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The Probability of Immigration Reform in 2010 is Less than Zero

 

PHOENIX (By Jon Garrido, The Jon Garrido Network) January 28, 2010 — Last night's President Obama's State of the Union address was 76 minutes and the only mention of immigration reform took less than 7 seconds: "And we should continue the work of fixing our broken immigration system – to secure our borders, enforce our laws, and ensure that everyone who plays by the rules can contribute to our economy and enrich our nations."

 

Yesterday, before the speech, I wrote, "The Probability of Immigration Reform in 2010 is Less than Zero."

 

Last night, unfortunately, immigration reform will take a very back seat to jobs and the economy.

 

This is what Americans thus Barack Obama make as their priority and maybe health care reform might be resuscitated with a lot of oxygen but in the adjacent emergency room, the patient died for lack of care.

 

2010 will not be our year but then there is always 2011 but only if unemployment of 10% falls to 7%.  The economy realistically will need more than a year to recover so maybe 2012.

 

Nope — not 2012 because that is an election year and immigration reform does not have the support of the American public so that means maybe 2013 will be our year for immigration reform.

 

In the next six months we need to answer the question, "What do we do now?" Act America may be the smart answer.

 

PHOENIX (By Jon Garrido, The Jon Garrido Network) January 27, 2010 — With the almost Christmas Day bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight approaching Detroit from Amsterdam, Janet Napolitano, Secretary of homeland security, said “The system worked,” after officials said Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian, tried to bomb the plane but failed when the explosive chemicals he carried on board failed to ignite.

 

The aftermath of the attempted bombing has been marked by an increasingly fierce partisan exchange over culpability heading into a midterm election year. With Republicans on the attack against the administration as not taking terrorism seriously enough.

Instead of defending the system, Mr. Obama sided with critics who complained the system did not work and positioned himself as a reformer who will fix it. At the same time, the decision to speak a second time after remaining out of sight for three days underscores the administration’s concern over being outflanked on national security.

Two intelligence officials said the government had intelligence from Yemen leaders of a branch of Al Qaeda were talking about “a Nigerian” being prepared for a terrorist attack. While the attacker was not named, officials said it would have been evident had it been compared to information about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

 

Americans rightfully believe our borders need to be protected and when Homeland Security fails to stop a person from boarding an airplane with explosive chemicals to bomb the plane in flight, America's security as the highest priority in the land is jeopardized.

 

It is hard enough to have Washington approve immigration reform under ideal conditions but the same U.S. senators who successfully derailed immigration reform in 2007 are still serving in the U.S. Senate: Jeff Sessions from Alabama, John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison from Texas, John McCain and Jon Kyl from Arizona and Chuck Grassley of Iowa.

 

If immigration reform is debated in the U.S. Senate this year, these six senators will again take up the gauntlet to defeat immigration reform and with Janet Napolitano handing these senators on a silver platter the issue of Homeland Security not protecting the United States borders from those who would do us harm, the probability of immigration reform in 2010 is less than zero.

 

When will immigration reform be approved? When Hispanics learn the only way in America to make change is become involved in elections. This means only supporting candidates that truly represent us and the only means to influence elected officials is to contribute donations to political campaigns.

 

Until this is done, all the church, social, community meetings can be held until the cows come home or the chickens come home to roost but all is useless energy unless all this energy is translated into winning political campaigns and of course, the focus should be to elect Hispanics to elective offices at local, county, state and national offices. Not until then!