May 30 2007
Bush’s Sister Soldjah Moment On Immigration
Those on the far right of the immigration issue have lived on exaggeration and wild, unsubstantiated claims. The readers on this site who twist the need for a manageable and enforceable guest worker program into cries of amnesty and voting rights for immigrants are the classic example of a lack of any good argument being covered up by hysterics. The country is fed up with the status quo and wants the immigrants to come forward, be checked and identified and given tamper proof IDs so we can enforce the laws, boot the criminals and hold employers accountable for not checking for those pesky tamper proof IDs. And the folks barring the gate to these needed changes (especially the booting of criminal immigrants) are the same folks who flaunt stories of violent crimes by immigrants (legal and otherwise) as the reason we cannot make the changes to get rid of the bad apples.
President Bush knows this hyperventilating minority has become incoherent due to their frustration and anger at being marginalized. The more hype they pile on the already piled up rhetoric further alienates the immigration hard liners from the broader group of Americans who, by 2-1 or higher, back the guest worker program as a pragmatic (if not perfect) solution. The best we will see in a decade if it fails again. So it is no surprise Bush (and many of us) are going through a Sister Soldjah moment to distance ourselves from the useless and anti-productive exaggerations coming from the hard liners in order to win some sanity and progress – finally – on this issue:
“If you want to scare the American people, what you say is the bill’s an amnesty bill,†Mr. Bush said at a training center for customs protection agents and other federal agents here in southeastern Georgia. “That’s empty political rhetoric trying to frighten our citizens.â€
It was some of Mr. Bush’s toughest language as he started an intensified effort to build support for the compromise bill in the Senate.
Tough but accurate. The hardliners find any option for illegals to pay restitution and get legal work status “amnesty”. They have taken a legitimate concern about giving illegal immigrants immediate citizenship and totally pollluted it with wild fantasies and over the top exaggerations. And to what end? To kill off change. It is long past time we let the immigration-hypochondriacs stew on some real changes – since they fear change over everything else. They wring their hands whether we do something or not. So let’s do something!
Their concerns are based primarily on science fiction built upon wild extrapolations while assuming no good whatsoever can come of any solution. Basically they are the purveyors of the pathological example – which has as much chance of coming true as man made Global Warming. The interesting thing has been the more they post and voice their wild claims the less credible I (and many others I suspect) find them, and the easier it is to move past them and build new alliances. Like most doomed movements, sometimes the best path to victory is to let them speak and share their unique views. They are their own worst enemy – we simply just need to point out the wild exaggerations and unserious claims. Not to mention the fact what they say they want addressed cannot be addressed because they are blocking progress. Want immigrant criminals to get booted? Pass the Bill. Otherwise we are stuck right were we are now – unable to enforce the laws because current laws don’t work the way people think they do.
Much of the Guest Worker program will work and will produce results. Many peolpe will be targeted for deportation based on their criminal past. Those that stay know they must behave and know they are not hidden from the system since they had to have been processed to stay. But these needed changes are irrelevant to the hardliners. In their realities their is no hope no matter what we do. Which is why it is time to set them aside and get something accomplished.
Cato
On principle, I’m not opposed to some sort of path to legalization for a substantial portion of the current illegal alien population.
on principle, I don’t think anyone is opposed to a path for legalization for any or all of our illegal alien population. It already exists. It’s called applying for naturalization as a citizen and those immigration laws have been around a long time. They should get a copy of the laws and apply just as anyone in the whole wide world is eligible to do. A special amnesty and shortcut to front of line? no way..
AJ,
What I want is ACTION on securing the border BEFORE we make any decision on who we’re going to let stay and who not. Until the borders are secure, I would not alter the status quo concerning legalization. First things first!
Cato, you are clearly a hardliner(another word for those that want laws enforced)
Cato,
What you are saying is my way or nothing. Sorry, but the rest of us want the immigrants checked, the criminals booted ASAP, their ID cards made so we can crack down on employers. There is no reason to delay these – none. So as long as you hold up dealing with the criminal immigrants (legal and illegal) here now you are part of the problem. If your plan is to leave these folks be until your fantasy barrier is built not interested. Dealing with the criminals is much more important than shoring up the border (beyond what is being implemented already).
If you make all illegal immigrants “legal”, without first securing the border, you create an incentive for more people to attempt to sneak into the country illegally.
That is why it is important to FIRST secure the border. Otherwise you actually do more harm than good. Illegal immigration will increase. Is that really what anyone wants?
And claiming that we have to something rather than nothing is absurd. What if that something actually makes the illegal immigration worse? Do we still need to do that? Wouldn’t that be like throwing gasoline on a burning car, because you had to do something. Even if that something actually makes the root problem worse.
I would rather do nothing at all, than to do something that makes the problem worse.
I think we should adopt the advice from the Hippocratic writing Epidemics – The physician must be able to tell the antecedents, know the present, and foretell the future – must mediate these things, and have two special objects in view with regard to disease, namely, to do good or to do no harm.
Let’s not make the problem worse by creating even more incentive to come here, before we secure our borders. That only makes the problem worse.
Apache,
thanks for being honest. You are for the status quo because change frightens you. The funny thing about the hypocratic oath is the skill of the person it is being applies to. For a surgeon it means no experimentation. For a layman it means no surgery (since a layman has not idea how to do surgery).
Your paranoia means you would live with criminal immigrants (documented and undocumented) rampaging in our neighborhoods without any chance of deportation anytime soon. Let’s just say most of us are not ready to make that kind of trade off.
but the rest of us want the immigrants checked, the criminals booted ASAP, their ID cards made so we can crack down on employers.
Funny thing, the 600,000 that were ordered deported last year are still here and we can’t find them, and they are ON the record. It’s not they’re some of these in the shadows. We already have a record on them, they’ve been ordered deported and what did they do? Change their name. Another funny thing, these get IMMEDIATE legalization in the new bill, all deportment proceeding stop because they are now legal.
I’m hysterical, I’m a hardliner and NOBODY can tell me where I’m wrong. The fact that there IS no answer speaks very loudly.
We can’t find them to deport them so our answer is, make ’em legal.
If we make everybody here and everybody that wants to come here, legal, why do we need a border or border patrol?
You are for the status quo because change frightens you.
I don’t know how you took what I posted and twisted it into that. That’s amazing, AJ.
What I said is I don’t want to make the problem worse. I thought I was pretty clear. Creating even more incentive to enter the country illegally, prior to securing the border will make the problem even worse than it already is.
I’m all in favor of change. And change is inevitable, even if I were opposed to it. Nothing remains the same.
I’m in favor of change that makes things better. I am opposed to change that makes things worse.
This bill may give law enforcement more tools to apprehend and deport illegals, but that won’t matter much if while they are arresting 1,000 criminal illegals, 5,000 more criminal illegals and/or terrorists sneak across the border.
This bill is the wrong kind of change.
Your paranoia means you would live with criminal immigrants (documented and undocumented) rampaging in our neighborhoods without any chance of deportation anytime soon.
What does the bill say? Draft bill page 268 lines 8-42
(h) Treatment of Applicants-
9
(1) IN GENERAL- An alien who files an application for Z
nonimmigrant status shall, upon submission of any
evidence required under paragraphs (f) and (g) and after
the Secretary has conducted appropriate background
checks, to include name and fingerprint checks, that have
not by the end of the next business day produced
information rendering the applicant ineligible –
(A) be granted probationary benefits in the form of
employment authorization pending final adjudication
of the alien’s application;
(B) may in the SecretaryÂ’s discretion receive
advance permission to re-enter the United States
pursuant to existing regulations governing advance
parole;
(C) may not be detained for immigration purposes,
determined inadmissible or deportable, or removed
pending final adjudication of the alien’s application,
unless the alien is determined to be ineligible for Z
nonimmigrant status; and
(D) may not be considered an unauthorized alien (as
defined in section 274A(h)(3) of the Immigration and
Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1324a(h)(3))) unless
employment authorization under subparagraph (A) is
denied.
(2) Timing of Probationary Benefits.—No probationary
benefits shall be issued to an alien until the alien has
passed all appropriate background checks orthe end of the
next business day, whichever is sooner.
Now, to me this says, any and all illegals in this country can apply and can not be deported, must be allowed to work, can not even be detained beginning at the end of 24 hours after they apply.
So when does this chance of deportation anytime soon kick in? After any and all legal process, including all appeals and all while represented by US taxpayer provided attorneys.
I don’t expect an answer, there isn’t one.
AJ, could you please explain to me how an illegal who has been here for one year, is age 61, and will be given credit toward Social Security, being fully vested after only 4 quarters (when Americans have to be fully vested for 40 quarters) will contribute to the system and not be a drain? After one year here, he and his over age spouse will be eligible for Social Security benefits, if only the minimum amount.
Here are questions for you (although I don’t expect you to answer as you never do): if all illegals, with the sign of the pen, are given “probationary” Z-visas who is going to take them away once they are granted? And when the time on those “probationary” vises expire, who is going to find those people, now back in the shadows and working under the table? ICE? IRS? Border Patrol? And since M-S 13 gang members will be given “probationary” Z visa just because they have no criminal history in the U.S. ( the government only having 24 hours to do a background check, often from foreign nations), are you satisfied that these gang members will become good citizens because they are now out of the shadows? Do you think it is right that there will be no penalty for identy theft like MY Social Security number or yours? And that the illegal will be given credit for the Social Security he/she paid in using a stolen number?
Enforcement:
I never said we did not need to secure the border. Just because I don’t agree with some of the hysterical stuff I am hearing from the hardliners does not mean I do not want to secure the border. I really hate it when people lie about me.
The truth is the hardliners have already decided that nothing will change no matter what, so what difference does it make what kind of bill gets passed, they are like Mikey, they hate everything.
I do support more and better border security and a guest worker program and some kind of legalization for some of the other people here. I want dangerous people deported. I don’t want people from other countries to continue to take advantage of our welfare system and I want to have a better idea of who is here and where they are.
To certain people on the right, that makes me and anyone else who disagrees with them either a traitor or someone who does not support border security.
Sometimes I wonder if they just want to keep the issue alive forever so that they can demagogue it for their own political purposes.
I left the left because of narrow minded people who assumed that any difference of opinion with them was treason and who seemed to think that there was only way to do something, their way. I don’t have to tolerate it on this side of the aisle either.
“Cato,
What you are saying is my way or nothing. While the rest of us want……..”
AJ, the REST of us? We, who believe in the rule of law, who want immigration but want those who desire to come to our nation to do it legally, who want punishment for those who violated our laws, each and every day they spend here with being legally admitted, are the REST. But you chose to ignore our questions or comment on the bill itself. You have a few supporters; Terrye, Crosspatch and Hillary Clinton who has just hired a LaRAZA big wig to be her “human rights” coordinator.
I stated that all politics are personal. It is obvious you have a personal stake in this immigration bill. Because there is no way you could support the language of this bill if you did not. But you will not come clean and say, “this is why I want this bill”. You spin it like the Dhimmicrats spin their “new direction” for the war. At least you could be honest with your readers and state why you think that accepting a really bad bill is better than the status quo and you could be honest in your dog in this hunt.
This bill will kill the Republican party for generations. I am starting to think that is what you want.
Terrye, you may have left the left (why am I not surprised that you were a left winger?) but you have never given up your leftist ideals. That is the one clear thing about you.
Now, care to take a try at answering the questions I posed to AJ that he refuses to answer? Or do you not have the cajones, either?
The old “secure the borders, then we’ll talk” argument amazes me. The U.S./Mexico border is 1500 miles long. Just how quickly do people think this border can be secured (and how many more illegals will slip over the border before it is secured)? It’d take decades to put up a physical wall, and frankly I’m dubious about the efficacy of a “virtual” one.
To the degree that people are saying that the border has to be secured before anything else can be done, I have to say I agree with AJ that such people are in effect (if not in intent) promoting the status quo.
No one has tried to secure the border – it would be easy. All you have to do is stop giving them freebies and don’t employ them. Make it hard for them and they will go home.
AND I really don’t know why we don’t allow more Mexicans in legally every year. Forgot, it’s our government at work……
R05,
Answer: the suppositions underpinning your question are myths laid out to scare people. We call that making a strawman argument – where you create a made up example so simple (and unrealistic) you can knock it down. When you want to deal in reality let me know.
How ironic it is to be accused of being a racist becuase you are against a program that was partially crafted by a group that calls itself La Raza! (the race)
Here’s a little gem from Rassmussen,
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/just_16_believe_senate_bill_will_reduce_illegal_immigration
AJ, I have been watching and listening to blogs, radio, tv, co-workers and I see about one person in ten that like this bill. That NYT poll you keep citing was bogus as all hell. It didn’t even mention this bill. Rassmussen goes right at this bill and the people against it are both right and left, Oh, excuse me, HARD left. We already know that there is no such thing as the right, they are the Hard Right.
The only hysterical emotional persons in this debate are you and the pro bill crew. I have seen many people posts actual parts of the bill here and ask you to defend it and your response is, (sound of crickets chirping). Instead you use words like fear and hysterics to paint your opposition with irrationality, while it is you who are being totally irrational. You do nothing but spit venom at anyone who is a conservative or doesn’t agree with you, but you will not discuss things in an intelligent adult manner. Facts mean nothing to you, you fend off real well thought out intelligent questions with accusations that the premise is exagerated and a myth and follow that up with stupid expressions like checkmate or LOL when it just makes you look more unhinged. You say to FE that his examples are made up and unrealistic and that he is not dealing in reality. Hey, take a look in the mirror pal.