Jun 15 2006
More Polling On Immigration
And more proof that the far right is far off on the immigration topic:
By 50%-33%, the survey shows, Americans support the views expressed by President Bush and also by businesses, Hispanics and Democratic leaders: that steps to strengthen border security should be combined with a guest-worker program for prospective immigrants and those who have been in the U.S. for at least two years. Yet a 44% plurality of conservatives back an agenda combining border security and deportation of illegal immigrants — making it difficult for Republican politicians to embrace the majority opinion.
‘Conservatives’ make up less than 40% of the US population. But let’s give them a boost and call it 40%. That computes to 17% of the US population want the hardline approach. And given the way math works, the larger the pool you assume to be conservative the number just don’t get much better. So if 50% of this country is assumed conservative then the 17% only jumps to 22%.
This confirms the 80-20% problem the hardliners face. Making illegal immigration a felony with deportation the punishment is opposed by 80% of the country. So, are we going to let this problem fester because the 20% cannot get all they want? That’s up to the 20%. What they need to understand is they may be standing by themselves next fall when the conservative coalition fractures over their intractibility. There is a way out of this – it is not too late to rejoin forces and defeat the real amnesty plans of the Democrats.
And a word of warning to both parties:
One early source of solace for the president’s party is that such a differential didn’t fuel outsize Democratic turnout in last week’s special House election in California won by Republican Brian Bilbray. In part, that may be because neither of America’s main political parties currently enjoys a good reputation. While the Republican Party is viewed negatively by 47%-34%, so is the Democratic Party by 39%-35%.
An America Kadima is not far fetched. We do not need a third party. We just need to all become unaligned independents and start voting who we find the least objectionable. That will wake some people up.
None of you guys are getting the real story here. When all these illegal aliens are given green cards and are on the pathway to citizenship, they are going to qualify for the minimum wage, unemployment insurance, Social security, etc. and Businesses are going to dump them like they did the American workers and import a new bunch of illegals who will work for substand wages and not bitch and file lawsuits about the way they are being treated. In the past, many businesses, including Tyson Foods and the meat packing industry, have been cited for sending recruiters to Mexico to find illegal workers to replace the more expensive home grown variety. Giving amnesty, green cards. legalization and all the other proposed remedies will not solve this problem. Only when Businesses are punished with fines big enough to make this practice unprofitable, will the problem go away.
The recent story of a group of minority workers who were recruited to go to New Orleans to do construction jobs by an employment agency, only to be told when they got there they were no longer needed because recently arrived Mexicans were willing to work for less than half what they had been promised, is an example of what unchecked immigration is doing to this country. Our workers are faced with the choice of accepting the lower wages and lack of benefits and safeguards or being replaced by foreigners who will. Are we willing to accept this lowering of the standard of living for our own people so that citizens of another country can get a yob here and support their families? Charity begins at home. If we don’t look out for our own people, nobody else is going to. I feel sorry for the world’s poor and disadvantaged, but the truth is, this country is not big enough to hold all the people who who want to come here.
Rather than encouraging more and more to flee to our golden shores by legalizing people who have broken our laws, and it is against the law and punsihable by fines and jail sentences to come here illegally, although that law has never been inforced, it might make more sense to send enough of them back to their countries of origin so that they can demand that their own governments create a prosperous environment which encourages opportunities for their own citizens instead of dumping them off onto us. After all, they have been here and know how it works. Send the home and let them make it work back where they come from.
Marilyn
momdear1
Ahh, precisely mydear
We do NOT need new Laws!! How about just enforcing the ones that are all ready on the books! There would be No illegal allien problem if the present laws were enforced!
And NO, I am not for rewarding Illegal Behavior! I can see instances where familys have been here for years, have become a part of the community and contribute to this country, fine, I can live with that!
But, the Senate Bill is nuttin but Amnesty, again, rewarding Illegal Behaivour!
I have a novel idea, How bout we import those alliens that we need/desire in this country instead of illegal activities dictating to us who we allow in or not!!
The broken system we have now just imports uneducated welfare recipients, we’ve all ready got enough of those!!
Roving Reporter
06/17 01:58 PM
I think Fred Barnes is a very good reporter. And he’s a logical guy – except when parroting the Bush position on illegal immigration. Here’s what Barnes writes, in part, in a Weekly Standard piece mostly about Karl Rove:
Immigration affects the Hispanic vote, a long-term obsession of Rove and Bush. In 2004, Bush lifted the Republican share of that vote to 44 percent, a record for a Republican presidential candidate. Left to their own devices, conservatives and congressional Republicans would enact an enforcement-only bill that might drive away Hispanics and deny Republicans a lasting majority in America. Rove and Bush are eager to prevent that by saving conservatives from themselves.
More here.
Now, let’s break this down. In 1986, Ronald Reagan granted amnesty to almost three million illegal aliens, most of whom were Hispanic. Yet, Barnes reports that not until 2004 were Republicans able to secure a “record†44 percent of the Hispanic vote. You would have thought that if amnesty were the means by which the Republicans could expand their percentage of the Republican vote that George H. W. Bush would have received a record percentage of the Hispanic vote. After all, he was vice president at the time amnesty was granted, and his presidential election followed shortly after passage of the amnesty bill.
Moreover, as I’ve pointed out before, if Republicans continue to receive 44 percent of a growing Hispanic vote, the time will soon come when they will lose national elections by landslides. If they receive 49 percent of a growing Hispanic vote, their political future would be bleak.
If, as Barnes and the administration contend, that amnesty, or a “comprehensive immigration bill†is a political winner for Republicans, none of their arguments support it. Why they refuse to acknowledge this, but instead repeat these illogical claims, is beyond me.
By Mark R. Levin
Sir, you are correct
Another Reason To Stop This Invasion:
County’s cost for illegal immigrants’ care soars
Radack: Burden of federal policy ‘shouldn’t fall on the local taxpayer’
By BILL MURPHY
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
The Harris County Hospital District’s unreimbursed costs of caring for illegal immigrants approached $100 million last year, a 77 percent increase in three years.
“The costs are increasing because the population of undocumented immigrants is increasing and the cost of health care is rising,” said hospital district spokesman Bryan McLeod.
The unreimbursed costs rose from $55 million in 2002 to $97 million in 2005, the hospital district said in a report released Friday. Last year’s figure represented 13 percent of the district’s $760 million operating budget.
The district treats about 300,000 patients annually, but lacks enough funds and facilities to care for all of the county’s uninsured and underinsured residents, estimated to number between 800,000 and 1.2 million, McLeod said.
Commissioner Steve Radack, who requested the report on the district’s costs of treating undocumented immigrants, said county residents are shouldering a burden created by the federal government.
The federal government doesn’t prevent illegal immigration, but hardly reimburses local counties where the immigrants most frequently settle and use public health care facilities, he said.
“The federal government allows people to come here illegally,” Radack said. “Because of that the cost shouldn’t fall on the local taxpayer.”
The district treated more than 57,000 illegal immigrants last year, at a cost of $128 million. The federal and state governments reimbursed about $28 million, and the patients themselves paid about $3 million. Over the past 11 years, the district has paid about $607 million in unreimbursed costs for treating undocumented immigrants.
The district does not directly ask patients if they are in the country legally, but infers their status from other information gleaned during patient screenings, officials said.
Radack said it would be inhumane for the hospital district to stop providing treatment to illegal immigrants.
And untreated infectious illnesses among immigrants might spread to the broader population, he said.
“You would create a tremendous health crisis,” he said.
Under federal law, emergency rooms are required to treat anyone who shows up and needs immediate care.
Local emergency rooms often are backed up with patients, including many without health insurance who come to the emergency room as a last resort when they need nonemergency care.
Regional health care officials have been strategizing for years on how to move those not needing urgent care to other settings so emergency rooms can treat true emergencies.
McLeod said emergency rooms would become even more overburdened if the district stopped treating illegal immigrants in district clinics and hospitals, and they all started showing up at emergency rooms for nonemergency care.