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.
¿Quien is mas macho? ¡Claro, Fred is mas macho!
What the hell does that mean?
They’re not mutually exclusive comments.
Therein lies the test. His position will place him diametrically opposite of President Bush, Karl Rove, McCain, Graham, Martinez and the minion of other conservatives who failed at forcing another amnesty on the country. They all preached that an anti-illegal position would cause the death of the GOP. We shall see. One thing for sure is this move ensures Fred will never get the endorsement of President Bush.
Guys . . . this is silly:
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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.
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A president has no authority to do this. Congress authorizes grant money, and then further votes to spend it. Much of it is DoD research. The president signs those bills into law. Once he does, he is required by law to enforce that law he signed. All he can do is ask Congress to include in that law text mandating that states report illegals. A Democrat Congress won’t do this. This is silly.
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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.
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This is incorrect. This is not a policy subject to executive order. The president has no authority to do such a thing. That money flows by law because of bills signed. To do this Congress has to structure the bills accordingly and a Democrat Congress won’t.
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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.
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This also is stupid. The courts right this moment have prevented the SS number verification process that would have led to employers dismissing employees whose numbers did not match their names. The laws on the books were unfolding to permit no match letters to be sent, but the courts stopped it. Just what new laws does Thompson’s advisors think are going to get through a Democrat Congress?
Employers are in a situation where if they take action to fire people for this reason, they will be sued by the ACLU lawyers representing illegals and have to pay to defend themselves — probably bankrupting their business. If they do not fire these people, the Federal government would like to come in and sue them and bring criminal charges.
Employers are caught in the middle.
This is an enormous risk by Thompson. He is proposing a policy that has already been stopped by the courts and runs the very considerable risk of reinforcing the aura of poor staff work and lack of attention to detail in that campaign.
Won't that be just too bad...
I'll find it. Give me a few minutes.
A few months back, he stated that he didn't want the peaceful, hardworking illegal immigrant to be grouped with the violent, law-breaking repeat offenders.
He implied that he wanted to differentiate between them. He implied that he understood their economic contribution to many local economies.
As long as the border is secure, FIRST, I will happily listen to any suggestions regarding an amnesty, guest workers, etc.
I guess I’d also like to hear that any criminal activity (aside from their presense in this country) will make the them ineligible for amnesty or guest worker programs.
Excellent.
That is a very good thing. An endorsement by Bush would not be of any service to Fred.
Giuliani Swings Hard at Thompson on Ilegal Immigration As Thompson readies his immigration enforcement proposal, Rudy Giuliani's campaign is going into the Senate archives to point out his less-than-robust efforts on immigration enforcement in the past: Thompson Voted Against Establishing Office Within INS To Enforce Employer Sanctions Against Businesses That Employ Illegals. (S. 1664, CQ Vote #99: Rejected 26-74: R 2-51; D 24-23; I 0-0, 5/1/96, Thompson Voted Nay) Thompson Voted Against Requiring Development Of National Employment Verification System. (S. 1664, CQ Vote #101: Motion agreed to 54-46: R 20-33; D 34-13; I 0-0, 5/1/96, Thompson Voted Nay)
I have hi-lighted the GOP vote. I guess the devil really is in the details Rudy. Nice try....
I’ll get excited when somebody decides to put troops and machineguns on the border to close it to illegal entry. Until then:
{YAWN}
I suppose no conservative should propose anything, since it could not get by a Democrat congress.
That's not necessarily a bad thing.
“Time to make a real mark.”
This will give the other candidates “skid marks”(if you know what I mean!)
Yeah, only libs like Slick Willard and Rudy should propose things.
Go Fred.
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