Saturday, December 4, 2010

Republicans Against Making America Stronger, Hold DREAM ACT Hostage




















Departments of Education, Homeland Security, and Defense All Support DREAM Act

"The DREAM Act will strengthen the U.S. economy and its military..."

Secretary Napolitano went on to say that the DREAM Act would actually make enforcement operations more streamlined by taking away a whole group of individuals who pose no threat to our country -- and have gone through the rigorous background checks to prove it:

Saying the nation's immigration system "does not work the way it ought to," Napolitano said passing the DREAM Act would not be a substitute for much-needed comprehensive immigration reform, but it would allow young people who were not responsible for immigrating illegally to this country and who want to go to college or join the military to adjust their immigration status and provide a path to citizenship without fear of deportation. This would be possible only after a vigorous background check.

"The laws themselves need to be updated," she said. "They need to be updated and reformed. One of the reforms that can take place is the Dream Act which takes out of the universe of those, as it were, who would be subject to enforcement action, it takes out of that group those who are the least culpable."

Secretary Napolitano is hardly alone in her support. Secretary of Education, Arte Duncan, recently sent a letter of DREAM Act support to Majority Leader Reid. So did Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, to key sponsor of the DREAM Act, Senator Richard Durbin, stating:

Setting aside the question of the process by which Congress should consider this legislation, there is a rich precedent supporting the service of non-citizens in the US military. Since the Revolutionary War, non-citizens have enlisted in the armed forces for service during periods of national emergency. Today, about 35, 000 non-citizens serve, and about 8,000 permanent resident aliens enlist every year. The DREAM Act represents an opportunity to expand this pool, to the advantage of military recruiting and readiness.

Just yesterday, that urgency was reiterated by Clifford Stanley, a Defense Department official:

"The department supports those elements of the DREAM Act that provide children of nonresident immigrants a clear path to U.S. citizenship through service in the military," said Clifford Stanley, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness…"Throughout past and current conflicts, those who are not yet citizens have answered the call to defend their adopted nation," Stanley said. "Allowing DREAM Act-eligible youth the opportunity to serve this nation would continue this tradition of service, while expanding the market of high-quality patriotic youth, to the advantage of military recruitment and readiness.

Republicans are holding the Dream Act among other legislation hostage in order that the poor pitiful billionaires of America do not return to paying the same tax rates they paid during the Reagan administration.
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Beck invents facts to attack food safety bill

Arizona ‘death panel’? State Medicaid cuts poised to let some poor patients die

A law in Arizona that cuts Medicaid funding for certain transplant operations is likely to bring about the deaths of poor residents in need of such procedures.

Starting in October, a measure passed by the Republican-led state legislature began denying Medicaid funds for organ transplants such as bone-marrow, lung, heart and liver transplants, which can be very expensive and are often performed in life-threatening cases.
One of Sarah Palin's more bizarre lies was that health care reform had death panels - now it seems it is Republicans and their death cult policies which are the real death panels.