Obama calls for migrant overhaul

 10 May 2011 Last updated at 18:21 ET Barack Obama: "We have strengthened border security beyond what many people believed was possible"

US President Barack Obama has called for broad reform of the US immigration system, while touting measures he has taken to strengthen border security.

In Texas, Mr Obama backed a path to legal status for illegal immigrants, as well as crackdowns on employers who hire illegal workers.

He called on the fractured Congress to reject "the usual Washington games" and enact a comprehensive overhaul.

An estimated 11m illegal immigrants, most of them Hispanic, live in the US.

In El Paso, a Texas border city, Mr Obama said he had satisfied calls from conservatives to tighten security at the border and to increase deportations of illegal immigrants.

He called on Congress to reform the immigration system in a manner that would encourage skilled and motivated immigrants to participate in American society while ending what he called an underground economy that preys on low-wage illegal immigrants.

Continue reading the main story Paul Adams BBC News, Washington

Once again, the president is making the case for reform of a system he calls broken. At a time when everyone is focussed on the economy, Mr Obama said immigration reform was an economic imperative.

When it came to reform might look like, Mr Obama didn't appear to have anything new to say, but he said there was a growing coalition of politicians, police chiefs, businessmen and religious leaders across the country who now agree on the need for change.

It's very unlikely to result in new legislation this side of next year's presidential election - there just isn't the political appetite - but Mr Obama wants to reassure disillusioned Hispanic voters, who want reform, that they shouldn't abandon him

"We need to come together around reform that reflects our values as a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants, that demands everyone take responsibility," he said.

Immigration reform is of particular importance to the growing Hispanic electorate, which is Democratic-leaning and whose continued support Mr Obama will need in his 2012 re-election bid.

Ahead of Mr Obama's speech, White House aides stressed Mr Obama remained committed to reform, even though Republicans derailed overhaul efforts in 2006, 2007 and 2010.

In Texas, Mr Obama mocked Republican opponents on the issue.

"We have gone above and beyond what was requested by the very Republicans who said they supported broader reform as long as we got serious about enforcement," Mr Obama said.

"But even though we've answered these concerns, I suspect there will be those who will try to move the goal posts one more time... Maybe they'll say we need a moat. Or alligators in the moat."

Opponents, mostly conservatives, have criticised proposals as an unacceptable "amnesty" for people who have broken the law - even though one major proposal backed by Democrats would have applied only to those who came to the US as children.

State crackdowns Continue reading the main story 11m in the US in 2010, down from a peak of 12m in 2007393,000 deported in 2009, up from 183,000 a decade earlierAbout 76% are HispanicTop places of origin are Mexico (59%), Asia (11%) Central America (11%) and South America (7%)73% of children of illegal immigrants are US citizens

Source: Pew Hispanic Center estimates, Department of Homeland Security

While Washington DC has been unable to achieve federal immigration reform, three states have sought to take action themselves.

Arizona, Georgia and Utah have passed measures giving police the power to demand documentation from people they suspect of being illegal immigrants who have been detained on other charges.

Arizona's law has been put on hold by the federal courts.

Meanwhile, a judge in Utah blocked the state's new immigration law on Friday, just hours after it went into effect.

District Judge Clark Waddoups issued his ruling in Salt Lake City, citing its similarity to Arizona's law.

The American Civil Liberties Union and National Immigration Law Center had sued to stop the law in Utah, saying it was modelled after the Arizona and that its implementation could lead to racial profiling.

In 2008, 67% of Hispanics voted for Mr Obama, compared with 31% for Republican John McCain, exit polls showed.

The Hispanic vote pushed Mr Obama over the margin of victory in four states won by President George Bush in 2004, some analysts calculate.

The Republican Party lost significant support among Hispanic voters following the 2004 election, in which Mr Bush won 40% of the Hispanic vote, in part because of the party's hard line on illegal immigration, analysts say.

G.O.P. Rethinking Bid to Overhaul Medicare Rules

While top Republicans insisted that they remained committed to the Medicare initiative, which had become the target of intense attacks by Democrats and liberal groups in recent weeks, the lawmaker who would have to turn the proposal into legislation said he had no plans to do so any time soon.

The lawmaker, Representative Dave Camp, Republican of Michigan and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said that while he still supports the party’s Medicare approach, opposition from Democrats made it pointless to proceed.

“I’m not interested in talking about whether the House is going to pass a bill that the Senate shows no interest in,” Mr. Camp said in an appearance at the National Press Club. “I’m not interested in laying down more markers. I am interested in solutions.”

Coupled with remarks by other House Republican leaders, his statement suggested that the party’s Medicare proposal had been shelved, even though the party’s lawmakers had taken a risky vote to pass the budget in the House just last month, and in the past two weeks had attempted to sell it to constituents in often-stormy town hall meetings.

Republicans suggested that they would continue to press to rein in the growing costs of Medicare, even if not through the current proposal, which would transform the program into one in which the federal government subsidized the purchase of private health insurance coverage by Americans 65 and older.

Putting aside the proposal would remove one of the biggest points of contention between the parties as they address both the nation’s long-term budget problems and the more immediate need for an agreement on raising the federal debt limit.

The development came as Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. held a first negotiating session with members of both parties to try to find a deal that would allow Congress to raise the debt ceiling this year.

Republicans are demanding spending cuts and other measures to reduce the budget deficit as the price of support for raising the debt ceiling.

The Republican Medicare plan was never likely to be adopted as part of any deal on the debt limit. But the decision by Republicans to pull back the proposal was a tacit acknowledgment that the politics of entitlement reform remain so volatile that pressing ahead in the face of intense Democratic opposition could cost the party dearly at the polls.

As they rolled out their budget last month, Republicans hailed the Medicare plan as a bold attempt to address chronic deficits. All but four House Republicans voted for the budget proposal, which was developed by Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Budget Committee.

President Obama and Congressional Democrats quickly went on the attack, condemning the Republican plan. Mr. Camp’s statement on Medicare was in sync with similar comments by other top Republicans, including Representatives Eric Cantor of Virginia, the majority leader, and Mr. Ryan. They said Republicans recognized that they were unlikely to win approval of their sweeping Medicare overhaul in the debt-reduction talks that began at Blair House on Thursday.

“The reality is this president has excoriated our budget plan and the Medicare proposal in the plan,” Mr. Cantor told reporters.

The negotiators, who agreed to meet next on Tuesday, are combing their respective budget proposals to find common ground.

But given the parties’ differences and the short time frame for negotiations before Congress must increase the debt limit, both sides have indicated that any compromise is likely to be based less on specific policy changes than on proposals setting deficit-reduction targets for coming years. Those targets would be combined with triggers to make automatic cuts in spending — and tax increases, in Democrats’ view — if the targets are exceeded.

While Mr. Cantor outlined the House-passed Ryan budget as Republicans’ opening bid in the Blair House negotiations, he said little about the Medicare proposals, participants said.

“He didn’t need to talk about it in that room,” said one participant. “Everyone knows it’s dead.”

Still, the leadership comments surprised many Republican lawmakers, who said they had expected to move forward on the plan.

Some members — especially freshmen from districts with steep re-election hills to scale — were upset to hear that the plan could be scotched after they had voted for the budget proposal and then invested so much hard work trying to sell it back home over the spring recess.

“I would be very disappointed if we didn’t follow through,” said Representative Joe Walsh, whose district lies in the Chicago suburbs. “We have spent, gosh, a month or two now trying to educate the American people to a pretty good reception. I appreciate the chairman’s notion, but I would continue to respectfully challenge him to get this thing through committee.”

Representative Bobby Schilling of Illinois said backing down now would be giving in “to lies and deceit told by the other side.”

“We’ve just got to address this problem,” he said. “Is it going to be perfect? No, but it needs to be addressed.”

The House speaker, John A. Boehner, said Thursday that the party was not backing away from the Medicare overhaul. But he said Mr. Camp’s view was a recognition of the “political realities that we face.”

Democrats said it did not matter if Republicans decided to jettison their Medicare plan because they had already voted for it as part of the budget.

“The Republicans are slowly realizing their plan to privatize Medicare is a political disaster,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Democrat. “But until they renounce their vote for it, they are still going to own it.”

Mr. Ryan said he believed the future of the Medicare proposal would be decided in next year’s elections.

“At the end of the day, I think 2012 is going to make the decision,” Mr. Ryan said at a budget forum Thursday, predicting voters would back the plan he said protects Medicare from insolvency. “The people are ahead of the political class.”

Jennifer Steinhauer contributed reporting.

 

Florida Puts Overhaul Of Courts to the Voters

The debate over the most sweeping judicial overhaul package in the country ended late Monday in a partial victory for Republicans and Speaker Dean Cannon, who had championed the changes.

The fight pitted Republicans calling for the broad changes against Democrats, lawyers and senior and retired judges, who called their efforts an attempt to politicize the bench by stripping the judiciary of its independence and giving the governor power to name judges.

In the end, there were not enough Republicans willing to split the Supreme Court into separate divisions for criminal and civil cases. The change would have given Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, the power to appoint three new justices to hear appeals of civil cases.

Voting along party lines late Monday, the Senate instead approved a package of changes that increases the Legislature’s influence on the state court system.

The measure would give the House access to investigations of judges and allow the Legislature to repeal judicial procedural rules enacted by the Florida Supreme Court. Perhaps most important, the changes would allow the Senate to confirm the governor’s appointments of justices.

Critics said that all the changes, including the rejected Supreme Court provision, would have returned the state’s judiciary to the era of cronyism. A half-century ago, Florida’s judiciary was so riddled with old-school politics that a courthouse joke’s punch line packed the sting of truth: “What do you call a sitting judge? A friend of the governor.”

“Members, we’re going down a slippery slope,” Senator Christopher L. Smith, a Fort Lauderdale Democrat, said in Monday’s debate. “We’re going into the judicial branch.”

Five Republican senators, most of whom are also lawyers, agreed with opponents of the bill, which included former justices, senior judges and Bob Graham, a Democrat and former governor and United States senator.

Mike Haridopolos, the Senate president, told reporters he had failed to deliver enough Republican votes to get the 60 percent needed to pass the bill with the Supreme Court provision intact. “The person to blame is me,” he said.

Legislative tug-of-wars with the judiciary occur in some state houses every year. But the tussles are usually limited to a single, narrow issue. What has made Florida’s fight different is the breadth of the proposed changes.

The debate also came at a time when the court system, like Florida itself, is struggling with a financial crisis. Fewer lawsuits are being filed, which means a decline in filing fees, and that has left the courts with a $74 million shortfall. The resolutions in the Legislature guarantee full financing, but several senior judges said financial security for the courts in exchange for a less independent bench was a bad trade-off.

In the past month, the battle became intensely partisan and even personal. Republican legislators talked about the need to rein in the Supreme Court’s power. (Last year, the court tossed out three ballot initiatives championed by the Legislature, both houses of which are controlled by Republicans.)

“Our Supreme Court of Florida has failed us over and over,” Representative Charles E. Van Zant, Republican of Palatka, said last month on the House floor. “This Legislature will send a message that should be sent.”

Predictably, the fervor of the advocates for the changes alarmed some current and former judges, including Raoul G. Cantero, who had been appointed to the Supreme Court by Gov. Jeb Bush, a Republican.

“If I were on the court, I’d be very disturbed by what is going on in the Legislature,” said Mr. Cantero, who retired in 2008. “There is a strong antijudiciary feeling that I feel is very counterproductive.”

The proposals, which are amendments to the State Constitution, would then be decided by Florida voters next year. Sixty percent of state voters are needed for the amendments to be approved.

The bill was a priority of Speaker Cannon, Republican of Winter Park.

“Is the judiciary independent? Yes,” Mr. Cannon said in a recent interview. “Omnipotent? No. Florida went too far with power to the judiciary after the late ’60s and early ’70s, and all we are doing is trying to establish a more efficient judicial branch.”

Critics argued that Mr. Cannon was motivated in part by revenge against the Supreme Court for striking down the three ballot initiatives approved by the Legislature. The justices concluded that the ballot initiative about political redistricting was intended to mislead voters.

“That’s completely untrue,” Mr. Cannon said of the critics’ accusation. “People who live in the status quo fight against any change of the status quo. But that doesn’t mean these changes aren’t what’s best for the state of Florida.”

After the vote Monday night that stripped out the proposal to split the state’s highest court, Mr. Cannon remained upbeat. “It’s a win,” he told reporters. “It’s absolutely a win.”