Republicans need compassionate plan on immigration

Republicans lost the 2012 presidential election during their primaries. By the time Mitt Romney secured his party’s nomination, the seeds of his defeat had already germinated. The challenge for Republicans in 2016 will be to keep that from happening again. And no issue is more fraught with dangers for Republicans than immigration.

Of the three announced Republican candidates — Sens. Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul — Rubio is probably in the best position to avoid the mistakes of the past.

Paul’s problem is that he has been all over the board on immigration. Although he has recently said he favors legislation that would give work permits to many of the 11 million immigrants now in the U.S. illegally, Paul wants to revoke birthright citizenship. But the nation has, from its founding, embraced birthright citizenship, albeit denying it to the descendants of slaves until passage of the 14th Amendment. A constitutional amendment revoking birthright citizenship has no chance of adoption, and those who argue that simple legislation would suffice ignore the plain language of the 14th Amendment, the legislative history and debate at the time of adoption, and Supreme Court precedents.

Cruz, on the other hand, has made opposition to illegal immigration a cornerstone of his political identity, pushing to shut down the entire Department of Homeland Security to prevent funding for President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty. But even Cruz has adopted a softer tone in the aftermath of the announcement of his presidential bid, saying he favors a legal guest-worker program — a position opposed by restrictionist anti-immigration groups, such as NumbersUSA and the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

So how would Rubio fare in the immigration debate within the party? Rubio (snip)

Cruz is incredibly bright. He understands he will lose more votes than he gains if he says he wants to deport all the illegals.

As I indicated in a previous post, the proponents of amnesty are wont to create the false choice between a blanket amnesty and mass deportation of 12 to 20 million illegal aliens. In reality, we have other choices and alternatives that don’t reward people who have broken our laws with the right to stay and work here and an eventual path to citizenship. The 12 to 20 million illegal aliens did not enter this country overnight and they will not leave overnight. Attrition through enforcement works. We have empirical data from experiences in Georgia, Colorado, and Arizona proving that it does.

No one is suggesting mass deportation, but Cruz should not be advocating mass legalization, temporary or otherwise. This is the same scam that was included in the 2007 McCain-Kennedy bill and then again in the Gang of 8 bill. Once legalized, they can stay and work here.

I think he's right, about the best we can do at this point is secure the border, improve the visa system and aggressively deport anyone who commits a felony.

Improve the visa system how? I hope you realize that most of the illegals have committed felonies beyond entering this country illegally, which is a misdemeanor. It is a myth that most illegals are otherwise law-abiding. The violations include laws involving the entry, presence, and travel of illegal aliens as well as laws related to employment such as perjury and identity theft. Examples of oft-violated but under-enforced laws include:

False Personation of a U.S. Citizen (18 U.S.C. § 911). Illegal aliens often present themselves as U.S. citizens, an act punishable by up to five years in jail, a felony. This law is often cited in immigration prosecutions and may involve, for example, an alien claiming U.S. citizenship to his employer.

Fraud and False Statements (18 U.S.C. § 1001). It is common for illegal aliens to make false statements to the government or on official documents. An illegal alien violates this law when claiming to be a U.S. citizen on an I-9 Employment Eligibility form and faces a fine and up to five years imprisonment.

Social Security Fraud (42 U.S.C. § 408). This statute has been invoked where an illegal alien provided a false Social Security number for the purpose of acquiring a job, where an illegal alien used a fraudulent Social Security number for the purpose of acquiring a driver's license, and when an illegal alien used a Social Security card belonging to a citizen in order to obtain Section 8 housing, for example. Violation of this statute can result in a fine and/or imprisonment up to five years. The court can also require violators to provide restitution to the victims.

This does not address crimes of violence, property crimes like vandalism, or other acts like gang activity and drunk driving. A 2011 GAO Report noted that the number of criminal aliens in federal prisons in fiscal year 2010 was about 55,000, and the number of SCAAP criminal alien incarcerations in state prison systems and local jails was about 296,000 in fiscal year 2009 (the most recent data available), and the majority were from Mexico.

Even McCain said that there were 2 million criminal aliens who should be deported immediately. However, why isn't being done now since that is the law. Why does anyone think that we will enforce our laws once the illegals are legalized? And when you reward something, you get more of it. We had a "one-time" amnesty in 1986. The USG estimated that one million would apply, but the real number turned out to be 2.7 million. The process was rife with fraud. Does anyone think we can process 12 to 20 million illegal aliens efficiently? How long would that take? This is all a scam. Instead of enforcing the law first, we are told we must legalize them first. No one believes that once legalized, these people will have this status taken away from them. Obama's two executive amnesties are meant to do exactly that. There will be no reversal of those granted "temporary" legalization.

I am a grassroots immigration activist who lobbies on the Hill. Most Americans are ill-informed about immigration and easy to manipulate by the politicians who parse words and redefine the language. Amnesty is forever.

But short of an open war and military defeat of the left, and forced deportation thereafter, it is not going to happen.

False choice. There are alternatives to mass deportation and blanket amnesty. Attrition thru enforcement works. And what is the urgency to legalize these lawbreakers?

Mexicans work brutally hard, tip great (I drove a cab) go to church and just beat up each other when they are drunk lol. But the FIRST misdemeanor or felony, back you go.

Why are so many of them in jail? What about the gangs and drug dealers? Why are they using the welfare system at higher rates than the native born? What about the jobs they take form Americans and depress their wages?

FYI: The lawbreakers are not being deported. They are beling released on our streets. The number of aliens who have received a final order of removal, but who are still in the United States, has risen to nearly 900,000. Nearly 167,000 of these are convicted criminals who were released by ICE and are currently at large.

ICE Document Details 36,000 Criminal Alien Releases in 2013

In 2013, ICE freed 36,007 convicted criminal aliens from detention who were awaiting the outcome of deportation proceedings, according to a document obtained by the Center for Immigration Studies. This group included aliens convicted of hundreds of violent and serious crimes, including homicide, sexual assault, kidnapping, and aggravated assault. The list of crimes also includes more than 16,000 drunk or drugged driving convictions. The vast majority of these releases from ICE custody were discretionary, not required by law (in fact, in some instances, apparently contrary to law), nor the result of local sanctuary policies.

The document reveals that the 36,007 convicted criminal aliens freed from ICE custody in many instances had multiple convictions. Among them, the 36,007 had nearly 88,000 convictions, including:

193 homicide convictions (including one willful killing of a public official with gun)

426 sexual assault convictions

303 kidnapping convictions

1,075 aggravated assault convictions

1,160 stolen vehicle convictions

9,187 dangerous drug convictions

16,070 drunk or drugged driving convictions

303 flight escape convictions

It is the tip of the iceberg. Immigration is not an unalloyed good. The Left and the RINOs have successfully stifled discussion on the issue branding the opposition as bigots and nativists.

In Europe, the discussion of immigration is far more open and rational. In the UK, there is actually a political consensus among the major parties that immigration must be reduced. In fact, Labor has criticized Cameron for not meeting his reduction targets. Unthinkable at one time. How was this achieved? A small party, the BNP, started the slogan, "British Jobs for British workers." It changed the political dynamics and touched a nerve in the populace. Jeff Sessions is proposing a similar approach here.

The NYT attacked Sessions as being anti-immigrant and a racist; Sessions responded in a letter to the NYT:

In 1970, fewer than 1 in 21 United States residents were born abroad. Five years from today, the Census Bureau estimates that more than one in seven United States residents will have been born abroad. Eight years from today, the share of the population that is foreign-born will rise above any level ever before recorded and keep surging.

It defies reason to argue that the record admission of new foreign workers has no negative effect on the wages of American workers, including the wages of past immigrants hoping to climb into the middle class. Why would many of the largest business groups in the United States spend millions lobbying for the admission of more foreign workers if such policies did not cut labor costs?

The New York Times once plainly acknowledged as much, writing in a 2000 editorial: “Between about 1980 and 1995, the gap between the wages of high school dropouts and all other workers widened substantially. Prof. George Borjas of Harvard estimates that almost half of this trend can be traced to immigration of unskilled workers.”

Since that sentence was published, another 18 million immigrants have arrived in the United States, while the share of Americans in the work force has declined almost five percentage points.

Reuters says Americans, by a nearly 3-to-1 margin, wish to see immigration reduced, not increased. Policy makers and voters should be openly discussing this issue of national interest. Efforts to intimidate Americans into silence will no longer work.

JEFF SESSIONS

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