Mar 26 2007
Here Comes Comprehensive Immigration Bill
The balanced approach of trough laws, strengthening the boarders, immigrant background checks, paying back dues, etc is coming to Congress. (link 1, link 2)Is it perfect? Hell no – no Bill would be. But it has enough of my minimal list to know it will get passed. When the hard right bottled up comprehensive immigration reform – including the much needed guest worker program – until after the elections in 2006 they sealed the fate of the Bill. Now out of power it is the one area Congress and the President and the vast majority of America agree on. Elections have consequences. We need our immigration population working above board, being monitored, paying taxes, and not based on some arbritrary number pulled out of some Congressman’s hind end to define the proper level of the immigrant worker population. If it passes both houses in its current form it will be signed. And if the Reps get ugly about it, they will lose te Hispanic vote and spend another Congressional session in the minority. Illegal immigration is like driving an illegal car – a car without a valid vehicle license. It is a process crime, not a violent crime. It doesn’t require “vengeance”. It requires a fine and payment of back fees and taxes. The right needs to accept this or continued defeat. Their choice.
We’ll see how much agreement there is on it. So far as I can see, even liberal commentators are saying this bill doesn’t have a chance in hell. Nor should it. From what I’ve been hearing, the local radio shows have been saying that Ted Kennedy has consulted Guiterrez and Gil Sedillo here in Cali to help him write his bill. PEOPLE, these are hard line MECHA members, they do not believe that the southwest belongs to the US! Their goal is to eliminate the whole border concept. These are the same people who introduce and support the idea of drivers licenses for illegals every year. They have already accomplished in-state tuition rates for illegals over US citizens! If your illegal, you pay less tuition in CALI than if your from Arizona! Is that right? Ironically, they get their health care paid for from the pockets of a middle class that can’t afford to pay for it’s own health insurance! Is this ok with you?
AJ, I just don’t get you. There are over a Billion people in the world right now that want to come to the US. A Billion, with a B. Do we really want or need a population explosion of poor unskilled workers to drag down the wages of the middle class and suck up billions in health care, education and social programs? Or do you really think that ringing the amnesty dinner bell is going to cause a dramatic slowing of the hoardes coming across the boarder? Or is it that our Immigration processing which can’t handle the load now is magically going to be able to do background checks on ten or twenty times as many people much more efficiently and on time?! I still have the same questions about the bill:
Is there a tamper proof ID card system in it that can’t be duplicated on the street for 20 bucks? So far from what I’ve heard about the basics, it’s not even mentioned.
How many people are they talking about bringing in how fast. The last bill was originally 191 million over 20 years. So far, I’m hearing 60 million with this one. I want to see a realistic idea of how many people would be allowed to come with a reasonable number that can be assimilated and not just colonize a whole damned state.
I want to know what is going to be the process for clearing these people in. Right now the immigration service cannot possibly process all the applications it gets and we intend to multiply their job by a factor of ten to twenty. How is this going to work? What kind of background or health screening are they going to get. They are already bringing TB and other diseases back into this country that we had eradicated. Are they going to triple the size of the CIS to handle the load or are they really just going to ignore the screening process and wave the mobs in?
I want to know who exactly is going to be hiring these people and at what legal wage? The last bill mandated union scale for these guest workers. They would have actually been making more money than a heck of a lot of americans. How can you tell me those are jobs Americans won’t do? See here is where the logic falls apart, our employers want to hire them for less than minimum wage and they do. If they have to pay a lot more, they will hire less people or an american will do the job. Americans just won’t work for less than minimum wage, the employer knows he can get his ass in a lot of trouble that way, but not with illegals. So who is going to employ them and at what wage?
I want to know if they have to provide any proof of who they actually are or what they actually made before we start handing out large tax refunds and social security benefits to all of them. Are we just going to take their word for it?
I want to know what it means to say they will have to “go to the back of the line†when they are already here. If you’re already here and making money, seems to me the smuck in Mexico trying to do it the right way isn’t ahead of you!
I also want to know why anybody thinks this is going to work when we did this once before and they kept coming illegally and spit in our face! We still have a guest worker program called H2B that doesn’t get enough applications every year. It’s wide open and there’s no limit to it. BUT, to get into it, you have to be legally documented, pay taxes and play by the rules. This is why they don’t like it.
I want to know if they have to be arrested six times before they get charged with anything. Evidently the US Attorney in Texas doesn’t think so! BTW, how many times does it take for an American to get prosecuted? One? Why the difference?
http://www.centredaily.com/128/story/48813.html
thre will aways be people whose knee jerk reaction will be that it sucks. That is just the way it is. And they will treat anyone who disagrees with them like traitors or fools and they will never give you any real details on an alternative. They will bitch endlessly about the flaws in the system…but they will not tell you how they would fix things. They will just come up with some oversimplified “enfored the laws” statement and defy you to defy them.
When asked what exactly it would take to accmplish that in terms of resources or man power, or if it is even possible to to it…they will just wave you off. If you ask them the impact on the economy of removing all the workers etc they will just wave you off.
Fine, sooner or later people will get tired of the demogaguery and come up with a plan. There will plenty wrong with it, there always is, but as far as most people are concerned it beats the endless arguing which accomplishes nothing. And the fact that the hardliners would rather see nothing done, than give an inch makes me wonder what are they more interested in, dealing with the problem or bullying the rest of us?
I think this attitude, this refusal to even discuss alternatives is one of the things that hurt Republicans in the last election. I know they will say it was the war…but I don’t think it was that simple. Just look at who replaced them.
thre will aways be people whose knee jerk reaction will be that it sucks.
And there will be those who think it sucks after fully studying it.
That is just the way it is. And they will treat anyone who disagrees with them like traitors or fools and they will never give you any real details on an alternative.
And there will be those that will never give you any real details on the many questions that have been legititimately asked, as Bikerken did.
They will bitch endlessly about the flaws in the system…but they will not tell you how they would fix things. They will just come up with some oversimplified “enfored the laws†statement and defy you to defy them.
And there will be those that just buy it whole hog without ever understanding why it will or will not work. How is enforcing the laws, oversimplified?, why are you for not enforcing the laws?
When asked what exactly it would take to accmplish that in terms of resources or man power, or if it is even possible to to it…they will just wave you off.
As you do here. Don’t you think it is a legitimate question? What will it take in terms of resources and man power? Is it even possible? Don’t just wave this off.
If you ask them the impact on the economy of removing all the workers etc they will just wave you off.
Then you tell us what is the impact of removing all illegal aliens? Don’t wave this off.
Fine, sooner or later people will get tired of the demogaguery and come up with a plan. There will plenty wrong with it, there always is, but as far as most people are concerned it beats the endless arguing which accomplishes nothing.
So a bad bill is better than demogaguery? Why does America have to settle for a bad bill with plenty wrong with it? Why not get it right?
And the fact that the hardliners would rather see nothing done, than give an inch makes me wonder what are they more interested in, dealing with the problem or bullying the rest of us?
And the fact that the hardliners on ‘ not enforcing the laws’ would rather see a bad bill done than no bill makes me wonder what they are more interested in and why?
Why not do it right?
I think this attitude, this refusal to even discuss alternatives is one of the things that hurt Republicans in the last election.
I actually think it is a case of ‘the Democrats outsmarted the Republicans’. They didn’t have and still don’t have any plan other than to make Republicans look bad to turn Independents against them. worked pretty well, I would say.
I know they will say it was the war…but I don’t think it was that simple. Just look at who replaced them.
I think it was just that simple. The ones that replaced them are in disarray and haven’t passed one single law. Not one.
This is the kind of story that should concern everyone on the illegal alien situation.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,261541,00.html
More at the link.
FE,
It is a done deal. The Reps stayed home and Bush will solve the problem. And – no, the sky will not fall when it passes.
It’s not gonna pass, the same leaders that were in congress when it failed before are still there and the new Dems that are there are the ones that got elected to replace the Repubs that were weak on dealing with illegal aliens.
It is over 700 pages and does not include one single item to improve border security. Polls indicate 67% of Americans support better border security.
Where can we see the full 700 pages?
Has it actually even been written or submitted, or is it still just in the talking a rumor stage?
.
FE,
We will know soon enough. If it passes out of committee it will pass and Bush will sign it and America will survive.
I think it says something significant that so many people, some on this blog, are supporting this bill and it is 700 pages of THEY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT! How the hell can you back something sight unseen? Knowing congresses habit of hiding huge policy changes that they know the public would just have a fit over in hugh war and peace novels like this, don’t you even want to know what the details are before you blindly endorse it?
The fact that someone would be for something that they don’t even know what it is should tell you a heck of a lot.
Another retired Navy spook friend of mine e-mailed me this link yesterday:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4094926727128068265
It puts the immigration problem (both legal and illegal) in a perspective that I had not seen before.
So American citizens who are here legally will have to pick up the bills for tens of millions of “guest workers” who will work for low wages and compete with them for jobs? And you think this is a good idea? Sounds like country club Republicanism to me. Cheap labor is more important than the livlihoods of American citizens.
this is the key to passage
“The Gutierrez-Flake bill, however, also takes some new innovative steps to attract conservatives. About half the bill is taken up by border security measures; the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security must certify that border- and interior-enforcement efforts have occurred before the guest-worker program can begin.”
the devil is in these details. all past attempts over the last 40 years have included fences that never got built. they build a fence first and this bill will sail through congress and the american people will embrace it.
They are N E V E R going to build the fence. They will however, continue to talk about it for many years to come.
They are not gonna build a fence, and no additional border security will be included or enforced. It appears to be an open (or no) border deal. But I’m looking forward to the details so we can all be chagrined.
.
If the repubics (one way or another- congress, senate or president) pass this bill, they will be in minority for 25 years at least.
Not that the demsheviks are better, but with them we know at least that they are working against our country, while the repubics ….
Well, you know what I am talking about.
Spook, that was an excellent video. Everyone signing off on the new illegal alien bill should be required to sign off on having seen it and that they think that is the way America should go.
FE, I agree.
Much has been made by the “no fence” crowd that it would only solve half the problem while not addressing those who come legally and overstay their visas. In the overall scheme of Federal Government spending, the proposed fence is not expensive, and, if it solves half the problem, that is a pretty cheap “half-fix” and certainly better than “no fix”. I don’t understand the mentality that, on one hand, promotes compromise while, OTH, says that no loaf is better than half a loaf. But I agree, they’ll be building snow men in Cuba before any part of it gets built.
I have a friend I call English Tony, he’s from London. He has travelled extensively and lived with muslims in Afghanistan for a few years. Ten years ago, when I told him London was going to be overrun by muslims and he would rue the day, he called me every kind of racist bastard name he could think of. Now that Londonistan is becoming a reality, he is finally admitting that I was right all along and he just didn’t see it. Now the muslims are fighting for sharia law rights in London and the right to impose sharia rules on non-muslim students in schools that have muslim teachers. The last two times he went home to visit family, he came back with tears in his eyes and said that the London he grew up in does’t really exist anymore, it will be a social disaster for years to come. Many other people in Europe are discovering the same thing. You cannot allow another population to just come in and push you out. If you do, you will have to go.
We are in a decisive time here, we are either going to give up on the idea of America being a prosperous First World country and accept that third world status won’t be that bad, or we can make a decision that people who come here respect our laws and our country and learn to become Americans. We cannot accept every poor person in the world just because they want to come here. That is idiotic. If we bring an entire nation of poverty to live within our borders, it will lower the quality of life for every one of us. The middle class will cease to exist as long as we are willing to keep lowering the cost of labor and undercutting our own people. This is madness. I can only suspect that the people who support this garbage are either going to gain financially in the short run off of the cheap labor or they are people from another culture that doesn’t mind the idea of a third world hispanic culture here at all.
Mexicans say they are being discriminated against, yet they refuse to come to this country under the same laws that all other people do.
We cannot accept every poor person in the world just because they want to come here. That is idiotic.
BK, that is one of the main points of the video I linked to above. If you haven’t checked it out, do so.
I wanted to watch that but I’m at work. I’m gonna wait till I get home.