Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

The politics of the be mean to immigrants amendments

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Even those like the ever so kind Senator Barry who said as quoted in the State House News Service

Sen. Berry said, A lot of people worked long and hard on this. There’s a lot of people being let down here. I see no reason to rejoice. I understand the practicality. A lot of people will be hurt, but I’m going to vote for it.

And even Senator Murray who joined some Senators in her office to write a terribly punitive bill…again in part from the State House News Service

STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, MAY 27, 2010……Senate

President Therese Murray on Thursday criticized an illegal immigration crackdown that the Senate had passed on a nearly 3-to-1 margin moments earlier, spelling an unlikely path into law for the measure.

“I moved the bill because the members wanted to move it,” Murray told reporters after the bill had cleared the Senate on a 28-10 vote, with opposition from Senate liberals. “I don’t necessarily agree with everything that’s in it.”

“The bill is what it is,” said Murray, who did not cast a vote on the bill. “There are parts of it I think are unfortunate, but the members wanted it.”

Yes indeed,the bill is what is — a response to displaced and uninformed, except by Limbaugh and Beck, citizen outrage who see an opportunity to bully other weaker, vulnerable class of people and get away with being mean.

Not a response to make a positive difference in the lives of a critical mass of constituents.  

I think the most offensive quote came from Senator Tarr “paraphrasing” President Lincoln in the Globe


“It was President Lincoln – and I’m going to paraphrase here – who suggested that respect for the law should be preached from every pulpit, taught by every mother to every child,” said state Senator Bruce E. Tarr, a Gloucester Republican.

And until recently I felt like Senator Chang Diaz,

Senator Sonia Chang-Díaz, a Boston Democrat who opposed the measure, said it had not been properly vetted and would add undue obligations for businesses and state government when they could ill afford it. Minutes after the measure passed, she looked stricken.

“It was a shameful vote,” she told reporters. “That’s all I have to say.”

And then I decided to write this blog and call all the no votes (Senators The “no” votes were Chang-Diaz, Creem, DiDomenico, Donnelly, Eldridge, Jehlen,  Tolman, Walsh, Rosenberg, McGee)and thank them for doing “the right thing”, and lend my political capitol to efforts to influence the conference committee.  

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Comments

  1. Judy, I get the feeling from your whole approach to advocacy, that you would not support me calling Jack Hart and telling him where to stick his vote.  

  2. And if I had a clue it was going to be voted on, I would have weighed in before the vote.  The language reinforces people’s (tea baggers) incorrect beliefs that society is somehow run amuck with illegal aliens being supported by tax dollars and that now the legislature is fixing that.  It plays into people’s fears and does nothing constructive and is mean.  In a budget bill.  Ridiculous.  

  3. Does disagreeing with Judy Meredith make you a mean person? Does agreeing with a substantial majority of State Senators make you a mean person? And on a side note, the practice of the Senate President not voting unless she breaks a tie is odd. It does make you wonder how her constituents evaluate her job performance every few years.  

      • I just think she should vote. She’s an elected member of the senate thus she should vote. BTW, hack holidays are a tradition. Sometimes traditions are pretty dumb.  

    • But supporting this particular bill does make you a mean person.

      <

      p>Simple answers to simplistic questions.

            • and we don’t know how the others would have voted. Also, your argument is bs. 70% of the US Senate would’ve voted for slavery at one time; does that make slavery ok?

                • It really doesn’t  seem to have changed things, let alone improved them.  We just get another generation of the same, plus an even more embedded hackocracy.  Someone has to run the country while the latest crop of new folks learn the ropes…

                  <

                  p>On a related note, how many times have we had “outsiders” come in to fix everything and fail?

                • Someone has to run the country while the latest crop of new folks learn the ropes…

                  <

                  p>Rewriting the Constitution?  

                • Newly elected legislators take a while to learn how the institution works. Until they do, they’re not that effective.

                  <

                  p>In a related matter, consider California’s fiscal mess: It has not been helped by a strict system of legislative term limits.

                • My guess is that most Californians view the illegal alien issue as a bigger contributor to their fiscal woes than term limits. Read today that 84 percent of all American and 73 percent of MA Senators think we should do something about illegal aliens. Gonna be interesting to see how Deval handles the issue once a conference committee tosses this hot potato to DP. He can’t win either way.  

                • It may destroy BO’s Presidency if he doesn’t take charge soon although I would agrue he’s two weeks late.

                  <

                  p>Hey let’s talk chapter 70.  

                • This is a hack job creation bill, and nothing more. The Colorado version of this bill (actually, just the benefits part, so the whole thing is even more expensive) cost over $2 million in the first year. It makes it impossible to apply for benefits with a social security number over the phone, so now you have to go in person (fun fact: you have to be here legally to have an SSN). That’s more staff we have to add to all these agencies just to process people coming in in person.  

                • at a decent wage, with some benefits. Now, if I lay myself off and apply for unemployment what do I do?. I lost my social security card about 50 years ago. Got my medicare card though. Hope that counts.  

                • Don’t they require a 2/3 vote rather than a simple majority to pass a budget?  I’m sure THAT is the biggest contributing factor, followed closely by their out of control reliance on popular referenda which often require that X% or $Y be spent this or that.  Something’s gotta give with how they operate, but I don’t think illegal immigrants are the big problem from a strictly fiscal standpoint.  As for MA, why is that such an issue here?  I realize there are some undocumented persons here, but it’s not like we’re on the border.  States need to stop trying to take this matter into their own hands quite so much and we need to push our FEDERAL delegation to work on this.

                • In practice, term limits mean unelected bureaucrats are the the ones providing continuity.  They mean more lifers, not fewer.

                • Someone has to run the country while the latest crop of new folks learn the ropes…

                  <

                  p>Rewriting the Constitution?  

  4. Why?  Because my grandparents were all immigrants – before immigration became a broken system of beaurecratic quotas and unintended consequences.

    <

    p>Did you know it can take 10 YEARS to help your sons and daughters join you – legally?  Or your spouse?  Nowadays, anyway.

    <

    p>My mother was born in New York; her mother died in the flu pandemic of 1918 (and there is a LOT I can say and a little I have said about THAT).

    <

    p>My father was born in England, his brother in Denmark, and five of his brothers and sisters in the United States.  All seven of them got married, stayed married, and all but one began successful small businesses, from a Dental Technology lab, to construction.

    <

    p>My mother’s father, Peisach Mandel, sent his passport back to the old country several times – so friends could join him here.  As far as I know, all of those friends also created families, businesses, and paid taxes.  Of course, that was not “legal” but neither was there technology to track who was the real Peisach Mandel.

    <

    p>On the whole, it is survivors who leave a bad situation, bravely cross oceans, and buckle down to thrive in a new land.  

    <

    p>Think about it.  Just who is to blame for the fact that some immigrants are legal – and some are not; some can come in, and some can not.

    <

    p>If you really want to understand immigration policy the best site is the one created by the National League of Women Voters as part of its Immigration Study.

    <

    p>Did you know, by the way, that U.S. Corn Subsidies drove 1,000,000 Mexican corn farmers into bankruptcy – and many of them crossed the border to try and feed their families.  The law of unintended consequences strikes again!

    • As a lawyer do you have a problem with people that are in this country illegally? BTW I fully understand how much of a mess the feds have made of the immigration process.

      <

      p>I wonder in both sides of this issue have merit. A bit of a riddle without an answer.  

      • I wrote what I wrote for a reason.  

        <

        p>There are lots of laws on the books that are unenforceable and passed for political reasons – and some that were immoral when passed, like the Fugitive Slave Act, or the Final Solution.

        <

        p>In my time I marched, and “trespassed” and was tear gassed and clubbed; I was younger and not yet an attorney.  I also, as I said on a post earlier this month, grew up in a time when it was not yet illegal to post “No Jews or Negros or Dogs” and to close a pool rather than allow all Americans to use that pool.

        <

        p>I would prefer a moral, economically feasible, sensible approach to immigration like that proposed by LWVUS.

        <

        p>Wouldn’t you?

        <

        p>I am as unlikely to turn in an “illegal immigrant” as I would have been to cooperate with slave catchers back in the day, or with Hitler’s storm troopers – albeit they gassed many of my relatives and would have killed me without a qualm.

        <

        p>These days, I fight for what is moral one case at a time, often on appeal; in my cases, immigration status affects collateral consequences only – so far.

        <

        p>After the New Bedford raid I did do volunteer legal work, in fact, though by no means as much as some did.

        <

        p>Sometimes, what is right & moral is not legal, and what is legal is both wrong and immoral.   I do reserve the right to follow my conscience albeit accepting the consequences.  I could not very well complain about being tear gassed when I was told to disperse at a peace march, or civil rights march and didn’t so I got gassed, after all.

  6. I can’t for the life of me figure out what the legislation refered to in this diary does.  Obviously it somehow cracks down on undocumented immigrants, but what are the specific provisions?

    • • Prohibits in-state tuition rates for illegal immigrants;
      • Requires immigration status verification for public housing, welfare, MassHealth, and employment benefits;
      • Permits private employers to utilize the federal EVerify system to confirm employees’ immigration status;
      • Requires debarment from state contracts of employers who hire illegal immigrants;
      • Requires that individuals produce a valid driver’s license when registering a motor vehicle;
      • Requires immigration status verification for any criminal defendant arraigned in a Massachusetts court;
      • Requires the Attorney General to enter in to a Memorandum of Understanding with the US Attorney General to collaborate and enforce federal immigration laws; and
      • Establishes a toll-free hotline for the confidential reporting to the Attorney General’s office of the unlawful employment of unauthorized aliens and violations of state fair wage laws

      • In-state tuition – probably my biggest objection on this list if it applies to children of illegal immigrants who were brought here by parents when very young and certainly if they were born here.

        <

        p>Require status verification for benefits – that does actually make sense to me.

        <

        p>EVerify system, debarment of contracts, and hotline – these provisions just enforce what I believe is already a federal prohibition on hiring.  That being said I think private employers should not be the enforcers of immigration law, but should worry about competency AND pay workers properly.

        <

        p>Produce license when registering a vehicle – I had to do that for the two cars I have registered, so that’s nothing new, though I don’t think licenses should be tied to status anyway.

        <

        p>Criminal defendant status – I actually believe that even legal non-citizen immigrants should be deported if they committed a felony unless the situation in the home country is such that returning could be construed as cruel and unusual punishment.

        <

        p>Memorandum of the AGs – I’d need more info on how this is different from current practice.

        <

        p>All this being said, however, I believe that immigration is almost entirely a federal issue.  While the state is within its rights to say who can get public benefits, it’s really not the business of an individual state who is here legally and who isn’t.  What’s needed is a federal immigration overhaul which streamlines the process of legal entry so that illegal immigration becomes unnecessary.

        • In-state tuition – probably my biggest objection on this list if it applies to children of illegal immigrants who were brought here by parents when very young and certainly if they were born here.

          <

          p>Children of illegal immigrants born in America are not illegal immigrants — they are US citizens.  This law doesn’t apply to them.  It does apply to those who grew up in America (but were born elsewhere), attended American schools, love America, achieved high standards of learning, and want to attend a UMASS school to contribute positively both to the economy and to the quality of UMASS.  And we tell them no — even though they’ve done everything in their power.  Shameful.

          <

          p>

          Require status verification for benefits – that does actually make sense to me.

          <

          p>Because an illegal immigrant suffers less pain when hungry?  Shivers less when cold?  Less agony when injured?  Is less likely to turn to robbery or theft?  Less likely to become addicted to alcohol or drugs to cope?

          <

          p>I’m a human being first and an American second.  When any human being is suffered, I believe we ought provide comfort.

          • I guess I just figured with resource allocation issues the priority should be those here legally.  I also wish the law would distinguish between those who have overstayed visas and those who have snuck in.  Non-state charity should be allowed to provide to whomever as well.  I assumed that what you say about tuition was correct, just covering the bases.  I know there are some out there who do want to strip citizenship from children born in the US to illegal immigrants.

            • no problemo.  It just takes what, 3/4 of the states to amend the US Constitution.

              • …as do presumably most BMGers.  I have heard from those who sound as if they didn’t get that memo and I even caught a tidbit the other week, I think on Maddow, where a state senator (AZ or OK, I forget) has come right out and called for the repeal of the 14th amendment.  Absolutely unbelievable!

      • Does this mean you will need to bring your birth certificate when you apply for unemployment? Or will that rule only apply to people who “look like illegal immigrants”?

  7. Things like this really, really make me wish that Peter Smulowitz had beaten the jerk. I guarantee you, if he had, there would have been one fewer votes for this horrendous embarrassment of an amendment.  

  8. Tea Party people who were never going to vote for Democrats yelled and screamed at Senate President Murray and the Democrats she leads.  She allowed an amendment they liked because it really made no difference to her.

    <

    p>Is the Tea Party going to vote for Murray and her Democrats now?

    <

    p>No.

    <

    p>Are the pro-immigration Democrats going to be a little less enthusiastic about supporting her?

    <

    p>Yes.

    <

    p>If she had not allowed this amendment, would the Democratic majorities of voters who had supported her and her fellow Senate Democrats have moved their votes to the R column?

    <

    p>No.

    <

    p>The Tea Party will simply find another excuse to yell at Murray.  

    <

    p>This was not one of Sen. Murray’s better decisions.

    • My only nitpick is on the idea that it is for Sen. Murray to decide what to allow a vote on.  I realize this is current practice and internal rules, but I have always believed that agenda-setting should be governed by a standard procedure based on committee recommendation, not by the whim of a Senate President or House Speaker.

      • Hard and fast rules often fail due to the complexities.  Murray may have felt that without letting this through that she’d lose support for her role as SPres… to someone who would push an even harsher anti-immigrant agenda.  She may not have been willing to die on this hill…

        • What I’m saying is I as SP would not have blocked it either just because I believe in principle that should not be my job.  I would, however, vote contrary to tradition since I would be a Senator for my own district in addition to being President.

          <

          p>Memo to David Whelan – Do you care to explain to me how you found my comment above “worthless”?

  9. . . although I would argue that the the bill authorizing the destruction of Watuppa Heights was at least as blatantly racist the Arizona bill, so maybe we shouldn’t have been looking down our noses at Arizona in the first place.
      The current Massachusetts bill, if it becomes law, will make absolutely no one happy.  Once you are convinced that there is an immigration crisis, nothing will convince you otherwise.  

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