Nobody gives a shit but you. And everybody else understood why and how it was introduced.
Wow, i actually agree with everything you said. Right after the 2012 election it was Boehner, McConnell and McCain who almost instantly (like the day after) started bringing up immigration reform.
Again, even if true, the fact that Obama and the Congressional Democrats supported immigration reform and it was shitcanned by the Republican base makes Fiorina a liar on this point. To make her statement true, it’s not sufficient to show that Democrats prioritized other issues. You’d have to show they actively intervened to kill immigration reform. That didn’t happen.
If they actively intervened to kill immigration reform that would give up the game.
I put Fiorina’s statement in the realm of normal political BS, not outright lying. And I say that as someone who really, really hates Carly Fiorina as a Presidential candidate.
There’s no game to give up. Democrats wanted immigration reform, but wanted other things more.
What is the distinction you’re drawing? Fiorina lied about Democrats’ position on immigration, Vox rightly called them on it, and Sam Stone was incorrect to characterize Vox as at the kids’ table for fact-checkers. The fact that the nature of Fiorina’s lie is common in politics is true, but not really relevant.
The problem with actual immigration reform is that the public opposes increased immigration. So actually increasing legal immigration has political consequences. I don’t think the word for this is Catch-22, but here’s what it is in a nutshell: no immigration reform is bad for Republicans. Implementation of immigration reform is bad for Democrats. There’s also the problem of enforcement. If improved enforcement happens, especially under a Democratic President, you get what Obama went through: protesters and the threat of Latinos sitting out the next election. If you don’t get the improved enforcement, then the public feels like they got a bait and switch pulled on them. So for many reasons, not having immigration reform is politically better for Democrats than having it.
That’s not to say that Democrats don’t want immigration reform, it’s just that the incentives point towards not doing it.
Vox is a great site. But I’d rate them well below Politifact or any other fact checkers. They have a strong liberal bias and Ezra Klein has long been in the camp of “the facts have a liberal bias”. Well yes, if you define the facts your way and then call all disagreement with those facts dishonest rather than a difference of opinion on genuinely murky facts. Democrats’ motivations are not as clear as Vox makes them out to be. I do think the Democrats would be happy to do immigration reform with Republican cover, but I don’t think they want to do it otherwise.
Yes, immigration reform is a heavy lift, and if the Democrats have to do it by themselves, it’s one of those once-every-few-congresses sized mega-issues. Since Republicans oppose everything good, the Democrats had to use their last mega-issue on Obamacare, and the next one may well go to putting a climate change framework in place. Of course, if Republicans wanted to pitch in with some political cover, the cost of the lift would go down, and we could get something done. But that’s not really their way.
But let’s review what Fiorina said again, shall we?
[QUOTE=Carly Fiorina]
President Obama campaigned in 2007 and 2008 on solving the immigration problem. He entered Washington with majorities in the House and the Senate. He could have chosen to do anything to solve this pro – this problem. Instead, he chose to do nothing.
Why? because the Democrats don’t want this issue solved.
[/QUOTE]
Again, she’s not saying that Democrats aren’t prioritizing immigration reform, or that they could have done more, or they should focus more on enforcement, or anything sensible. She’s saying they - and Obama specifically - did nothing, which is false. Democrats attempted to pass the DREAM act in 2009/2010, only to have it filibustered in the Senate. She’s saying they don’t want the issue solved, which is false, since they were willing to meet Republicans on an omnibus immigration bill in 2013. All Democratic Senators voted in favor with 14 Republicans joining. I think you know what happened after that.
Fiorina’s statement is a lie. There’s no sensible other way to categorize it.
You know, if you want to try to demonstrate this with facts instead of assertions, I’m all ears. But Sam Stone fell flat on his face when it tried to do so earlier in the thread.
Does immigration reform=immigration increase? Because the latter is what most people are against. One could make significant reforms that are a positive change without promising increased volume. Changes to not leave people in limbo so long. Changes that make the decision process more transparent.
You can do immigration reform with less immigration, but that’s not very likely. The poiltical class wants more immigration, as does the donor class. They’d both rather have what we have now(massive illegal immigration, poor enforcement) than a good immigration system with less immigration.
Well, proving that they have a liberal bias isn’t hard, the site is all prominent liberal bloggers and they almost never come down on the side of conservatives on any issue of dispute.
That being said, they are a fantastic site that does what they claim: they explain the news. But their bias is indisputable.
Massive illegal immigration you say?
That’s because conservatives are always wrong. 
In relative terms, the problem has gotten better. In absolute terms, yes, that’s still pretty massive. Plus we do not have the tools in place to prevent it from going up again should conditions create such a surge, as we saw just last year when all those kids tried to cross the border.
The polls I’ve seen show the largest opinon are people who’re happy with current levels or at least tied with the lower immigration crowd. So I could see some political gain to just improving the system without intentionality changing the level at all.
Or am I delusional. In America immigration reform is code for build a wall or open the floodgates?
The thing is, the people who want less are the ones most obviously affected: lower income workers. They want less competition, just like any other seller of goods or services, whereas the buyer class for labor wants more competition and lower costs.
Adaher, can you clarify what you mean by the political class, the donor class and the public?
I can’t tell if I agree with you about what each of these categories want with regards to increased immigration numbers.
To be clear, the challenge is to demonstrate that they are consistently poor at fact-checking to the degree they’re at the kids’ table. To be fair, that was Sam Stone’s claim, not yours, so if you don’t agree don’t feel like you need to support it.
The political class are the politicians themselves. The donor class are the people who donate the big bucks, like the Kochs, although it also includes groups like the Chamber of Commerce.
No, I think their fact checking is solid. Where they differ from sites like Politifact is that they don’t just make judgement calls, they make them and then defend them and are willing to go so far as to call disagreement dishonest. Things like, “Politician X continues to make claims about issue Y that have been proven false.”
In regards to Democrats and immigration reform, I certainly agree more with Vox, but there’s just enough of a hint of plausibility in Fiorina’s accusation that I’m not willing to call it a lie. I do believe that at least some Democrats would rather just have the issue, especially Democrats for whom voting for immigration reform is a tough vote for them, but also for Democrats who want to legalize the illegal population but fear the results of better enforcement on their constituents(like Raul Grijalva or Gutierrez).