Jun 01 2007
Immigration Hypochondriacs Killing GOP
In a follow up to my post about how Noonan, and the others tyrannical right (and I mean that because if we other conservatives want something in an immigration Bill the far right does what it can so no one get’s anything but what they themselves want), we now have the far right killing off the party by withholding donations – which does nothing but help liberals get elected.
You heard yesterday that the RNC canned its in-house phone bank employees, partly due to an estimated 40% drop in small donations. Whoever they outsourced the job to is not gonna get those numbers back up.
I happened to be at my friend Emily Dunham’s house when the RNC called to see “at what level she was comfortable renewing her contribution.” It went a little something like this.
Ring, Ring
Emily: “Hello?’
Caller: “Hi, ma’am, this is the Republican National Committee calling.”
Emily (aside to me, with a big grin on her face): “It’s the RNC.”
Caller: “We’re just calling to see at what level you’d be comfortable renewing your contribution. Would $75 be all right?”
Emily: “How about nothing?”
Caller: “Oh, why’s that?”
Emily: “I’m not real happy with the immigration bill.”
We all KNOW liberals want to surrender to al Qaeda as soon as possible and dismantle the NSA surveillance program which monitors calls by known terrorists OUTSIDE this country to people inside the country. We all know this. And yet the tyrannical right is deliberately undermining our efforts in a hissy fit of paranoia at any progress whatsoever on immigration.
As I pointed out before the security enhancements, the ability to deport any immigrant (legal or illegal) for committing a crime (not for being illegal which takes time and too much process) and the ability to provide a tamper proof ID which employers must verify are ALL going to be defeated if the far right get has its way. I doubt it will. But when I said the far right better NOT blackmail this country with our security over this issue I was serious. Either lose gracefully or forget any coalitions in the future – just leave the party. Please. The far right is into punishing everyone who disagrees with them. Immigrant workers, conservatives, everyone. Take your marbles and go home.
52 Responses to “Immigration Hypochondriacs Killing GOP”
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AJ
I don’t think it is just the folks you call the “far right” or the “tyrannical right” that find fault with this bill. From the polling I’m seeing in the last 48 hours – left and right are falling away – and not the fringes of each ideology as you implied.
Most people are not opposed to the legalization they want to see the border security first. They want to see the fence, the barriers and the additional border agents and then they will agree to the legalization. And we already have a guest worker program – the congress can enhance the current program (already have 5 different levels of visas) to increase guest workers if that is what we need.
If everyone who disagrees with this bill were to leave the party – not sure how much of a party would be left.
AJ, you are one of the few blogs I read regularly, but I just have to skip over your immigration posts. I am for greatly expanding legal immigration. I can’t understand ANYONE who favors our current system of massive illegal immigration, except for La Raza racists who want to turn the southwest into Azatlan. An amnesty bill, without closing the border to illegal immigration, will cause an even greater flood of illegal immigration. To be in favor of this garbage is to not even value the rule of law!
Yes it is nonsensical to abandon the field to a Democrat alternative that is even MORE pro-illegal-immigration, but you have no credibility on the underlying issue.
It seems perfectly rational to me, AJ, to withhold contributions to the Party if you don’t like the legislation the Party is pushing.
You’re right that the immigration issue is ripping the Republican Party asunder, but I think you’re wrong on the substance and I am certain you’re wrong on your “go along or go to hell” attitude.
I’ve been a Republican (but not traditional or social conservtive, I’m basically a classical liberal strong on defense) since I started going door-to-door for Ike in 1956. I worked for Goldwater and for Nixon in 1960, 1962, 1968 and 1972 and for Reagan and the rest.
I’m depressed about the future of the Party. It’s bleaker than it was after Watergate and Dick Nixon’s resignation and it’s bleaker than it was after Barry Goldwater’s trouncing by LBJ.
I think there is a significant chance that the Republican Party will go the way of the Whigs, who split over slavery. And, I don’t think that bringing forward a deeply flawed immigration bill represented any kind of reasonable way to deal with the situation the party found itself in after last November.
Nor is the name-calling on both sides of the debate within the Party and the right more generally. The bill is defensible on pragmatic grounds, but a reasonable man or woman could as easily conclude that the compromises contained in the bill are worse than the status quo and prefer to focus the nations efforts on enforcing, however piecemeal, existing law.
What troubles me the most is that you will not even acknowledge that reasonable people can differ on the merits of the bill — that most of us have not even read in full (I’ve read parts but not every jot and title) — but insist that it be supported or we go to hell.
It is perfectly rational to be extremely concerned, based on the historical record since 1965, and especially since 1986, that the enforcement provisions to which you always point will be simply ignored or not funded.
There are many many out here who feel as AJ does. I was disgusted at the way the Party whiners (Noonan, Kristol, et al) destroyed Harriet Miers, Dubai Ports and now immigration reform. They are worse than the loony moonbats and far more destructive. President Bush does not recognize their God complex so they sit in wait to destroy him. The damage they do and have done has cost us the 2006 election. It isn’t Bush it is the self-proclaimed elitist right who are cut from the same cloth as John Kerry and Al Gore.
There are only two things we should be concentrating on as far as illegal aliens are concerned. We should do everything we can to tighten the borders and keep out the illegals and the terrorists and we need a very sophisticated database with instant access for employers and heavy employer sanctions (even jail time) for those who do not use the database to weed out the illegals. And we need to do away with every law that says we need to provide bilingual voter ballots, instructions, driver’s license exams, etc, etc. Just as it is illegal to state age in a help wanted ad, it should be illegal to require a potential employee be bilingual. More Americans get eliminated from good jobs because of this bilingual requirement than they do because of the number of illegals vying for American jobs. Get that part done and then we can start to concentrate on what to do with those here illegally who are hard working and not violating the law in any other way besides the fact that they are here. First things first. GWB understands this but this isn’t about immigration, this is about power and the whiny far right epitomized by Noonan and her ilk have been out of power and now they see it in THEIR INTEREST to demonize GWB. They are the “country-club” Republicans and are every bit as out of touch as the “limousine liberals.” If Ronald Reagan were alive and could speak today, he would be appalled at what this group says and does in his name.
The Republican Party of the Reagan years was powerful because it actively brought into the party those of us who didn’t drop out of some ivory tower. We are the military families, the hard working families mostly living from paycheck to paycheck but believe in individuality and independence and still believe in the American Dream. We are those who love NASCAR and football and 4th of July celebrations. We love to feel good about our country. We aren’t stupid, even if we don’t have a dozen titles or degrees behind our names. We hold the mid-level jobs which mostly we worked our way into after starting at the bottom or at minimum wage. If we were lucky enough to attend college, we worked our way thru starting in a community college. We don’t see ourselves as entitled to anything we haven’t worked hard to attain.
We don’t join forces with the enemy propagandists and denigrate or try to destroy our President, even when that guy was Clinton, who we couldn’t stand, because we understand that in doing so we weaken America.
If I remember correctly Noonan said that the Republicans should stay home in 2006 and let the Democrats win. How is that working out for everyone?
People should remember that Bush never lied about his stance on immigration. It is the same today as it was when his approval rating was 70%. And back in the olden days of 2000 and 2004 no one seemed to feel the need to go crazy over this issue. So maybe these folks should be blaming themselves.
I think the far right will kill the bill. They will not be capable of coming up with a viable alternative however, so they will hand the issues to the Democrats who will beat them over the head with it.
This is a compromise, and compromises by their nature mean that someone has to give something up, and we are dealing here with people who refuse to do that. Remember Buchanan? The last time he ran he got 1% of the vote.
I would prefer to see this bill pass with some amendments. I know people are worried that the funding won’t be there or that the enforcement will not come first, but if the bill is passed they can and should hold lawmakers accountable to see that these concerns are dealt with, but just throwing the whole thing away because you are afraid it won’t be perfect means that nothing will ever get done. And so far the people doing the most yelling have not come up with anything better. They just attack what is there and make impossible demands. There is a certain political reality we have to deal with here, it is not as if we can just make a list of demands and get what we want. Never works that way in politics.
I was reading the other day that 1.5 million Asians are here illegally. These people did not walk here. Just building a wall will not stop that kind of illegal immigration, we will have to be able to keep better track of people who are here. Otherwise all those folks you think you are stopping by building a wall, will just find another way into the country. After all millions already have. The wall needs to be part of an overall approach, not the entire strategy.
But I have begun to think that there are people on the right who are as loony as any on the left. I have heard the conspiracy theories, the racial slurs, the attacks on the integrity of anyone who disagrees with them. Do I think that everyone who opposes comprehensive immigration is a racist? No, I don’t. But I have heard comments from people that make me wonder just who some of these folks are.
So while the majority of people will support the different facets of the bill, such as a guest worker program and legal status for some of the people living here and more border security… they might reject this bill just to shut up the debate. It is depressing and distressing and a lot of people just want it to stop. And then of course the people will decide that this is an issue Republicans are not capable of dealing with like rational people and that could be very bad for the next election.
Squiggler wrote: There are only two things we should be concentrating on as far as illegal aliens are concerned. We should do everything we can to tighten the borders and keep out the illegals and the terrorists and we need a very sophisticated database with instant access for employers and heavy employer sanctions (even jail time) for those who do not use the database to weed out the illegals. And we need to do away with every law that says we need to provide bilingual voter ballots, instructions, driver’s license exams, etc, etc.
If that were all the bill did, I’d support it.
Terrye wrote: I would prefer to see this bill pass with some amendments.
I suppose with appropriate amendments I could support the bill, too.
HOWEVER, the much more important question is, if the bill cannot be amended, do you support it AS IS? That’s AJ’s litmus test. Even after 50 years of active participation in the Republican Party, I just can’t.
Squiggler:
Yes, I know. My grandparents were migrant workers during the Dust Bowl after they lost their farm. They actually worked those fields along side migrant workers from Mexico back in the dirty 30’s. Today people say that if we just pay Americans enough they will work the fields again. Puhleaze, I bet none of the people who are in a panic over Mexican laborers picking lettuce ever had to do anything resembling that kind of work. My family are and were soldiers, farmers, carpenters, nurses, school teachers, roughnecks…the sort of people who work for a living.
What do you think the chances are today that if a natural disaster like the Dust Bowl hit a state Americans would go out and work as field hands to feed their families? Zip I would say. And we can be sure that the Peggy Noonans would not be among them.
Terry, please provide us with some of the context of Bush speeches when he was campaigning for president in 2000 that explained his stand on illegal immigration or even immigration as a whole. I think you will find it quite hard to do that. He didn’t lie about his stand, he never talked about it.
Or better yet, show us where he discussed immigration during his campaign against Ann Richards.
Yes, the Chinese are coming across our southern borders. Why don’t you check before you say something so totally off base. Two months ago, a friend with a ranch in Kennedy County found 23 illegal Chinese on his ranch. He called ICE and they were picked up.
And of course, we are forced to tolerate your “I have heard conspiracy theories, racist slurs” yada yada yada. BY WHOM? Or is that just more of your drive-by slander to win brownie points for you who cannot understand that this bill is not a “compromise” , IT IS AMNESTY FOR LAW BREAKERS WHO WITH THE FIRST SWIPE OF THE PEN WILL BE LEGAL RESIDENTS, GANG MEMBERS INCLUDED.
Bury your head in the sand along with AJ, if you will. Just promise me you will pick up my tax tab for the services they will be entitled to once they are legal and all those awaiting deportation are released.
So tell us, Terrye, how old is this grandmother of yours that had a Latino cutting her grass? And gee, if she worked the fields in the 30’s she would have to be at least 87 years old. So perhaps instead of letting her hire an illegal, you could have gotten off your duff and cut her grass for her.
Nah….that would require some effort on your part.
aerwals,
Well, maybe you should stop skipping over my posts and understanding my positions better. The current bill does two things. it takes the 12-20 million here now and gives them legal status IF they did not commit any crime, IF they pay back taxes and a fine. Otherwise they are deported. That will allow us to deport the criminals and deal with the hard workers here. Then, they can chose a path to citizenship (at the very end of the line) or the temporary guest worker program. Citizenship requires an addition fine to be paid.
Second, the temporary guest worker program limits the number of workers, but more than that it limits their time here. 4-6 years max. Then they must leave. That actually will REDUCE the immigrant population over the status quo system which has allowed the population to build up and grow because it is underground and not managed and legal immigrants simply overstay their visas. Also, guest workers are NOT elligible for US citizenship under the new bill.
Now where in the hell did anyone say they were for massive immigration? Oh yeah – you folks who keep us locked into the current status quo. I am not for that and this bill, despite all the twisted fantasies out there, is not for it either.
The law breakers pay a fine and back taxes. Just like many other law breakers of misdemeanors. Or were you not aware illegal immigration is a misdemeanor? Paying a fine is not amnesty – it is punishment. You can repeat your basless claims all day long – but the fact is all your gripes remain in place if this bill fails and it will be the far right that make it happen. The problem future problems and crimes from immigration will all be thanks to the efforts of the far right.
AJ writes, “Either lose gracefully or forget any coalitions in the future – just leave the party.”
First AJ, you are losing, and not gracefully I might add.
Second, are you actually telling people to leave the party that you don’t even belong to? Who are you really AJ?
Well Cato, I said I would prefer that there were some amendments. I did not say that the whole thing was crap or that Bush was a criminal or that anyone who supports it is a dummie or any of the other crap I hear every day out of some of these restrictionists, hardliners whatever you wanna call them.
There are things in the bill I do support and I think it is better than the status quo. And if people feel the way you say then perhaps they should put their time and energy into negotiating changes in the bill to make it better rather than just acting like spoiled brats.
Bikerken,
I am winning gracefully! And I was proposing those who blacklist the GOP should leave so the rest of us can get it back on track – duh! I would join up if the hot heads would leave.
Retire:
She was born Florence Scoggins in Indian Territory, in 1903. She had two children. My mother and my uncle. She married at the age of 19. She had a farm with my grandfather in south central Oklahoma. She died in 1997 at the age of 93. Her yard man went to work for her after her only son died of lung cancer when she was in her 80’s, my grandfather had passed away some time before. She hired the man you refer to her because a neighbor recommended him and she was too frail to keep up the work herself. My mother could not help her because she was blind due to a degenerative and genetic eye condition.
Anything else you want to know? Done calling me a liar?
You see this is the point. I vote for the same party you do, but because I don’t agree with your stance on this one issue, you can not even be respectful with me.
Bikerken:
Republicans make up a minority in this country. The only way they can win elections is by appealing to Independents and crossovers. And right now it seems to me that Republicans are doing a pretty good job of screwing themselves up without worrying who AJ is.
Terrye,
Your answer begs the key question: if your choice were the bill AS IS or no bill, which would way would you go.
I agree there are good things in the bill, as well as things I think are incredibly bad. That doesn’t answer the question of what to do, however.
I negotiate deals for a living as an M&A lawyer. One of the most important things to know, before you get into a negotiation, is what your bottom line is. What your best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA) is. In this case, I think a reasonable person could come down for or against the bill as is.
But, it is incredibly important, before you start negotiating with the other side, to know how far you’re prepared to go. Otherwise, you risk succumbing to the momentum of the negotiation to reach some agreement, as if it is always better to do the deal than not to. That’s how bad deals get done by smart people: they just don’t want to admit that the alternatives to doing the deal are better than doing it on the terms offered.
That’s also a point I think AJ misses: compromise is only viable if the outcome is acceptable. Not all compromises are acceptable. The ones that are acceptable are those that are better than the alternative of no deal. However, if one believes the compromise is worse than the status quo ante, given the alternatives, one should rationally oppose a deal.
I’m certainly prepared to consider supporting the bill with enough amendments, but my bottom line is that it’s not acceptable as is. What’s yours?
And retire:
I knew Bush was a supporter of a guest worker program and I think the point you are missing is if it was all that damn important, why weren’t people like Noonan asking the questions then? I have no intention of wasting my time looking for links. If you want to find links, go google it yourself.
I think Thompson will run as the antiimmigration candidate, but ten years ago he was cutting deals with Diane Feinstein and supporting increasing the numbers of foreign workers. Look it up. Now he will recreate himself and run as someone else. To please the base, kind of like a Democrat running on Kyoto knowing full well the Senate will kill the deal and save his ass.
But Bush’s position has been consistent and the fact remains that the man has been president for all these years and all of a sudden people who think this is the most important thing in the whole wide world are getting around to talking about Bush’s immigration policies.
Most of those Asians came here on legal visas and stayed over. Half of the illegals here did not cross that border. It is a big country, there are a lot of ways in. What was that wall the French built? The one that was supposed to keep out the Germans, right up until they went around it.
Terrye, why should I show you any respect? I remember the slam you gave me about rounding up all illegals in Nazi styled cattle cars. And you didn’t answer the question; why did you not cut your grandmother’s lawn yourself?
I live in Texas where illegal immigration abounds. I remodeled a 105 year old home, adding over 1,000 square feet to it and DID NOT HIRE ONE ILLEGAL to do the work. I paid a little more but the people that subcontracted under me were American citizens and the money I paid them stayed in our economy and did not get sent to Mexico or some other third world nation.
Here is a little story for you; a friend just recently bought his great-grandmother’s home which had to be moved. The movers had to take the roof off due to the height. But to save money, my friend found a group of illegals to put a new roof on. They were supposed to be there two weeks ago. They never showed on the day they were to be there and it rained, HARD. Now my friend had to rip out all the sheetrock, still has no roof and his house is full of mold on 90 year old boards (that were under the sheet rock he had to rip out), on the pine window facings and door facings and now he has insurance problems as they have refused to insure the house due to the mold. All this agony just to save a few hundred bucks. Last Friday he called my roofing contractor (an American) who sent a crew over Monday to get the roof on before the rain started again.
So please, while you are mopping up the blood from your bleating heart, realize that I deal with illegals everyday. There is no escaping them. I damn near got arrested when an illegal grabbed his crotch and yelled obsenities at my daughter because I got in his face. I have watched illegals throw a rock through an applicance store window in a small neighboring town because the owner did not speak Spanish. I have watched my school taxes increase because of the number of illegal children in my district. I have watched my sales tax increase to the maximum amount allowed by state law because of the services provided to illegals in my state. Try $3.7 BILLION just last year. Crime and gangs in a small town that never had a murder in it’s entire history until an illegal shot a cousin two years ago. And let’s not forget my stolen SS#, Angel Resendez riding the rails just two blocks from my home, killing three people I casually knew in Weimer, Texas.
You want my sympathy for these hard working people? You are not going to get it. My family has been here since before the white man appeared and the other side migrated from Ireland LEGALLY.
I am all for immigration when it serves the interest of the host nation. This bill serves the interest of the illegal alien.
Are you willing to pick up my tab for the extra taxes that are going to be needed to provide them with social services or not?
Cato:
I would accept it because the status quo is worse and because I don’t think the hardliners are going to get the kind of bill they want through this Congress or any Congress we will see in the near future.
And many of the fears I hear from the right, their distrust of the government not doing its job…will not be something any bill can rise above. That distrust will always be there, even if they get everything they say they want.
And retire one more thing, my Grandmother lived in Oklahoma and I live in Indiana and that made the cutting the grass for her difficult and I said I did not know if the guy was legal or not, it was a decade ago and so far as I know people were sort of oblivious to the whole issue then. That might explain why Newt and his fellow Republicans in Washington did not include border enforcement in their Contract with America. Any more questions? Have I covered everything?
Terrye, only you in the north was oblivious to the problem of illegal immigration a decade ago. We here on the battle line have been screaming about it since the days of Eisenhower. But it was a southwestern problem then and no one was really listening. Now that it affects the entire nation, people are beginning to take notice. Funny how that works, when it is your neighborhood going to shit, you wake up.
Eisenhower took action against the illegals. So did LBJ. But then, there were not one million illegals in Pennslyvania so none of the elites in Washington really cared about the border states.
And remember all the promises we were made? How amnesty for almost 3 million in 1986 was going to fix the problem? Yeah, we here in Texas really bought into that crap. Now, 21 years later we have an additional 9-17 million. It was empty rhetoric then, it’s empty rhetoric now.
At least you are true to your leftist roots. That much I will give you.
Are you going to pay my tax bill?
Terrye,
Let me see if I understand you correctly: are you saying you think the new bill is better, even if it not enforced with any more vigor than current law? Because, that’s how I interpret the combination of support for the bill because you don’t think anything better is possible with a dismissal of our concerns about enforcement. That’s where we part company – if we’re not enforcing existing law and not going to implement the enforcement provisions of the new law, then I’d rather stay where we are and put my energies into enforcement.
Nazi style cattle cars? Oh come on. Time and again I hear people say load em up and ship em out. I am just saying that if we did that it would like the Nazis in those old film clips, imagine how people would react. I never said that you personally want to do that.
Maybe we all need to listen to ourselves from time to time so that we hear what others hear. That goes for myself as well
And the roofing story means what? That all Mexican roofers are late? Those kinds of stories are common among contractors of all kinds. If they had been legal they would probably still have been late because they were obviously unreliable.
See this what I mean, you bring up a Mexican serial killer, what am I supposed to say? BTK, Dahmer, John Wayne Gacey….would you rather be neighbors with them? And I understand the resentment about taxes, I feel a certain resentment when I am out there every day at the age of 55 working and I read somewhere that they have to put up signs offering sign up bonuses for people to work in a fast food restaurant in New Orleans because people won’t work.
I read in the WSJ that immigrants will pay more in social security taxes than they will collect. Is this true? I don’t know, but I know that not all these people are bad. That does not make me a bleeding heart. That is just common sense.
No Cato that is not what I said.
I said that I think the bill is better than nothing and I said that the people who don’t think it will be enforced will not be satisfied with any bill.
As for the laws not being enforced, it is something like Prohibition. It is not just a question of the government not enforcing the laws, it is a question of the people refusing to obey the laws. For instance, people say this is a crime like any other…but if people walked in a restaurant and saw a woman being assaulted most would call the law or try to intercede…but if they see a young hispanic male busing tables they don’t call the law. You can say it would do no good, but the truth is if people had called the law a few million illegals ago it would make a difference. People did not because they do not see this as a crime. You can argue that it is, but when the mayor LA can tell the local law enforcement not to work with INS and he is not run out of office by an outraged citizenry then obviously there is more to this than just some bad illegals preying on Americans. These people are here because a lot of Americans want them here and those Americans are not obeying the laws any more than those illegals are.
So if we make fines larger and throw in some jail time that might help. If we put more men and security on the border that might help. If we have a tamper resistant card that helps track people, that might help, if we drain that swamp of illegals either by deportation or legalization after a payment of a fine that might help as well.
It will not be something that will change overnight, it has gone on too long.
Terrye, your “cattle car” comment was direct at me, personally. No, my roofing story was to show that the sterotype of the hard working immigrant is partially smoke and mirrors.
And since you seem to not be able to grasp the point I made about Angel Resendez, I see no reason to IMPORT criminals when we have our own homegrown criminals.
As to Social Security benefits, it is proven that the lower the wages earned during a life time, the greater the benefits. Some will regain all they have paid into the system in less than four years. So in the long run, having a glut of low wage earners will hasten the demise of the Social Security fund, not prolong it. Are you even aware that although you had to pay into the SS system for 40 quarters (ten years) to be fully vested, the Mexico-U.S. Social Security Totalization Agreement gives Mexican citizens working in the U.S. full benefits after only 4 quarters (one year)? Are you aware this bill absolves all back taxes on illegals? Or that the illegal will receive probationary Z status with the government only having 24 hours for a background check that often is requested from a foreign nation? Try buying a hand gun and only allowing 24 hours for a background check. Can’t be done.
We don’t need “reform”. We need enforcement. Against employers. Against illegals. Against those who violate our laws day after day after day.
End the benefits. They will self deport. Eisenhower proved that.
Retire:
I have relatives living in Oklahoma and Texas today as well as some distant cousins in California.
I was in Oklahoma last week and my brother and I were talking about this. He is pretty tough on this issue himself. He is hoping Thompson gets the nomination. He has gone from left past center and to the right. He thinks that Dora the Explorer is part of some conspiracy to make us learn Spanish. He is also building a new house. I was there when the carpet guys showed up and they were Mexican. I was shocked when he did not throw them off the place, but he wanted that carpet down so he let them do the job.
The unemployment rate in Oklahoma is 3.9% and so they hired these guys, or that is what they said.
I know that is something that has to be dealt with, I am not trying to minimize it. But to some extent the horse it out of the barn. I think the states need to do more as well.
Retire:
Fine, I am sorry if I offended you when I said something about how bad it might be to just round people up and ship them out in cattle cars. Now you go right ahead and call me a liar and ask me why I did not get off my duff and mow my dead Grandmother’s lawn.
And I still do not know what you want me to say about the Mexican serial killer. The man was a psychopath. He should not have been here, criminals are bad. They should be deported or shot or whatever. But you know what? As a general rule homicidal maniac killers are not strong believers in obeying the law and even if you live in a nice home with a security system and a gun under the bed sometimes bad people will still get you. That man had relatives in El Paso and had been picked up and returned to Mexico before, he just did not stay there. So deporting him was not enough.
And killing this bill will not lead to stronger enforcement.
Terrye, damn, I am getting tired of trying to point out to you that we have enough criminals here without importing them. How many do you think we will identify with just 24 hours allowed for a background check?
Yes, Resendez was deported ONCE but he managed, like most illegals, to return at will and even voted in two Houston elections. What makes you think that when 12-20 million more have to be imput into the system, things are going to be any better? Even known gang members will be given “probationary” visas.
The question should be, will this bill make things worse? The answer is yes and so we are better off with the status quo than a bill that will further exacerbate the problem when we have no guarantee that the elites in Washington will ever fund the things necessary to stop the flow of more illegals.
AJ: The problem with the bill is not its guest worker provisions, or its path to legalization. The problem is that it does not enforce the borders. All kinds of things become reasonable once we actually stop the flow of illegal immigration. Nothing is reasonable without enforcing the borders. Can’t we be united in demanding that whatever laws we settle on actually be enforced?
I cannot believe the BS I’m reading here. Do any of you have a clue what GWB proposed and the warning he attached to his 5 POINT PLAN? Terrye does but the rest of you … power, getting your own way, ad hom attacks at anyone who would dare question you who are big shot negotiators or just stupid.
GWB – May 15, 2006:
And then the warning:
I supported this plan then and as one who lives on the border, I still think it the best plan put forward.
The GOP is killing itself. A political party is not a religion which requires members to accept it’s tenets as is. In politics everyone can beleive the way he wants and it is obvious that the majority of the people in this country have had it with kowtowing to foreigners who have sneaked in here to get in on the good life and repay our generosity by getting out in the streets to defile our flag, call us names and demand that we give them more. Apparently the GOP thinks that because the Dhemmicrats are so far out in lala land that we have no choice but to accept what they have to offer. When it comes to a choice of the lesser of two evils I will join the majority of Americans who have already decided that it doesn’t matter if they vote or not because their vote isn’t going to make a difference anyway.
Squiggler, couldn’t agree with you more. I am a Bush conservative and proud of it. This bill as much as I have been able to read, is just right.
Terrye said
I bet none of the people who are in a panic over Mexican laborers picking lettuce ever had to do anything resembling that kind of work
Well lady myself personally 50 years ago almost I worked my father’s dairy farm he was a hired tender for and then on weekends I worked the “black dirt” onion farms of Orange County New York to earn money to buy a bicycle as a kid.
In slow times in the economy before I learned the stock market could make money on ups or downs, I worked the potato fields of North Florida to get me and my family by.
The only stopper was waiting for the right time to dispose of some of the land assets I had purchased as a kid to have the initial capital to start playing the markets.
Terrye
Read back, I have addressed the problem of overstayed visas. Do you suggest that people overstay visas we should not tighten the border?
Good then go live in south LA, California or the lower 9th ward in New Orleans and don’t put locks on your doors.
You will surely live in interesting times.
Squiggler
Like an old wise Chief told me years ago in the Navy, there was no family and bunch of rug rats issued to me in my seabag at boot camp. If someone made the choice to try to raise a family on what the services paid then , quite frankly it was a poor decision from a financial standpoint on their part, no matter how noble their other aims were.
Instead I was stationed for years in Hawaii and invested most of my money and bonuses in condos with some money spent partying with all the tourist ladies for other needs and never left a family behind wondering if the stove went out would we have enough money to fix or replace the stove so my brood could have a hot meal each day.
On the other extreme I have seen sailors spend 100% of their paychecks partying through and entire west pacific deployment and at the end the only thing they had to show for it was a custom cigarette lighter and a tattoo.
Squiggler posted GWB’s 5 points:
* First, the United States must secure its borders.
* Second, to secure our border, we must create a temporary worker program.
Sorry, that is not how borders are secured. They are secured by building an impassable barrier (the equivalent of building another 1500 miles of interstate) across the entire southern border (where almost all the illegal crossings occur), and then being equally thorough in blocking illegal entry by plane and boat.
For a country that built the interstate highway system fifty years ago, this is easily doable.
AJ
They crossed the border or overstayed their visa, thats ILLEGAL
They worked here and didn’t pay taxes, thats ILLEGAL
They got false documents to do the above, thats ILLEGAL
So the bill as formed wipes out MULTIPLE ILLEGALITIES.
And don’t forget this is technically a Senate bill which can’t initiate funding related bills and was partly why GWB did not support the back tax portion that McCaine amendmended back in.
Now opponents of the bill on the house side can “blue slip” the Senate version. Read Captains Quarters on this issue.
Terrye
Simple direct question.
Have you read the draft bill?
Terrye said
Nazi style cattle cars? Oh come on. Time and again I hear people say load em up and ship em out. I am just saying that if we did that it would like the Nazis in those old film clips, imagine how people would react. I never said that you personally want to do that.
Lady please find me one here who has suggested that at all.
Now that we have got beyond that please answer the specific points of the bill that have been addressed by many here in these threads.
Please pick and answer at least one specific question, your choice.
Terrye
I have been raised for most of my life in Florida where for many years there was the saying that will the last citizen leaving Miami please bring the flag with them.
Check the demographics there.
We have gone from Jeb Bush to “Sorry Charlie”. The best we can hope for is that he doesn’t break anything really important in the china shop.
Last weekend we had 3 MS13 related gang murders here and they are not the first.
Terrye said
I read in the WSJ that immigrants will pay more in social security taxes than they will collect. Is this true? I don’t know, but I know that not all these people are bad. That does not make me a bleeding heart. That is just common sense.
Cato addressed that very well but now lets examine another aspect.
Many illegals have paid into social security under false ID and then have left to return home.
At first blush this is great, they supported the system and won’t take anything out.
Sounds good. Until you realize the OTHER impact.
John Doe who had all those statements mailed to him over the years saying that he was going to get x dollars a year retirement check was based on a lie of the inflated income Jose was adding to the pot.
Social security was sending no match letters to Jose’s employers all along and when John Doe retires they will pay him only on his pay and his retirement planning numbers go out the window.
Oh an social security was sending all those “no match” notices to the employers of Jose, but they never ever sent a letter to John Doe saying something like guess what someone is no matching your number and we think you should know that.
Squiggler
The five points are all in the bill, but the problem is they are all OPTIONAL not REQUIRED..
That is the weak point of this bill. Please read it and see for yourself.
Sure if you believe now automagically enforcement will suddenly appear, Holiday Inn will have their books scrubbed to show they are walking the walk, but what about that flea bag hotel Walild from Pakistan in running over on the poor side of town.
If anyone believes this bill will stop under the table workers you really need to put down those adult beverages and read the bill.
MerlinOS, I lived in Miami almost 4 years (C.G.). I am sorry to hear about that gang. Not good. Where were the murders, if I may ask?
AJ
The current bill does two things. it takes the 12-20 million here now and gives them legal status IF they did not commit any crime, IF they pay back taxes and a fine. Otherwise they are deported.That will allow us to deport the criminals and deal with the hard workers here.
Not true. Even MS 13 members get legal status
In fact, this bill takes deportation off the table. This fact has been quoted verbatim from the bill many times.
but here it is again:
(C) May not be detained for immigration purposes, be determined inadmissable or deportable, or removed pending final adjudication, etc
Terrye
There are things in the bill I do support and I think it is better than the status quo.
For example?
And yet the tyrannical right is deliberately undermining our efforts in a hissy fit of paranoia at any progress whatsoever on immigration.
Odd I thought it was the Republican elite who are intent on throwing away control of the Senate and House as well as the Whitehouse. After all if a good portion of your base if not the majority are literally screaming at you to slow the heck down its not a good idea to call them bigots, racists, unpatriotic and the rest of that nonsense. After all the Republican party is supposed to reflect us…not us them.
At the very basement level it is a terrible idea to codify lawbreaking as a legitimate way to get ahead. If you don’t understand why AJ then I recommend you read Bill Whittle’s latest piece. Right and Wrong and how we treat those who choose to ignore right and wrong are exactly what make this country what it is.
President Bush does not understand right and wrong…he does not understand that laws matter and that they need to be followed. He needs to read Bill Whittle’s piece as well but truthfully I don’t think he has the ability to understand.
A few notes
“I guess for the umpteenth time we have to remind the immigration hypochondriacs that the 9-11 attackers WERE HERE LEGALLY!!!”
Wrong – Five of the 19 were illegal aliens, including the ringleader Mohammed Atta. Enforcing out immigration laws would have probably stopped 9-11. However, the deeper point is that all 19 were ineligible for visas to come to the United States under existing law. Why did they get visa? Because Bush will not enforce our immigration laws under any circumstances.
“The immigration issue has created a fissure because the far right, who have a lot of what they want in the Bush bill”
Wrong – Rasmussen polling has show that the vast majority of Americans oppose the Senate bill, not just the far right. Why? Because the demand border security and they believe that this bill won’t provide it.
Wrong – There is virtually nothing of substance in this bill for the large majority of Americans who want real immigration reform. “Boob bait for bubba” is what the supposed reforms amount to. But don’t worry, the Amnesty is instant and brutally real.
“This bill finally makes deportation a punishment for committing violent crimes, including DUI’s. Right now you cannot deport someone for the commission of a violent crime. You can only deport them for being here illegally.”
Wrong – Legal aliens have been deportable for serious crimes for decades. Illegal aliens have always been deportable. You know nothing about immigration law.
“In fact, the hypochondriacs would let the status quo remain, with criminal immigrants staying in country, because they want more punishment on those workers who do not have a criminal background.”
Wrong – Criminal immigrants do stay in this country in vast numbers because Bush and friends refuse to enforce out existing laws. Check out the facts. We already have the laws to deport these people. They are ignored.
“Right now we cannot hold employers accountable to any real level because there is no repository to check if a worker is a valid immigrant worker.”
Wrong – We already have a mechanism for detecting the use of fraudulent employment documents. It is called the Social Security “no match” system. However, Bush allows corporations to massively cheat. Some companies have a 1000 workers using the same SSN. Others are allowed to submit SSNs with all zeros. How exactly is the Amnesty bill going to change that?
“And the best aspect of all is the guest worker program – where not a soul is eligible to become a US citizen”
Wrong – To quote from the agricultural/immigration economist, Philip Martin, “there is nothing more permanent than a temporary worker”. They won’t go home after two years, they will simply become part of the next wave of illegal aliens.
To be blunt you appear to know almost nothing about immigration law or how our laws are not enforced.
You are also ignorant of the terrible impact that ordinary illegal aliens (the ones who are not terrorists and violent criminals) are having on our country.
The Senate bill rewards law-breakers and does nothing to improve actually border security. Don’t believe me? Read it. I have. If the sponsors actually thought that this bill would stop illegal immigration, then the Amnesty would come last and the border security first. However, they know that the only provision that will ever have any effect is the Amnesty which is why the Amnesty is immediate and the rest is a fiction.
Don’t kid yourself and don’t try to fool the American people. This is an Amnesty First, and Amnesty Only bill. Don’t believe me? Read the first sentence of the bill.
peterschaeffer,, excellent comment ….you are absolutely 100% correct.