Posted on 12/13/2003 5:24:56 AM PST by chicagolady
The White House yesterday said a new immigration review is under way that could lead to amnesty for millions of illegal aliens living and working in the United States. Confirmation of the review came during a White House briefing, just two days after Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said during a town hall meeting in Miami that the government had to "afford some kind of legal status" to the 8 million to 12 million illegal aliens in the country. "We've taken steps to improve border security significant steps, I might add; have made great progress there. We've taken steps to improve the immigration infrastructure," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. "Those are some foundations for moving forward on a more orderly, safe and humane migration policy. "And this is a matter that really is under review at this point. We continue to look at it," Mr. McClellan said. Mr. Ridge, during a question-and-answer period after his Miami speech, said he would not support granting citizenship to illegal aliens now in the country "because they violated the law to get here," but the government needed to "determine how you can legalize their presence" and then institute an immigration enforcement policy to prevent future illegal entries. His comments drew harsh criticism from some congressional sources and immigration opponents. Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado Republican and chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, said Mr. Ridge should resign if he is unable or unwilling to enforce existing immigration laws. He said the secretary's comments would "open a floodgate" of illegal aliens "trying to sneak into the United States in order to be first in line for amnesty." Dan Stein, executive director of the Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR), questioned what security interests of the United States were being served "by granting legal status to people whose identities cannot be confirmed and who already have shown an unwillingness to observe U.S. law? "The law has to be respected before you grandfather in the very people who disrespected it," he said. Various amnesty bills are pending in Congress, although none has been scheduled for debate or a vote. Congress approved an amnesty program in 1986, granting legal status to 2.7 million illegal aliens then in the country. The program contained increased enforcement and penalty policies aimed at ending illegal immigration, although the illegal alien population in the United States today is more than twice the total in 1986. Mr. McClellan said Mr. Bush "has always been a strong believer that America should be a welcoming society. We are, after all, a nation of immigrants, as he often points out." He said discussions with Mexico on a new amnesty proposal were ongoing prior to the September 11 attacks, but were halted. Mr. Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox had agreed to consider granting permanent residency, or green cards, to as many as 3 million Mexicans living illegally in the United States. Mr. McClellan also said that although some people had interpreted Mr. Ridge's comments as "some broad amnesty discussion," it was not that at all. "He's very involved in, obviously, overseeing border security and immigration matters, now under the new Department of Homeland Security," he said. "And I think he's been looking at the issue of the large number of illegal immigrants we do have in the country and looking at those that could be threats and those that are here for other reasons. "And so, he's just talking about the realities that we are facing now," he said. Asa Hutchinson, Homeland Security's undersecretary for border and transportation security, also defended Mr. Ridge's comments, saying they simply reflected ongoing debate in Congress over the immigration issue. "Secretary Ridge addressed it very honestly yesterday, engaged in that debate, but clearly this administration has not taken a firm policy position on that and the debate continues," Mr. Hutchinson said.
Urge your U.S. representative to cosponsor H.R. 489. For more action info go to
The Liberty Committee http://www.thelibertycommittee.org
Thanks to folks like Keny Snyder from the Liberty Committee, we can keep abreast of this tidal wave taking over America. Our Politicians need to be voted OUT of office for selling the American tax paying peole down the river. We still have time. Although I voted and supported George Bush, I beleive he is a smart man and will not try to pass this until after the Presidential election because if it is past now he will surely lose.
I keep thinking about the Million American March coming up in Sept. 2004. We have to get active and vocal and not just WHINE and PING.
To many of us sit at the Freerepublic website and cry and do nothing else. LET'S get active and get at LEAST one other person involved. Our country is going to hell in a hand basket because of the Politicians we have allowed in office.
Here is what I said in post number 30:
I still feel the same this morning.
As potentially evidenced by this article: White House verifies Immigration Review, this is probably not something that orignated with Ridge IMHO. It's probably some sort of trial balloon. It goes to the root of one of what I consider to be Bush's grave foreign policy mistaken beliefs IMHO, despite my support for the way he has conducted operations in Afghanistan and Iraq in response to 911.Anyone reading Bush's speech in Miami in August of 2000 on the "Century of the America's" before the election knew that this was his leaning. The world governance crew at the Council on Foreign relations got a Century of the America's review in October regarding the then governor's leanings.
I personally hoped it was much more long term thinking by those giving him advise and that those in his administration who championed it would have a next to impossible battle getting that vision through any American congress in the near term, despite the libs and world governance people on both sides of the aile. I was wrong. It is in fact astonishing to see these things being so openly touted and advancing so quickly.
Through any such measures, our nation is being opened, diluted, watered down and set up to be easy pickings for the future globailsts of the world and their power structures. We do face real enemies in the Islamic radicals and in Red China, who is being set up to be one of the power house entities in their vision. But I do not believe either of those are playing to the globalist tune as they would desire and we may well end up with something akin to WW II when the economic and other powers who tried to get behind Hitler realized too late that he was intent on doing things for his own purposes and quite willing to use them, and then kill them all if they got in the way.
Just my opinion...but either way, we are in grave times where the very survival of our nation and way of life will stand in the balance.
I am sending the Washington Times article I linked to out to my entire mailing list asking them to express their outrage to their reps, their neighbors and anyone they come in contact with. We all have to be involved in stopping this aspect of so-called "Homeland Security" direction and vision. It will lead to "securing" our homeland...but not for the people whose home it is.
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