The Progressive Speech I'd Like To Hear on Immigration

"My opponents on the other side of the aisle have spent practically their entire primary campaign engaged in demagoguery over the issue of immigration. They put out ads accusing immigrants of murder and rape, they encourage the arrest of church leaders that offer aid and services, and they advocate building fences and deporting millions of undocumented workers.

But the truth is, they don't want to fix this. So-called "illegal immigration" is the best thing that's ever happened to the Republican Party. They have had nearly 30 years of relative dominance in Washington to deal with the problem. But if they ever fixed it, they would have to answer for the real reasons there is a teetering economy, soaring health care and gas prices, growing inequality and a whole generation of Americans destined to do worse than their parents. Immigrants are nothing more than a scapegoat, and anyone who's read a history book or has Irish or Italian heritage knows that there's a long tradition of that in this country. Conservative politicians who have seen their economic ideas fail must find someone, anyone to blame. If so-called illegal immigration went away tomorrow, there wouldn't be anything left. Their failed ideology would be laid bare. They don't want to get rid of illegal immigrants. They don't want to do anything about it. They want a safety valve for their own shortcomings."

(Incidentally, many of the Presidential candidates came very close to this rhetoric in yesterday's excellent NPR radio debate.

“It’s a very clever question, Steve, but I think it really begs the question,” Mrs. Clinton responded. “What we’re looking at here is 12 to 14 million people — they live in our neighborhoods, they take care of our elderly, they probably made the beds in the hotels that some of us stayed in last night. They are embedded in our society. If we want to listen to the demagogues and the calls for us to being to round up people and turn every American into a suspicious vigilante, I think we will do graver harm to the fabric of our nation than any kind of person-by-person reporting of someone who might be here illegally.”

Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio said, “ We don’t encourage vigilantism in this country.”

)

"Nowhere can you see this tactic used more than in this ad in the upcoming Ohio special election.



"The Republicans literally point out every example of failed Republican policies and try to claim that illegal immigration is somehow to blame, as Robin Weirauch's "health care for illegal immigrants" plan (which isn't her plan, or any Democratic plan at all) is seen as a scourge. Without the illegal immigration angle, this could be a Democratic ad. When the Clinton Administration created 22 million new jobs, all of this immigration talk wasn't around. Suddenly, now that the economy is not working for average Americans, it's a major problem. The problem isn't immigration; it's conservative governance.

My opponent has no ideas to actually change immigration policy in a comprehensive way because that's NOT HIS GOAL. He wants a problem, something to point to, something to take the pressure off his own ideological failures. He's lying to you. And the question you have to ask yourself is whether or not you'll continue to let him do it."

P.S. There's a lot of great information about immigration and resources here.