Gwat Bhattacharjie - Presidential Debates
As the Presidential debates continue, immigration continues to assume prominent status among vital issues discussed. The sad, untimely death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has thrown the Supreme Court’s conservative majority into an impossible impasse of 4 – 4 which could postpone or endanger the hearings and ruling in summer on President Obama’s executive amnesties for Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) and an expanded Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), affecting millions of illegal immigrants. President Obama has promised to nominate a candidate to succeed Justice Scalia, and Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell and the Republicans would fight to postpone the nomination for the next President. If the Court does not take up the hearings, then the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals holding up the injunction of Judge Haney will stand.
You remember this injunction was passed as a result of the lawsuit from 26 states in protest of Obama’s executive action.
Anything can happen in the next few months.
It becomes more imperative for us, the voters, to vote for our Presidential candidates very thoughtfully and carefully. Republicans need a viable, electable candidate to win the Presidential election. So much hangs in the balance, as a Supreme Court Justice is appointed for life.
The following is FAIR’s Input on the Presidential candidates:
Among Democrats, Hillary Clinton promises to go further than Obama to grant amnesty “outside the law” if Congress does not provide full and equal citizenship to illegal aliens. She will only deport those who pose a violent threat to public safety.
Bernie Sanders promises the same. He calls for “modernizing” border security while ending State and local cooperation for interior enforcement.
Republicans:.
Jeb Bush offers a plan for earned legalization for illegal immigrants, considers fencing as part of border security and supports a strong E-Verify system. Bush has since suspended his campaign after his So Carolina loss.
Ben Carson wants to give illegal aliens with a pristine record guest worker permits with a path to citizenship down the road.
He claims his administration can secure the border within a year. Suspended his campaign.
Ted Cruz opposes amnesty and wants to stop illegal immigration. He plans to secure the border, strengthen and enforce existing immigration laws, and prioritize the “interests and well-being of Americans”.
John Kasich: Kasich supports giving illegal aliens a path to legalization and will expand guest worker programs .Kasich calls deporting illegal aliens a “silly argument”and expresses vague? support for securing the border.
Marco Rubio was one of the Gang of Eight that wanted to grant mass amnesty, etc but has since recanted his position and wants to secure the border first, uphold enforcement provisions and then passes the bill’s provisions in a sequential way.
Donald Trump was most unequivocal and uncompromising.
He wants to deport all illegal aliens, then readmits the good people. He wants to build a wall on the Southern border (estimate $8 billion) and make Mexico pay for it? Like everything else he promises to do, he is short on practical solutions and doesn’t specify how he intends to carry it out.
Now he pleads flexibility – who knows what he actually will do?
Please keep following the debates to go beyond these outlines.
NATIONAL:
Things continue to worsen under the Obama administration.
1. The infamous “catch and release” is back! Border patrol agents are demoralized as the Obama administration ordered them to break the law and release illegal aliens that are apprehended if they claim to have been present in the U.S. since the beginning of 2014.
2. Unaccompanied minors and families keep coming to the border by the thousands. Authorities do not have enough staff to follow up with those who are already here and some have fallen victims of child trafficking and abusive relatives.
3. Deportations of criminals continue to plummet, from 150,000 in 2011 to 63,000 in 2015. Unlike its claims, the administration has no real interest in deporting illegal aliens, not even the criminal ones. There are currently 179,000 criminal aliens with final orders of removal that remain at large in the U.S.
4. ObamaCare has wrongly awarded $750 million in tax credits to subsidize as many as half a million people here illegally, or whose status was unclear. Now they’re trying to get the money back. Senator Ron Johnson derisively calls it “Pay and Chase”.
CALIFORNIA:
Susan Tully from FAIR recently supplied an estimate of the fiscal burden on Californians to support the illegal immigrants in the state. In 2013 an estimated 4.1 million illegal aliens and their U.S. born children lived in California, accounting for 10.7% of the population.
Taxpayers pay $14.4 billion on their education, $4.02 billion on health care, $4.44 billion on justice and law enforcement, $792 million on public assistance, and $1.6 billion in general government services.
Illegal immigrants paid an estimated $3.5 billion in taxes, but the Total Costs to Taxpayers in state and local expenses that they incurred is a whopping $25.3 billion.
That amounts to a burden of $2,370 per household headed by a U.S. citizen.
As the Presidential debates continue, immigration continues to assume prominent status among vital issues discussed. The sad, untimely death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has thrown the Supreme Court’s conservative majority into an impossible impasse of 4 – 4 which could postpone or endanger the hearings and ruling in summer on President Obama’s executive amnesties for Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) and an expanded Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), affecting millions of illegal immigrants. President Obama has promised to nominate a candidate to succeed Justice Scalia, and Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell and the Republicans would fight to postpone the nomination for the next President. If the Court does not take up the hearings, then the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals holding up the injunction of Judge Haney will stand.
You remember this injunction was passed as a result of the lawsuit from 26 states in protest of Obama’s executive action.
Anything can happen in the next few months.
It becomes more imperative for us, the voters, to vote for our Presidential candidates very thoughtfully and carefully. Republicans need a viable, electable candidate to win the Presidential election. So much hangs in the balance, as a Supreme Court Justice is appointed for life.
The following is FAIR’s Input on the Presidential candidates:
Among Democrats, Hillary Clinton promises to go further than Obama to grant amnesty “outside the law” if Congress does not provide full and equal citizenship to illegal aliens. She will only deport those who pose a violent threat to public safety.
Bernie Sanders promises the same. He calls for “modernizing” border security while ending State and local cooperation for interior enforcement.
Republicans:.
Jeb Bush offers a plan for earned legalization for illegal immigrants, considers fencing as part of border security and supports a strong E-Verify system. Bush has since suspended his campaign after his So Carolina loss.
Ben Carson wants to give illegal aliens with a pristine record guest worker permits with a path to citizenship down the road.
He claims his administration can secure the border within a year. Suspended his campaign.
Ted Cruz opposes amnesty and wants to stop illegal immigration. He plans to secure the border, strengthen and enforce existing immigration laws, and prioritize the “interests and well-being of Americans”.
John Kasich: Kasich supports giving illegal aliens a path to legalization and will expand guest worker programs .Kasich calls deporting illegal aliens a “silly argument”and expresses vague? support for securing the border.
Marco Rubio was one of the Gang of Eight that wanted to grant mass amnesty, etc but has since recanted his position and wants to secure the border first, uphold enforcement provisions and then passes the bill’s provisions in a sequential way.
Donald Trump was most unequivocal and uncompromising.
He wants to deport all illegal aliens, then readmits the good people. He wants to build a wall on the Southern border (estimate $8 billion) and make Mexico pay for it? Like everything else he promises to do, he is short on practical solutions and doesn’t specify how he intends to carry it out.
Now he pleads flexibility – who knows what he actually will do?
Please keep following the debates to go beyond these outlines.
NATIONAL:
Things continue to worsen under the Obama administration.
1. The infamous “catch and release” is back! Border patrol agents are demoralized as the Obama administration ordered them to break the law and release illegal aliens that are apprehended if they claim to have been present in the U.S. since the beginning of 2014.
2. Unaccompanied minors and families keep coming to the border by the thousands. Authorities do not have enough staff to follow up with those who are already here and some have fallen victims of child trafficking and abusive relatives.
3. Deportations of criminals continue to plummet, from 150,000 in 2011 to 63,000 in 2015. Unlike its claims, the administration has no real interest in deporting illegal aliens, not even the criminal ones. There are currently 179,000 criminal aliens with final orders of removal that remain at large in the U.S.
4. ObamaCare has wrongly awarded $750 million in tax credits to subsidize as many as half a million people here illegally, or whose status was unclear. Now they’re trying to get the money back. Senator Ron Johnson derisively calls it “Pay and Chase”.
CALIFORNIA:
Susan Tully from FAIR recently supplied an estimate of the fiscal burden on Californians to support the illegal immigrants in the state. In 2013 an estimated 4.1 million illegal aliens and their U.S. born children lived in California, accounting for 10.7% of the population.
Taxpayers pay $14.4 billion on their education, $4.02 billion on health care, $4.44 billion on justice and law enforcement, $792 million on public assistance, and $1.6 billion in general government services.
Illegal immigrants paid an estimated $3.5 billion in taxes, but the Total Costs to Taxpayers in state and local expenses that they incurred is a whopping $25.3 billion.
That amounts to a burden of $2,370 per household headed by a U.S. citizen.