Immigration

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by MaggieL

Because a bill passed the House making being an illegal alien or helping one a felony, so a big campaign has been mounted to lobby against it. Kind of an uphill struggle given that we're pretty sure illegal aliens can't vote.

I mean, why does the congress suddenly care about it? The American people didn't really care about illegals until someone stirred up this big pot of shit, so why are lawmakers pushing this through? I'll die of laughter if this originally started out as a "we need to prevent al qaeda from crossing the border" bill.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Kitsune

I mean, why does the congress suddenly care about it?

The Republicans are trying to find an issue to distract us from everything else, because everything else isn't going so well.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by Kitsune

The American people didn't really care about illegals...

Depends which American people you're talking about. I bet the aformentioned house painter does. A bunch of other "American people" do too...like those competing with H1-Bs who are doing another set of "jobs Americans won't do".
That description is true enough if the job is defined with a fixed compensation level set at the whim of the employer, rather than being a variable subject to market forces.

This may have something to do with where the media input that generates your idea of "what the American people care about" comes from.