House of Representatives Passes the Dream Act

L.A. Now had a news article claiming that the Democratically-controlled House of Representatives on Wednesday narrowly approved the Dream Act. The Dream Act barley passed with a 216 to 198 vote. Now it is time for the Senate to vote on the bill on Thursday. Senator Harry Reid even said that the bill probably wouldn't pass in the Senate with the needed 60 votes. Republican leaders are against the DREAM Act saying that it is just another form of amnesty for young generation and would be too costly to the taxpayers.

I was actually surprised to hear that the DREAM Act actually passed in the House of Representatives! There has been so much controversy and the act being changed all of the time trying to favor the Republican party, I thought that the legislation would have voted against it for not staying consistent.  I guess we will just have to see if Senator Harry Reid is right with his predictions for the Senate. To read more click here

DREAM Act Rewards Illegal Behavior

Fox news wrote an article saying

"With just a few weeks until the end of the year, Congress has a full plate of legislative issues left to tackle, among them, the controversial DREAM Act proposal. Calling the act "poorly drafted, filled with loopholes" and something that "rewards illegal behavior," Senator Jeff Sessions R-Al., told Fox News on Sunday the U.S. must "confront the massive illegality [occurring] in the immigration process." When asked if its fair to enforce the law on children who were illegally brought into the U.S. by their parents, Sessions said the country needs to find a way to "deal with [all] people entering the country illegally" before attempting to enact legislation such as the DREAM Act. The Act, which seeks to provide provisions for people between the ages of 12 and 35 currently living in the U.S, is especially relevant for illegals living in the U.S. who were brought here as minor children."

I understand where the Senator is coming from to an extent. With this act I think that it would give more of an incentive for illegal immigrants to try to immigrate into this country to get their child one step closer to being a citizen of this country. Just like the law stating that if a child is born in this country it is a U.S. citizen, it in a way encouraged pregnant mothers to try to come in illegal and birth their child at an American hospital. On the other hand, I think that the DREAM Act is a good idea, just because it really wasn't the child's idea to move to the U.S. when they were just babies. If we give them citizenship of this country, than we can give them an opportunity to have a successful life (hopefully) and then in return hopefully they will pay LOTS of taxes to support our failing economy! In the long run, the DREAM Act does seem like an excellent idea to me, and plus, how fair would it be to have to kick them out of the only country they know and send them back to an unfamiliar land? Also, maybe people complain about the language barrier and how the Mexicans are unwilling to learn English. Well the reality of it is, is that it is more of the older immigrants that are less willing to learn English than the younger immigrants- especially if a child has been living in the U.S. since birth, you can pretty much guarantee that they will learn English and speak it as well. All in all, the people we should be worried out abusing the DREAM Act and the people we would be "rewarding for illegal behavior" would be the parents trying to give their child citizenship to the U.S.; not the child- so why punish them?

To read the full article click here

While immigration drops, businesses are crying out for more staff

Australia seems to be having an opposite problem as us- their immigration rate is dropping and not enough people in the workforce. In October, just 9370 overseas arrivals settled on Australian shores, the lowest total since March 2004.


It's kind of weird to think that in this country we don't have enough jobs to give to everyone but just across the ocean, they dont have enough people to fill their jobs! The sad thing is that more people are migrating out of Australia than migrating into the country. Maybe we should just send some of our immigrants over there?!

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Tequila Party?

Well, there might be a Tequila party but it isn't the type of parties that we are used to... Instead, this Tequila party is in the midst of formation, inspired by the success of the Tea party, but this party is a boycott against the democratic party from the Latino voters. The idea of the Tequila party is floating around be the Latino voters are tired of the democratic party not delivering or putting aside Latinos are top priority. Robert de Posada, the man behind this fall's controverial "Don't Vote" ads said "The Tequila Party is a great concept to basically say, 'You know what? This blind support for you is coming to an end'. If you are perceived as someone who will never vote for a Republican, then you're screwed," because Democrats will take you for granted."

I think that it's about time that the Latino voters stand up for themselves! It always seems like they are getting pushed around from one political party to another just to gain votes that are needed, and then tossed out once they have done what was expected. There have been so many false promises made to the Latinos to gain their vote, but with no outcome once the elections are over. It isn't fair what is happening to them, and even though I don't necessarily agree with everything the Latinos are in favor for, I don't think that it's right that they get tricked and lied to just to gain their vote. I know that elections are basically a pleasing game, just promising anything to gain as many votes but then not acting on what was promised, but it seems like Latinos are targeted wwwaaaayyyyy more than other other ethnic, or religious groups out there! I say go Tequila Party! It's time to stand up and actually be heard (Just not pretended to be heard)! The only think I would change is the name- it's a little hard to take a political party seriously when the name they want to be called by is known to make clothes come off.... hmmmmm....


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U.K. imposes new permanent immigration quota

Britain has decided to cap their work visas starting in April 2011 to 22,000 non- EU workers allowed in the country, reserving 1,000 of those visas to talented scientists, academics and artists. This is about one-fifth smaller than the amount of visas given in the year 2009.  This new decision came after growing pressure from the public and the burden on public services. Along with the cap,  no staff member who earn under 40,000 pounds (US$63,500) per year will be eligible to stay for longer than 12 months.

It seems like the whole world always complains about the United States closing their borders to immigrant workers. Now, with Britain capping their visas, countries shouldn't be complaining about us anymore! Especially since in the future, Britain will "kick out" visa holders making less than $63,500. That seems a little excessive to me. If our country created an outrageous rule like that for our visas, people everywhere would be having a cow and complaining about how we do not support the poor or the underprivileged BUT it would certainly solve our issues with illegal immigrants "taking our jobs" because we could just kick them out, oooorrrrrr they would actually start taking our real jobs such as medical or law practices, than we would really see the true meaning of taking our jobs!

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Only in Prescott....

So there's an elementary school in Prescott called Miller Valley Elementary School and last semester they started to paint a mural on one of the sides of the building that has a "darker" colored boy as the main focal point. Well, that did not sit well with the citizens of Prescott. Many were outraged that someone would even think about painting an African American boy on the side that faces one of the busiest intersections in the town, and to make it better, the painter tried to defend himself and say that the boy was not African American but was instead Hispanic. Like that made it any better!! So the painter decided to lighten the skin of the boy because "Jeff Lane, the school's principal, insisted his request for the faces in the mural to be lightened had nothing to do with race, but was intended to make them appear happier and brighter." Soooooooo does that mean that darker skinned people aren't happy and bright?! Interesting choice of words. This event was so big that it even made news in the U.K. where I found an article talking about it. AWESOME!! So not only do we hold up the ignorant stereotype claiming that white people are happier and brighter BUT we officially have been openly racist, especially after SB 1070.

For more information:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7807030/Artist-attacked-over-childrens-skin-tone-in-Arizona-school-mural.html

Arizona takes a hard hit economically because of SB 1070

Yahoo! News reported that since Arizona passed the immigration bill just four months ago, the state has lost about 141 millions dollars in visitor spending. Meetings and conferences that are canceled as a protest against the immigration bill will also cost the state nearly 2,800 thousand jobs and would trigger over a quarter billion dollars in lost economic output and more than 86 million in lost wages over the next three years.

I knew of Arizona being boycotted because of the immigration bill, but I never realized that this state would be taking such a hard hit economincally. It seems a little drastic that people are boycotting all of the state by canceling meetings and conferences, especially because they are lumping everyone living in Arizona in just a single group and punishing the voters or people against the immigration bill. I feel like people should boycott our government and not the state as a whole. It isn't fair that we are getting punished for what out government wants to do. It also is unfortunate for the tourists that are boycotting this state because that means they get to miss out on some pretty awesome places like the Grand Canyon, Sedona, Fossil Creek, Walnut Canyon, Meteor Crater, Flagstaff/ San Francisco Peaks, and don't forget Route 66!!

Arizona is already suffering economically, it will be interesting how hard we will get hit in the next two or three years and how long the effects will last.


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