Path to citizenship 'contingent' upon Jan Brewer saying the border is secure

[RetroGamer1971]

In other words, there will be no path to citizenship unless and until this commission concludes that the border has been secured. This is a commission that would apparently include Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who signed the heinous SB 1070 "Papers, please" bill into law, and who also has a habit of just making stuff up:
Brewer apparently first referred to beheadings during a June 16 interview with Fox News, talking about "the kidnappings and the extortion and the beheadings and the fact that people can't feel safe in their community" in discussing controversy surrounding the immigration law. [...]
"Oh, our law enforcement agencies have found bodies in the desert, either buried or just lying out there, that have been beheaded," Brewer said.

Of course, none of that was true, and while Brewer insisted for a while that it was, she ultimately had to admit that, well, it wasn't. But it's an awfully effective way of making immigrants sound scary, isn't it? Just make up stories about how they run around beheading people, and gosh, it sounds like a bad idea to let them into the country.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/28/1182708/-Path-to-citizenship-contingent-upon-Jan-Brewer-saying-the-border-is-secure

[Pirate Smile]

1. Nope. Not true. Greg Sargent:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/01/28/what-did-republicans-win-in-the-immigration-deal/

"It’s has been widely assumed this morning by some immigration advocates (and by yours truly, too) that the new immigration reform plan’s process of citizenship for the country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants is contingent on a commission of Southwestern officials declaring the border secure.

Not true. I’ve now got clarification from Senate staff working on the bill, and it turns out that the enforcement commission’s judgments will only be advisory, and are entirely nonbinding. Congress’ actions will not be dictated by what this commission concludes; neither will actions taken by the Department of Homeland Security. The citizenship process will be triggered by other means (more on this soon).

This is central to the debate. If this commission had the power to dictate when the citizenship process begins, it could endanger the entire enterprise by giving people like Jan Brewer veto power. Second, this enforcement commission is being seen as a major concession Republicans won in exchange for agreeing to grant citizenship to the 11 million.

But the commission isn’t, for all practical purposes, really a major concession at all. If you look at the framework released by the bipartisan group of eight Senators today, it never quite says directly that the citizenship process can’t move forward until the commission reaches its findings. Rather, it says the plan creates a commission that will make a “recommendation” on when border security has been achieved, and doesn’t specify that this recommendation is what triggers the citizenship process."

[pampango]

2. On cue from the tea party: Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) pans Senate immigration proposal as 'amnesty'

An influential House Republican (and member of the Immigration subcommittee) on Monday panned the bipartisan immigration deal emerging from the Senate as providing “amnesty” to illegal immigrants.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said the immigration-reform principles floated by a bipartisan group of senators would reward lawbreakers, increase unemployment and push enormous new costs onto U.S. taxpayers. "When you legalize those who are in the country illegally, it costs taxpayers millions of dollars, costs American workers thousands of jobs and encourages more illegal immigration," Smith said in a brief statement. "By granting amnesty, the Senate proposal actually compounds the problem by encouraging more illegal immigration.”

Although the Senate immigration principles have been endorsed by a number of influential Republicans — including Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.) — Smith's remarks are a warning that opposition to such a move is still alive and well, particularly in the Republican-led House.

Smith, the former chairman of the House Judiciary Committee who now sits on the panel's Immigration subcommittee, did not spare his Republican colleagues in attacking the Senate blueprint. “No one should be surprised that individuals who have supported amnesty in the past still support amnesty," he said.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/279625-house-republican-pans-amnesty-in-senate-immigration-plan

You are right that a panel of border states politicians which has to certify that the border is secure before a path to citizenship proceeds seems destined to hamstring implementation of real immigration reform. Unfortunately these border states, other than California, are all run by republican politicians who constantly pander to the right with their "secure the border first" mantra.

Perhaps Democratic senators and the President think such a panel is a way to take the "secure the borders first" attack line away from republicans. Either a republican-dominated panel would have to confirm that the border is 'secure' - since net immigration from Mexico is zero - which takes that attack line away from them or it would stick with its tried-and-true tactic of complaining that the border is too porous and stop implementation of immigration reform. If they do the latter, republicans would be again alienating Hispanics and other immigrant groups which is precisely what they are trying to avoid doing now by acting 'reasonably' on immigration reform in light of their disastrous performance with minorities in the last election.

So while such a panel might give the republicans the opportunity to shoot themselves in the foot over and over again, it seems like a bad idea for anyone seriously interested in comprehensive immigration reform.