Monday, November 24, 2014

IMMIGRATION - Two Opinions

"Obama and Cruz Clash on Immigration" by D’Angelo Gore, FactCheck.org 11/21/2014

President Obama and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz made seemingly conflicting statements about public opinion on the president’s plan to address immigration issues in the U.S.

Obama claimed that “most Americans support the types of reforms I’ve talked about tonight,” in a Nov. 20 address to the nation. Cruz, meanwhile, claimed that “this last election was a referendum on amnesty” and that voters had sent a clear message opposing it.

Obama is right that opinion polls show a majority of Americans support allowing immigrants now living in the country illegally to stay.  But fewer Americans support using executive action to accomplish that.

Cruz, on the other hand, is wrong to say that the 2014 election results show that Americans rejected “amnesty” — at least how Cruz defines it.  He considers “amnesty” to mean providing a path to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally.  Exit poll data show exactly the opposite.

Obama Right, Mostly

Obama’s announced immigration plan would allow parents who have lived in the U.S. illegally for at least five years, and who also have children who are citizens or legal permanent residents, to remain in the country temporarily, for three years, without threat of deportation, if they pay taxes and pass a background check.  The executive action would not apply to anyone who came to the U.S. recently, or who comes in the future, and it would not allow individuals to remain in the country permanently, or grant them citizenship or other benefits reserved for citizens.

A number of opinion polls support Obama’s claim that “most Americans support the types of reforms I’ve talked about tonight.”

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll conducted from Nov. 14 to Nov. 17 found that 57 percent of respondents either strongly favored or somewhat favored allowing “foreigners staying illegally in the United States the opportunity to eventually become legal American citizens.”  The level of support rose to 74 percent if those people had to “pay a fine, any back taxes, pass a security background check, and take other required steps” to gain citizenship.  Obama’s plan doesn’t even go that far.

Likewise, a Pew Research Center poll conducted from Oct. 15 to Oct. 20 found that 71 percent of respondents said that people currently living in the U.S. illegally should be allowed to stay “if certain requirements are met.”

That’s in addition to a CBS News/New York Times poll from Sept. 12 to Sept. 15 that showed 63 percent of those surveyed said that illegal U.S. residents should be allowed to remain in the country.

The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll had a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.  The Pew Research Center poll had a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points.  And the CBS News/New York Times poll had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Republican leaders, such as House Speaker John Boehner, have countered that Obama is “ignoring the will of the American people.”  And there’s a little something to that as well.

That’s because while polls show majority support for allowing those here illegally to stay, they show less public support for Obama taking executive action to address immigration issues without Congress.

The same NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll cited earlier found that 48 percent of respondents disapproved of Obama taking executive action, or leaned that way, while 38 percent approved of executive action or leaned in that direction.

Similarly, a USA Today poll conducted from Nov. 13 to Nov. 16, with a margin of error of 3.6 percentage points, showed that 46 percent of those asked said Obama should wait for the new Congress in January to pass immigration legislation.  On the flip side, 42 percent said that the president should act alone this year to deal with immigration.  Another 10 percent of respondents were unsure and 2 percent refused to answer.

The CBS News/New York Times poll from September did find that 51 percent thought Obama should take action if Congress did not.  But that may or may not represent “most Americans,” since the poll’s margin of error was 3 percent.

Cruz Wrong

Cruz, during an interview with Fox News host Megyn Kelly, more than once said that “this last election was a referendum on amnesty” and that the clear message was “we don’t want amnesty.”  It wasn’t, according to exit poll results.

Election voters, by a margin of 57 percent to 39 percent, said those living in the U.S. illegally but working should be offered legal status, according to the exit poll conducted by Edison Research for the National Election Pool, a consortium of news organizations.  The gap is also greater than the margin of error of 3 percentage points to 4 percentage points.

Plus, just 14 percent of voters polled said that illegal immigration was “the most important” issue facing the country today, which also undercuts Cruz’s claim.  Voters were given only four choices, and immigration ranked third behind the economy (45 percent) and health care (25 percent).


"Bachmann’s Immigration Exaggerations" by Lori Robertson, FactCheck.org 11/21/2014

Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann wrongly suggested that Obama is granting citizenship and voting privileges to immigrants who are in the country illegally.  His executive actions do neither of those.

In a Nov. 20 email fundraising appeal for her political action committee — sent before Obama’s prime-time speech that evening but after details of his plan had been reported – Bachmann wrote:  “What could more fundamentally transform our nation than making our precious American citizenship — and the rule of law — merely commodities to be dispensed with as our Imperial President sees fit, flooding our land with illegal foreigners which will forever alter our way of life?”

She went on to imply that the unauthorized immigrants affected by Obama’s actions would be able to vote.  “The Democrats are licking their wounds after their terrible defeats this month, and are viewing these millions of illegal aliens as votes for their leftist agenda in two years.”

Obama’s plan in no way bestows citizenship on immigrants who are in the country illegally.  And only U.S. citizens have the right to vote in federal and state elections.

Bachmann made a similar false claim about voting rights last year, wrongly saying that Obama had granted the right to vote to unauthorized immigrants in 2012 when he had only deferred deportation procedures for children who had been brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents.

The executive actions provide a temporary relief of three years from the threat of deportation to parents who are in the country illegally but who have children who are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents.  The parents must have lived in the United States for at least five years, and they must register, and pass background checks in order to obtain the reprieve.  They also must pay taxes and prove that their child was born on or before Nov. 20.  If they meet the requirements, they would also be given work authorization for the three-year period.

The president’s plan also expands an earlier order to delay deportation of young people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children and who meet certain education criteria.  Before, those so-called DREAMers — named for failed legislation that addressed this group of immigrants – had to have entered the country before June 15, 2007, and be born after 1981.  Obama changed that cut-off to Jan. 1, 2010, and eliminated the stipulation on age.  The old rules said eligible individuals would receive deferred action on deportation for two years.  Obama’s new action increases that to three years.

The administration’s actions give both groups of immigrants temporary reprieve from the threat of deportation, but they don’t grant citizenship or even put these immigrants on a path to citizenship, something the 2013 bipartisan Senate immigration bill would have established.  That bill passed the Senate in June 2013 but hasn’t been taken up by the House.  Other aspects of Obama’s actions pertain to those with legal permanent resident status and foreign workers with visas.

The White House estimates that nearly 5 million immigrants who are in the country illegally would be affected by the executive action.  There are an estimated 11 million immigrants illegally living in the U.S., according to the Pew Research Center.  The center estimates Obama’s action on deferred deportation would affect about 4 million immigrants, most of whom — 3.5 million — are parents whose children have legal status.

The White House fact sheet on the actions makes only two mentions of citizenship, and neither has anything to do with those in the country illegally.  It says the Department of Homeland Security will launch a “citizenship awareness media campaign” for legal permanent residents, and the department will “expand an existing policy to provide relief to spouses and children of U.S. citizens seeking to enlist in the military, consistent with a request made by the Department of Defense.”

The Pew Research Center notes in its report on the executive actions that the unauthorized immigrants affected wouldn’t be eligible for certain government benefits including subsidies for obtaining insurance through the Affordable Care Act.

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