Mr. President, you should learn from George Bush.

Dear Mr. President:

Sorry the title to this blog is a little provocative, but I needed to get your attention.  I come in peace with a few observations and suggestions.  I know your hands are full but this is a matter that can't really wait much longer.

You came into the White House in no small part due to your promise to fix our broken immigration system--the one that separates families, keeps our employers from hiring the foreign talent they need, thwarts the efforts of foreign investors and entrepreneurs, and in general keeps upwards of 15 million people operating in a shadow economy.  You brought the 15 million and their families HOPE and you promised CHANGE.

But right out of the box you got hit with the worst financial situation in almost a century and all talk of immigration reform went to the same place as my 401k. To your credit, you tried to be bipartisan and conciliatory to your political opponents, even as they pledged to limit your tenure in the White House their number one priority.  By 2010, the Republicans had done such a good job blaming you for Bush's ruinous policies that America took away your party's control over the House of Representatives and the 60 votes in the Senate, which by some strange reckoning is the new majority.  And yet you still tried to be the honest broker.  In the 2010 lame duck session you backed the extension of the Bush Tax cuts for the wealthy because in good faith you believed the Republicans would reciprocate in kind--with good will and honest intent.  And not unlike Charlie Brown letting Lucy tee up the football one more time you approached the DREAM Act.  But you failed to persuade Democrats Baucus, Nelson, Pryor, Hagan, Tester to vote for the bill and it lost.  You left it up to them to decide and in the end accepted their betrayal because they were in tough districts where "amnesty" was unpopular.  You also refused to tie the DREAM Act to the Bush Tax Extensions (i.e., you give me the DREAM Act, I'll give you the extensions).  So in the end you didn't get what you said you wanted on either.  To make matters worse, even your supporters like Congressman Luis Gutierrez commented:


"If you really want to bring Republicans to the table," he added, "so long as they are getting everything they want, every piece of enforcement, why, why would they come to the table?"

What Congressman Gutierrez was referring to was the Obama strategy on how to work with the Republicans on immigration reform.  Simply put, that policy was to show the Republicans that increased enforcement was the only way to buy credibility with Republicans and generate bipartisan support for an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws. To demonstrate how tough the administration was on enforcement, Obama's Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported almost 400,000 people in 2010, way more than the Bush administration ever did.  So how impressed were the Republicans with this "get tough" strategy?  The results of the vote on the DREAM act, where only three Republicans voted to shut down the filibuster.  One of those was Utah's Senator Bennett who had already been turned out in his reelection bid, in part because of his moderate views on immigration.

So what does any of this have to do with President Bush you ask?  Remember George Bush, the self-dubbed "decider"--the one who (correctly) pronounced that "elections have consequences"?  The one who appointed his crony to lead FEMA and in the middle of the Katrina disaster put his arm around him and told him "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job".  The one who put Monica Goodling in charge of cleansing the Department of Justice of political leftists and independents, and unapologetically appointed as immigration judges people with no immigration experience but plenty of political juice.  And he did it with his head held high, confident that he was right and ambivalent to those who didn't agree!  Why?  Because ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES. 

While I was disgusted at the time, I now have a grudging respect for Dubya.  Through either cunning devise or blithering idiocy (either way doesn't matter), he did what he wanted to do because he was the President of the United States of America.  He did it because he could.  Whether "it" was invading Iraq on a pretext or
feeling up the German President (seen here).  He didn't care about public opinion, and certainly not what his political opponents would say or do. 

So back to you President Obama.  If you really do believe in the DREAM Act, then stop deporting any and all DREAMers.  If you want immigration reform, then stop removing fathers and mothers from their families.  Tell your agents in the field that YOU and YOU ALONE are the President of the United States and have the authority to tell them what their priorities are, and most importantly MAKE THOSE PRIORITIES STICK.  You have the power to transfer a mutinous officer to watch the border along the upper Alaska/Canada border, don't you?  Or to investigate possible marriage fraud in Kazakhstan.  When Jeff Sessions of Alabama or any one of a number of deportaholics go on Faux News to decry you and criticize you for being soft on immigration, remember that they don't like you anyway and never will.  This liberating affirmation should be your mantra for the rest of your first term.  Do it and you will get reelected because apparently people like a President who is decisive, even if they don't like the outcome and will even reelect them.  So as counterintuitive as it may seem and while it may grate against your tendencies to be a consensus builder, look to Bush and learn from him.  I thank you, Mr. President.

STEM legislation and a certain Congressman from Texas

Imagine a law that would say this:  if someone comes here to go to college and graduates with a degree in the sciences, technology, engineering or mathematics (hence the "STEM").  Rather than sending this person back to their homeland to directly compete against our own STEM workers (I'm told that somewhere we actually have produced a handful or so of STEM workers all on our very own), we would give them a green card and encourage them to stay and fuel our technological advances rather than, oh let's just say, China's.  That would be a good thing, wouldn't it?

The timing for such a bill would be welcome for the U.S. economy because at present a software engineer from India would have to wait 70 years or so because of the backlog caused by an antiquated quota system.  In seventy years, our grandkids will probably be working in a call center for the Bank of Mahindra or Shanghai Express.

It bears pointing out that immigrants have always been major contributors to our economic success.  According to a study by the Kaufman Foundation,

in a quarter of the U.S. science and technology companies founded from 1995 to 2005, the chief executive or lead technologist was foreign-born. In 2005, these companies generated $52 billion in revenue and employed 450,000 workers. In some industries, the numbers were much higher; in Silicon Valley, the percentage of immigrant-founded startups had increased to 52 percent. Indian immigrants founded 26 percent of these startups—more than the next four groups from Britain, China, Taiwan, and Japan combined.   

I recently interrupted a meeting of angry minuteman at the Arizona/Mexico border and asked the question about the value of STEM workers and after a robust discussion during which I pointed out that the digital thermal gun sights they were using were the invention of an immigrant (I was probably correct--although I was making it up) there was near unanimous assent for the idea, proving that even the most ardent immigrant bashers understand the contributions that "them foreigners" make to our country.  So when I heard that the U.S. House of Representatives was going to take up the STEM legislation, I figured that it would literally fly right through without any problems.  Or at least until I heard who was chairing the committee that would hear testimony on the bill.

Lamar Smith, congressman from San Antonio, Texas, champion of the restrictionists and patron saint of the minutemen, held the gavel for the hearing. He is the long time nemesis of Comprehensive Immigration Reform, and was the chief architect of the 1996 immigration enforcement-only laws that have served to paralyze our immigration system and ironically swell the numbers of illegal immigrants living in the U.S.  Indeed, putting him in charge of these hearings is a little like putting Chuck Kuck in charge of buying the refreshments for the office Christmas party.  (Chuck, for those who don't know, is a good friend and former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.  He is also a inspiring and devout Mormon).  But at least Chuck would try to do the right thing.

I'm not so sure about Mr. Smith.  It was reported that he rejected assistance from Rep. Zoe Lofgren, whose congressional district encompasses much of Silicon Valley, because a) she is a Democrat, and b) she wouldn't support his eVerify bill.  It was also reported that he is a little uneasy with the general prospect of simply having more scientists come to America.  So lets all take a minute and sent an email to Mr. Smith and let him know that we want American to continue to lead the world in the STEM categories. 

https://lamarsmith.house.gov/Contact/default.aspx

The Hispanic Vote, Immigration and the 2012 Presidential Elections

A recent poll from the Public Policy Polling reaches an interesting conclusion that has the potential to tip the 2012 presidential election.  For all the talk about how Hispanic voters are disillusioned with Obama, especially for his failure to fulfill his promise to pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform, his numbers are even better than they were in the 2008 election.  According to the poll:

On our weekly national poll for Daily Kos this week Obama's approval with Hispanics came in at only 50%. Yet on our last national horse race poll Obama led Mitt Romney by 38 points (67-29) with that group and against Rick Perry his advantage went all the way up to 43 points at 70-27.  Obama won the Hispanic vote by 36 points nationally in 2008 so his margins over both Romney and Perry represent an improvement.  Hispanics may not be enamored with Obama but they're a whole lot bigger on him than they are Romney (29/52 favorability) and Perry (16/61 favorability).  http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2011/09/obama-and-hispanics.html

So as the Republican candidates pander to their base, falling over one another in their willingness to vilify and demonize undocumented aliens, they are sowing the seeds to a Republican defeat in 2012.  Nobody in America is affected by our broken immigration system more than the Spanish speaking communities across the country, and no group of people understand the hardship and unjust effect of the recent spate of legislation targeting "illegals".  The recent legislation in Alabama, as it did in Arizona and other states, targets people who appear to be illegal, (i.e. people who look Hispanic) and it is not lost on these communities that the authors and proponents of these bills tend to be of the same political stripe as Mitt, Perry, Paul et al.  Not only that, but Latino voters are becoming relevant in some unexpected places.  According to the Pew Research Center, Hispanics make up 8% of the population of Georgia, 7% in Virginia and North Carolina.  In Indiana and Ohio, they make up 5% and 3% respectively, but those states were won by Obama with a razor thin edge.  While safely Republican (for now), Utah and Idaho have 12% and 11% Latino populations. 

Latinos are now the largest minority group in the country replacing African-Americans.  In Nevada, with their 20% of the vote, they made the difference in the reelection of Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, when his opponent ran an ad showing Mexicans in stocking caps menacingly climbing through a hole in a fence destined to steal your car or sell your kid drugs.  Estimates are that the Hispanic vote went to Reid by a 90%-10% margin.  In the end, the election wasn't even close.

The PPP report cites Florida and Colorado as two swing states that Obama needs to win to ensure his reelction. 


Hispanics are really what's keeping Obama in the game in Sunshine State- strip them out and he trails Romney 49-43 and leads Perry only 47-46.  But their overwhelming support is worth 6-7 points to Obama on the margin, giving him a 1 point lead over Romney and a 7 point one over Perry overall.  Again the story here is a strong dislike for the GOP frontrunners- Romney's favorability with Hispanics is 36/50 and Perry's is 25/68

Obama's building on his 2008 advantage with Hispanics in Colorado as well.  He won them by 23 points last time but now has a 32 point lead over Romney with them at 63-31 and a 45 point margin on Perry at 71-26.  Obama's doing well enough in Colorado that he'd be leading the state even without his overwhelming support form Hispanic voters but it certainly gives him a nice cushion. Romney's favorability with Hispanics there is 26/57 and Perry's is 23/51.

Now, to be fair, many observers are saying that a disillusioned Latino electorate will just sit this one out and stay home in droves.  But I disagree.  The Latino voters I know are a hardy bunch.  They have faced more disappointment and difficulty that anyone I know, and the stakes are very high.  What's more, there is a new generation of young dynamic leadership that are anything but ambivalent.  Then there's the big issue that Mitt, Rick and the rest seem to be unaware:  Of the 12-15 million undocumented aliens in this country, the overwhelming majority are Latino, and the majority of those have at least one family member who is a U.S. citizen. A voting U.S. citizen.    

So not that you need my advice, Republican candidates, but keep up the "boots on the ground" and "build the fence" talk.  Keep ranting about how the DREAM Act is nothing more than rewarding scofflaws.  Repeat the lies of the nativists and racists.  Do these things and alienate key voters in key swing states that you will need to claim the White House in 2012.