Tag Archives: immigration

legal news, State news

Immigration seas are roiling yet again

The political water under the immigration issue keeps tossing and turning to the point that it’s making me queasy.

The latest wave to crash against the immigration vessel came from the Southern Federal Judicial District of Texas and U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, who late Sunday said President Obama’s executive action delaying deportation of illegal immigrants violated the federal Administrative Procedure Act, which governs the way federal regulations are set up and how much public input is delivered.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/02/16/executive-action-immigration-ruling/

The Obama administration plans to appeal, most likely to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and state Attorney General Ken Paxton hailed the judge’s ruling, saying it validates their contention that the feds reached beyond their grasp in delaying the deportation of illegal immigrants, about 1.46 million of whom live in Texas.

“President Obama abdicated his responsibility to uphold the United States Constitution when he attempted to circumvent the laws passed by Congress via executive fiat,” Abbott said in a statement, “and Judge Hanen’s decision rightly stops the President’s overreach in its tracks.”

Paxton agrees with the governor. “This decision is a victory for the rule of law in America and a crucial first step in reining in President Obama’s lawlessness,” he said in a statement. “This injunction makes it clear that the President is not a law unto himself, and must work with our elected leaders in Congress and satisfy the courts in a fashion our Founding Fathers envisioned.”

Did politics play a part in this federal judge’s decision? Judge Hanen was appointed by President George W. Bush and already is on record as suggesting the Department of Homeland Security was breaking immigration law by allowing undocumented immigrant children to be reunited with their parents rather than deporting or arresting them, according to the Texas Tribune.

Let’s wait, then, for progressives to bemoan the actions of an “unelected activist judge” who places himself above the law. I’m betting we won’t hear such an argument coming from that side of the aisle.

Something tells me the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to get this one.

In the meantime, pass the Dramamine.

 

State news

Lt. Gov. Patrick: Keep troops on the border

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick wants to keep state National Guard troops on the state’s southern border.

Here’s the question: Is the state’s No. 2 elected official getting ahead of its No. 1 official, the governor, who’s actually in command of the Texas National Guard?

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/headlines/20150210-lt.-gov.-dan-patrick-wants-to-keep-national-guard-on-texas-border.ece

Former Gov. Rick Perry dispatched the National Guard to the border a year ago in a move seen by many as little more than a grandstanding act designed to make himself look tough in the face of that mass migration of children into Texas, who were fleeing political and economic repression in Central America.

You’ll recall, perhaps, that Gov. Perry sent the troops there with no clear mission — or even any authority — to make arrests.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2014/07/23/troops-to-the-border/

There’s a new regime at the top in Austin, with Perry now out office and Abbott occupying the governor’s seat, and with Patrick having defeated Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst in the GOP primary this past spring.

It’s interesting to me that, according to the Dallas Morning News, House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, has taken a cautious approach to Patrick’s call for keeping the troops on patrol along the border. “I appreciate Gov. Patrick’s remarks,” Straus said. “But Gov. Abbott is the commander in chief and he will decide whether to extend the National Guard’s deployment.” The Morning News reports that Abbott had no comment on Patrick’s statements.

All of this has me curious as well. Is the lieutenant governor’s stay-tough approach to border enforcement a symbolic shot across Abbott’s bow to ensure that the Big Man — Abbott — is equally stern in his approach to border enforcement?

Some folks seem to believe Patrick has his eyes set on another political prize in 2018, the one currently possessed by Greg Abbott.

I’m just wondering.

 

national news, political news

Obama rising; GOP standing firm

Do you kind of get a sense that a huge political struggle is going to become the hallmark of Barack Obama’s final two presidential years?

The president’s poll numbers are up significantly in recent weeks. Congressional Republicans — feeling pretty flush themselves with their takeover of the Senate after the 2014 mid term election — are going to dig in their heels.

Can Obama keep rising?

Get ready for the fight.

So many fronts. So many battles. So many hassles.

Ah, politics. Ain’t it noble?

Polling suggests Obama is scoring better with some key demographic groups. Hispanics and young voters are approving of the president once again. Hispanics particularly are buoyed by the president’s executive action on immigration.

But as GOP strategists are quick to point out, as noted in The Hill article attached, the president’s base is holding firm right along with the impenetrable ceiling that keeps him from soaring even higher. That ceiling is put there by stubborn Republican resistance to almost every initiative he proposes.

That’s where the GOP thinks it will win the day.

Well, what happens then will be — dare I say it — more gridlock and more “do-nothingness.”

Obama is planning to reveal a $4 trillion budget that will seek tax breaks for middle- and low-income Americans while asking wealthier Americans to pay more. There will be other areas of the budget that are certain to draw a sharp line between the White House and Congress.

The president believes the wind is behind him. Then again, Republicans believe they have the advantage.

All that talk about “working together” is likely to give way — rapidly — to more of what we’ve witnessed for the past, oh, six years.

Get ready for a rough ride, my fellow Americans.

 

national news, political news

GOP plays with fire over immigration

When you play with fire, the saying goes, you’re going to get burned.

So, what has the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives done right out of the chute? It has voted to defund President Obama’s executive order that seeks to reform the nation’s immigration policy.

Which voting bloc is most interested in this activity? Why, I do believe it’s the Hispanic voter, the very folks that Republicans say they need if they have any hope of winning the White House in the 2016 election.

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/229469-house-votes-to-defund-obamas-immigration-orders

Why, then, the interest among those Americans? Well, the immigration-related executive order seeks to delay the deportation of about 5 million illegal immigrants. No, they can’t vote. But they have a lot of supporters among Hispanic American citizens who do vote and those individuals are likely to remember what the House of Representatives and the Senate — which also is in GOP hands — will seek to do to Obama’s order.

The GOP has done a two-fer. They defunded the deportation plan. In a second vote, they decided to take the teeth out of the DACA provision. DACA stands for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and it sought to delay deportation of children who came here illegally, either by their parents or those who were part of that mass migration across our southern border.

There well might be hell to pay if Republicans insist on these tough measures.

Is the president going soft on illegal immigration? Of course not. The Obama administration has set deportation records left and right for the past six years. The president, though, intends to start improving the system while allowing those who are here illegally some time to apply for legal resident status or become U.S. citizens.

Republicans are having none of it.

It will cost them.

Dearly.

 

 

national news, political news

Mitt is turning 'mushy,' according to Cruz

Mitt Romney hasn’t even said he’s running for president a third time in 2016 and already he’s taking barbs from his right flank.

The slinger is Sen. Ted Cruz, who says the Republican Party shouldn’t nominate someone from the “mushy middle.” The party needs someone who is, well, a stark conservative like … oh, let me think, Cruz?

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/ted-cruz-mitt-romney-2016-elections-114194.html?hp=l2_3

But didn’t Mitt say he governed Massachusetts as a “severe conservative” while he was running for president two years ago? Didn’t Mitt try to establish his conservative credentials with the base of his party?

OK, he lost the election in 2012 to President Obama.

I’m still pulling for him to run. I’m also pulling for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to run for president.

Mitt says he’s interested in running; Jeb has formed an exploratory committee and has resigned from every non-profit board on which he’s served.

Mitt vs. Jeb would set up an interesting battle, don’t you think?

Jeb has been critical of Mitt’s myriad business interests. Mitt has been critical of Jeb’s moderate stance on immigration.

Meanwhile, the righties in the party are standing by. Cruz of Texas, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, former Gov. Rick Perry of Texas could make an interesting two-state scramble for the GOP nomination, given that all four of those TEA party favorites hail from either Texas or Florida.

Oh boy! This upcoming Republican campaign looks like a doozy.

I can’t wait to watch it unfold.

 

national news, political news

Cruz doesn't play well with GOP 'team'

You just have to love the way Sen. Ted Cruz is antagonizing his fellow Senate Republicans.

They want to finish a budget deal so they can go home for Christmas, finish their shopping, kick off their shoes and relax with their families.

What does the freshman lawmaker from Texas do? He launches a procedural move that keeps the Senate in session through the weekend because, by golly, he wants to undercut President Obama’s executive action on immigration.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/ted-cruz-does-it-again-113560.html?ml=po

His Republican pals, even some of his TEA party allies, are having none of it.

What gives with this showboating grandstander?

Oh, I forgot. He wants to run for president of the United States eventually and he might jump into the 2016 race. It’s all about Cruz. Forget that the government needs money to function, you know, do things like entertain visitors who visit our parks and do perform certain essential services that citizens demand.

As Politico reports, the GOP leadership is unhappy with this new guy: “Senior Republicans say there’s a problem with Cruz’s strategy: The GOP lacks the votes to stop Obama on immigration now, the $1.1 trillion spending package was speeding to passage, and they won’t resort to shutting down the government to mount their objections. Plus, the weekend session could allow Obama to get even more of his nominees confirmed.”

According to Politico, some Republican senators are openly angry with the Cruz Missile. Even fellow TEA party advocate, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., is ticked off. So is Susan Collins, R-Maine. Oh, and how about the incoming Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.?

Suffice to say that McConnell is likely to have a few four-letter words with the young Lone Star blowhard.

Keep yammering, Ted. Some of your fellow Texans — such as me — are enjoying this sideshow.

 

political news, State news

Greg Abbott: plaintiff's lawyer in chief

It’s 31 lawsuits — and counting — for Greg Abbott, the Texas attorney general who’s about to become the state’s next governor.

Abbott has sued President Obama over the president’s recent executive order that protects about 5 million illegal immigrants from immediate deportation. He made good on his campaign promise to sue Obama over this issue.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/12/03/greg-abbott-sues-over-executive-action-immigration/

I must pose some inquiries about this action.

First, how much are these lawsuits costing the state? It strikes me that Abbott — a self-proclaimed fiscally conservative Republican — is running up an incalculable legal tab as he challenges the president over immigration, health care reform and whatever else.

Second, as a Republican who has support tort reform efforts to rein in the cost of court settlements, he’s becoming one of those dreaded plaintiff’s lawyers Republican officeholders have loved to hate. We’ve all heard the mantra that Democrats are plaintiff-friendly, while Republicans look out for the interests of defendants in civil court proceedings. Texans seem to have sided with the GOP on that one, electing an all-Republican state Supreme Court, which rules fairly routinely in favor of business interests who’ve been sued by plaintiffs.

And third, does Abbott really have a case against the president or is he being pressured by the TEA party wing of the GOP to do something — dammit! — to stick it in Barack Obama’s ear? The Texas Tribune reports: “‘It’s ill advised. I don’t think he has standing. He gets the basic terminology wrong, and he protests too much when he says he’s not politicizing it, because all of it is simply about the politics of it,’ said Michael Olivas, an immigration lawyer and professor at the University of Houston. ‘He characterizes what the president did as an executive order — it is not an executive order. It’s executive action.'”

I didn’t used to consider Abbott to be a fiery conservative. I’ve long thought of him as a more thoughtful politician. He could be feeling the heat from the right wing of his party to carry through with his campaign pledge to sue the president one more time.

Well, he’s got 31 lawsuits in the can already. For my money, enough is enough.

 

 

State news

Gov.-elect Abbott saying (far) right things

Texas Gov.-elect Greg Abbott, once upon a time, was considered a mainstream Republican. Reasoned, cautious, yet dedicated to basic conservative principles of smaller government and low taxes.

Then he got bit by the tea party bug.

The state’s next governor now declares he plans to sue President Obama over that executive order issued this week that delays deportation of 5 million illegal immigrants, more than 1 million of whom live in Texas.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/11/21/abbott-obamas-order-violates-constitutional-provis/

The Texas Tribune reports: “In a statement, Abbott said Obama’s order ‘circumvented Congress and deliberately bypassed the will of the American people. I am prepared to immediately challenge President Obama in court, securing our state’s sovereignty and guaranteeing the rule of law as it was intended under the Constitution,’ Abbott added.”

Well, consider this for just a moment. President George H.W. Bush in 1990 issued an executive order that did the very same thing for 1.5 million illegal immigrants. Bush, a Republican, did it for compassionate reasons. Didn’t the current president cite compassion for families in issuing his own order?

Where, dare I ask, were the calls of indignation when President Bush issued the executive order? It was done quietly, with little fanfare.

That was then. Today’s climate seems to require fanfare, blustering, posturing, finger-pointing, threats and challenges.

Therein perhaps lies the crux of what’s going on here.

Greg Abbott, the once reflective and deliberative man of the bench, has become just as shrill as the rest of what has become the “mainstream” Texas Republican Party.

 

national news, political news

When in doubt, House, sue

Congress is going to court with the president of the United States.

The House of Representatives filed its long-awaited lawsuit against Barack Obama, contending the president misused his executive authority to “rewrite the law” regarding the Affordable Care Act.

I’ll stipulate that I’m no constitutional lawyer, but I’ll bet the farm that Obama didn’t break the law.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/11/house-files-obamacare-lawsuit-113089.html?hp=b1_l1

He did what the Constitution empowers him to do.

It’s curious, too, that Congress filed the suit the day after Obama delivered that long awaited executive order on immigration, although the lawsuit deals with the ACA exclusively. I guess Speaker John Boehner just couldn’t take it any longer.

The lawsuit, along with the talk of impeachment, is utter nonsense.

Boehner is grandstanding in the worst possible way. It’s not even clear the court will hear the lawsuit, let alone allow to go to trial and be decided by a jury.

The most hilarious aspect of this lawsuit are the claims by Republicans that the president is “overusing” the executive authority granted to him. It’s funny because Obama has signed fewer executive orders than almost any of his immediate predecessors. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, the most recent two-term Republican presidents, signed more. Where was the outcry then?

We’ll now get to see how this circus plays out.

Meanwhile, some serious legislating needs to get done. How about seeing the GOP craft a bill on, say, immigration and health care? They say they can do better. Let’s have it.

 

national news

Immigration reform = family values

2 Comments

Remember the early 1990s when “family values” became a mantra for politicians seeking to return to the core values of our nation?

Vice President Dan Quayle once chided the TV character “Murphy Brown” for having a child out of wedlock. The debate was joined.

Two decades later, the term “family values” has taken a new turn. It became part of President Barack Obama’s pitch to fix a broken immigration system.

The president’s pitch is nearly perfect.

Obama went on national TV today to tell the nation he would sign an executive order that keeps families together. Mom and Dad may have entered the nation illegally, but brought their children along when they were small — or perhaps bore their children in this country, an act that gave the kids instant U.S. citizenship.

The president’s order defers the deportation of some 5 million illegal immigrants. His aim, among other things, is to keep families together. Obama told the nation that it’s impractical to deport all those who came here illegally. Must we deport their children? And what about those children who are citizens simply by virtue of their birth in the United States of America?

This won’t deter Republicans from challenging the president. The new Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner are vowing unspecified actions to fight the president’s action.

Well, let’s have that fight and let’s allow the public to decide whether it’s right to separate families, or to uproot entire families after they’ve found a better life in the Land of Opportunity.