Have you read today's big immigration speech by
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky)? Go ahead,
give it a look.
It is above all a political and positioning document, more than
it is a policy proposal. But on policy, as
foreshadowed, Paul wants to A) expand legal immigration now,
emphasizing high-skilled labor; B) mandate "certified" border
security (as determined by the Border Patrol and approved annually
by Congress; C) set up a "bipartisan panel" (shudder) to
"determine number of visas per year"; D) "admit we are not going to
deport the millions of people who are currently here illegally"; E)
specifically reject "a national ID card or mandatory E-Verify"
system (yay!); and F) offer current unauthorized residents
a "probationary" type of visa, allowing them to continue living and
working in the country, while otherwise moving to the end of the
immigration line, whatever that means in practice. They would not,
as in other bipartisan immigration reforms currently being
contemplated, have to pay a big fine.
Paul is not a member of the two
bipartisan groups of congresspeople currently trying to hammer
out comprehensive immigration reform, so his proposal as it relates
to the current debate should, at most, be seen as an attempt to
influence events from the outside, preferably in a direction that's
lighter on the more punitive, database-driven direction that those
talks are inevitably heading.
In fact, if I was a member of one of those groups, I might find
myself irritated by Paul's solipsistic framing, such as:
"Immigration Reform will not occur until Conservative Republicans,
like myself, become part of the solution. I am here today to begin
that conversation." Why, it's almost as if conservatives haven't
been
talking about immigration reform!
But the man is
running for president, an exercise both in ego and
policy-personalization, so it's no real surprise that Paul's speech
was more concerned with style and signaling than substance. He
quoted Gabriel ;García Márquez and Pablo Neruda (!), made
Seinfeld references, name-dropped
Jaime Escalante, spoke the worst Spanglish this side of
Michael Bloomberg,
attempted once again to dress up his more libertarian approach in
the mantle of Ronald Reagan (going so far as nicknaming his
approach "Trust but verify"), repeated his recent warnings that the
Republican Party needed to adapt or die, and sounded the kinds of
pro-immigrant notes sorely lacking in the last two GOP presidential
nominating seasons. Excerpt:
Republicans need to become parents of a new
future with Latino voters or we will need to resign ourselves to
permanent minority status.
The Republican Party has insisted for years that we stand for
freedom and family values. I am most proud of my party when it
stands for both.
The vast majority of Latino voters agree with us on these issues
but Republicans have pushed them away with harsh rhetoric over
immigration. [...]
That they have steadily drifted away from the GOP in each
election says more about Republicans than it does about Hispanics.
[...]
Somewhere along the line Republicans have failed to understand
and articulate that immigrants are an asset to America, not a
liability.
More after the jump, including a welcome section on education
reform:
For the American Dream to be achievable for all,
we have to have an educational system that believes that all
students have the capability to succeed.
Unfortunately, the education establishment seems to casually
discard Latinos, blacks, and others into crummy schools with no
hope.
I argue that the struggle for a good education is the civil
rights issue of our day. [...]
My dream is that we transform the education monopoly into a
thriving, competitive environment where Hispanic students get to
choose what school they attend and that no student is forgotten or
ignored.
If nothing else, the exercise will complicate narratives that
Paul and/or the Tea Party is reflexively hostile to immigrants, as
evidenced by the fact that many journalists really really think
so. ;
Reason on immigration here, on Rand Paul
here. … Read More
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