Author: Clarence Page
Bridget Michalko
8/20/2014 Reflection 3
GOP Immigration Reform Lessons
When it comes to immigration, what is one of the most important things to have? Government help and support. If there isn't any support, or the government isn't giving permission to act, nothing can be accomplished. Immigration is a huge event in the U.S. that has been happening throughout history. It causes huge ripples in the government and what happens throughout the country. Having large amounts of immigrants in certain areas changes employment, population density, and even things like taxes. Illegal immigrants can cause certain areas to change to support more security. It can also change more general things like citizenship. It is hard to keep people from illegally trying to sneak across the U.S. border. This causes problems because it's hard for the government to regulate things when there are people who aren't real citizens living in the U.S. that don't pay real taxes or cause problems that can't be traced properly. In all, immigration can cause both good and bad results in the country, and the government has to stay on top of it all to keep everyone safe and content.
When there isn't permission for certain things from the government, it can fix things, but also cause more problems. Therefore, when House leaders are elected, it can change how things like immigration are dealt with. If one leader supports immigration and takes action to help progress immigration in the country, it can make huge changes if another leader gets elected and doesn't like or agree with immigration. When Reyna was trying to get into the U.S. in The Distance Between Us, illegal immigration was handled differently. Although the problem was just as common then, the government came down a lot harsher on illegal immigrants then they do now. Reyna would have simply been deported back to Mexico immediately without any hesitation. Immigrants from Mexico can still be immediately deported, but how they are cared for while they are being deported was slightly different from what it is now. Back then, the government wasn't as concerned about the immigrants' health as they were with simply getting them out of the country. Parents are intentionally having their children sent illegally into the U.S. to get caught, in hopes that it will lead them to a safe place sooner. When Reyna was crossing over into the U.S. illegally, it was a greater fear and the thought of purposefully getting caught would never have crossed her mind.
The GOP, or Grand Old Party, is the Republican Party in the United States. Currently, new leaders are mulling over how immigration should be dealt with. House Republican leader Eric Cantor tried to get re-elected into the GOP this year, but was defeated and didn't get elected. This diminished a lot of hope for any kind of immigration overhaul this year. Cantor's loss was said to have killed any hope for any immigration reformation on the Hill this year. This left Obama in the position to use some executive authority to act on deportations. The White House even said that Obama had asked for a delay of his administration's deportation review until the end of the summer, hoping that this would give the Republicans some space and time to act on a legislative overhaul.
In the election, Cantor lost his conservative Virginia district to a man named Dave Brat, a tea party-aligned college professor. Dave Brat repeatedly accused Cantor of supporting "amnesty" for the undocumented immigrants coming into the country. In the vote, Graham, the winner of the election, won a profound 56 percent in his state against six other challengers who nicknamed him things like "Grahamnesty". One reason why Graham may have won against Cantor would be what they supported and didn't support. While Graham embraced the U.S. Senate's bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill, which he happened to co-author, Cantor voted against it. Graham had, and has been, arguing openly for an immigration overhaul ever since 2006. In the elections, he also pointed out his work with Democrats on immigration as evidence that he was willing to solve tough problems occurring in the country with other parties, despite differences in parties. This showed the audience that partisan differences wouldn't stop Graham from trying to solve difficult problems that others would be hesitant to solve because it involved other rival parties. His evidence of cooperation and thinking helped him gain an upper hand in the elections. What could be learned from all of this? Graham's victory showed that voters will accept a difference in opinion, but they won't stand for hypocrisy. Where someone is in politics won't always decide things as much as how well they can show how well they can listen to those around them, despite differences.
In the end, polling by the left-leaning Public Policy Polling firm and the liberal advocacy group called Americans United for Change found that a lot of support was actually coming from people that believed in the immigration reform. Unlike some others, they believed in the immigration overhaul, despite high opposition to things like showing amnesty for people that were living in the United States as an illegal immigrant. More than 70 percent of the voters in Cantor's district said that they supported the reforms to secure borders and stop employers from hiring illegal immigrants. They believed that keeping illegal immigrants from crossing in the first place was a better option and that hiring anyone who was in the United States illegally would only make illegal immigration matters worse. This also included trying to give anyone that didn't have papers or were undocumented residents without criminal backgrounds the rights to gain a legal status.
By the end of the election, it seemed that Graham, who had been talking about immigration reform for many years by then, sounded like he could address any problems on this subject more directly and upfront than Cantor would be able to. While Graham seemed like he could step up to fix any immigration reformation problems, Cantor's efforts to carve out a middle ground came off unpersuasive.
For me, this article took me a long time to understand. I had to reread many parts and it took me a long time to understand exactly what everything was. I had to look up a lot of words and I even had to look at a few other articles to understand what this article was talking about. This article in particular needed a lot of research and I ended up prying much deeper than I realized. I've never really liked politics, but I was too stubborn and determined to give up on this one. In the end, it only made me hate politics more. Throughout the article I only asked myself stupid questions. What does immigration even have to do with electing people? It's not like they actually do what they say they're going to do. Wait, that's pretty stupid. Saying that out loud doesn't make me sound very bright. After an entire article worth of stupid questions like these I finally realized just how much immigration could influence people and how they voted for leaders. I didn't really have any major questions about this article because it's still a little hard for me to think of ways to question this article, even with my newly attained background information. But all of my simple questions that I could answer myself helped me to understand this article a little bit more. It made this side of immigration politics a little bit clearer to me, as well as teaching me to think about what I'm reading before I ask questions
right away.
For me, this article took me a long time to understand. I had to reread many parts and it took me a long time to understand exactly what everything was. I had to look up a lot of words and I even had to look at a few other articles to understand what this article was talking about. This article in particular needed a lot of research and I ended up prying much deeper than I realized. I've never really liked politics, but I was too stubborn and determined to give up on this one. In the end, it only made me hate politics more. Throughout the article I only asked myself stupid questions. What does immigration even have to do with electing people? It's not like they actually do what they say they're going to do. Wait, that's pretty stupid. Saying that out loud doesn't make me sound very bright. After an entire article worth of stupid questions like these I finally realized just how much immigration could influence people and how they voted for leaders. I didn't really have any major questions about this article because it's still a little hard for me to think of ways to question this article, even with my newly attained background information. But all of my simple questions that I could answer myself helped me to understand this article a little bit more. It made this side of immigration politics a little bit clearer to me, as well as teaching me to think about what I'm reading before I ask questions
right away.
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