Monday Open Thread [4.15.13]

Marcus Hook, PA Mayor Jay Schiliro (R) has dropped his bid for reelection “after he was arrested on charges he abused his position to imprison a 20-year-old man during a drunken, gun-wielding encounter at his home,” the Delaware County Daily Times reports.

“Authorities allege that late on the evening of Feb. 21, Schiliro contacted the young man by text message and had a police officer deliver him to his borough home. There… the mayor allegedly gave the young man alcohol and produced three firearms, one of which was fired into papers inside the house. During the encounter, the mayor repeatedly asked the young man if he could give him oral sex.”

Repressed Republicans and sex, whether it be homosexual sex or heterosexual sex, the basic story always repeats itself.

Tomorrow, the bipartisan “Gang of Eight,” which includes Senators Dick Durbin (D), Chuck Schumer (D), John McCain (R), Lindsay Graham (R), Jeff Flake (R), Marco Rubio (R), Robert Menendez (D) and Michael Bennet (D) is set to unveil a proposal that would represent the most far-reaching overhaul of immigration laws since 1986.

Here are some of the details of the bill from the Washington Examiner:

First the toughness. The bill will be based on a three-part enforcement scheme. First is a universal E-Verify system, which means that every business in America, even those that have one, two, or three employees, will be required to comply with the federal E-Verify law. Every person hired in every business will have to produce either a passport or a driver’s license from a state that requires proof of citizenship for a driver’s license.

Second is an entry and exit system at all airports and seaports that will track visa holders to ensure that they do not overstay their allotted time in the country.

Third is border security, which the Gang will define as 100 percent “situational awareness” — that is, surveillance of the entire border — plus the ability to catch 90 percent of the people who try to cross it illegally.[…]

The first, and by far the weakest, trigger is for the legalization of the estimated 11 million immigrants in the country illegally. In addition to requiring that immigrants pass a background check, be fingerprinted, pay taxes and a fine (which will be in the thousands of dollars), and prove they have been in the U.S. continuously at least since December 2011, the Gang bill will require that the Department of Homeland Security issue a “notice of commencement” confirming that it has prepared a plan for border security, including fencing and surveillance, that will meet the 100/90 percent requirements. In addition, the Department will have to confirm that it has the funding to begin implementing the plan. When that notice is made, then an illegal immigrant who has fulfilled the other requirements becomes what the bureaucracy will refer to as an RPI — a Restricted Provisional Immigrant.

Trigger number two will come five years after Homeland Security’s notice of commencement. If the Department has not met the 100/90 percent requirement by then, the border commission that was created in the original bill — made up of the governors and attorneys general of the four states bordering Mexico — will no longer be simply an advisory panel but will become a policy-making panel, charged with creating and implementing a border security plan that must meet the 100/90 percent requirement. The commission will have five more years to get the job done. How a commission of governors and state officials can be given the authority that constitutionally belongs to the Congress and the executive branch is not entirely clear, but that is what the bill will call for.

Once the 100/90 percent requirement is met, however it is done, then the Restricted Provisional Immigrants will be within sight, although a long sight, of a path to citizenship. The Gang plan calls for RPI status to last six years. After those six years, the RPI must re-apply for the same status, for an additional four years. To have his RPI status renewed, he must pay an application fee and an additional fine, on top of the one he paid six years earlier when he first became an RPI. He cannot have been convicted of any crime during those six years, or he will no longer be ineligible. And he will have to prove that he has been gainfully employed during those six years, earning at least 125 percent of the federal poverty level. (The figure will be higher for RPI’s with families to support.)

After an initial six-year term, and then four more years, the immigrant will have been in RPI status for ten years. That is when the final trigger comes in. After that decade-long period, the Gang plan will say, if E-Verify has been fully implemented, and if an entry-exit system has been fully implemented, and if the border security plan has been implemented, then the RPI will be eligible to apply — not receive, but just to apply — for a green card. The immigrant won’t be required to do so; he can remain an RPI for as long as he likes at that point. But if he does apply for a green card, then he will face another multi-year wait for eventual citizenship. The Gang stresses that green cards will be given out on a staggered basis, not all at one time, so no more than, say, two million immigrants will receive them in any single year. (That number is still under negotiation.) If any key part of the security requirements remain undone, the Gang says, then there will be no green cards.

In all, Gang members estimate the entire process, from illegal immigrant to citizen, could take at least 18, and as many as 22, years. At the same time, the Gang hopes to have wiped out the backlog of people waiting to enter the United States legally. Gang members want the RPI process to be slow in part to make sure that anyone who applied legally to enter the U.S. at roughly the same time as the new reform went into effect would be virtually guaranteed of receiving a green card before anyone who came here illegally.

I see a lot of places for sabotage of this bill. Especially the funding aspect.

Liz Sidoti: “He wants to slash funding for the Democratic sacred cows of Social Security and Medicare. He doesn’t agree with a judge and women’s rights groups that girls of any age should have easy access to emergency contraception. He has hinted that he may disappoint environmentalists by letting the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline be built.”

“And, to varying degrees, President Barack Obama seems to be going middle-of-the-road on everything from gun control to immigration reform to drone policy, much to the annoyance of many Democratic activists and liberal lawmakers.”