Posted on 11/10/2004 12:51:19 PM PST by VU4G10
(Washington, DCNovember 10, 2004) It wasn't quite "Read my lips," but in the last presidential debate in Arizona, George W. Bush clearly stated that he would not support amnesty for illegal aliens. One week after being narrowly returned to office, the president has reneged on that pledge. Bush has dispatched Secretary of State Colin Powell to Mexico City to open discussions with the Mexican government about the size and scope of amnesty for illegal immigrants and for a massive new guest worker program.
"President Bush and Karl Rove have seemingly missed the message of their own, and the Republican Party's, success at the polls last week," said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). "In spite of a poor record on jobs, further erosion of the middle class, and staggering budget deficits, the people returned the GOP to office because they believed that the Republican Party was more in tune with them on values and respect for the law. One of those gut issues that led voters to ignore the administration's poor record in other areas was the belief that Bush and the Republicans would enforce laws against illegal immigration, not reward illegal immigrants and auction off every job in America to the lowest bidder."
The immigration plan being dusted off in Washington and Mexico City is essentially the same one the administration introduced last January, which proved to be so wildly unpopular among voters that they were forced to shelve it. "Who is the president seeking to reward by reintroducing his amnesty/guest worker proposal?" asked Stein. "Not middle class workers who made it very clear that they are feeling squeezed. Not the millions of families who have lost their health insurance benefits because their employers no longer feel that it is necessary to offer such benefits to attract American workers. Not Hispanic voters, whom polls indicate do not consider this to be high priority and who voted in significant numbers in favor of an Arizona ballot measure that bars illegal aliens from receiving most public benefits.
"The only interest group, besides the estimated 10 to 12 million illegal aliens and their families who could be in line for legal U.S. residency, are cheap labor employers who have come to believe that it is their right to have workers who will work at whatever wages they wish to pay," Stein said.
The latest White House announcement will touch off yet another surge in illegal immigration and further compromise homeland security, predicted FAIR. Last January, when the president first proposed this plan, the U.S. Border Patrol reported a marked increase in the number of people attempting to enter the U.S. illegally in order to benefit from the proposed amnesty. "Aside from betraying the interests of millions of people who voted for him because they believed the president shared their core values, this irresponsible renewal of talk of amnesty will betray those who voted for him because they believed the Republicans were the party that could be entrusted to protect homeland security. You cannot have homeland security and chaos at the border. You cannot have homeland security while granting amnesty to millions of people with only minimal background checks. And you certainly cannot have amnesty and unlimited guest workers, and preserve a solid middle class," asserted Stein.
I completely disagree. I believe President Bush is a man of character and take him at what he's actually said. Apparently those in Mexico aren't the only ones playing with words.
I agree with you 100 percent; and the people in Congress who are working on this problem right now agree with you 100 percent.
That being said, immigration is one of those areas where there is really only one solution, and no one likes it. You have to get control of who is coming in, or any program (save a rolling amnesty, which is the exception eating the rule) will not work. Accordingly, step one is gaining control of our borders (not necessarily with the military or even a paramilitary). But, no one wants to do what its going to take, so we will volley back and forth and not get anything accomplished. Same old, same old.
My opinion: nothing is going to happen. It's all talk.
"No they don't."
Yes, they do. If they don't register, then they don't get their blue card.
Do you think that we haven't offered them *enough* to incent them to register? Are you saying that we should offer them more?!
Tanton, the ZPG/etc leftist, still sits on the Board of Directors. I certainly hope that FAIR is no longer associating with eugenicist/supremacist/abortionist etc but they clearly did in the past and I think you would be wise to be wary of them.
In addition to trying to stop immigration to the U.S., appropriate population-control measures for Dr. Tanton and his network include promoting China's one-child policy, sterilizing Third World women and wider use of RU-486.
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB108742681731539433,00.html?
Well, this does it for me.
No way I'm voting to re-elect Dubya in 2008!
Don't tell me, tell PresBush. Bush`s trial balloon was unclear on overall specifics and besides, political semantics is a tool that all politicians employ. As with most Americans, I oppose any level of amnesty. It's wrong in my book. Period. Blanket amnesty may infer 100% coverage, but as we all know, politics isn't a precise science. Now is it?
Chuckling...I was just thinking that as long as the current interpretation is that the 14th Amendment confers citizenship to the children of illegals, a 'plan' or even a law won't be able to reverse that.
Won't we need to actually address the 14th Amendment?
Fo all the love of Ronal Reagan on this site, I never hear this quote from him.
Does America Have Borders?
There's more to a temporary foreign workers plan than at first meets the eye. Listen carefully to the lingo emanating from the January 2004 Summit of President Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox. Fox openly talked about open borders. But Ronald Reagan warned us, "A nation without borders is not a nation."
You really need to be in a border state to see what illegal immigration has done and is doing to communities. Just like a plague it's bringing in more theft and drug crimes, reduced housing values, higher tax rates to pay for their "services" and bi-lingual education, huge burdens on hospitals, etc. Check out www.americanpatrol.com for about a week or so and you'll see some of the mayhem occurring across the Southwest.....it's a steady march to national suicide.
Just this week in the Dallas area some folks who supposedly "came here just to find work" did a fine job of robbing a local bank and during the escape shot up a police car, tried to carjack a woman with a baby, caused some property damage, and fired shots recklessly at police in a fairly populated commercial area......obviously some people with contempt for our law and no respect for human life.....is this what we really want in our communities when we do not protect our borders closer and only let in those who will assimilate themselves to our system?
Gosh, you're jumped ship before anything has even happened?
You're actually taking what the MEDIA and a group that has every reason to LIE about Bush's plan as fact?
I'm surprised at you.
My point is that it doesn't matter what you or I think. We aren't the only audience in this equation.
It's the perception of reality on the part of the emigre from Mexico that matters. They are told, or think they've heard, that President Bush is going to let them stay as long as they can make it across the border.
What kind of idjit would strike a 'legal' deal with lowlife cretins who thumb their noses at what's 'legal'?
Nice to see FR back to normal.
The malcontents are malcontenting away, the unappeasables stand unappeased.
The protectionists are working on protecting their wages with mine, and the pro-unfree trade crowd are busy calling pro-freedom guys free traitors.
sigh...
One can get to missing the dog days of the John² campaign.
The Bush plan does the same thing. To avoid paying a fine for being here illegally, they can return home and register from there. If they register here, then they pay a fine.
The key thing in both GWB's and Tancredo's immigration plan is to get them *registered*.
What most of the far right and far left are fighting is that registration. The extremists don't want illegals to register with our government because *that* would lead to a real world solution instead of an endless problem that can be milked for selfish political and personal benefit on their part.
But no, I don't object to Tancredo's plan. He's on the right track. I am susicious of his plan offering enough of an incentive to convince 8 million illegals to voluntarily register, so in that respect I find GWB's plan to be superior, but either Tancredo or GWB's plan to register illegals is fine by me.
At some point - soon - we need to move away from the talk stage. I'm hoping that is behind the Powell visit to Mexico.
Since the illegal aliens were expected not to come here in the first place, whether or not they leave would depend on a willingness to enforce the law against them that has not been shown so far.
I agree with you that large scale round-ups won't happen though. What do you think of Tom Tancredo's BE REAL immigration reform proposal, which would require guest workers to apply from their home countries, along with ehanced enforcement for illegal aliens who don't leave to take advantage of that opportunity?
Since it wouldn't legalize illegal aliens in place, where they've jumped the line, and since it's sponsored by Congressman Tancredo, who has credibility with critics of President Bush on immigration matters, it would be a lot harder to call Tancredo's proposal an amnesty. It seems to me that if President Bush could incorporate that aspect into his own guest worker plan, he'd have a much better shot at passage without a lot of acrimony in the GOP.
Ronald Reagan warned us, "A nation without borders is not a nation."
That's right. We're not a nation anymore we're a NAFTA.
It's hard to call it the same thing, since the Tancredo plan requires that all applicants do so from their home country. Legalizing illegal aliens here is going to be the stumbling block for the Bush plan.
Should be as plain as the nose on anyone's face...if some weren't stuck so far up in the air.
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