U.S. News & World Report
By Lauren Fox
March 18, 2014
It
has been one year since the Republican National Committee released a
report calling on Republicans to tackle immigration reform and grow its
Latino base. But since
that time, little progress has been made to win the hearts and votes of
Latinos from Capitol Hill Republicans.
House
Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, appears to have backed away from an
earlier pledge to push immigration reform through the House this year.
In fact, House Republicans
made headlines last week for bringing a bill to the floor aimed at
rolling back President Barack Obama’s executive authority to curb
deportations. Even RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, a co-author of the GOP
autopsy report, admitted the Republican Party is still
too fragmented to move forward with one comprehensive plan at this
point.
“There’s
general agreement that we need to have serious immigration reform, but I
don’t believe there’s general agreement as to what that reform is,”
Priebus said during
a breakfast with reporters Tuesday.
But
while Washington is gridlocked, divided over immigrant visas and border
control, one Republican governor remains committed to reform, if for no
other reason than to
help save his state and bring its economy back from the brink.
Michigan's
Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, has presented a vastly more progressive
stance on immigration reform than his colleagues inside the beltway. In
his January State
of the State address, Snyder unveiled an aggressive plan to not only
embrace immigrants in Michigan, but to recruit them to revitalize
Detroit. Snyder’s plan included an executive action to create the
Michigan Office for New Americans, a mechanism to integrate
new immigrants into the state. Snyder also announced a visa program
that could help attract 50,000 immigrants to his state.
Snyder
has been a strong advocate for Congress to fix the “dumb” immigration
reform system for a long time. But ultimately, he says, he cannot wait
for Congress to act.
“People
have different styles,” Snyder told U.S. News in a recent interview. “I
try to focus in on what the positive solution is to a problem. Don’t
worry about blame
or credit. Solve the problem.”
There’s
another factor that separates Snyder from his GOP colleagues in the
House. Instead of trying to limit Obama’s executive authority on
immigration reform, Snyder
is asking the president to use it and increase the number of
high-skilled worker visas available to Michigan.
“This
is a way for the federal government to help without a financial
bailout,” Snyder says. “I hope this can be done through executive
action.”
Alfonso
Aguilar, a Republican pro-immigration strategist, says it is no
surprise that Snyder is one of the voices leading the GOP on immigration
reform. Governors have
a record of putting practicality ahead of political posturing, he says.
“The
governors understand the need for immigration reform. Politicians in
Washington say they are in touch with the people, but they are in a
bubble,” Aguilar says. “The
disconnect is that ironically, conservative members in Washington are
responding to the anti-immigrant lobby and talking heads rather than
listening to the governors who understand the issue better.”
Snyder’s
approach to immigration is no doubt shaped in some part by the politics
of his state. Snyder is running for re-election this year in a state
Obama won by comfortable
margins, twice. However, Snyder is still a rare immigration advocate in
his party.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
No comments:
Post a Comment