The Gutierrez bill: Comprehensive immigration reform or Trojan horse?

[Louisiana1976]

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The Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity (CIR ASAP) Act of 2009 makes a few desperately-needed changes to US immigration policy. I won't list them since you can read the 600+ page bill for yourself (or a summary of it at Vivir Latino). However, this legislation has several problems--and one fatal flaw in particular--that cannot be ignored. Sadly, the DREAM Act became intertwined with the CIR ASAP Act and is only one of may provisions in the bill. Perhaps I am too much of a cynic, but it seems to me that the DREAM Act was attached to the CIR ASAP Act as a Trojan horse of sorts to garner the Latino/a community's support for a bill laden with draconian provisions that we'd otherwise be in the streets protesting. Please allow me to explain.

I will not discuss all of the provisions that were included in the bill to assuage the rabid, so-called "nativist" pendejos. They are pretty obvious (e.g., the emphasis on LEARNING ENGLISH because... dear god in heaven the earth will spin off its axis if a person can become a US citizen without having to take tests to prove they can speak English well enough so that the poor oppressed white folks across America won't have heart attacks and die whenever they are forced to hear a Spanish word--and there are many other examples). Here is my main concern: The CIR ASAP Act increases the militarization of the US-Mexico border, even though the politicians tried to be slick and trick everyone by stating that the "military" generally will not be allowed to patrol the border. But if you read the bill carefully, it actually ratchets up "border security" to historically unprecedented levels--some of the crap they are proposing sounds like something out of Star Wars. Now, this increased border militarization will have one inevitable disastrous consequence...and a second terrifying one if you are Lou Dobbs.

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http://wildwildleft.com/diary/5/the-gutierrez-bill-comprehensive-immigration-reform-or-trojan-horse

[pampango]

1. You're right, but it seems that to get anything done in this country, you have to give "something"

to the other side.

The republicans always rant against "amnesty" and for "border control" (a euphemism for the "Great Wall of China" or "Berlin Wall" solution to immigration), so you have to give them something. One day their wall will either be torn down (Berlin Wall example) or looked at as an icon of a historical time that no longer exists (Great Wall example). Until that happens, I think we have to give them an expensive and ineffective offering in order to achieve what most progressives (the Progressive Caucus, organized labor, the Green Party, etc.) want.