Free Republic

www.gunowners.orgJun 2007 Immigration Bill Dead For Now -- Gun owners unheralded in media, but played a huge role in the defeat of bill Gun Owners of America 8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102 Springfield, VA 22151 (703)321-8585 Friday, June 29, 2007 Well, the American public has spoken. If you ever wondered whether your activism pays off, then look no further than the immigration debate. The bill went down in flames yesterday by a vote of 53-46. And good thing too, because this bill was packing more than just immigration stuff -- it also contained anti-gun language as well. But what else...

In a classic application of bottom-up management denizens of small towns let their elected representatives in Washington D.C. know exactly how they expected them to handle the compromised immigration compromise bill that neither secured our borders, nor was any more enforceable than previous legislation it was meant to "fix."Earlier waves of immigrants – legal and illegal – flocked to CA, , FL, IL, NJ, NY and TX ("gateway" states) but have been dispersing across a wider swath of the U.S. since 2000. The foreign-born, non-English speaking populations of DE, GA, IN, NE, NV and SC have exploded, say demographers, with...

LAKE BUENA VISTA -- The Chairman of the Republican Party on Friday lambasted Democrats and Republicans who helped kill an immigration bill in the Senate and challenged them to come up with a solution beyond ``just build a fence along the border.'' ``The voices of negativity now have a responsibility to come up with an answer,'' RNC Chairman and U.S. Senator Mel Martinez, R-Fla. said. LocalLinks ``How will you fix the situation to make peoples' lives better? How will you continue to grow the economy? How will we bring people out of the shadows for our national security and for...

MEXICO CITY — Opinion makers and migrant advocates in Mexico said today that the collapse of U.S. immigration reform plans is a loss for Mexican workers, U.S. employers and anti-terrorism efforts. U.S. President Bush's plan to legalize as many as 12 million unlawful immigrants while fortifying the border collapsed in the U.S. Senate on Thursday. "This is very bad news for Mexican migrants in the U.S.," said Jorge Bustamante, special rapporteur to the human rights commission for migrants at the United Nations and former president of El Colegio de la Frontera Norte in the city of Tijuana, across the border...

The Senate's three Democratic presidential hopefuls — Hillary Rodham Clinton, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden and Barack Obama — voted to advance the bill. Among Republicans, John McCain voted to keep the measure alive and Sam Brownback did likewise before changing his vote after defeat was obvious. "Immigration is going to have to wait until we get a new president and a new Congress," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said after a 46-53 procedural vote Thursday derailed efforts to move the bill toward final passage. The House also is almost certain to dodge the issue, with leaders of both parties hoping...

June 28, 2007 - (Washington, D.C.) – U.S. Sen. David Vitter today issued the following statement regarding the defeat of the immigration bill. “This is an incredible victory for the American people. The Kennedy immigration bill was flawed and granted amnesty to millions of illegals. “For a while, a small group of us were the only senators advocating the position of the majority of Americans. I am thankful that the continued calls and persistent engagement of the American people on this issue paid off. “The next step is to immediately push the president to take up his word and enforce...

Sen. Jim DeMint has it right: “When the U.S. Senate brought the Amnesty bill back up this week, they declared war on the American people. This act created a crisis of confidence in their government. Thankfully, the American people won today,” said Senator DeMint. “This is remarkable because it shows that Americans are engaged and they care deeply about their country. They care enough for their country to get mad and to fight for it, and that’s the most important thing of all. Americans made phone calls and sent letters, and convinced the Senate to stop this bill.” “The Senate...

I wanted to do a DUFU about the Shamnesty Immigation bill now in the Senate. Unfortunately there has been almost NO discussion about this issue in the Leftwing Blogosphere...until now. As you can see in this Daily KOs KOmmie THREAD titled, "WSJ: Opposing immigration bill could sink GOP," this debate is only interesting to the Left because they are desperately hoping that it will sink the Republicans. That is the the sum total of the Left's interest in this bill. The fact that it would take jobs away from American citizens and eventually cost us trillions of dollars in...

No amnesty for this bill Text Size: | | By Debra Saunders San Francisco Chronicle June 20, 2007 6:00 AM There's a way in which journalists insert how they think Americans should stand on an issue, and you see it in stories on the Kennedy-Kyl immigration bill that has tanked so spectacularly in Washington.Many newspapers reported that opinion polls showed voters supported "major provisions" of the measure - usually without mentioning that polls also found voters opposed the bill than supported it.That gets in the way of the pet media narrative: popular pro-immigrant bill torpedoed by what the Los Angeles...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senators pushing a new immigration policy appealed Sunday to wavering supporters ahead of renewed debate on securing the borders and dealing with 12 million undocumented immigrants. A fragile compromise was pulled from the Senate in early June, then resurrected after bipartisan negotiations with the White House. The bill awaits a crucial test vote this week. With several senators distancing themselves from the proposal, the outcome was too close to call. "We'll see if between the two parties we have 60 votes" needed to keep the bill moving toward a final vote, said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. The...

Earlier today, I sent an email to Senator Norm Coleman regarding the immigration bill. Me email and his response: Dear Senator Coleman, I understand another effort is being made to bring the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill up for cloture. Without indicting the motives of those promoting this piece of legislation, I would like to present my arguments for why this bill should be rejected: 1) Federal Government has no credibility when it comes to border enforcement We were promised increased border security after the 1986 amnesty, and very little was done to fulfill this promise. To make matters worse, the...

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, who has been under intense pressure from the White House and Republican leadership to support a sweeping immigration overhaul, nevertheless announced today that she will vote against reviving the legislation when it returns to the Senate floor next week. She was joined today by the state's other senator, Republican John Cornyn, who had been expected by the bill's supporters to take such a stance. They had aggressively lobbied Hutchison in hopes of adding her vote to the 60 necessary to revive the stalled legislation. "I could not support (bringing the bill...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sixteen of the two dozen amendments the Senate will consider attaching to a revived immigration bill come from senators who helped derail the legislation earlier this month. A list of the proposed changes obtained by The Associated Press illustrates how key Republicans and Democrats plotting to revive the measure before the Fourth of July recess are trying to placate critics by holding votes to address their top concerns. The proposals range from bids to make it more difficult for illegal immigrants to gain legal status to attempts to give family members of U.S. citizens more opportunities to...

What a GREAT day I had today. My mother is is town for a few weeks and decided to have her mail temporarilty forwarded to our house. So today in the mail is two wonderful little items, her renewal fees for the GOP and a card from President Bush trying to get additional donations and a birthday card we were supposed to fill out and send back to him. Yeah, I filled it out.

This is a links and activism-central thread to collect the information on the status and effort to defeat the Senate Immigration bill, especially the egregious Z visa amnesty program, in its second attempt at passage. The Vampire Strikes Back The nefarious back-room dealers in the US Senate announced on Thursday night that they were bringing the Senate Immigration bill, killed on a previous cloture vote, back from the dead. Senators are trolling for votes. The future of the UNITED STATES of AMERICA hangs in the balance as they try to drum up support for the sellout of the century. WILL...

WASHINGTON -- Lee Rogers, chairman of the Anderson County Republican Party, was at the beach last week when his cell phone rang. It was an urgent call from one of Rogers' Upstate GOP activists. "He asked me what I was going to do to find somebody to run against Lindsey Graham (next year)," Rogers said. "I explained to the gentleman that's not something I can put together as a single county chairman. That's got to happen with the people." It could be happening. Graham, a Seneca Republican nearing the end of his first Senate term, has taken plenty of heat...

On today's CQ Radio show, I interviewed Senator John Ensign, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), and asked him about the immigration bill. Ensign -- who voted twice against cloture on June 7th to kill the bill -- said that he believes a comprehensive approach is necessary to solve the problem. He also emphasized that America has to do something about the status quo, because it is simply so bad that we should not tolerate it any further. However, he disputed the notion that an agreement has been reached to resurrect the bill. Ensign said that rumors...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Architects of a revived immigration compromise are directing an intense behind-the-scenes bargaining effort to round up enough votes among wavering Republicans to keep it alive. Senate leaders' announcement Thursday that they would allow the bill a second chance came after getting assurances from key negotiators that they could produce enough support to steer the measure through a procedural minefield, including attempts by conservatives to block it. The fragile compromise would grant millions of illegal immigrants lawful status while tightening border security and creating new measures for weeding out illegal workers at job sites. Championed by President Bush,...

Bill Carr, acting deputy undersecretary of defense for military personnel policy, expressed hope today during a telephone conference with veterans’ group representatives that a provision in the stalled immigration bill that would have allowed some undocumented aliens to join the military won’t stall as well. The Army recruited 5,101 active-duty soldiers in May, 399 short of its 5,500-soldier goal, the Defense Department recently announced. The Navy and Air Force, however, both met their May goals, with 2,709 and 2,451 recruits, respectively. The Marine Corps exceeded its May goal by 34 percent, signing on 2,225 new Marines. The provision at stake...

Details of the immigration compromise remain to be finalized, but top Democratic sources say Reid has closely monitored the behind-the-scenes dickering over policy changes and a finite list of amendments due for consideration. Based on the latest updates on the policy and amendments, Reid will approve the compromise and move late Thursday to put the bill back on the calendar for Senate consideration in the middle of next week. "He's going to bless it and he's going to get the Senate back in the business of dealing with immigration," said a source in the Democratic Senate leadership. The principal change...

Senators Work to Revive Immigration Bill By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON — Key Republican and Democratic senators are reaching for a deal to resurrect their stalled immigration compromise by requiring that some $4 billion be spent on border security and workplace enforcement. The mandatory security funding is part of a plan to attract more Republican support for the measure, which grants legal status to millions of unlawful immigrants. In private meetings Wednesday, the bipartisan group that crafted the delicate compromise was hammering out a plan to allow votes on a limited set of Republican- and Democratic-sought changes...

This is the letter GA Senators sent to POTUS this week.. We were "pretty loud" down here... I think they at least heard some faint noise emanating outside the beltway. DISCLAIMER: I still don't trust 'em... a'Tall ************* Dear Mr. President: Although the Senate's effort to reform our nation's immigration laws through the Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Reform Act of 2007 is stalled, illegal immigration remains our nation's number one domestic issue. We therefore believe it is incumbent upon us and our colleagues to tackle this issue and not leave this problem for future generations to solve. As...

Senior GOP senators are embracing an eleventh-hour plan to pass an emergency supplemental bill for more border security money as a strategy to win over Republicans who have balked at the bipartisan immigration bill languishing in the Senate. But even as the emergency-spending approach gained momentum yesterday during President Bush’s rare visit to the Senate, the immigration bill’s strongest supporters warned that time is running out for an agreement to bring the measure back to the floor. Bush made no commitments as to whether he would propose an emergency supplemental bill — an idea floated by Georgia Republicans Johnny Isakson...

NOT A DIME TO THE RNC President Bush’s popularity and relevancy is plummeting to abysmally low levels. His unpopularity is only surpassed by that of, for example, the bi-partisan group of Senators who secretly plotted to give amnesty to up to 20 million illegal aliens currently employed by their political contributors. Let me illustrate why some Americans mistrust members of Congress even more than they mistrust the President. Senator John Cornyn of Texas, a patriot, introduced an amendment to the President’s amnesty bill (SB-1348) excluding vicious convicted gang members, felons, fugitive felons and terrorists from qualifying for amnesty and a...

The corpse of S. 1348 is twitching. Remember: I pronounced it "down but not quite dead" after the cloture vote last Thursday. Now, Bush-Reid-Kennedy will be working overtime the next few days to prop it back up on the Senate floor, reports the NYTimes: Senate Democrats opened the door to reviving the stalled immigration measure on Sunday, calling on Republicans to resolve their internal divisions and produce an agreement on how to move the legislation forward. With Bush administration officials and Republican authors of the overhaul saying they had not given up on the bill, the spokesman for Senator...

Hey Folks, I just posted this video that I made from some video and pics I took at the immigration shamnesty bill protest Rally in Atlanta 6/07/07. Go check it out! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lla71i1flk0

Elite newspapers and countless bloggers are writing their own explanations of why the compromise immigration legislation failed last night. Most of the write-ups discuss legislative tactics, an amendment offered by Senator Byron Dorgan (D), or some particular provision of the bill dealing with amnesty or guest workers. The reality is much simpler and has nothing to do with legislative tactics. The immigration bill failed because a broad cross-section of the American people are opposed to it. Republicans, Democrats, and unaffiliated voters are opposed. Men are opposed. So are women. The young don’t like it; neither do the no-longer-young. White Americans...

Here is a link to how each of your senators voted on all of the amendments to the Senate immigration bill so far. It will eventually have the results of the cloture vote. http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/110/senate/

The Wall Street Journal editorial board thinks conservatives who oppose the immigration bill are either xenophobes or bigots. Michelle engages in guerilla gorilla warfare to prove them wrong. VIDEO

They never call, they never write. So far we’ve heard nothing official from the editors of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. They haven’t contacted us, nor have they posted another videotape from one of their editorial conferences, nor have they written anything in their pages or on the web about our debate challenge. It’s funny: You almost get the sense they don’t want to debate immigration with us. This is odd, and a little disappointing. Odd because just the other day our friends at the Journal seemed absolutely certain that they could take all comers on the issue, that...

I have just come down with a dread disease, one that I once believed struck only moonbats. Bush Derangement Syndrome - BDS. I am so far out of the BDS demo - I don’t have a trust fund, a ponytail or hot flashes. I have two jobs. I laugh at Deval Patrick and carbon credits. I do not go to movies made by Michael Moore or Al Gore. I have no bumper stickers saying either Kerry-Edwards or 1-20-09. But BDS can sneak up on you faster than a resolution banning trans-fat in SUVs at Brookline Town Meeting. Like so many...

HH: The immigration bill matters a great deal to you. And since we’ve been banging away at it with a sledgehammer pretty much for two weeks, I thought we would bring on one of the more articulate and forceful defenders of the compromise, Tamar Jacoby, who is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Tamar, good to talk to you again. TJ: Good to be here. HH: Good to have you, it’s always a pleasure. I heard you on Laura’s show earlier last week talking about the deal. And so before I start asking questions, why don’t you give the...

As the Senate is mulling the details of a compromise immigration bill hammered together by the odd couple of Sens. Edward Kennedy and Jon Kyl, and as members of Congress hear from their constituents over the Memorial Day recess, it may be worthwhile to put the issue in historical context. For most of our history, the United States had no restrictions on immigration at all. I am told that my Canadian-born grandfather was a "nickel immigrant": He took the five-cent ferry from Windsor, Ontario, north to Detroit roundabout 1896. This situation resulted from America's strong demand for labor, coupled with...

Senator John McCain has anger issues with the American people. In days past his foul temper has erupted with less than perfect timing. But now he would have you believe, that you don't believe, what you truly believe you believe. Let me explain. Senator McCain has been willing in days past to curse the wishes of the American people. It happened in January of this year. In an interview with Vanity Fair magazine when pressed on what he was willing to actually do to stop illegal aliens from coming into the country McCain responded. "I think the fence is least...

WASHINGTON — Trent Lott usually doesn't answer his Senate phone himself, but when angry callers are burning up the lines — as they are over this week's debate about revising the nation's immigration laws — the Republicans' No. 2 Senate leader has picked up to hear what they have to say. A lot of the talk is misinformation, he says. Talk radio and the blogs were blasting the compromise bill, which includes a guest-worker program and a path to legal status for many illegal immigrants, well before the bill's text was ready for senators Tuesday. "We talked for 15 minutes,"...

WASHINGTON — Section 776 of the immigration bill is obscure, to say the least. Senators aren’t debating it, bloggers aren’t railing about it and chatterers aren’t fulminating over the provision tucked in “Subtitle F — Other Matters” under “Title III — Miscellan-eous” of the mammoth bill. So here’s the story behind one little paragraph in a sweeping bill that could change the way America welcomes immigrants in the 21st Century. The Statue of Liberty has symbolized hope for waves of newcomers — tired, poor, huddled, yearning to breathe free and start a new life. Section 776 literally would reopen the...

Perhaps I am wrong. I have been many times, and I am always ready to admit it upon hearing a better argument or facts previously unknown to me. I do not see how it could possibly be a wise thing to grant probationary status to the tens of thousands --at least-- of illegal immigrants in the country who hail from countries with long standing terrorist networks and demonstrated jihadist-friendly populations. This seems to me to be the same thing as welcoming into our country tens of thousands of German, Italian and Japanese nationals in 1944 provided their fingerprints didn't show...

Conservative Republicans working to block a compromise immigration bill risk endorsing a "silent amnesty" by insisting on unfeasible mass deportations, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said in an interview published on Thursday. In remarks to USA Today, Chertoff also criticized liberal immigrant rights advocates, saying they could prolong the anguish of immigrant families by withholding support for legislation that could give them legal status. Chertoff spoke to the newspaper's editorial board in a preview of a Bush administration media campaign to build support of broad immigration legislation being debated by the U.S. Senate, USA Today said. The compromise bill...

Lawmakers are bracing for political blowback from liberal and conservative critics of a broad immigration reform measure that's on hold as they head home for a weeklong break. Supporters and opponents said they would use the time off to influence senators who will face major immigration votes when they return to complete the bipartisan measure. The bill would legalize millions of unlawful immigrants, tighten border security and mandate that employers verify they are hiring legal workers. "As we head into the Memorial Day weekend, members of the Immigration Reform Caucus will go back to their districts and remind their constituents...

The chief of staff for Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., acknowledged Wednesday that her offices may not have an accurate tally of phone calls from constituents voicing support and opposition on a controversial immigration reform bill. So many people called Murray's office in recent days about the immigration issue -- as well as the war in Iraq -- that some phone calls may have gone uncounted because voice mail systems were full, said her chief of staff, Jeff Bjornstad, in Washington, D.C. He was responding to some local supporters of a proposed immigration reform bill who questioned Murray's phone call statistics...

Senator Ted Kennedy and the anti-gun zealots who wrote the bill just couldn't resist the temptation to get their hands on our guns. They have included language that GOA has been able to defeat in the past. When Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) introduced these anti-gun provisions in 1998, the GOA grassroots were able to convince seven senator cosponsors to pull their names from Hatch's bill. The current language in the amnesty bill is only slightly different from Hatch's original language almost 10 years ago, but it would essentially do the same thing -- threaten every gun store in America. In...

The transcript of my interview with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is posted here. The audio will be here later. I had hoped to get some answers from Secretary Chertoff that would have allayed my concerns about the draft immigration bill. I was not persuaded by his answers on a number of questions, and was mystified why it was so hard to get to the bottom line on the fence: 75 new miles are under construction and none have been completed thus far. The Department hopes that the 75 miles will be done by the end of September. Getting to...

Opposition Grows Along With Amendments to Senate Immigration Bill Tuesday, May 22, 2007 By Trish Turner WASHINGTON — A week after touting a breakthrough on a new immigration reform bill, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle on Tuesday started tearing apart the original proposal on how to handle the 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. The bill's future is unclear after the Senate test vote late Monday garnered the 60 votes needed for lawmakers to begin debating the 1,000-page document but Senate leaders agreed to postpone finishing the legislation until next month.

Opponents of the draft immigration bill as written should be willing to articulate what they view as necessary amendments. Here are my priorities: (1) An amendment to establish a special category of illegal aliens which includes all males between the ages of 18 and 30 from countries with significant jihadist networks, with that list of countries to be determined by the DoD, the CIA and State. No probationary Z visas under Section 601(h) would issue to such illegals. A special visa could issue, but one that required special care in the background checks and special restrictions on the movement of...

Interesting news about the immigration debate, eh? I understand they’ve crafted some sort of bill. Having read the whole thing, I feel compelled to offer some of the highlights: 6 (1) (D) Undocumented Xenonationals who have been in the country since noon March 16, 2004 (this language reflects a compromise between the hardline “AM” faction and moderates who wanted to extend the deadline to 4:57 PM) will have to report to a government office to announce they are departing. This is the HIMBG Provision, or the “Hello, I Must Be Going” provision. Immigrants will have to return to the Mexican...

I am reading the text of the new immigration bill. Just as the Patriot Act was a grab bag for every illegal and unconstitutional fantasy on the part of law enforcement, this bill is a grab bag for the globalists, those who wish to destroy the American middle class, and those who want amnesty. The site I am reading from is here. Here are some of the horrible things in the bill. It allows for the elimination of existing backlogs (apparently by fiat), section 501. From 501(b)(2)(A):”(2) VISAS FOR SPOUSES AND CHILDREN- `(A) IN GENERAL- Except as provided in subparagraph...

CALL FOR A GENERAL STRIKE Free Republic should call for a general strike on July 1, 2, 3 by all who oppose the immigration bill. I’ve been reading all of the news articles and posts. While I’m sure plenty of citizens are contacting their Senators and Representatives about this, we’ll probably just be ignored and history regarding amnesty will be repeated. What will get the attention of our lawmakers, but more importantly business who will then pressure the lawmakers, is a general strike. NO WORKING, NO TRAVEL, and NO BUYING on July 1st, 2nd, and 3rd! It should be pretty...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The fate of the immigration deal between President George W. Bush and a group of U.S. senators appeared uncertain on Friday as it drew heavy criticism from both the right and the left. With the Senate to debate the highly divisive issue next week, the immediate reaction to the plan to grant legal status to some 12 million illegal immigrants suggested it could face an uphill battle even there, where passage was considered more likely than in the House of Representatives. The House last year declined to even take up comprehensive legislation. Conservative Republicans were quick to...

Here’s the section-by-section breakdown of the just-announced Senate deal on illegal immigration given to us by a Senate source. We haven’t had the time to analyze it yet, but we’ll be back with the fast, concise and hard details on what appears to be an horrifically bad deal. Border Security and Immigration Reform Act of 2007 Title I Title I requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to certify that the triggers are met before the Title IV (Guest Worker) and Title VI (Z visa ) programs can begin, with the exception of probationary status for Z workers and the programs...

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow on the new immigration bill. HH: Pleased to welcome to the Hugh Hewitt Show now Tony Snow, press secretary at the White House. Tony, how are you? TS: I’m doing fine, Hugh. HH: Good to have you. I heard you on Michael Medved’s show a little bit earlier today, so you’ve got the Salem Network covered. We won’t go back to the same subjects. TS: (laughing) HH: Tony, immigration… TS: Yeah. HH: Are young men who entered this country illegally, or who overstayed their visas illegally, whose country of origin was either in Central...