Jul 06 2006
Many See Phantom Shift By Bush
I am seeing a lot of sightings of a supposed Bush shift on the immigration issue which seems to mirages (in my humble opinon). The first sighting of this phantom shift came from a link on Drudge:
President George W. Bush is adopting a tougher line in the contentious debate on overhauling US immigration laws, putting an emphasis on border control and strict enforcement measures favored by his conservative base.
The new approach was evident as the US leader made an appearance Wednesday at a coffee shop in Alexandria, Virginia, touting enforcement measures meant to catch illegal immigrants when they try to apply for work.
“Part of a comprehensive immigration plan is to give employers the tools necessary to determine whether or not the workers they’re looking for are here legally in America,” the US president said, flanked by immigrant workers from Iran, Guatemala and El Salvador.
“Part of a comprehensive immigration plan is to … say to employers, ‘It’s against the law for you to hire somebody here illegally. We intend to find you when we catch you doing it,'” the president said.
Bush plugged his administration’s “Basic Pilot” initiative, a voluntary, online verification system allowing employers to check an applicant’s immigration status against federal databases. The president called for making the program mandatory.
But he also stressed the importance of making it easier for employers to legally hire foreign-born workers “for jobs Americans aren’t doing.”
Where’s the shift? The idea was to (a) provide employers a tool to ID authorized workers who are part of the guest worker program (and therefore those who have passed a background check and have committed to pay back taxes through a payment plan and have basically agreed to “stay in the light” and separate themselves from the underground population (which is where our risks lie) and (b) crack down on employers who do not tow the line. The guest worker program is central to any crackdown on employers because (duh!) we have to get the legal workers registered and make sure we can keep track of them while they are here.
Well, I just chalked this one report up to a shifting in perspective as reality sinks in. People are always claiming how much others are moving their direction, just before they compromise. But then I went over to JOM and saw a post on how Kaus was right all along about how the House position was so strong it would move Bush!
Mickey Kaus has said for months that the political viability of the House “enforcement only” immigration plan is being misunderestimated. Today the Times front-pages this:
Bush Signaling Shift in Stance on Immigration
It seems the order in which Bush talks about the aspects of his long published plans is key in understanding this phantom shift. I have the upmost respect for Tom Maguire, so I am not trying to belittle his views, but there is no shift here. There may finally be some comprehension. The guest worker program was the pivot point to a lot of problems. It allowed for background checks to weed out hardened criminals (and then boot them out). Without background checks you can’t weed out the criminals. It was a carrot to entice the good people to come forward so we did not waste precious and strained law enforcement resources scouring the country for these people. It was the program that would issue tamper proof IDs and establish a database of legal immigrants. It was the program that could require immigrants retain up to date information on there whereabouts in terms of work. It solved a lot of problems and offered a path to citizenship in 10-15 years if these people kept their noses clean, paid all back taxes and stayed employed. The hard liners are just now understanding how all this must come together to be effective and efficient. And those are too very important words. Effective and efficient. The House path to make illegal immigration a felony and focus only on building walls was incomplete and shoddy. And any incomplete solution is a wasteful one.
It will be interesting to see this new phantom shift play itself out, and to see how different the end result is compared to the two starting points. The hard right has lost the deportation demands (and of course it never, ever happened). They lost on the idea of starving the immigrants out by throwing them out of work (and onto our streets – which is the last place we want 12 million jobless people). And now they see a shift in Bush because there are elements dealing with incentives and punishments on employers (where there were never many incentives on the House side). Why am I not surprised.
Is this the same Mickey Kaus who supported John Amnesty Kerry for president?
Really all people had to was listen to Bush’s speech. The program will not work without border security and border security will not work without some kind of program to allow people to work here legally if they are needed. One is needed to strengthen the other.
I read an article online from the Housten Chronicle that said the number of people crossing the Rio Grande is way down since the Guard showed up.
Dreaming, Beltway Dreaming, on such a summer’s day.
Now this is funny, I don’t care who you are.
“I read an article online from the Housten Chronicle that said the number of people crossing the Rio Grande is way down since the Guard showed up.”
We got extremely remote areas we can’t even get Border Patrol agents to, but we got “somebody” out there counting them.
And Terrye, you do recall I pasted a link that said it did not include the National Guard, they hadn’t gotten there yet.
An honest person would recall things like that if the point wasn’t to lie and mislead people. But then what’s new?
By the way, it didn’t say the number crossing the border was down. It said the number of arrests was down from 5000 a year ago to 2000 this year. All that means is they have quit trying to get as many arrests. Do you think that if they catch less speeders that the number of drivers speeding is down. Maybe they just give up on catching them. I’ll go and find that and paste it again for you. I realize it won’t matter because you don’t care about the truth, you just want to try and make a point.
And I’m talking to Terrye, not the screen.
TERRYE, here is that article, notice that it never says the number of immigrants is down, they just say it has moved. Their terminology is that arrests are down. That just implies less enforcement. Notice the last paragraph where it says the National Guard wasn’t involved because they had just begun to show up (even tho as a lead in they say the Guard presence is partially credited for it.) So even the people that wrote it didn’t understand it.
You ought to at least read the article before you quote it.
July 2, 2006, 2:14PM
Del Rio border influx drops
Immigrant jail policy, Guard presence are given credit for fewer arrests
By JOHN W. GONZALEZ
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle San Antonio Bureau
DEL RIO – Nearly 5,000 immigrants were arrested in June 2005 trying to enter the United States illegally through this area. But this June, only about 2,000 people were nabbed after crossing the perilous Rio Grande into the stark and punishing brush country of southwest Texas.
ADVERTISEMENT
Long overwhelmed by immigrants and smugglers, U.S. Border Patrol officials last week said traffic into the region has plummeted because of increased law enforcement, deployment of the National Guard and an experiment with expedited hearings to curtail the “catch-and-release” phenomenon.
“Everything together has just stopped the traffic,” supervisory patrol agent Hilario Leal Jr. said.
As a direct result, smuggling is shifting as far away as Arizona, officials said. And in a meeting here last week with Gov. Rick Perry, several border county sheriffs said the drop in immigrant flow corresponds with significant reductions in major crimes.
The sheriffs, along with state and federal law enforcement officers, participated in a three-week crackdown on human and contraband smuggling in the Del Rio region, which includes a 210-mile stretch of the Rio Grande from here to Eagle Pass.
It’s not known when or where along the border the next such enforcement push will take place, however, and it remains to be seen how long the dip in activity in Texas will last.
The blitz, which ended June 26, complemented stepped-up Border Patrol operations in this area but didn’t involve the Texas National Guard troops who began arriving in mid-June.
You know, if I were in the Guard, I would ask for a retraction. It says
“Guard presence are given credit for fewer arrests”
If I were being sent there for enforcement, I’d want it to read:
“Guard presence are given credit for increased arrests”
Wouldn’t you?
the only hardliners around here are the senate bill pimps who don’t want to enforce the border. they constantly throw ‘hate speech’ around about the opposition.
aj, terrye etc, there will be a compromise as we said all along. however the border will be closed first. that’s what bush is starting to realize. the bulk of the senate bill is dead–stick a fork in it. the house ‘felony’ status is dead also. in fact it has been dead from the beginning but the beloved dems forced it to be left in so you would have something to piss and moan about. no illegals are getting deported. the delusional hope is they will leave when there are no jobs due to the ‘workplace enforcement’ provision.
anyone that supports the senate bill–700 pages plus–has not read it.
Aj
I saw a paper over at the Brooking’s Institute and another at the Cato Institute that were almost in agreement that if they Senate version of the bill prevailed, and the registration and such occurred that the cost per illegal alien per year would jump from a net minus 3900 per year to a minus 9900 per year. This is taking into account administrative cost of the registeration and enforcement plus the new social programs that they would become eligible for, once they obtained any kind of legal status. These figures on cost are balanced out after their tax and fine contributions. Also both indicated there will most likely be a follow on cost after such a bill is approved for between 2 -6 billion dollars in subsidies to build low income housing to replace the current living arrangements of 2 -3 families per household. Also both studies project that once legalized their would be increased encroachment on blue and white collar jobs by the newly authorized workers since currently job for participation rates by the illegals runs at about 60%, which they have been able to sustain till now due to cost sharing arrangements. Furthur expansion of numbers of authorized immigrants under H1-B and H1-L visas will displace potentially 3% of mid range technical workers with lower cost foreign imports due to their lower wage scale limitations.
The Brookings study also noted that early numbers for job force reduction in the home construction industry due to the housing slowdown have shown that 85% plus of work force reductions have been on native american workers with only a 15% loss on the illegals part due to their lower pay status. Job losses by illegals occurred in small builders who had work forces that were 8o-90% to begin with and were there only source of workforce reduction. They also estimate that in the near future these laid off illegals will most likely replace others at different construction firms to replace higher paid native workers.
“They lost on the idea of starving the immigrants out by throwing them out of work (and onto our streets- which is the last place we want 12 million jobless people)”
You just can’t help yourself, can you AJ. You have to paint those of us who are against IL-legal immigration as heartless cretins who have no mercy for these poor people , 90% who QUIT THEIR JOBS IN MEXICO to sneak into our country.
Well, I have to give you credit for one thing; you, and your ilk, have aroused those of us who usually remain quite on things like this and we are screaming louder than we ever have in our lives. We are no longer the silent complainer who says “well, I can’t change it so why complain about it?” We are screaming to the top of our lungs that we will not accept amnesty in any form, no matter what name you give it. We realize that being at the “back of the line” is being at the back of the line in their native lands, not working here and living the American dream. We realize that being able to draw a pay check, buy a home, visit their local Ford dealer for a new car is NOT being at the back of the line. We realize it is jumping the line and we are not going to accept the Shamnesty Bill because you say it is good for us.
So, please, stick to your guns. You are helping my side.
I did it read and it said that traffic into the area had plummeted because of increased enforcement.
Now if you choose to read that as people are not being arrested vs people are not coming in the numbers they were then go ahead. I guess that means that if we put up the wall and the authorities say that the number of people being picked up by the border patrol is down we can assume that what that really means is that the wall is not working and the border patrol is just not bothering to pick people up.
You know something? I do support a wall and tougher enforcement and probably agree with a lot of the hardliners on a great deal of issues, but since I fail to to agree with them on everything I am a lousy excuse for a human being and can be treated like crap. Tell me, do you think that helps your cause?
BTW, I found that article on anklebitingpundits under a title that said something to the effect that Bush’s plan was working, so maybe you should go tell them they are stupid and dishonest too and make some snotty comment about how they should read the articles before they post them or whatever.
And no patrick, you did not say there would be a compromise, it was the senate bill pimps like me who said there should be a compromise. What is more there was nothing in Bush’s plan that ever precluded securing the border first. People just jumped the gun and got hysterical when there was no need for it.
Terrye says:
“but since I fail to agree with them on everything I am a lousy excuse for a human being and can be treated like crap”
Tell me, Terrye, where have any of us who do not agree with us said that? And of course, we are to assume that your calling us “hardliners” is not meant as an insult.
No one is treating you like “crap”, only in your paranoid little brain.
You, and those who think like you, will never answer the question I put to AJ. You want to be bleating hearts who think that people who break the law should just be allowed to skate on that crime. You want to “qualify” laws, making one more important than the other, simply becuase it affects millions of people who, by the Constitution, are not covered under our law. They are not “citizens”. Do you understand that? They are ILlegals. What is the next law that you will “qualify” as being umimportant because it creates a hardship on one segment of our society or another? How about pedophiles? Are they not a segment of our society? What about those who would marry ten women? Are they a segment of our society? Does our laws create a “hardship” on their beliefs?
When you have to start delegating laws by the order of their importance, they will ALL lose their importance. The law that protects the homeowner from illegal invasion is no less important than the law that protects a child from a pedophile.
And if a vagrant (whom you don’t know) moves into your home uninvited, are you willing to “compromise” with that vagrant in order to let him continue living in your home?
I know that must be a really tough question since neither you, or AJ, want to answer it.
I did it read and it said that traffic into the area had plummeted because of increased enforcement.
TERRYE, TERRYE
Now if you choose to read that as people are not being arrested vs people are not coming in the numbers they were then go ahead.
I don’t read it one way or the other, that’s what it says. They said arrests are down and the traffic just moved further West, maybe you need to read it again.
I guess that means that if we put up the wall
Then don’t put up a wall, just shoot them as you suggested one time.
and the authorities say that the number of people being picked up by the border patrol is down we can assume that what that really means is that the wall is not working and the border patrol is just not bothering to pick people up.
And that may be the truth.
You know something? I do support a wall and tougher enforcement and probably agree with a lot of the hardliners on a great deal of issues
TERRYE, you don’t support a wall, you support open borders, even I understand that.
What’s a “hardliner”?
“but since I fail to agree with them on everything I am a lousy excuse for a human being and can be treated like crap”
And who said this? Pull up that quote and paste it for me.
and I like Retire05 would really like to see a bleeding heart answer this question.
And if a vagrant (whom you don’t know) moves into your home uninvited, are you willing to “compromise†with that vagrant in order to let him continue living in your home?
I know that must be a really tough question
FE, it is really hysterical how someone can slam those she doesn’t agree with calling them “hardliners” which I am sure was not meant to be a compliment but then starts whining if someone gives her just a small tidbit of grief.
And don’t wait to get an answer on my question. I have asked it here a long time ago, but then perhaps I would have had better response had I asked “the screen”.
Funny how people always dodge the questions that make them unconfortable.
Retire05
yeah it is. I’ve been getting a lot of grief,as you have, because AJ doesn’t like our position on illegal immigration. He deleted a large comment that I had put a lot of time and effort into responding to Aitch on his reading comprehension problem. I sent “screen” a message assuring him I have been converted and now believe as he does on immigration. Funny, basically the only issue I or you disagree with him on is that one, but I guess that’s not acceptable and so, as I said, I’ve changed my position. Funny thing is, up until I converted, the only ones that seem to agree with him is Terrye and Crosspatch. Nobody else says much in support, as I will from now on.
I understand Hell has frozen over, you hear anything on that?
terrye,
you are lying by telling half truths. you know full well that i have said here and at captains quarters and elsewhere since march that there would be a compromise. i said in nouncertain terms that the senate bill would not pass. i said very early and very clearly that border enforcement would come first before anything else. george bush was originally, and may still be, against closing the border first. his canard, like the canards of the past forty years, is the senate bill. yes he never said he was against it–but he never said he was for it. he has always linked border enforcement with the other useless 700 pages of the convoluted senate bill.
you always claim/express compassion for the illegals but you support the senate bill with its job place enforcement—throwing millions out of work. seems like crocidile tears…….least i’m honest enough to admit/support a complete fence from san diego to brownsville sealing the border air tight. then everyone on this side gets to stay and no other family members get to come over. if you want to be with your wife and kids, parents etc move back home. no chain immigration. the criminals get finger printed etc and are thrown back over the fence. while on a ten year green card if you break the law, you are gone. no guest worker program for several years until our id system is working and local police get the hang of rapidly, without a hearing, deporting illegals. this is probably what a compromise is going to look like. simple and less than 50 pages!
FE, let me see; Hell has frozen over. Ummm. Nope. Nada on hell. But I did hear there is one heckofa snow job going on this July in Washington, D.C. It’s called the Shamnesty Bill. Does that count?
Remember the song “The Sound of Silence”? I finally found out what it is; it is the answer I got on my question.
Retire05,, good song
Remember the song “The Sound of Silence� I finally found out what it is; it is the answer I got on my question.
Hmm “The Sound of Silenceâ€, that’s the one that’s got the line: Dreaming, Beltway Dreaming, on such a summer’s day.
let me see; Hell has frozen over. Ummm. Nope. Nada on hell. Whew, Glad to hear that. Because that was when I was gonna change my position on Illegal immigration.
Patrick,
First off – welcome to the site. Sorry to single you out on this, but your theory Bush is against fixing the border first is laughable. The Hardliners (so named because they tow a stubborn hard line and cannot fathom progress, I mean compromise) keep playing that silly canard. Simple mathematics: if you start the border build up and the guest worker program at the same time the obvious answer is the guest worker program (processing 10+ million willing people) will take twice as long as a 2,000 mile construction job. Bush knows this and that is why he has resisted (if not laughed off) the idea of waiting on any aspect of this. The wall is useless without getting the immigrants documented and background checked. Anyway, hope you stay around.
Dr. Steve Camorata on O’Reilly said that Bloomberg’s statements on illegals is laughable. He said that the vast majority of illegal immigrants are high school dropouts and the argument that what America needs is 11000000 high school dropouts is ridiculous. He said there are more high school dropouts(over 1000000) in New york.(Americans) than there are Illegals and they are looking for work. If all the Illegals left new york, the jobs coould be filled by the American new yorkers and nobody would notice the difference. He states that the bottom 10% of the work force contributes less than 3% to the economy and that if it disappeared completely, nobody would notice. He says the question is: Does dramatically increasing the number of high school dropouts in the US create a big economic boom?
He said that once people understood that 5 million more immigrants would come in on passage of the Senate bill and that the bill forbids local law enforcement from enforcing immigration laws that more people want the laws enforced. They’ve discovered that the devil is in the details. As, Ahem, yours truly has been saying all the time.
aj,
the sole purpose for the fence first proviso is not to aid and abet the registration of the illegals that are here. while it may compliment that issue its primary purpose is to stop more from coming. once the inflow stops–if we do absolutely nothing else–the problem will be, for the most part, sorted out by the free market. in fact you could say the free market helped create the problem when it realized and later exploited the open borders.
just today there was a story about this same situation during pres esienhower’s time. not very PC by today’s standards.
http://tinyurl.com/pqtcd
the new fence will only be about 1000 miles (natural barriers and existing fence)…..bush gets dinged, and i think rightfully so, because he clouds the enforcement issue “border first” with other issues including the poorly scripted senate bill.
i’ll make a prediction–if a fence is built first, everything else is possible. once immigration grinds to a halt with no chain immigration loopholes, americans being americans, the illegals here will be readily assimilated as they voluntarily sign up for green cards and stay at their current jobs. with no unlimited pool of new illegals, higher wages, insurance, job place enforcement etc will flow at a natural pace. within two years this whole problem will be in out rearview………trust the free market.
FE:
You do not know what you are talking about. I have always supported a wall. And have you gone over to anklebiting pundits and told them they can’t read yet? Or are you just giving me a hard time about nothing again?
The article is plain, because of a larger number of border enforcement on that part of the border the number of people trying to cross is down. Now that is Texas. It does not say what is happening a state over. But to read that little article and see something that says the authorities just aren’t bothering to pick people up is weird. And ti does not help your poing because it sounds as if you are saying that increased border security is useless. Is that your point?
And what questions have I not answered? I think we need a tighter border and a guest worker program. I also have not ever heard any one explain why that makes me a bad person, other than the fact that I did not throw in there something about rounding up 11 million illegals right this minute and shipping them all out of the country with a wave of a magic wand because they are all bad and none of them serve a usefull purpose and getting rid of them all is no big deal if people just want to do it. I just think that is not realistic.
BTW, if you can not see the difference between a child molestor and a migrant worker then there is no need for discussion, you are a lost cause.
And patrick I never said that I supported everything in the Senate bill, in fact I made a point of saying I did not. I did say I supported a compromise. I doubt if I will support all of any bill they come up with but that is not the point. Sometimes in life we don’t get everything we want. Sometimes we have to create a consensus and that means putting up with things we do not like for a larger purpose. Purists can not understand that and the result far too often is nothing, nada, zip, zilch, and other than running people off…and what good is that?