Dear Mr. President,
It’s a new year filled with hope, and I’m a believer that we can get immigration reform accomplished before I get to letter 100. That’s change I want to believe in, thank you!
So it was heartening to hear you finally talk like the powerful president you are by saying Tuesday, “I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone. And I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions … and I’ve got a phone that allows me to convene Americans from every walk of life.” Kudos to you, Mr. President–a real shining moment, and just when I was starting to lose hope in you!
Hopefully now John Boehner, in his bid to outdo you, puts up and shuts up those clucking tea party chickens who are afraid of supporting his so-called “principles” on immigration reform. That’s what House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte told Telemundo—they are called immigration “principles.” According to Goodlatte, they are set to be released in the “coming weeks.”
The broader goal seems to be to sell the House Republican Conference on how all the pieces of immigration reform would fit together and hopefully galvanize support among the conference to move the legislative process and hopefully get a vote. Of course, we have no real details on these principles and how legalization of the 11.5 million fits into this picture. But hopefully this happens sooner than later, as Boehner, it seems, will play politics again.
Your statement on Tuesday will force Boehner to outshine you by introducing these principles before your State of the Union and by stamping out any opposition from the tea party to his speakership.
And while you are at it, get Josef Joffe, publisher and editor of the German newspaper Die Zeit, to reiterate to the so-called “conference” and Donald Trump why America remains the greatest country in the world despite growth by China and others. As he told CNN Sunday, “Immigrants do something miraculous for this country … they keep it from freezing up.” Hear that, GOP?
In his first English-language book, “The Myth of America’s Decline,” Joffe added that the influx of immigrants helps keep America young—certainly younger than rivals like Japan and Russia—and provides “brute dynamism” to the U.S. economy that is unmatched globally.
“The Europeans, Chinese and Japanese cannot handle immigration, [which] yields the most precious natural resource in the 21st century economy,” he added.
This–coming from the same man who is known for his global warming skepticism and who has described Al Gore as the “priest” of a climate-related “secular religion”– may make the Republican House Conference sit up and take notice too!
Respectfully,
Felicia Persaud The writer is CMO of Hard Beat Communications, which owns the brands News Americas Now, CaribPR Wire and Invest Caribbean Now.