Jan 17 2007
Note To Republicans: You Can Stay In The Minority
I have a message to Republicans who want to punish people who are trying to make a living and simple do not have the forms to do so. Like the lack of any other license, the penalties for not supplying paperwork usually are fines and probation. Illegal workers are not felons (note to Reps, you lost that battle too). So confiscation of property and a forced march to the borders is out of the question as a measured punishment.
The President’s worker program has penalties: back taxes must be paid, jobs must be out in the open an compliant with employment and tax laws (which will reduce take home pay), and no time in country up until registration into the program can be used towards citizenship. These are not trivial and a lot more than most Americans would face for not having their papers in order (or not filing their taxes). The carrot for immigrants is the ability to work openly – if they can keep employed and stay out of trouble. Background checks will toss out the criminal element no one wants here, but which are a small minority of the illegal population.
Reps claim they will fight Mel Martinez (Senator from ‘third world Florida’ according to one rabid Rep) over his support of the guest worker program. Right now the word ‘amnesty’ from a Rep equates with “I am ready to lose more elections to liberals because I won’t listent to the conservatives who disagree with me”. So the response is immediate from the other side. The anti-amnesty folks are a non starter in every sense. And if it means the Reps remain out of power, then so be it. There are plenty of options out there for voters. And if you doubt this let me make the obvious point. Florida is the anchor to Republican Presidential bids. Dems have CA and NY tied up and the Reps haveTX. Without FL Reps will never see the White House. And Florida is not a deep red state. It has one Rep and one Dem Senator. It was the 2000 decisive battlefield with the closest Presidential race in modern history. Insulting Floridians will only deepen the Reps period in political ‘time out’ for misbehaving. Why some marginal Reps are so obsessed with extreme punishment in this matter is beyond me. But their extremism on this one issue will anchor the Reps in the minority for as long as it takes for them to get over it.
“Anyone who demands otherwise is out of this debate. Recall that election last year they lost for the Reps was their message to America. Heard loud and clear – now they are irrelevant.”
AJ, Out here in Cali, part of the country that is already “minority majority” anti-illegal immigration candidates won big! The only reason some lost in the southwest was because the illegals are voting in such large numbers, they voted them out. I might add, that if you start looking around the country, states and localities are starting to address the problem on their own. It only re-enforces what I said about those people who are close to the problem.
Because there are so many Mexicans here, they are many of the people I socialize and I know it sounds cliche, but many of my best friends are Mexican nationals. And believe it or not, they will be the first to tell you that you just can’t throw the door wide open or this will cease to be a great country. I like my Mexican friends, I don’t believe we can or need to deport twelve million people, I just don’t think we need another hundred million poor people in this country in the next 20 years. And that is exactly what they proposed last time!
You just can’t import poverty by the millions and not expect it to be a problem, no matter where or what race of people it is. Has nobody been reading whats going on in Paris?
Steve LA, you are wrong about what the anti-illegal immigration people want. We do want people to have legal valid Social Security cards and pay taxes, we do want to them to come out of the shadows, and I don’t know anyone who thinks we can get rid of all those people, let alone the fact that we don’t need to.
The problem is, we keep passing immigration laws that exacerbate the problem. In 1986, we had about two million illegals in the US. Reagan thought that the new law then would encourage the illegals to become legal and get documented. The result was that ten times as many came and now we have between twelve and tweny million illegals. THEY DID NOT get documented! That is not what they want now. Now, last year, the senate proposed a bill to let another
190 Million in over the next twenty years with the stipulation that they apply for a guest worker program. When are you going to admit that there is no way in hell this is ever really going to work? What will end up happening is that they will fill out a form in Mexico, or China, or India or wherever in the world there is poverty to dump in America. That form will probably be comparable to a drivers license application, and come to America, and that is where the documentation trail will end. Now there will be a certain percentage of people who will be good citizens and play by the rules, however lame the rules may be and I would welcome those folks. They are not the problem. The problem is in the numbers. We’re going to import a tremendous number of poor unskilled people into this country, (where some states are already straining from the cost of social services to immigrants) and not expect it to be a major problem. That’s felony stupid.
AJ, your dishonesty is blatant. I am not now, nor have I ever been, a “fence only” proponent. I am however, a “fence first” advocate.
You say that criminal checks are easy with today’s intergrated databases. Correct, if we are only looking for criminal behavior while they have been in the United States. That would allow someone who has been convicted of a crime in their native land to stay. Or are you trying to tell us that nations like China and Mexico have the same quality databases we do, and would be willing to tell us of those who have come to our nation illegally that were convicted of crimes in their own nation? I am sure that with Mexico’s track record of sending back cop killers to the United States would weigh heavily in their favor, right? And of course, the Arab states would be more than happy to tell us of criminal activity on the part of their citizens, right?
Aj,
You claimed, once they are deported, they are never heard from again. I was pointing out how WRONG you are!
Our immigration system CAN NOT HANDLE THE CURRENT LOAD NOW! How the heck are they suppose to proccess MILLIONS more? You really should do some homework! They even “lost” hundreds of thousands of applications for “legal” immigrants. Just how is this over burdened system, not only suppose to keep up with the current work load, how can they handle your desires as well? I could have posted hundreds of articles on repeat deports, but I think I proved my point. I must get ready for work. I’ll leave it to the others to debate further. Read some books folks! Enjoy your day. Let the debate continue in my absence!
No Stevevvs,
I pointed out what we would/should do with the guest worker program. If you want to point to failed border policies we all point to the Rep Congress just booted from leadership. LOL! The result of the Reps is nada.
Retire05,
My blog, my opinions my lables. No one is forcing you to read this site. The Fence Only crowd are the ones who resisted any debate on guest worker program and lost Congress. Will never change that position and see no reason to.
Looks like AJ is taking his Blog and going home.
I have a serious question for you AJ and any of you who support this next immigration fiasco. Are there any homeless people where you live? If so, why haven’t you taken them all into your home? 😉
AJ, I quite understand your blog, your opinions, your rules. But to reduce your argument to name calling is nothing less than what the left does on DemocratUnderground or the Puffington Post.
You continue to call me “fence only”. Perhaps you would like to explain why that is when I have, multiple times, outline other things that I feel are necessary to get a handle on the crisis that illegal immigration poses to our nation.
I do not feel you are part of an “amnesty only” crowd, no do I have to reduce my argument to calling you names. If my argument can not stand on it’s own without such tactics, I have no argument.
Once again, as in the past, you refuse to address the problems that I have posed to you. I can only assume it is because the answers do not go along with your argument.
In the past, you have attempted to insult me. I have not done that to you. I respect your intelligence as well as your right to an opinion. But if you want to chase away all those who happen to disagree with you on a particular subject, I think you will find that eventually you will have a blog that no one reads or responds to because not everyone is going to agree with you on any subject.
Don’t expect to get a real answer to that Retire05. Every time we have this immigration discussion, the ANTI’s bring up real defined technical and social problems such as how do you “document the undocumented when you have allowed millions of people to commit identy theft for years?” How do you do background checks on millions of people from foreign countries? The questions you poised about foreign countries cooperation and all of that is extremely relevant. How do you pay someone SS benefits when they have used fifty or more unkown SSN’s over the last twenty years? How does one pay back taxes on undocumented income? All of the responses we get from the PRO side tend to be emotional feel good stuff at first and it usually gets to the personal attack fairly soon. We’re racist, stubborn, all that garbage.
The truth is the we have allowed a small problem to become a large one and now we stand poised to make it an absolute disaster. There is no way to really accomplish what they are proposing and the end result would be to legalize illegality, diminish the value of citizenship, and receive a glut of unwanted poor and criminals from all over the world. It would be a global Mariel boat lift. I could imagine countries emptying prisons and sending them to America with the highest recommendation of character on the background check.
This is a dumb idea that is perpetuated by those who think they can solve the worlds problems by bringing them all here. Nuts!
Name calling?
LOL! Whatever.
Bikerken,
This is my blog – deal with it. And I the fence-only, no-guest-worker-program faction of the Reps are a serious impediment to all other conservative policies, goals and issues – since they were the ones who threatened to go home and pout if anyone crosses them.
As you reactionaries will not my blog is still here and comments still weclomed. Let the fence only crowd threaten, insult and attempt to intimidate. Without any power in DC they are all empty threats! We have much more important things on our plate than over-the-top retribution of illegal workers.
I’m dealing with it just fine AJ. I just think you are dead wrong on this issue. And I have noticed that you have not responded to one question on how this idiotic guest worker program would possibly work from me or anyone else. Even if we were to take in only one million a year, (which is about a tenth of what they are proposing), the paperwork alone would be impossible. Let alone the crazy idea of being able to “match workers to jobs”. I’m a systems analyst by trade, do have any idea how utterly ridiculous of a large task that is? See, I don’t base my opinion on what is politcally popular or how it affected the elections, I base my opinion on whether or not it would be a good thing or a disaster for the country. If you could actually propose a guest worker program that addresses the problems of identity fraud and importing poverty, I would be open to it.
By the way, it was not immigration that lost the congress, it was the damn war!
Passing new laws.. Don’t enforce them. Don”t worry, no one really wants any new ones enforced. The old ones aren’t. It’s just a vote buying mechanism.
New Fence Law just passed. doesn’t mean anything, nobody (in charge) wants it built. It won’t be, so much for new laws.
Background checks in new law…. Joke, allows people with 1 felony and 3 misdemeanors. Allows them.
No existing law is enforceable, no new law would be enforceable (except the amnesty and citizenship parts)
Wisconsin, Mexican deported for crime, back in less than one week, child molester, $5000 bond. No show. We’re really serious.
The only people that think this is a race issue are racists. How can the issue of Mexican be racist. They are caucasion for goodness sake. So anyone raising that issue is struggling for something to say.
I personally think, if we are not going to enforce existing laws, then we shoud stop pretending and fire all the Border patrol agents and do away with the check points and allow open border(as we do now, we just pretend we don’t).
There is nothing in the compromise bill that requires anything, except allowing illegal people to remain here.. Some things are listed, with no provision for enforcement, none. No English proficiency required. Other than amnesty, it’s just a totally useless piece of feel good baloney.
Pres Bush just caved on the telephone listening of terrorists. That crushes me.
Definitions:
Democrat, someone that wants to tax and spend the country into oblivion now:
Republican, someone that wants the same thing as democrats, but want to delay it 10 years
Libertarian, someone that wants to do the same things as Dems and Reps, just want to do it with less government involved.
So does it really matter which party is running the government?
Bikerken,
I have tons of posts with comments that answer (or should I say re-answer) all issues from the fence only crowd. They ignore my answers so I stopped repeating them.
Good news, they are out of power and I can ignore them without any concern whatsoever. That is what happens when you gamble in politics and lose. It is basically over.
AJ, You are so dreamin if you think this fight is over! You’ll never be able to talk us out of it. I think you have misread the American public. And I have read many of your posts on this issue and have never seen you respond to any question regarding how this could possibly work. All you do is repeat the vagaries of the political mouthpieces that want this garbage and say it will work. To say, they will do background checks, is not an answer when it isn’t possible to conduct a million background checks a year. The organization doing this job would have to be as big as Wal mart. I think you realize that. I’m sure you have a dog in this fight that we don’t hear barking yet.
AJ, are you honestly trying to tell BikerKen that you have answered the questions that I, or anyone else on the opposite side of the issue of illegal immigration, has posed to you?
Hell, you didn’t bother to answer how we would do background checks on illegals from China or Mexico and that was a new question to you just today.
So don’t try to blow smoke up anyone’s skirt. You have not today, or any other day, answered the hard questions that have been put to you and you are totally dishonest to say you have.
So……..how do you propose that we do back ground checks on illegals from nations that have, in the past, shown a reluctance to cooperate with us? Ummmmm?
Bikerken,
Maybe you missed my point. I am not talking you out of anything. I am pushing the point you folks gambled, failed and now are irrelevant. You think this politics is bean bag? I would as much try to talk you out of something as I would Kucinich and his crazy views. Pick your battles, create your coalitions and get your causes forwarded. That includes not picking proven losers. Ask Gingrich, Gore and Kerry about how, once you lose, you are never seen as winnable again. There is no ground swell out there to overly punish illegal aliens. Many posters have been trying to give you guys the heads up. I just tend to be very blunt.
I am not trying to change your mind. The dynamics of the country have buried this movement. The most popular solution has always been the comprehensive package of securing borders and a reasonable guest worker program. The Dems will need a legislative win and Bush will work out the details.
You guys don’t have anything but 2 years to learn the lesson of political power. It will be over before you get another chance to even influence the debate, let alone control it. And I am not weeping any tears over this at all.
Retire05,
We have a congressional majority that will work with Bush to make the comprehensive plan law – and I need little else. The gamble by the far right left them out of the debate.
BTW, background checks are feasible from anywhere. And no one has a problem denying participation of the background check cannot be done. But we are talking the long term illegal workers – who do have a history of years and sometimes decades here in the US. Those checks are trivial.
Sorry, don’t have time to answer every boring little question with easy answers. Riddle me this – what in the world are you folks going to do when Bush passes his comprehensive package? You face the same problem the Dems have with the Prescription drug benefits to medicare and medicaid – they are working and no one will trust a pol to ‘fix’ it!
Checkmate. The immigration debate has moved on to a totally new playing field. You guys get to watch from the stands.
I’m not even sure we have lost a battle yet AJ, let alone the war. When they sit down and start really making the sausage on this thing, they will find out real fast the devil is in the details. I might add that all of those other posters haven’t been able to answer any hard questions either.
Irrelevant? I don’t think so. I’m sure that you’re right about what will happen in the short run. As a matter of fact, I will make a prediction, I’ll say right now that congress will pass a bill and Bush will sign it. It will be as vague as all hell and before the next election, it will be already apparrent that it was an ill-conceived unworkable mistake and the dolts that pushed it will become irrelevant. I’ll also bet that the bill gets SEVERELY altered if not totally thrown out within a few short years. That, coupled with the next large terrorist attack which will surely be aided by the open borders and dems who couldn’t be trusted with a potato gun, will bring the Republicans back in power for at least another ten years!
How do you like that, Antonio Jose?!
Penalty for stealing someone’s social security number? No penalty and we will even reward them with SS benefits for identity theft.
$2,000 fine? Will not have to be paid until year 8. Penalty only to the American taxpayer who will still be picking up the tab for their health benefits, education and incarceration.
Paying back taxes? Yep, for three of five years. I want to be an illegal.
Penalty for employers who violated federal law by hiring illegals? Gone with the wind.
Think people are going to like it when they learn exactly how much illegal immigration costs taxpayers? There is a bill in the Texas house that will require state agencies that provide social welfare for illegals to keep records of the costs. That means schools will have to finally fess up to how much of the school budget goes to educating illegal children and children born in the U.S. of illegals. It will also require AFDC, WIC, Medicare/Medicaid and all welfare offices that use state funds to report those costs.
Bush and the liberal bleating hearts may get their bill passed, but states are going to pass their own bills that will refuse social welfare to illegals and if it deals with state funds, there will be nothing El Busho can do about it. You can look for states to stop giving in-state tuition to illegals (Arizona already voted to do that), limit the medical care to those who really need it, allow their law enforcement officers to train with ICE to apprehend illegals, on and on.
This issue (a game to AJ) is far from over and far from being “check mate”.