the word we almost always use in Spanish for “illegal”. Illegals tell me absolutely everything. For years, they have been telling me what they want U.S. citizens to know about them, and I make that information available to businesses and entrepreneurs who are interested in reaching them and their millions of Latino citizen family and friends. The biggest group of people to ask me for the information are Latinos themselves…because they do not know.

Just this morning I was thinking, “Man, I wish I had a way to get my message to Mitt Romney. I know I could steer a Republican or a Democrat into the highest office in the land with a rationale that neither party has a clue about, and which most citizens would accept. I know this from my extensive time spent following the subject. And Obama’s actions lately are so disgustingly, selfishly timed. I am not a big fan of Republicans either.

But what I would tell Mr. Mitt is nothing like what you’re saying. When it comes to the Latino immigrant, I think you are being pretty gracious in some ways. In other ways, your ideas and opinions are just so far away from mine that I probably ought to conclude by saying that one thing ALL illegal immigrants admit to me is this: “Of course it’s illegal to cross a country’s border without permission. Nobody should be allowed to do it. But you gotta find work.”

You have raised some very good points. They just don’t have much to do with what I study everyday up-close. And I’m not saying I know more than you.