GOP Spanish Language Ads Blame Dems for Bill to make aliens into felons

[Dinner]

This is unbelieved. The "enforcement only" option has always been a GOP schtick and of course they only want to enforce the law on undocumented migrants instead of on the companies which hire these people, who pay them subminimum wage, and who keep them off the official tax lists. That the Republicans would be so brazen as to champeon this approach yet take out Spanish language ads claiming the Democrats are responsible for GOP written and passed bills is outragous.

... Republicans disclosed a Spanish-language radio advertising campaign designed to shoulder Democrats with the responsibility for legislation passed by the GOP-controlled House that would make illegal immigrants subject to felony charges.

The ads are scheduled to air in New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada — states with large Latino populations. ... In the House, Republicans drafted legislation to make illegal immigrants subject to felony charges. Democrats say they were denied a chance to eliminate criminal penalties from the bill.

At another point, Republicans tried to substitute misdemeanor charges for felonies in the bill. Democrats opposed that effort, with at least some of them saying they wanted no criminal penalties at all. Republicans then passed the overall bill — including felony charges — on a largely party-line vote.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-immig14apr14,1,3167888.story?coll=la-news-a_section&ctrack=1&cset=true

[Ramo]

Nathan Newman wrote an interesting piece on this:

So the newest GOP gambit is to blame Democrats for blocking the Republicans in the House last December from downgrading illegal presence in the US from a felony to a misdemeanor-- in fact, they are going to run ads in Spanish to that effect.

So let's look at the Congressional Record for WHY Congressman Sensenbrenner initially supported dropping the penalty from a felony to a misdemeanor. Was it out of concern that this penalty would be too harsh? Don't bet on it. Read the transcript and you see the following:

Mr. Chairman, under current law, illegal entry into the United States makes an alien subject to a Federal criminal misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of 6 months in prison...

In the base bill, the maximum penalty for illegal entry was increased to a year and a day, and the same penalty was set for unlawful presence, to make the enhancements for these offenses consistent with the other penalty enhancements of the bill.

The administration subsequently requested the penalty for these crimes be lowered to 6 months. Making the first offense a felony, as the base bill would do, would require a grand jury indictment, a trial before a district court judge and a jury trial.

Also because it is a felony, the defendant would be able to get a lawyer at public expense if the defendant could not afford the lawyer. These requirements would mean that the government would seldom if ever actually use the new penalties. By leaving these offenses as misdemeanors, more prosecutions are likely to be brought against those aliens whose cases merit criminal prosecution.

For this reason, the amendment returns the sentence for illegal entry to its current 6 months and sets the penalty for unlawful presence at the same level.

So any reconsideration of not applying felony penalties to immigrants was not out of humane considerations, but out of the cynical view that the government can deny the right to a trial and other due process guarantees if they make the charges a "misdemeanor." This is a bow to the impossibility of revving up millions of criminal trials, but it's all about how to most effectively criminalize undocumented workers.

These "misdemeanors" would still have had six month jail terms attached to them, and could be handed out in quick judge-run trials without any counsel for the immigrants required by law. Somehow I don't think most immigrant families are going to be impressed by the argument that somehow the Democrats forced the GOP to vote for the draconian bill last fall, when, really, all the GOP wanted to do was run mass military-tribunal style trials under the rubric of "misdemeanor" charges.

[Gatekeeper]

Typical right-wing GOP scum tactics. Heh. Boy, are they ever f*cking it up for conservatives in the long run. This keeps up, they'll be discredited and forced from power for generations to come.

Gatekeeper

[Dr Strangelove]

People used to say that in the '60s.

[Timexwatch]

If you want to quibble, the house dems could've went along with that and negotiated down from there when the (unlikely) conference with the Senate happened. It's their fault they gave the GOP a club to beat them with.

[Ramo]

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h109-4437

92% of Republicans supported the Sensenbrenner Bill that felonizes immigrants and those who assisted immigrants, while 82% of Democrats opposed it. To claim that Democrats wanted to felonize immigrants when 82% of them opposed the legislation is pure dishonesty.

As for negotiation, as the LA Times pointed out,

Democrats say they were denied a chance to eliminate criminal penalties from the bill.

[Ramo]

negotiated down from there when the (unlikely) conference with the Senate happened.

Bills don't really get watered down in terms of right wing lunacy in Conference. See the Patriot Act reauthorization, for instance.

[Timexwatch]

Originally posted by Ramo


Bills don't really get watered down in terms of right wing lunacy in Conference. See the Patriot Act reauthorization, for instance.

Considering the vast gulf between the House GOP bills and the Senate GOP ones, it'll get watered down. Witness the differing approaches of each chamber (something for everyone vs. enforcement and border security first), there's going to have to a lot of horse trading to get anything through the Senate.

[Ramo]

There is no Senate GOP Bill. Frist's and McCain's approaches are nothing alike.

And as I said, there was a huge gulf between Senate and House Patriot Act Reauthorization Bills, and the House won that argument pretty decisively.

[TCO]

Good work, rethuglicans!

[DinoDoc]

Where did they lie?

[-Jrabbit]

GOP arrogance is only exceeded by their open contempt for anyone not in their little club.

[Az]

I find it slightly ironic. Isn't that sort of tactics (lying ads trying to manipulate audiences ) common in latin america?

[TCO]

Originally posted by -Jrabbit
GOP arrogance is only exceeded by their open contempt for anyone not in their little club.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Az
I find it slightly ironic. Isn't that sort of tactics (lying ads trying to manipulate audiences ) common in latin america?

Don't you mean common everywhere?