Immigration reform and the Cuban Adjustment Act
Immigration reform and the Cuban Adjustment Act
By Keith Bolender • Published on August 11, 2014
While desperate children cross the American border from troubled Central American countries, leaders in the United States continue to demonstrate that no issue, no matter how emotionally charged or morally clear, is beyond politics. And there is one group that is particularly adept at duplicity when determining which immigrants deserve to be treated better than others.
The crisis has brought to the forefront a set of Congressmen who believe that children sent by their parents from Honduras, Guatemala and Salvador to the United States in the hopes of a better life have to be sent back unequivocally, less these unfortunates get away with flaunting the laws and take advantage of American generosity – which they apparently do not deserve.
Politicians, in large part from the Republican Party, have made it clear these children should not receive special consideration, regardless of the physical dangers or economic depravations they left in their home countries. Two from the Grand Old Party have been particularly vociferous in their determination to keep the immigration door closed for certain Latinos. Senators Ted Cruz from Texas and Florida’s Marco Rubio represent the hardest opponents of leniency towards these refugees. Wielding a great deal of influence, despite last year’s confusion when Rubio presented but then rejected his own more moderate legislation on the matter, the pair have been particularly effective in blocking any attempt at resolving the crisis or showing concern for the children crossing the border. Cruz led other Senate conservatives in urging rejection of the recently proposed House border security package based on the irritation that it excluded language prohibiting expansion of President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals, an administrative change Obama made in 2012 to halt the deportation of some young immigrants.
What makes the position of Cruz and Rubio particularly disconcerting is that both come from an immigration background – specifically from a country where these immigrants are given special consideration – Cuba. Cruz was born in Canada to a Cuban father who experienced torture and beatings during the Batista dictatorship, fleeing the Caribbean island in 1957. Rubio, who comes from Cuban-American parents, at one point became somewhat muddled with his own family history when he previously claimed his parents left to escape the Castro tyranny, when in fact they legally immigrated to the United States in 1956, three years before the triumph of the revolution.
More:
http://progresoweekly.us/immigration-reform-cuban-adjustment-act/
