[Republicans
are betting that opposition from Tea Party activists and the party’s most
conservative supporters will have less impact because of the dire electoral
consequences of continuing to take a hard line regarding immigrants. The
senators on Monday released a blueprint for a new
immigration policy that
opens the door to possible citizenship ahead of a Tuesday speech on the subject
by Mr. Obama in Las Vegas.]
By Michael D. Shear
 |
Doug Mills/The New York
Times
Senator Marco Rubio, at
lectern, and other members of a bipartisan group
of lawmakers offered an
immigration plan on Monday.
|
“What we need to do is put them on a bus,” said Ken Sowell,
63, a lawyer from Greenville, as he ate lunch recently at the diner. “We need
to enforce the border. If they want to apply legally more power to them. I
don’t think just because a bunch of people violate the law, we ought to change
the law for them.”
Six years ago, the intensity of that kind of sentiment was
enough to scuttle immigration overhaul
efforts led by President George W. Bush and a bipartisan group of lawmakers,
including Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina,
both Republicans.
Now, as a new bipartisan group of eight senators, including
Mr. Graham and Mr. McCain, try again — this time with President Obama as their
partner in the White House — members of Congress will have to overcome
deep-seated resistance like that expressed in the restaurant if they are to
push legislation forward.
Republicans are betting that opposition from Tea Party activists and the party’s most
conservative supporters will have less impact because of the dire electoral
consequences of continuing to take a hard line regarding immigrants. The
senators on Monday released a blueprint for a new
immigration policy that
opens the door to possible citizenship ahead of a Tuesday speech on the subject
by Mr. Obama in Las Vegas.
There is some evidence that the politics of immigration may
be changing. Sean Hannity, the conservative host at Fox News, said days after
the 2012 presidential election that he has “evolved” on immigration and now
supports a comprehensive approach that could “get rid of” the issue for
Republicans. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a rising star in the Republican Party, is pushing his own version
of broad immigration changes — and getting praise from conservative icons like
Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed.
But the Republican-controlled House remains a big hurdle.
Speaker John A. Boehner on Monday was noncommittal about the emerging proposal,
with a spokesman saying that Mr. Boehner “welcomes the work of leaders like
Senator Rubio on this issue, and is looking forward to learning more about the
proposal.”
Representative Lamar Smith, Republican of Texas and a senior
member of the Judiciary Committee, said that “when you legalize those who are
in the country illegally, it costs taxpayers millions of dollars, costs
American workers thousands of jobs and encourages more illegal immigration.”
And if the lunch rush conversation at Tommy’s is any
indication, many Republican lawmakers will soon return home to find their
constituents just as opposed to the idea as they were before. Concern about
immigration varies regionally. But in many Congressional districts around the
country, the prospect of intense opposition carries with it the threat of a
primary challenger if Republican lawmakers stray too far from hawkish orthodoxy
on the issue.
“The people who are coming across the border — as far as
I’m concerned, they are common criminals,” said Bill Storey, 68, a retired
civil engineer from Greenville. “We should not adopt policies to reward them
for coming into this country illegally. I have all the regard for them in the
world if they come through the legal system, but not the illegal system.”
Charlie Newton, a construction worker in the Greenville
area, praised the work ethic of Hispanic co-workers, but said he opposes any
laws that would provide benefits to illegal immigrants, including help becoming
citizens.
“I think we need to help our own people before we keep
helping somebody else,” he said.
The president’s proposals are expected to include more
border enforcement, work site verification systems that allow employers to
check the status of their employees online, and a road map to citizenship for
the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants now living in the country.
Democratic senators could begin work on a bill in the next couple of weeks.
In the Fourth Congressional District in South Carolina, which
includes Greenville, the formal arrival of such a plan is likely to anger the
constituents of Trey Gowdy, a Republican House member who was elected in the
2010 Tea Party wave and is now the chairman of a key subcommittee that will
deal with immigration.
Mr. Gowdy has already taken a hard line, signing on last
year to the “Prohibiting Backdoor Amnesty Act,” which aimed to reverse Mr.
Obama’s plans to delay deportations for some young illegal immigrants. The
congressman will be under pressure to change his mind from the White House and
its allies, including groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. But when he
goes home to Greenville, Mr. Gowdy may find that his constituents want him to
hold firm in his opposition.
“If you had to go find the heartburn, you’d find it in
Greenville,” said Katon Dawson, a former chairman of the Republican Party in
South Carolina. Mr. Dawson, who supports comprehensive immigration changes,
said the matter was likely to become a hot-button issue again, as it was in
2006 and 2007.
“All I’d ever hear is, ‘Why don’t you enforce the laws that
we already have?’ And then I’d hear, ‘Why don’t you just build the
fence?’ ” Mr. Dawson said, describing the comments he expects to hear
again during the immigration debate.
Mr. Gowdy referred questions about the immigration debate
to the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Representative
Robert W. Goodlatte of Virginia. But veterans of South Carolina politics say
the reaction in his district, and others like it across the country, will help
determine the fate of the national legislation.
Bruce Bannister, the Republican majority leader of the
South Carolina House of Representatives, said much of that response will depend
on how the White House and its allies in Washington frame the debate.
“The amnesty provisions that got everybody fired up — I
think you’re not going to see states like South Carolina ever support that,
even though we recognize that shipping or sending home all the folks that came
here illegally is almost impossible,” Mr. Bannister, who represents Greenville,
said.
Josh Kimbrall, a conservative radio talk show host in South
Carolina, agrees with Mr. Bannister. Mr. Kimbrall supports immigration law
changes, but says Republicans like Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain allowed their effort
in 2007 to be portrayed in a bad light by opponents.
“It’s how you message it,” Mr. Kimbrall said. “In
Greenville, it’s the rule of law. As soon as the word amnesty is thrown in,
very few people are willing to go along.”
INDIA LOWERS BENCHMARK INTEREST RATE TO FUEL GROWTH
[Bond and stock markets were largely unmoved as dealers had already priced in a quarter-percentage-point rate cut. The 10-year bond yield was flat at about 7.87 percent. India’s main NSE index was also flat, with the bank sub-index up 0.2 percent, paring initial stronger gains.]
By Reuters
MUMBAI — India’s central
bank lowered its key policy rate on Tuesday, as expected, for the first time in
nine months to support an economy that is poised for its slowest growth in a
decade, but signaled there was less room for aggressive cuts because of concerns
over inflation.
The Reserve Bank of
India cut its benchmark rate by 0.25 of a percentage point to 7.75 percent, in
line with a Reuters poll this month.
The central bank
unexpectedly also reduced the cash reserve ratio, the share of deposits banks
must keep with the central bank, by 0.25 of a percentage point to 4 percent,
which will pump an additional 180 billion rupees, or $3.3 billion, into the
banking system.
India’s headline
inflation rate moderated to a three-year low of 7.18 percent in December, and
the central bank said there was likelihood that inflation would remain around
current levels heading into the 2013-14 fiscal year, which starts in April.
“This provides space,
albeit limited, for monetary policy to give greater emphasis to growth risks,”
the central bank said in its quarterly monetary policy review.
Bond and stock markets
were largely unmoved as dealers had already priced in a
quarter-percentage-point rate cut. The 10-year bond yield was flat at about
7.87 percent. India’s main NSE index was also flat, with the bank sub-index up
0.2 percent, paring initial stronger gains.
The Indian rupee
strengthened to 53.79 to the dollar from about 53.84 before the decision.
“RBI has not abandoned
its cautious stance, stressing on the ‘calibrated and limited’ nature of rate
support,” said Radhika Rao, an economist at Forecast Pte in Singapore. “The
scale of rate cuts is closely tied to the government’s sustained efforts to
correct the twin imbalances and moderating inflation trajectory.”
The central bank,
however, reiterated its concerns over a bloated fiscal and current account
deficits, adding that its pro-growth stance would be conditioned by the
management of the risks posed by them.
“Financing the CAD with
increasingly risky and volatile flows increases the economy’s vulnerability to
sudden shifts in risk appetite and liquidity preference, potentially
threatening macroeconomic and exchange rate stability,” the bank said,
referring to the current account deficit.
Since a 0.5 percentage
point cut in April, the central bank had kept interest rates on hold as
inflation stayed stubbornly high, ignoring repeated calls from the government
for a cut.
Having grown at
near-double-digit pace before the Lehman Brothers crisis, the economy has
suffered a rapid deceleration.
The central bank cut its
G.D.P. growth forecast for Asia’s third-largest economy to 5.5 percent for the
current fiscal year, from 5.8 percent previously, and lowered its projection
for headline inflation in March to 6.8 percent from 7.5 percent earlier.
