According to an opinion piece that appeared on latimes.com: “Our immigration system has been broken for too long, and the costs of that failure are growing. Getting immigration policy right is fundamental to our national interests — our economic vitality, our diplomacy and our national security.”
On the surface, CIR is a tough issue. It failed to get through Congress…twice. However the political reality may not be too daunting for our friends in DC were CIR to pass with their support. Recent elections have shown that the House Representatives who lost their seats in recent elections were those who vocally opposed CIR and favored a restrictionist approach to handling our country’s immigration woes.
Even if those who spend all day calling Congress, writing letters and commenting on blogs and articles threaten to “vote out” members of Congress who support CIR and what they decry as “Amnesty”, let’s look at the reality. Regardless of how loud a constituent is, how many times she may call or how many letters she may write, she gets only one vote. Moreover, if the more conservative and possibly less immigrant-friendly of two candidates supports CIR as does the more liberal opposing candidate – who will the anti-immigrants vote for?
On the other hand, the Hispanic population is growing and that demographic’s support for CIR is strong and many among them may, rightly or wrongly, feel that vocal opposition to CIR is nothing short of racism. Does not do much to help the party that opposes immigration.
Congress should do the right thing: tackle and pass CIR. The current system is not working and the politics of the issue do more to harm than good for candidates running for political office.
Please visit our website at www.immigrantconnect.com.