Congress

In a closed-door meeting this morning, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) pitched House Republicans a plan to pass a government funding bill that delays the decision on whether to defund President Obama's executive amnesty to next year. The Speaker's proposal comes as Congress is racing to pass a budget before the government runs out of funding on December 11. And, because the Constitution requires that spending bills originate in the House of Representatives, Speaker Boehner is ultimately the one to spearhead the process for defunding the President's immigration orders. (See U.S. Const., Art. I, Sec. 7)

Under the Speaker's plan, the House will take a hybrid approach to funding the government. First, Congress will consider an appropriations bill that funds most of the government through September 2015 (known as an omnibus), but only funds the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) until March (known as a Continuing Resolution). (Politico, Dec. 2, 2014) House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY), who previously claimed Congress cannot defund the executive amnesty, voiced his support for the Speaker's plan, calling it a "good option" that would allow him to get the spending package to the House floor "early next week." (Politico, Dec. 2, 2014; CQ Today, Dec. 2, 2014; see FAIR Legislative Update, Nov. 24, 2014)

Then, the House will vote on a separate bill to express its disapproval of the executive amnesty. Authored by Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL), this bill prohibits the executive branch from exempting from deportation "persons unlawfully present in the United States." (H.R. 5759) However, with Democrats still controlling the Senate, this bill will be dead on arrival. Thus, the bill to fund the government will go through, but nothing will be done to stop the President's executive amnesty.

True immigration reformers blasted House GOP leadership for promoting this strategy. Representative Steve King (R-IA) declared, "I will not vote to fund the president's lawless unconstitutional act and they should not be asking members to do so." (Bloomberg Government, Dec. 2, 2014) Similarly, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) released a letter from the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) that refutes the claim by GOP leadership that it lacks the authority to defund the executive amnesty. CRS wrote that even for agencies that are largely funded through fees (such as U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)), "the funds available to the agency through fee collections would be subject to the same potential restrictions on the use of its appropriations as any other type of appropriated funds." (See Reuters, Nov. 26, 2014)

However, if Speaker Boehner can garner enough support from the rank-and-file for this approach, Congress will likely wait until March to act. Many who support the President's actions hope that the extra time will help quell public outrage at the President's actions that will shield 5 million illegal aliens from deportation, grant them work authorization, and make them eligible for numerous benefits
  Read more about House Leadership Peddles Plan that Punts Defunding of Executive Amnesty

President Barack Obama laid out his plan Thursday night to provide relief to about 5 million people in the United States who have moved here without legal permission, most notably issuing an executive order allowing undocumented immigrants who are parents of U.S. citizens and legal residents to be granted legal status as well.

"All of us take offense to those who reap the rewards of living in America without embracing its responsibilities," he said. However, "undocumented immigrants who desperately want to embrace those responsibilities see little option but to remain in the shadows."

It was unclear what the changes would mean in Oregon. They were well received among political leaders, but the agricultural industry was less enthusiastic, arguing that the reforms failed on many counts.

Everyone agreed, however, that the responsibility lies with Congress to pass comprehensive reforms that will address all the problems related to American's undocumented immigrant population.

This has become an increasingly thorny issue in Oregon.

Migrant labor has become a cornerstone of the state's agricultural industry, and there are about 120,000 undocumented immigrants living here. It is one of a handful of states where the number of illegal immigrants has grown fastest over the past twenty years, and immigration policy is rising to the forefront of public discussion.

Jeff Stone, executive director for the Oregon Association of Nurseries, said the plan will do little to help the state's agricultural industry, and he said it does not make up for the missed opportunity for real reform in Congress.

"(Obama's proposal) is not a replacement for resolving the immigration problem that is facing the country," he said. "It promotes everybody's narrative, positive and negative, but it doesn't solve the problem."

Comprehensive reform would include a true guest-worker program that provides a steady, reliable workforce and a new visa system to allow people who have been here for years to gain legal status in a manageable way, Stone said.

STATESMANJOURNAL

Highlights from Obama's immigration plan

He's not alone. Farm workers across the country will largely fall outside the scope of the proposed reforms, and the national agricultural industry is skeptical that anything short of a new set of laws will stabilize their workforce.

Estimates of how many people in the country illegally are working in agriculture vary, ranging from about 500,000 to as many as 1.75 million individuals.

Obama's proposal is expected to apply to about 250,000 of them, a tiny fraction.

"For what appears to be a small subset of current agricultural workers, the president's actions will alleviate some pressure in the short term but does not offer these workers, their families, their communities or their employers the long-term assurance they deserve," said Charles Conner, head of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives.

Craig Regelbrugge of the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform said his group never expected administrative action could provide a broad solution to the farmworker issue.

"We've seen an inexorable growth in food imports, including fruits and vegetables," Regelbrugge said. "Imports are displacing domestic production."

STATESMANJOURNAL

Full text: Obama's immigration speech

He said a combination of factors, including tighter border enforcement, have contributed to a worsening of the farm labor shortage.

"The workforce situation has gotten worse and worse and worse and worse," Regelbrugge said. "I think we would have had a disaster in California this year had we not had a drought disaster" that reduced crops.

For Stone, the situation in Oregon is similar. There are not enough workers and not enough certainty for the farmers.

Oregon lost one-third of its nursery growers during the recession, and it is just now building itself back up, Stone said. It relies on migrant workers, and there is a labor shortage under the current system. There are simply not enough people to work these jobs who can prove they're allowed to be here. The president's ideas don't solve that problem.

"There aren't enough visas for the work that needs to be done," Stone said. True immigration reform "is needed for the long-term survival of this country economically."

Some disagree with the idea that Obama's reforms are needed at all.

Jim Ludwick, former president of Oregonians for Immigration Reform, said he does not support the plan. It isn't needed, he said. Rather, the president ought to focus on enforcing the laws we already have.

He said Obama's speech was disingenuous, conflating facts and suggesting law-abiding citizens are frequently deported when they are not, Ludwick said. The speech was meant as a political maneuver, he said, and was designed to tug at heart strings and manipulate emotions rather than set policy.

"He knows all these things he put out will never come to fruition," Ludwick said.

Immigration policy has come increasingly to the forefront in Oregon. Two weeks ago, Oregon voters shot down a ballot measure that would have allowed undocumented immigrants to hold state-issued driver cards. The Oregon Legislature had already approved the law, but voters disagreed and defeated the proposal by an overwhelming margin.

STATESMANJOURNAL

Driver cards rejected by wide margin

Stone said it was a shame the law hadn't passed and would have benefited the agricultural industry a great deal, but Ludwick said it was a true referendum on what Oregonians really think about immigration policy.

Political leaders were clearly more in line with Stone than Ludwick on Obama's speech, as they had been on driver's cards last year.

"I applaud President Obama's announcement this evening. His leadership will help innumerable families across the country. In our state, his action will mean that thousands of Oregonians have the ability to safely pursue aspects of daily life that many of us take for granted," said Speaker of the House Tina Kotek.

Gov. John Kitzhaber offered his support as well and, like Stone, said the needed work is not done.

"As Oregonians, we believe in a fair shot for everyone... It remains to be seen whether Congress will step up, do what's right, and pass meaningful immigration reform, or whether it will continue to play politics with the lives of millions who have been living, working, and contributing to our communities for years."

Obama called on Congress to pass a comprehensive reform package, and he insisted the temporary measures he has proposed are in keeping with American values.

"We are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once too," he said. "What makes us Americans is our shared commitment to an ideal, that all of us are created equal, and all of us have the chance to make of our lives what we will." Read more about What Obama's immigration reform means for Oregon

Democrats and Republicans in bluer-than-blue Oregon strongly backed a referendum on Election Day to eliminate a 2013 law that would have provided drivers’ licenses to illegal immigrants.

The small band of Republican politicians and activists who put the referendum on the ballot say national Republican politicians should learn that if they oppose amnesty, the public will support them.

On Nov. 4, 66 percent of the state’s voters backed the referendum and eliminated the illegals’ licenses.

Those 908,682 voters included many Democrats who also reelected the state’s Democratic establishment, led by Gov. John Kitzhaber and Sen. Jeff Merkley.

“It is only at the state legislature and at Congress that [illegal immigration] becomes a partisan issue,” said state Rep. Kim Thatcher, who sponsored the referendum, dubbed Measure 88.

“In real life, people appreciate the importance of the laws, and they appreciate people who come here legally and they don’t want to support people who come here illegally,” she told The Daily Caller.

People would come up and say to me, ‘I am a lifelong liberal, but this is going too far. Please let me sign your petition,’” said Cynthia Kendoll, the president of Oregonians for Immigration Reform.

“They were adamant that people who are in our country have gotten way too much and that we’ve got to fix this problem,” she told TheDC.

Since it was first publicized in late 2013, the referendum “polled two-to-one from day one. … That needle didn’t move at all,” said GOP state Rep. Sal Esquivel. ”People are pretty much set … and they want to see their federal government go ahead and take care of the situation instead of moving their lips and doing nothing.”

“Doggone it, a lot of Democrats feel the same way as Republicans,” Esquivel said.

That judgment is backed up by national polls, including recent surveys by Paragon Insights and the bipartisan battleground series of polls.

Measure 88 also helped GOP candidates who championed it, said Esquivel. “People who campaigned on this issue did quite well, an the ones that did not, didn’t do very well.”

The GOP gubernatorial candidate ignored the issue, and lost his race, 600,300 votes to Kitzhaber’s 668,816 votes.

But Rep. Thatcher, a Measure 88 sponsor, won a seat in the state Senate, even though GOP turnout sagged, and the state’s voters increased the Democratic advantage in the Senate from 16:14 to 18:12.

The referendum was also championed by Bill Post, a conservative talk-show host who was elected to take Thatcher’s seat in the state House.

During his campaign, Post won support from the major trade association that backed the award of drivers’ licenses to illegals, the Oregon Association of Nurseries. The association’s member companies use many migrants to plant and trim trees.

In a meeting with the association’s members, “I said ‘No, it’s really simple, you can’t break the law’ … [and] they endorsed me and gave me money,” Post told TheDC. “On 99 percent of the issues, they and I see eye-to-eye,” Post said.

Other employers are investing in machinery instead of relying on migrant workers. For example, the state’s growing win industry had designed its vineyards so that grapes can be harvested by machines instead of migrants.

Measure 88 was so popular that the organizers won with a budget of only $50,000 for the campaign. The group spent only 18 cents per vote to win 35 of 36 counties in the state.

In contrast, Kentucky GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell and his supporters paid 278 times as much, at $50 per vote.

The activists were actually outspent roughly five-to-one by pro-license group, Yes on Oregon Safe Roads.

The pro-license group was funded by the state’s Latino lobbies and immigration lawyers, by Hollywood liberals, and by progressive unions, churches and legal groups. It was also backed by landscaping and agricultural companies who prefer to hire cheap migrant labor instead of investing in machinery. These groups supported the Democrat-drafted 2013 license law because it incentivized more illegals to work and live in the state.

But the business and progressive groups only won the ballot in a single district, Portland, by a narrow 55-to-45 split.

“Moscow on the Willamette is very liberal, very left wing. … We didn’t even campaign there,” said spokesman Jim Ludwick, communications director at Oregonians for Immigration Reform.

The referendum’s backers tried to avoid any hint of ethnic tension or anti-immigrant attitudes in their campaign.

Instead, they focused their criticism on the unfairness of the 2013 law’s lax treatment of illegal drivers, and the unfairness of the state’s support for companies’ use of low-wage migrant labor.

“Nobody wants to break up families, nobody wants to be the meanie, but we do need to make sure that the people coming to the U.S. contribute and become part of the positive fabric,” said Thatcher, who owns a road construction firm.

“We try to talk about [immigration] in the general sense, because if you get down to specific individuals … you go down a slippery slope, you start denigrating groups based on a few,” Ludwig said.

Many voters were repelled by the 2013 law’s easy treatment of illegals, said Ludwick.

Oregonians must periodically prove their identity with passports and birth certificates as they renew their licenses, but illegals would have been able to get a license by showing an unverifiable “Matrícula Consular” identification document that they can buy from Mexican government officials in Oregon.

That sense of unfairness was also a proxy issue for fear loss of control, said Ludwick. There’s no guarantee that the Mexican ID cards would show the person’s true name, so the process could be gamed by criminals to conceal their identity behind real Oregon licenses said, he said.

“Our sovereignty would be in the hands of the Mexican counsel general’s office,” he said. “They would be the adjudicator of who could stay in the country.”

Voters were also concerned about the impact of illegals on jobs, said Ludwick.

“When we talked about jobs we simply said this — wages are flat, there’s been no increase in wages, millions of Americans are out work and millions are underemployed,” Ludwick said.

People understand that “if you have an oversupply of labor, wages are going to be suppressed,” he said.

“Our economy is in mess, we don’t have jobs” outside Portland, said Post.

People don’t want to blame immigration or immigrants for the problems, but they would talk around the issue of immigration’s impact on jobs, Ludwick said. For example, one woman whom he said she would support the referendum because her two sons couldn’t find good jobs. “One is living at home, and one is sharing an apartment, trying to get on a substitute teacher, the [first] one went back to school because he can’t get a job in his field,” Ludwick said.

But those fairness and jobs issues, however true, important and civic-minded, were also proxy issues for the public’s deeper concerns about the impact of large-scale immigration on their communities, Ludwick said.

“One of the biggest things that’s not really addressed is that the U.S. is so welcoming, and we just keep giving and giving, and we keep including so many people at great cost to us, our society, to our pocket book, to our unemployment,” said Kendoll.

“We’re getting to that tipping point. … People are saying ‘Wait a minute, this is just too much,’” she said.

“It’s the numbers,” Ludwick said, citing the annual arrival of one million legal immigrants, 650,000 guest-workers and many illegal immigrants, who seek jobs sought by the four million Americans who enter the workforce each year.

“It is not that every migrant is bad. … It is that we can’t accommodate all the world’s poor and underprivileged,” he said.

Despite their huge victory in blue Oregon, the Oregon GOP members and activists haven’t gotten any calls from the national GOP apparatus.

“Not a single solitary one,” said Kendoll.

TheDC asked for a comment from Rep. Greg Walden, the sole Republican House member in Oregon, and the chairman of the committee panel that helps GOP legislators win elections.

“Greg opposes amnesty, voted against the drivers’ license referendum, and was glad to see it defeated overwhelmingly,” said a statement from Walden’s press aide, Andrew Malcolm. “In his many town halls and other meetings in Oregon, Greg has heard strong support for securing the border and fixing our broken immigration system,” Malcolm said.

Many Oregon employers hire foreign college grads in place of Americans.

The lesson from Oregon’s referendum is that Washington politicians “should stand up, and yes it would help [the Oregon GOP] because people will start to recognize that the Republicans actually can provide leadership,” said Thatcher.

“If they could stand up, they could pull a lot of people from all parties to recognize at least that part of the GOP as a positive thing, and say, may be the Republicans have backbone after all.”

By pushing his amnesty plan, Obama isn’t learning the lessons that voters are teaching, said Esquivel. “It seems like he would have learned from the last election, but obviously he didn’t. … He keeps taking a meat cleaver and putting it into his forehead to see if it hurts.”

GOP leaders should “wake up, the people are upset right now,” said Post.

“We have to secure the borders and we have to deal with this immigration issue,” he said. “Right now, the wind is at their back. The Nov. 4 election, it was a red wave.” Read more about Deep Blue Oregon Votes To Block Drivers’ License To Illegals

Will Democrats ever realize that increased immigration is not only bad policy, but a political loser as well?

“We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists” said Thomas Jefferson in his first inaugural. It was a gracious touch, a rhetorical olive branch to his vanquished foes. Too bad he didn’t mean it.

Jefferson immediately went about killing off the party of his longtime nemesis, Alexander Hamilton, while his vice president, Aaron Burr, went about killing Hamilton.

After last week’s midterm election, President Obama and Senate Majority Leader-elect Mitch McConnell offered similar rhetorical olive branches. While it’s unlikely the president and the senator from Kentucky will face off on the dueling grounds of Weehawken, their words of equanimity were about as sincere as Thomas Jefferson’s back in 1801.

In his post-debacle presser, President Obama told the nation “I hear you.” But while the president said all the right things about working with the new Republican reality in Washington, he also offered two thorns for every rose pedal.

Once again President Obama threatened executive action on immigration if “Congress won’t act.”

But Congress did act on immigration. The House refusal to pass the Senate’s 2013 Pathway to Citizenship bill was an action. The Senate bill was rejected as a byzantine mess presenting a logistical nightmare at best and at worst yet another incentive for millions to migrate to this country illegally.

The president and supporters of “comprehensive immigration reform”—Washington-speak for amnesty for illegal immigrants—might not like the action Congress took, but act they did.

On Nov. 4, the American people validated Congress’s action by re-electing anti-amnesty candidates and adding to their numbers. Senate Democrats who supported the immigration bill went down hard: Arkansas’ Mark Pryor, North Carolina’s Kay Hagan, Alaska’s Mark Begich. And when Louisiana holds its runoff in December, Mary Landrieu will likely join the club despite her recent flip on the Keystone XL pipeline and just about every other issue she had previously supported. If the new edition of Mary Landrieu shows up in the Senate, the Republicans win either way.

In Oregon, one of the bluest of blue states, a state ballot measure may be the canary in the coal mine President Obama ignores at his own peril.

Yet, a draft of a 10-point executive order leaked to Fox News indicates the president plans to grant as many as 5 million undocumented immigrants permission to stay in the country by extending DACA immunity (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) to the parents of the so-called DREAMers—kids who were brought to this country illegally by their parents. The president’s action would also apply to the parents of children born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants.

To mute the blowback, action could come next week. The first howl you’ll hear will come from Mary Landrieu, who will have a hard time spinning her way past this one.

If President Obama goes down this road, he will be issuing a slap in the face to Senate Republicans that might not result in pistols at 20 paces, but guarantees a political duel to the death once the new Congress convenes in January.

While issues other than immigration contributed to the electoral disaster inflicted on the president’s party, to turn a deaf ear to the anti-amnesty message delivered at the polls is to deny reality.

Case in point: Oregon, one of the bluest of blue states, where a state ballot measure may be the canary in the coal mine President Obama ignores at his own peril.

On May 1, Gov. John Kitzhaber signed Senate Bill 833, granting undocumented immigrants the right to drive in his state.

But a funny thing happened in the Pacific Northwest: More than 70,000 Oregonians signed a hastily organized petition drive and qualified Measure 88, which would repeal Senate Bill 833, for the November ballot.

Sponsored by Oregonians for Immigration Reform, an anti-amnesty group, the “Save Oregon’s Driver’s License” campaign scored the most significant anti-amnesty victory ever, beating the pro-driver’s license forces 66 percent to 33 percent. It got more votes, in fact, than either Gov. Kitzhaber or incumbent Democratic Senator Jeff Merkely, who both easily won re-election. It even outpolled a successful pro-pot measure.

In total, 941,042 Oregonians voted to deny driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.

Does President Obama hear this?

“The public supports a pathway to citizenship” is repeated with the regularity of a metronome by Democrats and the corporatist wing of the Republican Party determined to keep a steady supply of cheap labor flowing into this country. But if you ask the American public a straight up question—“Do you support amnesty for illegal immigrants?”—you get a very different response.

According to an April 2013 ABC News/Washington Post poll, 80 percent of American adults support “stricter border control to try to reduce illegal immigration.” This includes 93 percent of Republicans, 76 percent of Democrats, 83 percent of independents, 74 percent of blacks, and a whopping 61 percent of Hispanics.

Polls are only as good as the poll question, and I’m skeptical of nearly every immigration-related poll. But this can be said with certainty: The public clearly supports a secure border, and it’s impossible to just brush off the Oregon vote.

Then-Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano assured the nation “the border is secure” before leaving to become chancellor of the University of California. President Obama continues to make the irrelevant claim “the border is more secure than ever.” But the truth revealed itself this year when thousands upon thousands of unaccompanied children simply walked to this country. How secure could the border possibly be if 5-year-olds can penetrate it?

We need meaningful immigration reform and we can get it quickly if only the pro-amnesty forces will separate border security from the pathway to citizenship. Secure the border first, as well as America’s ports, harbors, and especially airports—where one-third of undocumented immigrants enter.

Once the administration has demonstrated effective control of the border, then Congress will resolve the myriad other issues related to immigration, starting with normalizing the status of the millions of DREAMers caught in legal limbo through no fault of their own.

But we’ll never have a solution as long as the two parties try to sell both simultaneously.

In 1986 Congress passed the Simpson-Mazzoli Act, the so-called Reagan Amnesty that promised border security in exchange for a “one time only” amnesty for 3 million undocumented immigrants.

The immigrants got their amnesty and the United States got 12 million to 20 million more undocumented immigrants.

We cherish the notion that this country is a nation of immigrants and understand the American Dream is regenerated by new arrivals from all over the globe. It’s maybe the most American thing of all.

But Americans also overwhelmingly support the rule of law—and understand a nation that doesn’t control its own borders is a nation in name only.

Thomas Jefferson also warned in his first inaugural that not “every difference of opinion is a difference of principle.” But for millions of Americans, the border debate is matter of principle and won’t be burned a second time on the altar of Democratic Party political expedience or multinational corporate profits. Read more about Didn't Obama Hear Oregon’s Warning Shot on Immigration?

President Barack Obama will introduce 10 executive actions that could suspend deportations for and legalize more than 5 million illegal immigrants as early as next week, news reports say.

The plan was part of a draft proposal to a federal agency that was leaked to Fox News, the network reported on Wednesday.

Obama's announcement could come as early as Nov. 21 or shortly thereafter, a White House source told Fox.

The president was briefed on the plan by the Department of Homeland Security before he left on his trip to Asia and the Pacific last week, Fox reports. One of the architects of the plan was Esther Olavarria, the top immigration lawyer on the late Sen. Ted Kennedy's staff.

Among the plan's most controversial elements include orders that would expand deportation deferrals not only to illegals who came to the U.S. as children, but to the parents of U.S. citizens — those who were born in this country — and those who have become legal permanent residents.

The parental expansion could allow as many as 4.5 million illegal adults with U.S.-born children to remain in the country, Fox reports.

Obama's orders also would expand the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program he created in June 2012.

DACA affected millions of illegals who were brought to the United States as children before June 2007 and who were under 31 years old as of June 2012, when the program started.

With the new order, Obama would expand DACA to cover anyone who entered the United States before age 16 — and would move the cutoff date back to Jan. 1, 2010.

This is expected to affect nearly 300,000 illegal immigrants, Fox reports.

In addition, a State Department immigrant visa program involving technology jobs would offer another half-million immigrants a path to citizenship, according to Fox. Spouses also would be helped by the program.

According to Fox, the DHS plans to "promote" the new naturalization process by giving a 50 percent discount on the first 10,000 applicants who come forward, with the exception of those whose incomes are above 200 percent of the national poverty level.

Other planned executive actions would increase pay for Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers — an effort to "increase morale" within the agency, Fox reports — and the administration would revise its priorities to target only serious criminals for deportation, while replacing its current "Secure Communities" program with a new effort.

The Fox report comes as Obama vowed last week to act unilaterally on immigration in the absence of congressional action.

He was attacked by House Speaker John Boehner, who said any such move would "poison the well" with Republicans, and by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who likened it to "waving a red flag in front of a bull."

McConnell, who will become majority leader when the new Congress convenes in January, reiterated his opposition to Obama's acting alone on immigration in a speech on the Senate floor on Wednesday.

"President Obama has a duty to help build the trust we all need to move forward together, not to double-down on old ways of doing business," McConnell said. "That's why I think moving forward with the unilateral action on immigration he's planned would be a big mistake." Read more about Report: Obama Will Soon Announce 10-Point Plan for Illegals

Americans who voted in the midterms on Tuesday overwhelming are opposed to President Barack Obama's executive amnesty and do not want foreign workers to take jobs from Americans and legal immigrants who are already here.

Overall, strong "majorities of men (75%), women (74%), whites (79%), blacks (59%), and Hispanics (54%)," in addition to tri - partisan majorities of "self - identified Republicans (92%), Independents (80%), and Democrats (51%)" did not want Obama to enact an executive amnesty on his own. Only 20% of voters wanted Obama to move forward with his executive amnesty. Read more about Midterm Exit Poll: 75% reject executive amnesty, 80% don't want foreign workers taking jobs from Americans

The Obama administration yesterday announced that it is spending $9 million to provide lawyers for some of the young illegal immigrants who flooded across the border earlier this year, but voters strongly believe these illegal immigrants do not have the same legal rights U.S. citizens do.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 68% of Likely U.S. Voters say the new illegal immigrants should not have the same legal rights and protections that U.S. citizens have. Just 19% disagree. Thirteen percent (13%) are not sure. (To see question wording, click here.)

Seventy-one percent (71%) say these illegal newcomers should not be eligible for government services and benefits. Sixteen percent (16%) believe they are entitled to government aid. Again, 13% are undecided.

Sixty-three percent (63%) of voters think the availability of government money and services draws illegal immigrants to the United States. Twenty-one percent (21%) believe this government assistance is not a magnet for illegal immigration, but 15% are not sure. These views are little changed from early March 2010 when we first asked this question.

Thirty-eight percent (38%) now say some of this year’s wave of illegal immigrants have been moved by the federal government to their state. Fifteen percent (15%) say their state hasn’t received any of these illegals, but nearly half (46%) of voters don’t know. The administration refuses to make public where these illegal immigrants are being moved and, in most cases, is not telling local and state officials beforehand.

Just 29% of voters approve of housing these illegal immigrants in their state. Only 34% think the administration needs to release publicly the locations of where the illegal immigrants are going, but a plurality (47%) believes it should get the approval of elected officials in a state before moving them there.

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on August September 29-30, 2014 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

Most voters think the president wants this latest group of illegal immigrants to stay in this country despite majority support for their quick deportation.

Just 30% of voters give the Obama administration good or excellent marks for its handling of the thousands of illegal immigrant children who have entered the country this year. Forty-seven percent (47%) rate the administration’s handling of the problem as poor. This is unchanged from mid-August.

Fifty-four percent (54%) of Democrats give the administration positive marks for dealing with the latest immigration situation, compared to six percent (6%) of Republicans and 26% of voters not affiliated with either major party.

Democrats, however, tend to agree with the others when it comes to legal rights and government benefits for illegal immigrants but not nearly as strongly. For example, while 89% of GOP voters and 70% of unaffiliateds think illegals should not have the same legal rights and protections that U.S. citizens have, just a plurality (49%) of voters in the president’s party agree.

Similarly, 51% of Democrats do not think illegal immigrants should be eligible for government services and benefits, but that compares to 91% of Republicans and 75% of unaffiliated voters.

Republicans are more aware than the others whether some of the new illegal immigrants have been moved to their state.

Men and women are in general agreement when it comes to legal rights and benefits for these illegal immigrants. Voters under 40 are only slightly more supportive than their elders in both cases.

School districts around the country are beginning to discover where the administration has moved many of the new illegal immigrants, but 53% of all voters don’t believe these youngsters should be allowed to attend local schools. Thirty-two percent (32%) disagree, while 14% are undecided.

Most voters oppose the president’s reported plan to unilaterally grant amnesty to several million illegal immigrants and think Congress should challenge him in court if he goes ahead with it. Consistent with surveying for years, two-out-of-three voters (67%) think securing the border to prevent future illegal immigration should come before amnesty is granted for some illegal immigrants already in this country. Just 26% believe amnesty should come first.

Fifty-seven percent (57%) favor a comprehensive immigration reform plan that would give legal status to those who entered the country illegally but have otherwise obeyed the law – if the border is really secured to prevent future illegal immigration. The problem for immigration reformers is that only 33% think it’s even somewhat likely that the federal government will actually secure the border, with seven percent (7%) who say it’s Very Likely. Read more about Voters Strongly Oppose Legal Rights, Government Benefits for Illegal Immigrants