Posted on 01/16/2004 4:00:38 PM PST by Federalist 78
Immigration reform advocates predict that President Bush's immigration plan will not succeed in Congress this year. "It's not going anywhere," said Rep. Tom Tancredo (R.-Colo.), chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus.
Although some Republican leaders have made vague statements of support for the plan, conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats, together with pro-immigration groups, have all attacked the plan, the latter because it does not ensure a path to citizenship for illegal aliens and new foreign workers.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner (R.-Wis.) and House Immigration Subcommittee Chairman John Hostettler (R.-Ind.) are immigration hawks who have remained noticeably silent on Bush's plan. Powerful House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R.-Tex.) has expressed skepticism.
"We expect that the plan would have to go through Sensenbrenner's committee," said a House Republican aide. "He has consistently opposed amnesties in the past."
Bush's plan would legalize illegal aliens living in this country who have jobs now and allow employers to import foreign workers on renewable three-year visas if they cannot find Americans to take the jobs they offered.
"The unreality of the whole thing leads me to conclude that this is nothing but a political gesture," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). "It's an amnesty no matter what the White House tries to say about it. The Republican Party has been moving toward a Saudi Arabian-style immigration policy in which people come to work here for many, many years but never become citizens."
Rosemary Jenks, director of government relations for the immigration reform group Numbers USA, said that millions of guest workers brought to this country under the plan would have to be given citizenship eventually. "These workers will largely be poor, low-skilled," she said. "They will vote for the party with the most handouts. This plan will kill the Republican Party."
She said the plan is unlikely to pass this year. "Unemployment is still high," she said. Next year, she said, "could be different."
The idea of requiring employers to make a serious attempt to hire Americans first would be "a polite fiction," said Krikorian. For example, he said, "someone will advertise for experienced stonemasons at $6.75 an hour, and no American with those skills will take that. So the employer will say he has to import a bunch of people from Bangladesh." "We tried a guest worker program before, the bracero program in the '40s," he said. "It didn't work well. . . . Like Bush's plan, it provided a financial incentive for them to return to Mexico by garnishing some of their wages, but they never got that money. Either they stayed here, forgot to ask for it, or the Mexican banks stole it. There are still lawsuits going on about it now, 50 years later."
The Key Concepts of Transnational Progressivism
ANTI-ASSSIMILATION ON THE HOME FRONT
It is significant, but little noticed, that many of same NGOs (Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International) and international law professors who have advocated transnational legal concepts at UN meetings and in international forums are active in U.S immigration and naturalization law. On this front the global progressives have pursued two objectives: (1) eliminating all distinctions between citizens and non-citizens and (2) vigorously opposing attempts to assimilate immigrants into the "dominate Anglo culture."
Thus, Louis Henkin, one of the most prominent scholars of international law when discussing immigration/assimilation issues attacks "archaic notions of sovereignty" and calls for largely eliminating "the difference between a citizen and a non-citizen permanent resident" in all federal laws. Columbia University international law professor Stephen Legomsky argues that dual nationals in influential positions (who are American citizens) should not be required to give "greater weight to U.S. interests, in the event of a conflict" between the United States and the other country, in which the American citizen is also a dual national.
Two leading law professors (Peter Spiro from Hofstra, who has written extensively in support of NGOs, and Peter Schuck from Yale) complain that "since 1795" immigrants seeking American citizenship are required "to renounce ‘all allegiance and fidelity’ to their old nations." In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, they advocate dropping this "renunciation clause" from the Oath. They also reject the concept of the hyphenated American and prefer what they call the "ampersand" individual. Thus, instead of thinking of a traditional Mexican-American who is a loyal citizen, but proud of his ethnic roots, they prefer immigrants (or migrants) who are both "Mexican & American," who retain "loyalties" to their "original homeland" and vote in both countries, thus ignoring the solemn Oath of Renunciation and Allegiance.
University Professor Robert Bach was the author of a major Ford Foundation report on new and "established residents" (the word "citizen" was assiduously avoided) that advocated the "maintenance" of ethnic immigrant identities, supported "non-citizen voting," and attacked assimilation (suggesting that homogeneity not diversity "may" be the "problem in America.") Bach later left the Ford Foundation and became deputy director for policy at the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in the Clinton Administration, where he joined forces with then INS general counsel T. Alexander Alienikoff, to promote a pro-multicultural, anti-assimilation federal policy. Alienikoff, a former (and current) immigration law professor, has characteristically declared, "we need to move beyond assimilation."
It has been well-documented (through Congressional hearings and investigative reporting) that the financial backing for this anti-assimilationist campaign has come primarily from the Ford Foundation, which in the 1970s made a conscious decision to fund a Latino rights movement based on advocacy-litigation and group rights rather than on civic assimilation. On this front, the global progressives have been aided if not always consciously, certainly in objective terms, by a "transnational right." It was a determined group of transnational conservative Senators and Congressmen that prevented the Immigration Reform legislation of 1996 from reducing unskilled immigration. The same group worked with progressives to block the implementation of a computerized plan to track the movement of foreign visitors in and out of the United States. Whatever their ideological, commercial, or political motives, the constant demand for "open borders" and "free movement" of people as well as goods by the Wall Street Journal’s editorial pages and by certain commentators, lobbyists, and activists on the transnational right has strengthened the anti-assimilationist agenda of the global progressives.
The Multicultural Theocracy: An Interview With Paul Gottfried
What are the prospects for containing or rolling back the multicultural theocracy?
Note I do not think these battles will solve long-term problems; unless Western peoples start having families again, the social unit and population base needed for a civilization will be lacking.
While societies can assimilate, there are three presuppositions that must obtain: a core population that carries a distinctive culture that it hopes to preserve; a minority that is accepted on the condition that it eagerly embraces that majority culture; and a sufficiently controlled immigration so that assimilation is possible.
In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide (which total 1,200 to 1,500) target illegal aliens. Up to two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants (17,000) are for illegal aliens.
Immigration politics have similarly harmed New York. Former mayor Rudolph Giuliani sued all the way up to the Supreme Court to defend the city’s sanctuary policy against a 1996 federal law decreeing that cities could not prohibit their employees from cooperating with the INS. Oh yeah? said Giuliani; just watch me. The INS, he claimed, with what turned out to be grotesque irony, only aims to "terrorize people." Though he lost in court, he remained defiant to the end. On September 5, 2001, his handpicked charter-revision committee ruled that New York could still require that its employees keep immigration information confidential to preserve trust between immigrants and government. Six days later, several visa-overstayers participated in the most devastating attack on the city and the country in history.
But enforcing laws against illegal labor is among government’s lowest priorities. In 2001, only 124 agents nationwide were trying to find and prosecute the hundreds of thousands of employers and millions of illegal aliens who violate the employment laws, the Associated Press reports.
Of the incalculable changes in American politics, demographics, and culture that the continuing surge of migrants is causing, one of the most profound is the breakdown of the distinction between legal and illegal entry. Everywhere, illegal aliens receive free public education and free medical care at taxpayer expense; 13 states offer them driver’s licenses. States everywhere have been pushed to grant illegal aliens college scholarships and reduced in-state tuition. One hundred banks, over 800 law-enforcement agencies, and dozens of cities accept an identification card created by Mexico to credentialize illegal Mexican aliens in the U.S. The Bush administration has given its blessing to this matricula consular card, over the strong protest of the FBI, which warns that the gaping security loopholes that the card creates make it a boon to money launderers, immigrant smugglers, and terrorists. Border authorities have already caught an Iranian man sneaking across the border this year, Mexican matricula card in hand.
Illegal aliens and their advocates speak loudly about what they think the U.S. owes them, not vice versa
Clear Law Enforcement For Criminal Alien Removal Act Of 2003 (Clear Act)
Despite the voices of those who naively believe that the influx of this estimated 9 to 13 million illegal aliens into the United States is a positive thing, the fact of the matter is that illegal immigration is having an extremely negative impact upon America at many levels. Unfortunately, the majority of illegal aliens who are here are engaged in criminal activity. Identity theft, use of fraudulent social security numbers and green cards, tax evasion, driving without licenses represent some of the crimes that are engaged in by the majority of illegal aliens on a daily basis merely to maintain and hide their illegal status. In addition, violent crime and drug distribution and possession is also prevalent among illegal aliens.
In summary, let me therefore state unequivocally that as a state prosecutor, I believe that this legislation is necessary. However, I caution you that the ultimate success of this goal will be based upon the political will of both political parties here in Washington. Quite frankly, I am not very optimistic. I believe that both the Republicans and the Democrats are to blame for the present lack of enthusiasm on the part of the government to enforce immigration laws. Business interests that often influence Republican Party politics clearly want cheap labor and often employ illegal aliens in menial jobs paid less than the minimum wage. On the other hand, the Democratic Party continuously at the national level panders to ethnic politics.
The fact that even Bush's supporters aren't sure why he's doing this or how he can justify it is all the proof we need that it is wrongheaded. It's a muddled plan, with dubious goals and inevitably negative consequences -- which doesn't bode well for the president's image as a decisive leader with moral clarity.
Beyond undermining the rule of law, this plan devalues the uniqueness of American citizenship by trivializing the laws aimed at making it selective and a special privilege. It sends a message that illegal immigration is a trifling matter.
Hb
The attacks on the system of citizenship and sovereignty is a way of undermining the system of Govt that we have and which worked for 200 years.
It appears that congress is the only branch that can be counted on to resist it. And even that branch is weakening.
In Federalist #51, James Madison stated, "But it is not possible to give to each department an equal power of self-defense. In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates."
I don't know if Sam Francis or anyone is suggesting that but I agree with you it would not be smart.
On the other hand, as Repbulicans we should seek to reform our own party from within which means opposing proposals like this.
The Republicans will continue with Tricky Dick's advice of "run to the right and govern to the left" unless this is corrected from within.
What doesn't help is when dissent is raised, those raising the dissent are labled as crackpots or racists (unless of course they are).
How about this:
Tell me why I am wrong.
Give me reasons, facts, opinions, something other than epithets and I will take you more seriously than I do now.
"As we speak, our borders are being inundated with people who think they might get an amnesty," said Rep. Tom Tancredo (R.-Colo.), chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus. Tancredo predicted the plan would not pass the House and contested the President's suggestion that America's current immigration laws are the cause of the immigration crisis. "Mr. President," he said, "the executive branch has chosen not to enforce the law."
"For whatever reason, the federal government hasn't enforced the laws on the books," said Rep. J. D. Hayworth (R.-Ariz.).
Immigration
We affirm the integrity of the international borders of the United States and the Constitutional authority and right of the federal government to guard and to protect those borders, including the regulation of the numbers and of the qualifications of immigrants into the country.
Each year some 972,000 legal immigrants and hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens enter the United States. These immigrants — including illegal aliens — have been made eligible for various kinds of public assistance, including housing, education, Social Security, and legal services. This unconstitutional drain on the federal Treasury is having a severe and adverse impact on our economy, increasing the cost of government at federal, state, and local levels, adding to the tax burden, and stressing the fabric of society. The mass importation of people with low standards of living threatens the wage structure of the American worker and the labor balance in our country.
We favor a moratorium on immigration to the United States, except in individual hardship cases or in other individual special circumstances, until the availability of all federal subsidies and assistance be discontinued.
We also insist that every individual group and/or private agency which requests the admission of an immigrant to the U.S., on whatever basis, be required to commit legally to provide housing and sustenance for such immigrants, bear full responsibility for the economic independence of the immigrants, and post appropriate bonds to seal such covenants.
The Constitution Party demands that the federal government restore immigration policies based on the practice that potential immigrants will be disqualified from admission to the U.S. if, on the grounds of health, criminality, morals, or financial dependence, they would impose an improper burden on the United States, any state, or any citizen of the United States.
We oppose the provision of welfare subsidies and other taxpayer-supported benefits to illegal aliens, and reject the practice of bestowing U.S. citizenship on children born to illegal alien parents while in this country.
We oppose any extension of amnesty to illegal aliens. We oppose bilingual ballots. We insist that those who wish to take part in the electoral process and governance of this nation be required to read and comprehend basic English as a precondition of citizenship. We support English as the official language for all governmental business by the United States.
We need to work WITHIN the party
WHERE IS YOUR 'WORK' TO REMOVE BUSH!
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