The Republican National Committee took a serious step toward reclaiming its big-tent-party status today, when it announced that it will spend millions this year on minority outreach and endorsed comprehensive immigration reform.  It was a move toward reason and rationality, and a tiny hint that Republicans might be willing... Continue »
It’s a shame that Sens. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) showed up to bully the witnesses of today’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the needs of women and families in immigration reform, because, as our own mothers always used to say, the worst thing you can do... Continue »
The manufactured kerfuffle of ICE’s release of a number of immigrants from detention facilities last month has officially reached the phase where House Republicans hold hearings to show off how outraged they are by the Obama Administration. Typically, such hearings are full of fact-free fearmongering about criminals running amok... Continue »
This morning, the Immigration Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on America’s need for high-skilled immigration, the third in a series of narrowly-focused single-issue hearings they’re holding as an effort to “educate” their party on immigration issues. So far, the hearings have indeed been instructive —... Continue »
The House Judiciary Committee held two hearings today, on two different topics (agriculture and E-Verify), yet the takeaway was the same: immigration reform must happen as soon as possible, and must include a path to citizenship. During Tuesday’s agriculture hearing, businesses and farmworkers found potential for an agreement on legalization, with... Continue »
Tuesday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing on agricultural labor and a guest-worker program saw anti-immigrant Rep. Steve King (R-IA) getting a little bit of a smackdown when he tried to insist that immigration enforcement has been lax under President Obama–despite reams of evidence that, to the contrary, it’s been ever more draconian.... Continue »
As a general rule: there is no reason, ever, for a member of Congress to ask a question at a hearing of the witness from the Center for Immigration Studies. (And there’s always a witness from the Center for Immigration Studies.) But this exchange, led by Connecticut Senator Richard... Continue »
70% of all voters support creating a path to citizenship for the undocumented. Asked if they favored “creating a way for illegal immigrants already here to become citizens,” 70% of voters agreed that they favored the proposal. 60% of Republicans support a path to citizenship on the merits. 60% of Republicans... Continue »
For the first time, President Obama has a net positive approval rating on his handling of immigration. 47 percent of Americans said they approved of the President’s job performance on immigration, while 46 percent disapprove. This is a high for President Obama on this issue and the first time his... Continue »
Turns out Brian Bilbray’s nativist collection of crackpots, the House Immigration Reform Caucus, is not so dormant after all. Like that flu you’d really hoped you kicked, the IRC (we also call them the Bully Brigade) is flaring up again, nominating Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) to be its new... Continue »