IN THIS ISSUE
The U.S. Naturalization Civics Test
It’s An Election Year: President Obama’s Cinco de Mayo Speech, 2012
President Barack Obama
The Faces of US Immigrants: Alejandro Mayorkas, USCIS Director
Recipes From The Melting Pot: Scones, A British Delight
Quote of the Month
Why We Don’t Have Immigration Reform: According to David Axelrod, The Tea Party is to Blame
Why has the Obama Administration failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform? Well, according to Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod, the reason is quite simple: the Tea Party, which has driven mainstream Republicans so far to the right that they won’t vote for immigration reform legislation in fear that they may lose future Republican primaries.
Here is what Mr. Axelrod told CNN’s Candy Crowley:
“I think a lot of Republicans in Congress want to cooperate, know better — but they’re in the thralls of this reign of terror from the far right that has dragged the party to the right.”
“I was in the room when he [President Obama] called together Republicans and Democrats who had been for immigration reform in the past,” Axelrod recalled. “President Bush, to his credit, had pushed for immigration reform. In the Senate, 11 members supported it. Those members and members who have been supportive in the past were there along with Democrats, and the president said, ‘I will work with you to get this done.’ Not one of those Republicans was willing to stand up and work with him to pass the bill.”
“We tried to pass the DREAM Act through the Congress. It was blocked by the Republican legislature.”
“The nature of Washington is not monolithic opposition to everything the chief executive wants to do as a political strategy, and that is what happened here. … To say because you have an implacable group of Republicans in the Congress, who simply aren’t going to let that move, that the President hasn’t kept his promise is a little bit disingenuous.”
But couldn’t some of the energy that was expanded toward passing Healthcare Reform be used in passing effective Immigration Reform? I guess we have to see what happens on November 7th, the day after the 2012 election.