News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Jan. 18, 2013: Dear Mr. President,
Who would have thought it? – Bill O’Reilly urging Senator Marco Rubio to actually “get on the phone” with you on immigration reform “and get this thing so it doesn’t turn into a bloody mess!” Must be an inauguration mirage! But wait – it is true!
O’Reilly actually called it “fair” – the plan to put the 11 million plus undocumented migrants on a pathway to residency, and actually credited you with handling border security very well. This about face from the former attacker of “illegal immigration” – who once got into an on-air screaming match with Geraldo Rivera over whether to blame drunk driving deaths on illegal immigration – comes onthe heels of the about face by another Fox talking head, Sean Hannity. Hannity now says he’s for a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented. No more throwing around “amnesty here.”
So is “illegal alien” hater Lou Dobbs next in line to support this plan?
Can’t wait to see how this drama unfolds as GOPers line up to kiss the butts of Latino and immigrant voters in the hopes they will swing over to their side of the fence and help them win back the White House and the Senate.
Then watch out for a swift kick in the butt right back to wherever it is we “aliens” dropped in from.
But as you take your inauguration oath with the promise to overhaul the immigration system of this country and help those who were forced to hide in the shadows for too long, you must be smiling at the about face turn by Republicans and the Marco Rubio plan that is so similar to yours.
Rubio now says if an undocumented immigrant comes forward after being here for a significant number of years, is finger printed and passes a background check for national security and crimes, pays back taxes and fines, knows English and be assimilated, then they should get a work permit and legal status, but not a green card. This will be earned on a residency pathway.
Isn’t this what you and everyone else have been saying for many years now? Infact, this is exactly what every immigrant largely has to go through before they are allowed to settle here – the finger printing and checks!
Long before the self-deportation wagon hit the Republicans where it hurt the most, people have been making this case while the GOPers insisted it was all simply “amnesty.”
But they say everything is life happens for a reason. So maybe the Republicans had to take a beating in November to wake up and realize that the immigrant voting bloc in this United States has shifted the demography to the left.
Now it’s time to let them eat humble pie by letting the “illegal aliens” not self-deport but “self adjust.” Let’s do it now before O’Reilly and company wake up from sanity!
Respectfully,
Felicia Persaud
The writer is founder of NewsAmericasNow, CaribPR Wire and Hard Beat Communications.
