Secure the border first: to be “comprehensive,” immigration reform must be a 2-step process

Flopping Aces ^ | 11-25-11 | Alec Rawls

[Starman417]

Newt Gingrich risked his standing with conservatives on Tuesday night by calling for a "comprehensive approach" to immigration reform. "Comprehensive immigration reform" is a poisonous a term to conservatives because of the reckless dishonesty with which it has been applied to a long series of bills that have been anything BUT comprehensive. In particular, these bills have promised to both secure the border and establish a path to citizenship for those illegals who are already here (amnesty), while only actually providing amnesty, which together with our still unsecured borders dramatically increases illegal immigration. It's like hosing gasoline on a burning house and calling it "a comprehensive approach to firefighting." Comprehensively dishonest and comprehensively disastrous perhaps. It took a huge fight to turn back the last such attempt (the McCain-Kennedy Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007). Newt had been asked about his vote for the first such phony-comprehensive bill and stepped in it by making a renewed appeal to comprehensiveness:

I did vote for the Simpson-Mazzoli Act. Ronald Reagan, in his diary, says he signed it -- and we were supposed to have 300,000 people get amnesty. There were 3 million. But he signed it because we were going to get two things in return. We were going to get control of the border and we were going to get a guest worker program with employer enforcement. We got neither. So I think you've got to deal with this as a comprehensive approach that starts with controlling the border, as the governor said.

A comprehensive approach vs. a comprehensive bill It is a tricky rhetorical question: how to call for a genuinely comprehensive approach to immigration reform when the term "comprehensive immigration reform" has been systematically used in the most dishonest fashion as cover for what are actually pro-illegal-immigration policies? But there is a simple answer.

Truly comprehensive immigration reform MUST be a two-step process. The border must be secured FIRST. Until that is accomplished, even to talk of amnesty, never mind legislate about it, only increases illegal immigration. In other words, a "comprehensive immigration" BILL is the diametric opposite of a comprehensive immigration APPROACH. Anyone who talks about a comprehensive immigration reform bill (McCain) is a anti-conservative fraud who should be routed out of the party.

Newt's control-the-border-first statement shows he understands the problem, but does he understand the solution?

[GeronL]

H1 Visas are also being abused I hear, foreigners working at the Publix grocery stores down there??

[Joe Boucher]

While my wife does shop at Publix, they have been a leader in working folks part time with No benefits.
Clean, well stocked and you can find a decent cut of meat if you are ready to pay too much.
Don’t eat the sea food.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

As part of border control we all get a shiny new, hi-tech SS card that goes PING!

[writer33]

Deport anyone? LOL!

[GeronL]

lol

anyone at all?

[writer33]

Ping!

[arthurus]

Secure the border. That should be a separate subject altogether, not tied in with immigration. Secure the border. It's a different subject. At the same time start imprisoning CEOs and personnel managers and fining housewives who hire illegals in any capacity. Then have an open southern border for southbound traffic. It will get heavy. You don't have to deport the illegals, just make it very difficult for them to make a living. Cut off by law all government benefits to the illegals. Actually all government benefits to anyone should be cut off. That would help fix the illegals problem and the economy, too.

[HiJinx]

Ping!

Click the keyword Aliens to see more illegal alien, border security, and other related articles.

[Tammy8]

As long as "securing the border first" remains couched in the terms of a condition for something else to happen, it will not happen. Border security is being used as a bargaining chip rather than a Constitutional mandate. It should be the sole topic of discussion. The debate at this point should be focused exclusively on how to secure the border, not on "what happens after." At this point, our candidates are like a couple of surgeons quibbling about the optimum closing stitches, while the patient bleeds to death on the table with multiple gunshot wounds.

YES, Exactly!! Due to the cartel war, other criminal activities, and the fact that smugglers are cozying up with terrorists the border needs to be secured even if illegal crossings wasn't in the mix. For our security the border must be secured.

[AlexisHeavyMetal1981]

It is long past time that Charlie Brown wise up and kick Lucy in the head instead of the football.

[BobL]

The EASY question to ask Newt is why is he even talking about Step 2?

Step 1 is securing the border. Step 2, if Newt actually wanted the nomination, would be to say something like “we’ll deal with that when we get there”.

If he had done something this simple, he would still have his huge leads in key states...

[c-b 1]

I've lived on the border for 25 years, I understand the problem, and the solution.

Clamp down hard on employers who hire illegals.

Round the illegals up, and send them home, all of them, no exceptions.

No matter how long they have been here, and how good they've been. They broke the law coming here, they've been breaking othher laws while working here.

I've heard over, and over that we can't afford to round them all up, we don't have to round them all up. Start rounding them up, and there will be a self deportation that will create a vacuum.

Then continue to deport the few that cross, Problem solved.