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.
DING DING DING, we have a winner!
“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.”
But it pays to live in the real world rather than a fantasy world. We actually can’t physically deport 20 million or more people except over many, many years. But we can begin to strictly enforce employment laws and take away incentives for people to remain here illegally. That will cause significant self-deportation, then, as I clearly said, we’d deport all illegals encountered during normal law enforcement.
We’ve seen significant self-deportation from states that have enacted strict laws. If the Feds start enforcing the employment laws and other laws as they encounter illegals, then we’d see a steady decrease in the number of illegals. But the notion that we can physically round up 20 million or more illegals and deport them is nonsense. We have to take away the things that attract them here and keep them here.
It took many years of ignoring the law for us to be invaded by millions of foreign criminals, and it will indeed take many more years to enforce the law, and deport them.
Thank you so much for the ping. I’ve been WAITING for someone to address this in a unique, large and BIG way. I pray he’s given the answer to this terrible problem....
“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.”
Your long posts provide long lists of real obstacles to solving the immigration problem. But we have little hope of even addressing the problem until we have a president who will use the executive branch to enforce the law rather than deliberately ignoring it. We can maybe hold the status quo in the Senate, but we have to have a pro-enforcement President to make any significant headway toward solving the problem.
A pro-enforcement president could accomplish a lot, and then we should pray we now have a SCOTUS that thinks the US has a right to enforce its immigration laws.
Illegals, illegal migrants, illegal immigrants,illegal aliens—all the same...as long as he can *prove* that he can get the job done....THAT’S what will set him apart from the ‘pack’.
My question would be: Would this be a presidential executive order or what?
Wouldn’t it be interesting if the borders were secured like area 51. {{grin}}
Everybody would be wondering what is on the other side of the fence.
That’s so funny, unless it were true!!
But our best bet, because of the factors mentioned in my post, is to take decisive action as soon as we can to bypass the lethargy that will come.
I agree whole heartily that enforcement will help, but it wont solve the issue since Mexico is in such bad shape. There are many willing to help these folks move under ground. The longer it is an open issue, the longer they are physically here, the greater the possibility that any progress made will reverse itself.
That is the heart of my idea on taking the best and hardest working, fine them and get them back to work, and in so doing, as part of that deal, tie it to a very strong border policy, the money needed to deport the rest, which in an ironic twist could come from the fines paid by those staying, and a comprehensive reform of our immigration laws to make sure this never happen again.
This would accomplish several things;
1. The Dems will have egg on their faces, since they are counting on us to be assholes and bigots. It becomes OUR idea to keep the good ones. Then what do they say “No, we have to keep the criminals... Oh hell never mind...” .
2. Business interest get their workers in the areas needed. Indeed that is what we can use as the criteria on who stays . What industries really do need these folks, where are the being used where there is not an American that can and will do the job. That also helps in the areas people mention that native labor is being shortchanged. If there is enough native labor in an area, no immigrants. We have based immigration on this before, demonstrable skill and all that. It cuts the Chamber of Commerce and other entities that succeeded in the 1980s amnesty off at the knees.
3. Courts, what courts? We are not just willie nillie tossing these people out, we have a defined criteria they have to meet. We also set fines that unless they are employed thay can't pay. So guess what, you want to sue, hell we are letting more than a few stay, so it’s not a civil rights issue, it's a immigration issue. Oh the ACLU will bitch and sue, but we just killed off most of their arguments, just like we did the Dems.
4.The press, what are they going to say, we are nice enough to forgive a few criminal immigrants because they really do need a chance. Oh they will rant and rave about the criteria and how unfair it is, but again it has an historic basis, we have let those who can fill a national need stay before.
5. The activist will bitch, but we inform the we could have tossed you all out on your illegal asses but we feel magnanimous and know that many deserve a shot. So what were you complaining about again?
Like I said, we end up with hard working families who almost to the person are devot Catholics (can you say pro life), have a work ethic, which predisposes them to conservatism anyways and now just love those wonderful Republicans who invited them to share a bit of their dream with them. Gee I wonder who they will vote for.
We also get this fight done, reduce enforcement cost to nil out of pocket, reduce the crime that would have come from driving them under ground, get the doors shut tight and eliminate the risk that comes from dragging this thing out.
We take the power away from the Dems and take it for ourselves for a change.
It's called a win. We need it.
People have a big curious.
The 5 or so million we keep will pay a fine. Base it on their new salary, say 10 percent for two years.
Lets take 25,000 as an average. Thats 2500.00 a year, taken monthly.
At 5 million thats 12.5 billion a year or a total of 25 billion dollars.
That will buy one hell of a fence and a lot of agents to round up the rest (given we can find the skilled personnel).
Ironic ain’t it, they pay for enforcing the very laws they broke.
Just proves that even a broken cloacal is right twice a day.
That was not one of his times.
GOoooooooo FRed!
Causes “Cloassal” errors if you know what I mean...
Thompson camp code for "people who believe in enforcing the law". Your selective enforcement idea leads to zero enforcement. How do you form two lines, "best and hardest workers" and who goes to the other line, "worst and laziest workers"? What if the husband is a good worker and the wife is a lazy worker, send her back and keep the husband? Who gets to pick which line they get in, you? If illegal employers want to keep their illegal employees they can say "he's a good worker" and then he gets to stay? The scofflaw employers will take that deal.
Let Mexico have some good workers too so that they can improve their country.
Blah, blah, blah ...
You’ve basically got a long list of unnecessary complaints that you’ll lodge against any Presidential candidate with the temerity to actually try to change the current immigration enforcement regime. You’ll apparently object to any candidiate that cares to elaborate on the phrase “I’ll enforce current law” (a quote that Thompson actually used as a primary platform for his immigration proposal).
I’m sorry, but the answer “I’ll enforce current law” - with no further elaboration - simply isn’t enough. Its a line we’ve heard dozens of times from dozens of candidates over dozens of years ... and its gotten us nowhere. Details are an absolute necessity - and a change or two here and there to current law wouldn’t be entirely unwarranted either. I want to know why their plan is different, why theirs will work where the current scheme hasn’t, and why cities and states will listen this time when they haven’t in the past. Thompson has an answer beyond “I will enforce current law” ... which apparently has sent you into a tizzy.
Current law has failed - its mechanisms for enforcement have failed, and its penalties and punishments for a government’s failure to enforce have failed. I want to know, specifically, how candidates plan to remedy the failures of current immigration law. To Thompson, a renewed commitment to enforcement is among the remedies - but new and more inventive punishments for a government’s failure to enforce are clearly necessary as well. It must be made clear that things have changed ... repeatedly spouting “current law, current law, current law” doesn’t make that clear ... it sounds like more of the same. It must be made clear that the current view of optional enforcement of immigration law has ended ... the attachment of funding to enforcment is the perfect mechanism to do so.
Immigration law, and the enforcement thereof, has been broken for better than a quarter-century. Reagan declared amnesty, and things only got worse from there. Thompson proposes attaching federal funding to immigration enforcement - as a mechanism to force cities and states to enforce current law - and you get your panties in a bunch because he dared suggest a change to current immigration law.
Of the current frontrunners ... Giuliani, Romney, Thompson, Hillary and Obama ... Thompson is the only one with a commitment to the enforcement of current immigration law. He comes out with the most sensible plan to date, rivaling that of Duncan Hunter - and, one that conservatives will have a difficult time disagreeing with any portiont thereof. Yet, you bitch and moan that he dared come out with an answer that was more than a sentence long ... that is simply nonsensical. Tert, one-sentence answers are not the makings of a successful Presidential candidate ... details are needed.
H
Sheesh...
You did not even read anything I wrote.
Enforcement is part one of the solution, but anyone with common sense knows damn well that will not get all of them, more than likely less then half.
You been to Mexico lately, not a booming job market and one hell of a place to be poor. So you are going to end up with a bunch of these folks finding ways to hide here and many willing to help.
So we just go after them and those who help them right?
Good idea, how you plan on doing it. Look at our major cities alone. The police forces are already over burdened. ICE has a small over worked staff, FBI is stretched already. We hire more, but from where, our unemployment is at record lows and if there were hundreds of folks that were looking for a job like that these departments would not have empty slots to fill right now. I don’t see a lot of 60K a year bankers or IT folks dying to switch to 45k a year ICE jobs.
Housing them? Courts where the legal challenges occur? Transport?
So the solution is two fold IF this is the path. One, an overwhelming effort at incredible expense to staff and built the logistical systems. Well I addressed the shortage of man power, but we could build some really cool buildings and buy a bunch of buses.
Or second, we go slow, take 20 years to get them all.
The American public was already tired of Iraq in general months ago, and that was in pursuit of people hell bent on killing us. You think it would last any longer going after folks who want to serve us homemade tacos and bag our groceries.
After a few short months of endless stories of pursuits, the costs, and all the legal challenges, I can guarantee you that they will scream enough, and we end up with a bunch still here (many we did want in any way), weaken resolve on the fence and dont;’ get me started on the fact while all thins is going on even more will come through taking the chance.
So do we sit here and demand all or nothing, and loose our place at the table or take a chance and take the high road.
Yes we decide who stays here exactly as you said, you work, you can pay the fine and have a job that is of value you are in. If it is just the father, so be it, at least the family will have income. The rest of you Buh Bye...
There is the way things are and the way things ought to be. I wish we had control over things, but if we, as Conservatives, did, there would be no illegal issue, no welfare, smaller government, no abortion and things would have been much different than they are now.
Last I looked, that ain’t the way it is.
So unless you can GAURANTEE me 3/4 of both houses, a conservative Supreme court in the next few months and the White house, and GAURANTEE it for the duration of shipping them all out, then I think it would behoove us to come up with quick solution that bypasses the obstacles and gets this out of the public eye as quick as possible. If we can get an advantage even better.
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