Climate/Energy & Immigration Reform Top Two Priorities for President in 2011

That’s right: immigration reform IS a civil rights issue and will be so for 2011 and beyond; the people that have been here for years and have kids that have grown up here their entire lives and contribute to our society with their taxes and hard work ARE Americans except for the government document that recognizes them as such; treating them as second-class citizens and seizing and deporting them no-questions asked is a direct attack on what America stands for.

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It is clear that Chris Matthews has completely bought into the “enforcement” frame of right-wing Republicans that is designed to really get us away from the real cause of our “illegal immigration” problem: the oppressive poverty that displaces people from their homelands to seek out a better life in the United States.  Until that issue is not addressed with a PROGRESSIVE foreign policy (instead of a corporatist neo-liberal one like with NAFTA and its devastating effects on Mexico’s farmers, for ex.), no amount of “enforcement” will address the root of the problem: what creates “illegal immigrants” in the first place. 

Chris Matthews also gets it wrong when he claims that Democrats are not doing enough “enforcement”, being that President Obama has increased deportations in record numbers and sent the National Guard to the border already and it is becoming alarmingly clear that he intends to increase all of that even more so to use that as a “compromise” bargaining chip, a strategy that has failed miserably so far to pass anything on immigration reform, with the DREAM Act being a point in case. 

No wonder Chris Matthews gave close to ZERO coverage on what the DREAM Act was or on how it moved through the Senate.

Update: I’ve been asked for Chris Matthews’ contact information so you can express your opinions on what he said.  I’ve found this online:

Found this link on MSNBC:
 
hardball@msnbc.com
 
He also has his own syndicated show here:
 
http://www.thechrismatthewsshow.com/html/contact.html