Mar 8, 2013
The botched Jeb Bush media tour and related controversy over his immigration positioning dominated this week’s immigration news. But the debate also clarified the fact that a road to earned citizenship is already the mainstream position on immigration reform. As Mayor Julián Castro and Frank Sharry remind us, citizenship...
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March 2013 | Download PDF here. A majority of Americans agree that Congress should pass an immigration law with a path to citizenship for immigrants here without papers. For this proposal to succeed, it has to be as inclusive and accessible as possible. Following are some of the key...
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Cross-posted at Huffington Post. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to…be part of a permanent underclass in American society…”? Oops. Wrong America. While the italicized words above are mine, the opening words come from the inspiring poem by Emma Lazarus. Inscribed on the pedestal of...
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Editor’s note: This column by Maribel Hastings was originally published in Spanish at La Opinion and Huffington Post Voces. The Spanish language version can be viewed here. WASHINGTON, DC – In an interview on NBC’s Today Show Monday, former Florida governor Jeb Bush said it’s premature to declare whether he’ll...
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The power of immigration reform WITH a path to citizenship is on full display this week, continuing to hammer down Jeb Bush days after his book revealed that he no longer believed a path was necessary. Instead of using his position to bring Republicans into the immigration debate, as...
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One of the most interesting angles in the Jeb Bush reversal on citizenship this week has been his fellow Floridian (and 2016 rival) Sen. Marco Rubio’s response. Rubio predicted to Talking Points Memo today that Bush would eventually swing back to his traditional support for citizenship, given his long...
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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...
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Further evidence of the nation’s dysfunctional immigration system was on display this week, when ICE–in anticipation of the upcoming sequester–released several hundred immigrants from their detention facilities. It’s unclear where this policy came from, but immigrants–who have been the focus of decades of political battles–are now being used as...
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This weekend, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and one of the key players in the effort to pass immigration reform, appeared on CNN’s State of the Union. He expressed hope that a reform bill can be passed, noting “The time is now.” Chairman Leahy...
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