Check the tagline FReepers!
Posted on 10/23/2007 7:49:12 AM PDT by blogsforthompson.com
Fred Thompson is set to announce today a major proposal that would take a huge bite out of the enormous illegal immigration problem in America. Fred will meet in Florida with the Collier County Sheriff, Don Hunter, and will then reportedly announce the details of his plan that would enforce our nation's borders and target cities and employers that harbor and hire illegal aliens. AP writer Brendan Farrington reports on the expected announcement:
Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson is choosing a county with a large farmworker population to announce an immigration policy Tuesday that will include stripping federal grant money from cities and states that don't report illegal immigrants.Thompson plans to meet with Collier County Sheriff Don Hunter before announcing details of his border security and immigration enforcement proposal.
A major part of the plan will be to reduce the number of illegal immigrants by increasing enforcement of existing law. Sanctuary cities, where city employees are not required to report illegal immigrants to federal authorities, would lose discretionary federal grants, said a campaign source who didn't want to be named because the plan hasn't been announced.
Thompson will also call for stronger laws to force employers to verify that workers aren't illegal immigrants, a more rigorous system to track who is coming in and out of the country and a plan to increase prosecution of "coyotes," smugglers who bring illegal immigrants across the Mexican border, the source said. He will also talk about border security.
Collier County has vast tomato farms that hire thousands of immigrants. Last year it was part of a two-county sweep with 163 illegal immigrants arrested in one weekend. The campaign plans to cite figures that 22 percent of the county's crime is committed by illegal immigrants and that 40 percent of county's arrest warrants are for illegal immigrants.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently trained 27 Collier sheriff's deputies to enforce immigration laws.
At a campaign stop in Georgia last week, Thompson accused rivals Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani of being soft on illegal immigration when Romney was Massachusetts' governor and Giuliani was New York's mayor.
“In a country where middle class America sees these guys mowing the lawn every day and thinks nothing of it, the tide can turn quickly.”
But that only happens in part of the country. Where I live, people mow their own lawns or, if you can believe it, use one of the lawn care services of white or black American citizens doing jobs Americans won’t do. Of course, a big influx of illegals could undercut their earnings and put them out of the lawn care business as has apparently happened in the places you describe.
A lot of the reaction to illegal aliens has come as they’ve moved into areas where they’ve never been before, a good indication of how great their numbers have become.
#181 for ejonesie22.
Heaven help us if the entire country becomes like this. I’ve already written off the border states as unsalvageable. Mexifornia certainly is.
I've posted this before, from my college years working summer construction:
In the late 70's a construction laborer was paid $6 to $8 per hour ($8 was union scale on DC Metrorail, $6 at your everyday new housing site).
Most of the guys working construction had families, and even a few laborers I worked with. Wives, kids, mortgage (obviously the wife was helping).
I have run the numbers, and by any of several common economic measures (CPI, Average Wage Rate, Inflation Rate) today's construction laborer would be paid $24.00 to $29.00 per hour.
I have been told anecdotally and more than once that today's illegal alien unskilled laborer - on the construction site or elsewhere - is paid $12.00 to $16.00 per hour (regardless of taxes or not).
Which means that illegal aliens have reduced the wages for unskilled labor by 40 to 60 percent in the last 30 years.
Since fiscal responsibility is FRed’s hobby horse, and is what he concentrated on while in the Senate, you have a very good chance of seeing that happen when he wins. :)
Deporting them all is exactly what we would do if we were enforcing the law. The law calls for them to be deported. If you don't want them deported, then you are the one who doesn't want the law enforced.
And the tone I have seen from many is not exactly hug and kisses and a harsh tone is the last thing we need in this fight, we are already seen as basing this whole thing on an ethnic group, whether that is reality doesn't matter.
This has nothing to do with emotion on my end, indeed it seems to often be emotion that drives the "toss 'em all out" crowd.
What always fails to follow that is a detailed plan on exactly how that will occur even with attrition from enforcement, which as I stated above is part one of the solution.
You guys fail to realize the forces arrayed against us in the fight for finally bringing sanity into the immigration debate. Lets look at a few:
1. The Democrats are shopping for a voting block, and really love to rally to the cause of those poor defenseless little farm and factory workers, those us big bully Republicans want to toss back into poverty. They will show stories of these wonderful families chasing the American dream. How could anyone especially us mean old Conservatives who always talk about responablilty and making it on your own, be against that. That leads to their willing accomplices...
2. The press. Imagine every morning on the Today show stories of those poor little Mexican families, their kids locked up, their lively hoods taken away. Oh brother, then it really gets going. Oprah filming our barely functioning detention centers where little Maria who made your daughters first dance dress sits in sweltering heat, starving waiting to be sent back to that horrible nation of Mexico. Oh the humanity. Every day and every night...
3. Business interest are looking for workers who will actually show up. They will suffer at the beginning from the attrition and enforcement, but as labor shortages occur, remember our unemployment is low right now and our own remaining deadbeats refuse to work, then they will be screaming like hell to do something, and they have a lot of pull, what do you think happened in the eighties under Reagan.
4. The ACLU is chomping at the bit to get deportation into the courts on a large scale. Right now the deportation are low key and not very visible, and often involve a violent criminal element. They wont touch that, but deport a family and Katie bar the doors. Go look at their sight and see how successful they have been defeating anti immigrant local and state laws so far. Which leads me to...
5. The Courts come into play. The 9th circuit, well I rest my case right there.
6. The activist. They are loud and proud and love a good crowd. They also have the spare time to give The ACLU and the dems all the help they need.
7.Logistics. I will stress it once again, even with enforcing the laws, many will run underground, because poor and on the run here beats the hell out of being poor in Mexico. Also, it ties to other issues such as the American people. Many of these folks will be driven to petty crime to survive. You think the Oprah generation will blame them, hell no, they will blame us Republican SOBs who insisted that these folks leave their jobs and flee under ground. Just dandy guys. So we have to go after them, which kicks off everything above IF it could be done. But I have yet to have anyone answer this simple question:
In a country where the is a shortage of law enforcement officers and prisons cells, exactly who is going to arrest these folk AND detain them until tried (which will happen thank to the ACLU etc.) and deported. What courts will handle the enormous case load? Who will guard these folks and where?
Which finally leads to...
8.An American population who has the attention span of a house fly. Will they support the massive effort, epically after the 30th episode where Oprah tells them that their tax money is going to arrest these poor unfortunates.
Its bull$hit, I know it, but it is reality.
We don't have 3/4 of the congress to make demands with, and we know the story of the courts, it plays out here daily.
If we fail at any given point in this, we will AT BEST, stop mid process with maybe a fence and 10 million Mexicans of all types, not just the hard working ones who did come here for a shot. Indeed it may reverse everything INCLUDING border security since the Dems will see an opening to bring in more and gain their votes. It's time to beat the bastards at their own game, let us set the rules and the level of the inevitable compromise, end this thing quickly and keep our kids from dealing with this $hit.
We need to enforce the laws and FDT is damn right on that, but we also need to end run these bastards and soon.
We have to think here and play samrt for a change.
No. I'm not a cultural populist and don't base my vote on cultural issues.
Back to the original article, Fred and the others have to swerve to the cultural right to win the nomination
192 for you. And everyone else.
Your post just makes WAY too much sense. But the ‘round ‘em up’ gang will not see that.
>> There is no breakdown with respect to the way the law is written. The only breakdown is the refusal to enforce the law.
Which is why, as stated in the article, the crux of Thompson’s plan hinges on enforcement of existing law.
>> He would only need to exercise his authority as President to require the Justice Department to apply immigration laws to the letter.
Which is precisely what he’s said he’ll do. I’m still not seeing the problem. I’m beginning to think you just don’t care for Thompson, so you’re looking for something to complain about. You and Thompson seem to be in agreement.
>> Any announcement involving more than simply stating he would exercise his authority as President is grandstanding.
He’s running for president ... grandstanding comes with the territory.
However, it is clear there is a problem with immigration law - and a plan incorporating the enforcement of existing law as well as additional punishment (of the State or locality, not merely individuals) for failure to enforce seems like a reasonable solution.
>> He doesn’t need to propose stiffer penalties.
The current punsihment scheme - due to both lack of enforcement and a failure to punish municipal and state governments - isn’t working. Thompson’s plan to enforce existing laws, and add punishments for the States and municipalities should correct both failures of the current arrangement.
>> No plan needs to be formulated.
Something needs to be “formulated”. The current immigration scheme is broken ... the punishments aren’t enforced enough on individuals, and don’t apply to states or municipalities. Thompson’s plan would apparently correct each of these failures ... placing the incentive back on individuals and government entities to ensure that immigration laws are enforced.
>> The law I have cited is strong enough to discourage municipalities from declaring their communites as a sanctuary cities if the law is enforced.
Clearly the penalties are not harsh enough to deter such declarations - as there are several declared sanctuary cities throughout the country. Hit them in the pocket-book - as Thompson is proposing - and they’ll fall in line.
>> Passing more laws will only ensure those laws aren’t enforced. a law is only effective if people have the will to apply the law as it is written. Such a strategy is redundant and therefore pointless.
Perhaps you should reread Thompson’s intent to enforce existing law ... he’s saying the exact same thing you are. The only new laws I saw were augmentations of existing law so as to impose additional punishments on States and municipalities (which current law does not do ... current law punishes individuals only). That isn’t redundant, that is correcting a loophole in the enforcement scheme of current law ... a loophole which allows States and municipalities to ignore enforcement unscathed.
It seems to me you and Thompson agree - enforce existing law. He adds a couple of financial incentives to ensure enforcement ... but the spirit remains the same. I still don’t see the problem.
H
IRobot makes the roomba robotic room vacume.
irobot will now have a market for MOWba the robotic lawn cutter.
I have seen in one of those skymall magazines, a solar powered law mower. It is just expensive now.
The funny thing is, when you take away logic, you get liberalism, hence the reason they always kick our ass.
We are smarter but our devotion to our ideals often times makes us forget we are also often out numbered since it is easier to be an idiot (liberal) than actually accomplished.
Sad thing is, the idiots also have the vote.
Who the hell came up with that idea.... I'd love to bet them at their own game one day. "Neener neener neener, we just picked up 5 million pro life tax payers who are sober enough to find a voting booth, and you idiots agreed to it because it was helping out the poor itty bitty immigrants and protecting them from those Republican bigots..."
She was in Dusseldorf; probably she was referring to the selective enforcement when it comes to Americans.
Can I vote for him twice?
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