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POLL: Is Now the Time for Immigration Reform?

Vote in our poll and leave your thoughts in the comments below.

 

President Obama came out Tuesday in support of overhauling U.S. immigration laws, saying "the time has come" to replace the "out of date" system.

His speech in Las Vegas focused on three key points – improved enforcement of existing immigration laws, creating a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. and reforming the current immigration system.

Obama's speech came a day after a bipartisan coalition of Senators introduced a framework for immigration reform. Previous attempts at immigration reform have failed in recent years, and this latest effort is expected to spark intense debate.

What do you think? Do you agree with President Obama that "now's the time" for immigration reform? Or do you think this latest effort is doomed to fail? Vote in our poll below, and leave a comment with your thoughts.

  • Is now the time for immigration reform?

    (Voting has been closed for this question)
    • Yes
        26 (42%)
    • No
        35 (57%)
    Total votes: 61
  • Your vote will only count once. This is not a scientific poll. View Results Vote!
Related Topics: President Obama and immigration reform

Mike black

7:19 am on Saturday, February 2, 2013

Yes it's time. Time to throw out allll the illegals. Including the illegal drunkard Obamas.

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Keith F Thompson

10:10 am on Saturday, February 2, 2013

Oh, so now the both the Obamas are illegal, and drunkards. How's the weather in that alternate reality?

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Maurice Wynne

10:14 am on Saturday, February 2, 2013

"Comment of the day" Mike. You win!

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Maurice Wynne

10:16 am on Saturday, February 2, 2013

Keith,obama's aunt and another uncle are here illegally,AND collecting welfare!

Wendy

7:48 am on Saturday, February 2, 2013

How about a end to bigotry and ignorance too?

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Patriot

9:49 am on Saturday, February 2, 2013

End poverty, world peace and solve crime while your at it!

Beth Panashida

8:11 am on Saturday, February 2, 2013

Get rid of all of the illegals, not bigotry just right is right, just try to move into any other country without following their laws and you will be jailed and tossed out.
That is the way it is 30 to 100 million illegal aliens are raping our system.
We can't afford it.

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steve forte

10:09 am on Saturday, February 2, 2013

How do you plan on doing that? Without consequences they will just jump back across the border.

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Maurice Wynne

10:12 am on Saturday, February 2, 2013

But obungler needs more low info voters to support his tyranical takeover of USA!

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Keith F Thompson

10:13 am on Saturday, February 2, 2013

No, don't sell yourself short. What you said was indeed bigotry. Here's a hint- if you have to qualify your comment, you're giving yourself away.
Every reputable source estimate that there are 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country. Your inflated numbers are irresponsible.

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Pat

3:35 pm on Sunday, February 3, 2013

Beth knows exactly what the problem is. Illegals and legals are now coming not as a means of improving their lives as our ancestors did. Improving their lives in their view has become nothing but a plethera of entitlements that have been endowed upon them. They interpret "land of the free" literally. Everything is free; housing, medical, dental, food, clothing, transportation, cell phones, cable, lobster, cigarettes, beer...... name it. I see it every day!

Jonathan Prew

11:14 am on Saturday, February 2, 2013

No !!!
Let Federal Govt deal with that issue, Amherst Citizens have their own more pressing issues.

Its time the Town of Amherst disclose its inner workings and business relationships to the citizens. How about a full accounting for the past 5 years ??
A gentleman had mentioned earlier about a $2M bridge bond that was passed a year or so ago. No response on that one. True or Not ???

Let's address own own issues and "politics".

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Dennis Taylor

12:49 pm on Saturday, February 2, 2013

It is time for a day in jail for every worker day that a corrupt business uses an illegal in order to cheat his fellow legal Americans out of a market wage. We need to E-Verify all workers and begin the jail time for the bosses. These workers should receive no state or federal benefits and yes, they will go home. We also need to educate our legal children to fill all of the employment needs in this country. It is an embarrassment that we have foreign doctors in NH. If they are here because our children cannot earn an MD degree, that is a huge indictment of our school system. If they are here simply to save the Elliot Hospital a few bucks, we are then giving a prime job to a foreignor and thus depriving a legal citizen of the opportunity to work as a doctor in Manchester, for example. If such a legal citizen still wants to work, he or she must then undercut the pay of the imported worker. For those of you who disagree with me, would you want your employer to import a worker to replace you or to outsource your job so that some man or woman in India can do it while you stand in line for unemployment? Our immigration policy should be one of temporary asylum for some and an allowance for foreign adoption of at risk children.

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steve forte

9:32 am on Sunday, February 3, 2013

Couldn't agree more. As a small buss owner I dont think I should have to compete against companies hiring illegal labor. Why should I have to undercut my prices to stay competative when Im doing everything legal.

Patriot

12:57 pm on Saturday, February 2, 2013

Dennis, if there was ever a group of people that should endure competition it would be the medical profession. Love Dr.'s but some of there fees should be a little adjusted.

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Patriot

1:00 pm on Saturday, February 2, 2013

Most that live in India are quite angry that the best doctors have left their country and came here. Maybe some of our C and D students can relocate to India. The next export should be politicians.

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Survivor.

1:02 pm on Saturday, February 2, 2013

Excuse to give illegals jobs that should go to American citizens. When are the democrats gonna wake up on the jobs issue.

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Proud Conservative

10:49 am on Monday, February 4, 2013

Oh, the dems are awake alright. At least awake enough to know that they need to keep handing out those entitlements to keep the votes going their way.

Dennis Taylor

1:12 pm on Saturday, February 2, 2013

Can''t wait to hear a liberal tell us how they want their employer to outsource their job in the name of global competition or to import a foreign worker who will do their job cheaper. The Indian government needs to keep its doctors in India and we need to educate our children to fill those jobs. I personally know of the pain of paying for a college degree to to work in a shortage area, and then learning that hospitals are importing foreign workers for the same position. In that situation, this individual was able to work--but on the periphery. Take the foreign workers out of the picture and this individual would be working in Manchester at a higher rate of pay instead of an hour away in the boondocks. Poor immigrants who use the hospitals for "free" also reduce the amount of funding available for wages for workers. We need to close the borders to all but a few, and do it now.

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William Goldthwaite

1:46 pm on Saturday, February 2, 2013

Yes it is time for immigration reform, but without Obama's input. Let Congress make the changes needed but with the voice of the people who are legal citizens.

Bill Goldthwaite

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Bill from Merrimack

4:52 pm on Sunday, February 3, 2013

I don't think the previous commenters have read the suggested bill. The only people getting to front of the line are kids who were taken here by their parents and farm workers. Good luck finding an avg American citizen who will pick veggies all day for $20. When you thank Jesus for the food on your plate somewhere in the south a migrant worker is saying "de nada". The reality is that a majority of entitlement money welfare included goes to white people. I'm a 5th generation American and I welcome with open arms anyone who wants to continue the tradition of hard work my ancestors passed on when they came from Europe. The proposed changes offer nothing but fines and obstacles to the small percentage of welfare seekers among the 11 million.

You sound just like the people railing against the Irish in the last Century, just a bunch of crap.

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Dennis Taylor

6:13 pm on Sunday, February 3, 2013

Dear Bill:

So, you are in favor of outsourcing your job or having an immigrant do it for less? By the way, who are you to set the wage and then complain that no American will do it? Let the corrupt farmers bid up the wage until they get legal workers. I am willing to move tomorrow for a one year contract picking fruit at 50 per hour under OSHA work conditions. There is no shortage of labor in this country, only a shortage of business owners with integrity and a lack of workers who understand how people like you would like to screw them over. Our economy is a wreck, and hard working aliens will not fix that. We need to educate our own kids to do the jobs here and we need to send home the non-legals.

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steve forte

6:53 am on Monday, February 4, 2013

Exactly Dennis. If the price paid for picking crops is too low then agra buss will have to raise them untill they fill those positions.

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Bill from Merrimack

9:35 am on Monday, February 4, 2013

Food prices at the rate you want to work a farm would kill the economy, enjoy that $30 bag of apples. It sounds like you're afraid of competition, I competed against others for the job I have and earn a salary that reflects the fact that I was the chosen applicant. I don't know what you do for a living but if you can't compete with a less educated person(assumption) who likely doesn't have great English skills than so be it. Welcome to the free market labor economy, when you have a choice between two employees with equal skills you pick the one who will work for less. Being born here isn't a free meal ticket, better yourself, work hard, and you'll have nothing to worry about. Competing with legal immigrants here on H1Bs is much more difficult but no one ever talks about that.

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Peter Walker

10:57 am on Monday, February 4, 2013

Agreed. It is time we started acting like a nation once again and not just a market. An economy is not just about products at the cheapest price it is also about employment. We need employees in order to have consumers. We need to enforce our borders and start putting upward pressure on U.S. citizen wages. Continuing down the path we are on is insanity. And while were at, we should start slapping tariffs on Chinese goods. If business wants to ship every good paying job to China then when their finished goods come back to the U.S. they should be prepared to pay trade tariffs. This will level the playing field and start growing domestic manufacturing. Enough of the open border and free trade cool aid! Too many of our citizens are unemployed!

Proud Conservative

10:56 am on Monday, February 4, 2013

Higher food prices won't kill the economy any more than high prices for anything else has ever killed the economy. Get rid of the illegal workers; pay farm workers a fair wage and let the chips fall where they may. Maybe then instead of three cars, 2 boats, a half dozen TVs, a couple of ATVs, a couple of jet skis, $250 cable bills, $150 cell phone bills and eating out 5 days a week, people might come back to reality.

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Dennis Taylor

6:57 pm on Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Bill:

As I understand it, I must now work harder for less money so that businesses can import workers from abroad. I suggest that you ask your boss to spend some time finding a man from India to do your job. India possesses a good number of educated people who would gladly do your job for less.

As far as the "right" farm wage, why not just eliminate the illegals from the market through E-Verify and see how high the wages have to rise!!!

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Amanda Hwang

11:04 pm on Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Immigration Reform contains the elimination of per-country limit to give more green card to Indian and Chinese work force. The theory behind this is that bright people like Indian or Chinese will create more start-up/job.

This is also crazy idea. I am a software engineer in silicon valley, and IT companies are already full of Indian and Chinese. The diversity is already dead. The software engineers from other foreign country are already minority in IT, and they are hard to survive. Since this bill is intended to take countries of minority's share and to give it to India and Chinese, the diversity problem will become more severe. Such environment must not be beneficial to US citizen either, they are also kind of minority in IT companies in silicon valley.

The idea that these Indian and Chinese will create jobs for US citizen is also ridiculous. If I look around, such case is so slim. I wonder out of 100, how many of them really create jobs. Even if they create some, Indian always consider Indian as ideal candidates, and offer the jobs to their nationals. Anyway, the theory is contradictory in the first place. If you first fill jobs with Indian/Chinese, then they will create jobs for US citizen? This is a joke.

BTW, Indian and Chinese are not as bright as many believes, rather they only exaggerate their contributions and barely meet the job requirement.

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Dan

10:22 pm on Saturday, April 6, 2013

First off, I am a Democrat, and this is where I part company with the President. First off, this country has over 12 MILLION unemployed. We do NOT need to be importing help into this country. Amnesty is NOT AN ANSWER. However, this isn't just a democratic issue, it is a REPUBLICAN issue. Think about it. Texas, Florida, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, where Hispanic/Latino Republican Congressmen/Senators get elected (along with their State counterparts), want this to keep their job security in their State Capitols, and on Capitol Hill.

Also too, let's also be honest, that if we remove this scourge in this country, we can only expect the degradation of our cities. I haven't seen any sort of great change that has come from the immigration movement since the 1980's. All I have seen is once great cities such as Nashua, and others become run down, with crime and other problems, that these ethnic groups won't do anything to take care of their problems, but yet wish to create a large dependence on government safety nets.

Mr. President, you came into office to tell us that we cannot save the world in 2008. Try for once by living up to your word.

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Dan

10:24 pm on Saturday, April 6, 2013

Second paragraph should have read "Also too, lets be honest that if we CANNOT remove this scourge in this country, we can only expect the degradation of our cities."

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