immigration
At long last, a Brooklyn boss goes for the knockout against Nydia Velazquez
Her meeting with Brooklyn's Democratic boss Vito Lopez had been a friendly one, as far as Nydia Velazquez knew.
It was 1992, the year she was first elected to Congress. Velazquez and Dennis Rivera, then the president of the health care workers union, 1199 SEIU, met with Lopez at the Hilton Hotel in Manhattan to coordinate his support for her campaign. More
(3)Romney says very little about taxes or deportations in his non-Fox Sunday debut
After months of dodging the Sunday shows, Mitt Romney made his debut on "Face the Nation" this week, with an outdoor interview in Cornwall, Pennsylvania.
But host Bob Schieffer wasn't any more able to elicit specifics from Romney about his plans for the tax code and health care than any of the candidate's previous interrogators. More
New York Democrats and Bloomberg, but not Cuomo, praise Obama's immigration news
A number of prominent New York Democrats have released statements announcing their support for President Barack Obama's decision today to institute a sort of partial Dream Act by halting deportation young undocumented residents.
The formal announcement was made by Obama during a speech this afternoon in the Rose Garden, but the news broke this morning. More
Obama makes a forceful, briefly interrupted case for Dream Act-like deportation changes
President Obama made an unexpectedly forceful case for his decision to relax deportation requirements after he was interrupted by a reporter from the Daily Caller during an afternoon address in the Rose Garden.
"It is the right thing to do," Obama said with a raised hand, over the unsolicited questioning from Neil Munro, a reporter with the conservative website. "Excuse me sir, it is not time for questions, sir. Not while I'm speaking." More
Latino lawmaker says the Dream Act order gives Obama something to point to
State Senator Gustavo Rivera thinks today's decision by the Obama administration to alter its deporation policy is a big deal, however the politics turn out. More
Absent an actual Dream Act, Obama relaxes deportation requirements
With the Dream Act indefinitely stalled in the Republican House of Representatives, President Obama announced this morning that his administration would relax the standards governoing deporations.
“Our nation’s immigration laws must be enforced in a firm and sensible manner,” said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano in a press release from the White House. More
(1)Marco Rubio booked for the Council on Foreign Relations
Marco Rubio will be in New York City next Thursday, May 31 for a "conversation" at the Council on Foreign Relations. More
(1)They work harder: Bloomberg's bottom-line immigration reform advocacy
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Latin American business mogul Ricardo Salinas agree: immigrants work harder than native-born Americans.
“I don’t think there’s any question, it’s the immigrants who are willing to work harder, on average,” said the mayor of New York City, whose population is more than a third foreign-born. “Plenty of native-born Americans, tenth-generation here, that work very hard. So I’m not dissing everybody. But on balance, it’s no question that people come here, and they come here because they want to live the great American dream, and they don’t think it’s just going to be given to them or that they deserve it. They come with the ethic of wanting to work for it.” More
(10)Schumer asks Arizona bill author what an illegal immigrant dresses like
With the Supreme Court scheduled to hear a challenge to Arizona's controversial immigration law today, Senator Chuck Schumer sought to draw some extra attention to the bill yesterday in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
Schumer failed to coax Arizona Governor Jan Brewer to defend the bill, SB1070, on Capitol Hill, settling instead for Russell Pearce, one of the bill's primary authors, who served as a state senator before being recalled by voters in 2011.
Only three senators showed up for the hearing, all Democrats, and Schumer thanked Pearce for showing up, despite being "outnumbered." More
Bloomberg still wants a New York 'Dream Act,' and more immigration reform than Washington is up for
Mayor Michael Bloomberg today reiterated his support for a state-level Dream Act, a law that would make tuition aid available to undocumented immigrants.
He also urged national immigration reform, repeating a previous claim that to do otherwise would be gravely damaging to the American economy. More
(5)Using Nydia Velazquez, Democrats want a Sotomayor criticism to stick to Romney
On a conference call organized by the Democratic National Committee this morning, Brooklyn congresswoman Nydia Velazquez called Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor "an icon," and said Mitt Romney will pay at the polls for criticizing her as an "activist, liberal jurist." More
Cuomo doesn't share Bloomberg's enthusiasm for tuition-assistance bill for children of illegal immigrants
In his State of the City speech last week, Mayor Michael Bloomberg largely avoided putting his legislative goals at the mercy of state lawmakers. There's good reason for that. But there was one state issue Bloomberg decided to embrace. More
(1)Jerry Nadler on the stupidest bill he's ever seen
On Monday afternoon, after about 20 minutes talking to Representative Jerrold Nadler about the failure of the joint deficit committee, he wanted to talk about something else.
"OK, let me tell you one other thing which you may find interesting, having nothing to do with any of this," Nadler said.
The other thing, as it turned out, was a piece of legislation called the Deport Convicted Foreign Criminals Act of 2011, or, as Nadler put it, "the most stupid bill I've ever seen." More
The liberal senator from New York, Kirsten Gillibrand
Kirsten Gillibrand got a surprise in late February when the Obama administration announced, in a procedural about-face, that it would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act against legal challenges. More
Bloomberg on immigration, his medical prognosis
"We have to do something about immigration. And yes we should be in control of our own borders, yes the law should be obeyed," Bloomberg said. "But the bottom line is all of us were part of the 12 million undocumented here, getting them here, we all chose to pass a law and then deliberately not enforce it, because that's the politically correct thing to do." More
