January 28, 2008

Leticia van de Putte delivers Democratic SOTU response (Spanish language version)

Texas state senator Leticia van de Putte delivered the Spanish-language version of the Democratic Party's response to the Bush State of the Union address. Republicans and even most Democrats might want to pay closer attention to what Democratic leaders are saying behind their backs (example from Senator Bob Menendez), yet I don't think this will get much play. The transcript is at Nancy Pelosi's very own site here, and here's the part about immigration:

And on issues specific to our community, the President has allowed extremists to dominate the rhetoric on immigration, disrespecting our rich history, and the contributions immigrants have made to strengthen our country. Senate Democrats fought to reach a compromise bipartisan immigration reform bill and brought it for a vote 3 times, but were blocked by the anger of the far right, and Republicans who prefer to use it as a campaign issue than to actually address it. The same happened with the DREAM Act, critical for immigrant children who grew up in America to achieve their dreams of a higher education.

Needless to say, immigration isn't specific to one "community", and dividing countries into "communities" is what's done in cheerful places such as the Balkans. And, Bush has indeed allowed "extremists to dominate the rhetoric on immigration": extremists like Michael Gerson, Linda Chavez, Daniel Griswold (inspired Bush's original "guest" worker scheme), and so forth and so on. Meanwhile, Bush has tried to silence, marginalize, and lie to those Americans who support our laws, which includes many Democrats among the ranks of those who are supposedly "far right". And, as discussed here many times, the DREAM Act would allow illegal aliens - citizens of other countries - to take college discounts and slots from U.S. citizens. Addresses like this make clear that the Democrats have little regard for fundamental concepts such as U.S. citizenship.

On a related note, the English-language response from Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius didn't mention immigration at all (link).

Posted to Immigration2008a at January 28, 2008 07:44 PM