Free Republic

Does the Senate Comprehensive Immigration Reform require the immigrants to pay not only back taxes but interest and penalties or do they just pay the back taxes? I couldn't find the right section in the bill. This may be a trick question depending on how the bill is worded. The bill could by the way it's worded limit the amount due to the actual taxes and be default because it doesn't specify interest and penalties resulting in only the actual taxes being due. Of course if it were a US citizen or a legal alien they'd be hit not only...

Reasonable people can disagree on many things. But when it comes to the costs or benefits of illegal immigration it seems there is little consensus among analysts on just about anything. One immigration researcher recently told a congressional committee that legalizing millions of illegal immigrants would cost taxpayers nationwide more than $50 billion a year. Others say legalizing them would increase revenues resulting in a net gain of $12 billion over 10 years. The reason for such wide disparities can be attributed, in part, to uncertainties in basic data, such as how many illegal immigrants are in the country, researchers...

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger scolded Congress on Friday for failing to enact immigration reforms, saying lawmakers should put aside election-year politics and get to work on a plan that would strengthen the border and allow temporary workers to come here legally. The Republican governor showed growing impatience with Washington and his own party, saying illegal crossings and drug-running will persist at the border as long as the House and Senate remain deadlocked. He also criticized lawmakers for holding hearings on the issue in cities across the nation. "Don't run around the country now ... and have all...

ANGELES (Reuters) - Karl Rove, U.S. President George W. Bush's senior political advisor, on Tuesday took the administration's message on immigration reform to Latino leaders, saying the country was approaching a "critical moment" in the debate. >br> Speaking at the annual convention of leading Latino civic group the National Council of La Raza, Rove said Bush would work with Republicans and Democrats in coming weeks to push through reform legislation that has bitterly divided Congress, the Republican Party and the nation. "We face a critical moment in our immigration debate, a moment when our nation will make an important decision...

White House adviser Karl Rove is scheduled to speak tomorrow at the annual conference of the federally funded, left-wing, open-borders-advocacy group, the National Council of La Raza. If he does not want his speech to look like an act of appeasement, he should confront La Raza on its opposition to commonsense policies designed to secure both U.S. borders and U.S. pocketbooks. La Raza, which means “The Race” in Spanish, has denounced as “horrendous” and “appalling” the House immigration bill passed in December, which was sponsored by Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R.-Wis.) and supported by the overwhelming majority of House Republicans....

I just spoke with Speaker Hasteret's Office. I am told that he is waiting for "more hearings" one in Mid-July and another in Mid-August before appointing conferee's on the Immigration Bill..... I told him that the AMERICAN PEOPLE want the HOUSE bill not the SENATE bill !!! NOW IS THE TIME TO CALL SPEAKER HASTERET's OFFICE and tell him to APPOINT CONFEREE's NOW !!! David Click here to read MY OPEN LETTER TO CONGERSS

LOS ANGELES - Former President Bill Clinton praised President Bush on Saturday for supporting reforms that would allow millions of illegal immigrants to seek citizenship but said the debate in Congress is being fomented by Republicans who want to divide America. "I'm proud of him for doing it and I thanked him for doing it," he said of Bush during a "Cafe con Clinton" breakfast speech to the annual conference of the National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest Hispanic civil rights advocacy group. Clinton said Bush's roots in Texas — which has one of the nation's largest Hispanic...

While the U.S. Congress dithers over how best to stop illegal immigration, the Mexican people may have already decided the issue this past weekend. Mexicans went to the polls Sunday to pick a new president, only the second presidential election in the last 75 years that could be characterized as a truly free and democratic contest. The more conservative, free-trade-oriented candidate, Felipe Calderon of the National Action Party (PAN), appears to have eked out a slim victory with a few hundred thousand more votes than the leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Although Lopez Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City...

Illegal Aliens: A Few Myths to Keep in Mind . . . Mexico City. Last Tuesday the Pew Hispanic Center announced that 41 percent of Mexicans surveyed in February and 46 percent questioned in May stated they would live in the United States if given "the means and opportunity." Indeed, two out of 10 people interviewed said they were prepared to enter the U.S. illegally. These figures could have amazing consequences because our Spanish- speaking neighbor has a population of nearly 106 million inhabitants.

Bringing San Diego to the forefront of the immigration debate, House Republicans will hold field hearings on the issue Wednesday at an Imperial Beach border patrol station. Two opposing immigration bills from the House and Senate will head for negotiations after the hearings senators and representatives are holding across the country this summer. San Diego area representatives have been heavily involved in the debate, some authoring sections of the House bill. Measures proposed in the House bill, H.R. 4437, include: making illegal presence in the country a felony, building 698 miles of fencing along the border, requiring employers to use...

Mexican politicians continuously demand more visas for their citizens, an expanded guest-worker program, and "regularization" of illegal aliens living north of the Rio Grande. While neglecting to mention that the United States admits nearly one million legal newcomers each year, they also fail to publicize: (1) the extremely high salaries they receive, often—in the case of federal and state legislators—more than their counterparts in developed nations that have substantially longer annual sessions, (2) the generous stipends that they grant themselves, including year-end aguinaldos and end-of-term bonuses of tens of thousands of dollars known as bonos de marcha, and (3) the...

MEXICO CITY - Mexicans voted Sunday in a tight presidential race to decide whether their country becomes the latest Latin American nation to move to the left, choosing between a shopkeeper's son promising to save the poor and a conservative calling his rival's free-spending populism dangerous. The campaign, which exposed Mexico's painful class divisions, was the first since Vicente Fox's stunning victory six years ago ended 71 years of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. Polls predicted a close race between conservative Felipe Calderon, 43, of Fox's National Action Party, and leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, 52, a...

The reason why Mexico is having chilly relations with the United States because we are importing Mexico's poor and the American tapayer is paying for them. Mexico refused to do nothing about the corruption that is pervasive in all levels of government. There is a massive crime wave being committed more and more by Mexican nationals against American citizens. Could this also be another reason why there is a chill between Mexico and the United States?The author of the piece does not touch this.

Story on the House of Representatives start on hearings on immigrants. The fur will fly on this one.

What are Hispanic groups and the Democratic Party have to fear about the upcoming immigration hearings by the GOP?What are they hiding?I thought that they would be glad that they are finally to air their views in the public.

Here’s an interesting take from the Ivory Tower on the current controversy over illegal immigration: “Undocumented may be the most decent word that’s available to us, but something was lost in that translation too,” Stanford professor Geoffrey Nurnberg writes in the summer 2006 edition of the magazine Rethinking Schools. “It isn’t that undocumented adds a bureaucratic note, but that it focuses on the government’s records rather than the immigrants themselves.” “Visitors who overstay their visas may not be undocumented in the strict sense of the term, which is why the INS [Immigration and Naturalization Service] ultimately decided to stay with...

GOP leaders: No immigration bill this year By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent 33 minutes ago In a defeat for President Bush, Republican congressional leaders said Tuesday that broad immigration legislation is all but doomed for the year, a victim of election-year concerns in the House and conservatives' implacable opposition to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants. "Our number one priority is to secure the border, and right now I haven't heard a lot of pressure to have a path to citizenship," said Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., announcing plans for an unusual series of hearings to begin in August on...

In the spirit of Liberation Theology, the USCCB released a news press release yesterday, stating they will continue their drive for passage of CIRA. This means they support of unrestricted illegal immigration to the United States despite the costs to taxpayers.The bishops are continuing their drive even though CIRA is vastly unpopular with the American people and a vast majority of Catholics. This news release has not been widely disseminated and everyone here gets a first look.

Add this to the list of things that have gone right lately for President Bush: Americans appear to be drawing closer to his view on the immigration debate. But that hasn't alleviated the squeeze on Republican candidates in the fall elections. A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows that the party's conservative electoral base remains at odds with broader public opinion on the issue, including sentiment of the nation's swelling Latino population.

I am posting this article because very few people know that the Catholic Church is going out of their way to make sure CIRA is the law of the land. The church has supported illegal immigration for many years and they have been active in getting CIRA passed. I also publishing this article in the hopes that the many Catholics who support the House of Representatives would know what their church is doing on the illegal immigration issue in the United States. I really do not think that Roman Catholics know the churches position on this matter.I know that there...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Citing a forthcoming Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) argued that the government does not have the ability to implement a foreign worker program while maintaining security. A draft of the report obtained by The Washington Times claims that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has a “serious problem” with identifying immigration fraud, yet the agency won’t have a fraud-management system in place until 2011. Various foreign worker proposals, which will be taken up by the Senate Judiciary Committee starting Thursday, would require USCIS to do background checks and screening for the millions of...

I would like to start off with this startling fact. In 1994, the estimated costs of educating the children of exceeded 28.6 billion taxpayer dollars alone. Just multiplying that figure over a period of 20 years(adjusting for inflation). With schools cutting back on after school programs such as after school prograns, not purchasing up to date textbooks. Some states have even cut back the hiring of new teacgers and childcare prgrams. Other school districts(including the Los Angeles School District) have shortened the shool week from five days to four or shortened school hours, All of this can be diretly attributed...

Defeat This MonstrosityWhat Hill conservatives can do on immigration JOHN O’SULLIVAN Now that the U.S. Senate has made a strong argument for unicameral government by passing the “comprehensive” immigration monstrosity, attention turns to the House. It has already passed a sensible “enforcement only” bill. It should stand firm on that legislation, at most making it an “enforcement first” bill by promising to consider some of the Senate’s reasonable proposals in the next Congress, if any can be found. But the Bush-Democrat coalition has an almost mystical attachment to the Senate’s guest-worker and amnesty provisions. It will be faithful unto death...

RUSH: All right. This is hilarious: (story) "The long-fought Senate immigration bill that opponents say grants amnesty to 10 million illegal aliens is unconstitutional and appears headed for certain demise, Senate Republicans now say." Here is why, "A key feature of the Senate bill is that it would make illegals pay back taxes before applying for citizenship, a requirement that supporters say will raise billions of dollars in the next decade. There's just one problem: The U.S. Constitution specifically prohibits revenue-raising legislation [taxes, tax cuts, what have you, has to come from the House] from originating in the Senate. 'All...

This paper was published last year without much fanfare from the media. It is a briefing paper for the Independent Task Force on Immigration and America's Future. The paper was sponsored by Spencer Abraham,former U.S. senator and who was former Demaprtment of Energy head under President Bush. Also, it was co-sponsored by Lee Hamilton, former Congressman from Indiana. This bipartisan paper gives in delatiled account the costs of illegal immigration to the United States. It gives the cost in education, health care costs and what industries illegal immigrants work in . It is very easy to follow and it has...

SAN ANTONIO — An illegal immigrant amnesty program failed 20 years ago and a new one would be a mistake today, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn told Texas Republicans today. Both Cornyn and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison said they oppose a Senate bill approved with bipartisan support last week that provides a chance at citizenship for guest workers and an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants. "My only regret is I had but one vote against that bad bill," Cornyn told Republican state convention delegates. The Senate measure, in addition to providing a chance at citizenship, increases border security and provides guest...

The nation's population of legal immigrants would increase by nearly 20 million over the next decade if the recently passed Senate immigration bill becomes law, and taxpayers would spend more than $50 billion to operate a new guest-worker program and pay for extra welfare, Social Security and public health-care costs, according to a Congressional Budget Office report. But the cost of absorbing the newcomers would be offset by a boost of $66 billion in federal revenue from income taxes and payroll taxes generated by the temporary guest-worker program, along with fees that immigrants must pay to participate, the report said....

Bush struggles for support to the inmigrant law Juees 1 de junio (12:30 hrs.) * The US president speaks to the nation's biggest business group about the inmigration's benefits * The Chamber of Commerce and the National Restaurat Association support the guest worker program El Financiero en línea US, June 1st.- President George W. Bush, struggling to win broader support for his immigration proposals from his fellow Republicans, told the nation's biggest business group that new immigration laws would be a boon for the economy. "In order for this country to be an economic leader, Bush said today in remarks...

Beginning a public relations offensive intended to prod divided Congressional Republicans into overhauling the nation's immigration laws, President Bush rebuked conservative opponents of his plan on Thursday and warned that there is "no excuse" for delay. ..In his speech, Mr. Bush took aim at House members who brand the Senate bill amnesty, though he did not mention any by name. "Some members of Congress argue that no one who came to this illegally should be allowed to continue living and working in our country," he said. The lawmakers are "are acting on deeply felt principles," he said, but added, "I...

There is a interesting point that was made by a local radio program. That the Senate bill has a loophole that has the potential cause their bill to implode.

The Republican House of Representatives should tell the U.S. Senate -- and the Bush White House -- to take a hike on immigration. The GOP-led House has been handed a skunk wrapped in a bow. That stinking varmint, S. 2611, amounts to a liberal, Democrat bill. Instead of obliging the cynical pansies of the Senate and the administration who keep pushing open-borders policies, the House should simply refuse to name conferees. That is, House Republicans should boldly snub their noses -- very publicly -- at their party's turncoats. Otherwise, the GOP House faces a no-win situation in a conference committee...

As President Bush's poll numbers drop dramatically even among his base, the question most frequently asked by angry Republicans is, why, oh why, is Bush so stubbornly rejecting the advice of his supporters even though that advice is consistent with the thunderous message from public opinion surveys? The reliable Rasmussen survey, for example, reports that by a 63 percent to 19 percent margin, voters want legislation that controls the borders before trying to change the status of illegal aliens. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger encapsuled the typical reaction to Bush's televised speech: "I have not heard the president say that our objective...

President Bush yesterday rejected House Republicans' stance that illegal aliens must return home, calling it "wrong and unrealistic" and saying many will have to be allowed to stay. Speaking to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a block from the White House, Mr. Bush also directly challenged businesses to hire only legal workers, and said those that don't should be prepared to face increased fines. In addition, he said both the House and Senate will have to compromise, but said voters expect a bill and he said that bill should tackle both enforcement and a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens....

George W. Bush, John McCain and Ted Kennedy -- indeed the majority of senators -- keep getting it wrong, just like the foreign criminals who keep trying to get a free ride on the backs of American citizens and legal immigrants. Give a nod to the president for calling immigration reform what it really and truly is -- "It's a difficult task," he told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce yesterday. The crux of the task is the insistence on pardoning an estimated 12 million criminals.

This morning President Bush traveled to the United States Chamber of Commerce in Washington D.C. and addressed the issue of comprehensive immigration reform.Later in the morning he met with his Cabinet in the Cabinet Room at the White House, and afterwards took questions from the press.This afternoon in the Rose Garden, he attended the swearing-in ceremony for Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Enjoy your trip to Sanity Island on the Daily Dose!

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all, please be seated. (Applause.) Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you all very much. (Applause.) Thank you all. I told Michael to keep it short -- (laughter) -- and he did. Thanks for having me. Speaking about short, it's a short commute from where I work and live to this place. Thanks for having me, Tom. President George W. Bush delivers remarks Thursday, June 1, 2006, on Comprehensive Immigration Reform during an appearance at the United States Chamber of Commerce. Said the President, "America can be a lawful society and America can be a welcoming society at...

President Bush pressed Congress on Thursday to pass a comprehensive immigration bill that provides a chance at citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants already in the country. "The difficulty of this task is no excuse for avoiding it," he said. Bush's speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was intended to build momentum for Senate and House negotiators to resolve passionate disputes and produce a compromise. The two houses passed sharply different versions of the legislation. The House bill generally is limited to border enforcement and cracking down on employers who hire illegal immigrants. The Senate version would tighten border...

The Senate passed legislation last week that Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) hailed as "the most far-reaching immigration reform in our history." You might think that the first question anyone would ask is how much it would actually increase or decrease legal immigration. But no. After the Senate approved the bill by 62 to 36, you could not find the answer in the news columns of The Post or the New York Times. Yet the estimates do exist and are fairly startling. By rough projections, the Senate bill would double the legal immigration that would occur during the next two decades...

As far as the powerful chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee is concerned, the controversial Senate bill on immigration reform is as dead as a duck. Appearing Tuesday on "Lou Dobbs Tonight," Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., told Dobbs that he couldn’t imagine how the Senate bill "could ever be considered in the House of Representatives [when] the overwhelming majority of Republicans are against it.” This, he said "is amnesty. The more the senators deny it, Democrat and Republican, the more they deny it, the more the president denies it, it's amnesty. And the American people don't want it. I've...

What follows is a listing of the Senators who voted AGAINST the S. 2611 amnesty bill. I have expanded the list to include each Senator's comments specific to the legislation, where available, and listed the link to their e-mail address or contact form. I have now sent a message of "Thank You" and support to each one. I hope many of you will want to do the same in greater of lesser degree, perhaps contacting only your own Senator and a few others, hopefully all. I tried to make it *easy* for you. WHY DO SO? Many of these Senators...

It's become a stock image in the immigration debates: the flooded emergency room, halls packed with sick illegals seeking subsidized care. But now that image's negative is at the heart of a far smaller battle—not over the immigrants awaiting care in the E.R., but the immigrants providing it. The immigration bill passed by the Senate last week includes a provision that would allow unlimited entry to foreign-trained nurses until 2014, and as a committee attempts to reconcile that bill with the less permissive House version, an open door policy for foreign nurses has a shot at becoming law. A free...

One of the most controversial issues in Congress today is immigration reform legislation that will fundamentally affect the security of the United States. The House of Representatives and the Senate have passed profoundly different bills that must now be reconciled if the country’s demands are to be met, but as FSM Contributing Editor Alex Alexiev explains, the bills are not equal. According to Alexiev, the legislation from the Senate threatens Americans’ security while enriching special interests

Quick: What do 61% of Republican and 10% of Democrat Senators have in common? They represent America—at least on the issue of immigration. These numbers, drawn from the recorded vote on last week’s disastrous amnesty-granting immigration “reform” bill in the Senate, starkly illustrate two related insights about the ongoing illegal immigration crisis. One is that, despite gleeful media reports that “Congressional Republicans” are at odds with most of their supporters on the immigration issue, the great majority of Republican congressmen are not. The Republican leadership of the House of Representatives refused to even consider amnesty, legalization, or a guest worker...

On May 24, 2006, against the will of the vast majority of American citizens, in defiance of prudence, fairness, logic, and common sense, and with total disregard of American national interest (see footnote 1), the majority of the U.S. Senate (all but four Democrats and almost half Republicans) passed the so-called "Comprehensive Immigration Reform” Act (CIRA) of 2006. The Act, also known as S. 2611 bill, would (if enacted into the law) Mark Andrew Dwyer One would hope that this despicable act of betrayal of American voters by their elected "representatives" in the Senate, in which the consenting senators promptly...

The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (CIRA, S.2611), which recently passed the Senate, provides amnesty to illegal immigrants and creates a massive “guest worker” for life program. Earlier this month, The Heritage Foundation released an analysis calculating that the bill, if enacted, likely would result in 103 million immigrants obtaining legal status or entering in the U.S. legally over the next twenty years. [1] All of these individuals would have the right to permanent residence and could become citizens and vote in U.S. elections. On May 18th, the White House Office of Media Affairs issued a press release challenging the Heritage...

The House's lead negotiator on immigration yesterday called the Senate legislation passed last week "amnesty" for illegal aliens that his chamber will not accept, setting up a showdown between the House and the Senate, which have passed widely differing bills. The Senate bill mirrors the House version in its provisions to tighten border security, but includes a "guest-worker" program proposed by President Bush and offers illegals in the United States what proponents call a "path to citizenship." "The words 'path to citizenship' is a buzzword for amnesty. We ought to be honest, it is amnesty," said Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist strongly defended on Sunday the path to citizenship for illegal immigrants offered in the Senate's immigration reform bill, citing national security concerns. Speaking on Fox News Sunday, the Tennessee Republican said a failure to hold out the hope of citizenship to people living illegally in the United States would encourage the estimated 12 million illegal aliens to "stay in the shadows." "The reality is you can't just take 12 million people here, millions of whom are fully assimilated into our society ... and send them back" to their countries of origin,...

Senate debate over an immigration bill that promises Social Security benefits and citizenship for illegal immigrants has already prompted an increase in the number of Mexicans trying to get into the U.S. illegally, Rep. James Sensenbrenner said Sunday Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," Sensenbrenner said: "Mexican government officials have said that the talk of amnesty is actually increasing the flow of illegal immigrants across the border as we speak." The Wisconsin Republican said that in reaction to the higher numbers, Mexican officials have "redeployed some of their security forces into the desert on the Mexican side of the border...

A majority of Americans said they oppose amnesty for illegal aliens, so-called "undocumented workers" from other nations who are already residing in the United States, according to a recent Zogby International survey. While 52 percent said there should be no amnesty, 32 percent said they would favor amnesty for illegal aliens who currently reside in the United States. The U.S. Congress has estimated that there are 11 million illegal immigrants now living in America. Amnesty was offered to people in this category during the Reagan administration, but it did little to stem the tide of illegal immigration into the country,...

I am adding this thread for everyone to POST their OPEN letters to congress on this debate.. please take the actual discussions to other threads.. The purpose of this is so that we can PRINT THIS THREAD and fax/mail it to OUR REPS !!