Posted on 09/17/2010 5:10:15 AM PDT by Kaslin
The so-called DREAM Act would create an official path to Democratic voter registration for an estimated two million college-age illegal aliens. Look past the public relations-savvy stories of "undocumented" valedictorians left out in the cold. This is not about protecting "children." It's about preserving electoral power through cap-and-gown amnesty.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced this week that he's attaching the DREAM Act to the defense authorization bill. With ethnic activists breathing down his neck and President Obama pushing to fulfill his campaign promise to Hispanics, Reid wants his queasy colleagues to vote on the legislation next week.
Open-borders lawmakers have tried and failed to pass the DREAM Act through regular channels for the past decade. That's because informed voters know giving green cards to illegal alien students undermines the rule of law, creates more illegal immigration incentives and grants preferential treatment to illegal alien students over law-abiding native and naturalized American students struggling to get an education in tough economic times. This bad idea is compounded by a companion proposal to recruit more illegal aliens into the military with the lure of citizenship (a fraud-ridden and reckless practice countenanced under the Bush administration).
DREAM Act lobbyists are spotlighting heart-wrenching stories of high-achieving teens brought to this country when they were toddlers. But instead of arguing for case-by-case dispensations, the protesters want blanket pardons. The broadly drafted Senate bill would confer benefits on applicants up to age 35, and the House bill contains no age ceiling at all. The academic achievement requirements are minimal. Moreover, illegal aliens who didn't arrive in the country until they turned 15 -- after they laid down significant roots in their home country -- would be eligible for DREAM Act benefits and eventual U.S. citizenship. And like past amnesty packages, the Democratic plan is devoid of any concrete eligibility and enforcement mechanisms to deter already-rampant immigration benefit fraud.
The DREAM Act sponsors have long fought to sabotage a clearly worded provision in the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) that states: "Notwithstanding any other provision of law, an alien who is not lawfully present in the United States shall not be eligible on the basis of residence within a State (or a political subdivision) for any postsecondary education benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit (in no less an amount, duration, and scope) without regard to whether the citizen or national is such a resident."
Ten states defied that federal law and offered DREAM Act-style tuition preference to illegal aliens: California, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Washington. The last time DREAM Act champions tried to tack their scheme onto a larger immigration proposal, they snuck in language that would absolve those 10 states of their law-breaking by repealing the 1996 law retroactively -- and also offering the special path to green cards and citizenship for illegal alien students.
Despite the obvious electoral advantage this plan would give Democrats, several pro-illegal alien amnesty Republicans crossed the aisle to support the DREAM Act, including double-talking Sens. John McCain, Richard Lugar, Bob Bennett, Sam Brownback, Norm Coleman, Susan Collins, Larry Craig, Chuck Hagel, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Mel Martinez and Olympia Snowe, as well as presidential candidate Mike Huckabee (who champions even greater illegal alien student benefits than those proposed by Democrats). After paying lip service to securing the borders, McCain promised DREAM Act demonstrators this week that he supported the bill and would work to "resolve their issues."
Out-of-touch pols might want to pay attention to the world outside their bubble. A recent Quinnipiac University poll shows that Americans across the political spectrum favor tougher enforcement of existing immigration laws over rolling out the amnesty welcome wagon. When asked, "Do you think immigration reform should primarily move in the direction of integrating illegal immigrants into American society or in the direction of stricter enforcement of laws against illegal immigration?" solid majorities of registered Republicans, Democrats and independents chose stricter enforcement over greater integration of the illegal alien population.
Democrats outside the Beltway have grown increasingly averse to signing on to illegal alien incentives -- especially as the Obama jobs death toll mounts and economic confidence plummets. Here in Colorado, a handful of Democrats joined Republican lawyers to kill a state-level DREAM Act amid massive higher education budget cuts and a bipartisan voter backlash.
Asked why she opposed the illegal alien student bailout, one Democratic lawmaker said quite simply: "I listened to my constituents." An alien concept in Washington, to be sure.
I hope Senate patriots recognize this for what it is: Its the Dream Act Bill, with an attachment for defense authorization.
....what these idiots won’t acknowledge is that MOST illegals DO NOT WANT TO BECOME CITIZENS.......they want and get the benefits, they DO NOT WANT TO RESPONSIBILITY.
The Dream Act would allow illegals who attend college or join the military to become legal US residents. The illegal must have come to the US under 16 years of age and in the US five years. Those who join the military must serve at least two years and complete two years of college.
ANALYSIS We know from experience that putting hyphenates in our military is a formula for disaster.
Making them citizens just for going to college is a Mexican wet dream. The illegals go to college scot-free, subsidized by working class Americans, and take up space from American students.
The Dream Act's goal is to allow illegals to ride the US gravy train for the rest of their lives.
Well said. And, I think I can speak for most here......we're tired of make'n the gravy.
It’s not the children they are concerned with. These kids have parents, so for every child you legalize two parents get legalized too. clever.
The last time I checked, “Illegal Aliens” are not eligible to join the military. All applicants for the military must produce evidence of citizenship or lawfully admitted permanent resident alien. By virtue of being an illegal alien they are technically fugitives from justice and therefore would be ineligibel on that basis also. Someone needs to set Harry straight (If that’s possible) and make him understand the word “Illegal” and that the military is not an escape hatch for fugitives from justice.
F'n A.
Ping!
Oh Good. Illegals with automatic weapons and the right to use them on us whenever Janet Napolitano cooks up an "emergency".
With an Army like that, why worry about China?
The Denver Post | May 15, 2009 | Mike Rosen
FR Posted 06/17/2009 by 2ndDivisionVet
At a campaign rally in Colorado Springs July 2008, former community organizer, Barack Obama, grandly told an enraptured audience: "We've got to have a civilian national security force that is just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded" as the U.S. military. Now, understand, he wasn't talking about a "security" force in the sense of an armed militia. He was talking about a network of social service workers.
When I first heard that, I wrote it off as a politician's extravagant, feel-good campaign rhetoric. After all, the Department of Defense includes about 3 million men and women — active duty, reserves and civilians — and will spend an estimated $675 billion in 2009.
The first step was the passage of HR 1388, "The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act," originally titled the GIVE (Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education) Act before the Senate renamed it as a tribute to the "Lion of Liberalism." It triples AmeriCorps from 75,000 to 250,000.
The second step is HR 1444, not yet passed, which would establish a Congressional Commission on Civic Service. The commission would "address and analyze" the effects on the nation and on those who serve "if all individuals in the United States ... were required to perform a certain amount of national service" and "whether a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all young people could be developed."
It's one thing, out of clear necessity and for purposes of national survival, to have a military draft when our nation is at war (hot or cold). But mandatory community service of up to two years? This is a preposterously intrusive notion and one that is surely unlawful under our Constitution.
The Thirteenth Amendment prohibits "involuntary servitude except as a punishment for crime." What crime have these young people committed?
The "audacity" — to use President Obama's favorite expression — of such a sweeping mandate is a direct contradiction of our founding principles as reinforced in the Bill of Rights, which emphatically restricts the powers of government over the lives of individuals. The camel's nose under the tent that has led some people to regard national mandatory community service as respectable public policy is no doubt the imposition of a similar requirement on students as a condition of graduation in our public schools.
What message does that send to American students? That government owns their life? I understand that attendance in school is compulsory but that can be satisfied in a private school or a home school. Should government, then, be allowed to reach into your home or to private schools and mandate involuntary community service for students in those venues?
It's one thing for public schools to dictate how their students spend their time while under their supervision. It's quite another to tell these young citizens how they must spend their own time outside of school.
This is social engineering, not academic instruction. There's already too much of that kind of thing in public schools and it's invariably oriented toward the liberal agenda. I'd rather the students spend any additional time, if there's to be some, in the classroom on basic academics.
Whatever the virtues of community service, it's far more rewarding when undertaken voluntarily. The theories and wishes of do-gooder educators notwithstanding, most of the kids I've talked to resent the assignment as just another task that robs them of their leisure time. Many look for the easiest way out and just go through the motions. For them, the psychic benefit ranges from little to negative.
How ironic that forced community service is meted out as a punishment for petty criminals. It's an inappropriate sentence for schoolchildren and would be an outrageous government assault on individual liberty as a national mandate.
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