Posted on 12/21/2004 6:35:23 AM PST by Dubya
WASHINGTON - President Bush called the U.S. immigration system a failure Monday and promised to press Congress to adopt his languishing overhaul, which has drawn strong opposition from key Republican lawmakers and others.
"We want our Border Patrol agents chasing crooks and thieves and drug runners and terrorists, not good-hearted people who are coming here to work," he said at a news conference.
In January, Bush urged Congress to adopt a list of proposals, including a guest worker plan for the 8 million to 10 million illegal immigrants in the United States. The plan would allow illegal immigrants with jobs in the United States to keep them under a new temporary visa for three years.
An extension for another three years would be available.
"The system we have today is not a compassionate system. It is not working. And as a result, the country is less secure than it could be with a rational system," Bush said.
"I'm passionate about this because the nature of this country is one that is good-hearted and our people are compassionate."
Bush discussed the issue last month with Mexican President Vicente Fox in Chile.
Fox has been pushing for a meeting in Washington to discuss immigration policies affecting the people who flow from Mexico to the United States.
Republicans opposed to liberalizing immigration laws call Bush's plan a thinly veiled amnesty program.
With a heated presidential race dominating the year, the Bush immigration proposals languished in Congress.
Now Bush is committed to another try.
A Bush ally on immigration overhaul, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said he couldn't point to any specific change that would make passage of an immigration bill more likely in the coming year.
But he said, "There seems to be a growing sense of urgency for dealing with the issue."
Bush urged Congress to guarantee temporary workers the same rights as U.S. workers, including a minimum wage and legal recourse if their employee rights were violated.
And he asked for the expansion of the legal permanent resident program, now capped at 140,000 people a year.
So Bush is set to 'try' to facilitate the theft of more billions of our taxpaying dollars, the utter destruction of our education system, not to mention our healthcare system.
What a guy. Swell!
Can't wait for the bitch slapping congress is about to give him on this one.
There are very few people on the hill that agree with this.
Is the Republican PArty really going to suicide itself on this issue?
Seems so.
If they grant another *effective* amnesty (whether formally called that or not) they will be creating a huge schism within their own party.
Bush is so busy playing up to his backers that he is forgetting the interests of his party.
The majority of Americans are fed up with illegal immigration, and they're not going to take it anymore.
They are tired of illegals working for $4/hour and depressing wages. They are tired of illegals moving into their communities, and living 10 per room. They're tired of illegals building homeless shantytowns in nice suburban areas. They are fed up with illegals crowding the emergency rooms, and putting our hospitals out of business. They are tired of illegals standing on their street corners, waiting for work, getting drunk, and relieving themselves on our lawns. They are angry about criminal illegal gangs like MS-13, which traffic narcotics and flee south of the border after they commit a crime to avoid arrest.
And that's not even getting into the tremendous TERRORIST threat posed by illegals from North Africa and the Middle East.
Americans are mad as hell about illegals, and not going to take it anymore. And our political leaders better wake up to that fact, or we're gonna be crying our eyes out as we watch Hillary Rodham Clinton's 2008 inauguration.
You mean, like, people who are breaking the law by being here?
Tagline bump (read it and weep).
Better to suicide itself than suicide anything else.
Okay, Mr. President. But these "good-hearted" immigrants should be LEGAL and go through the channels that they are supposed to. That is where your plan makes no sense.
Sanford/Tancredo 2008!!!
Sanford can nail the deficit, and Tancredo can seal up the borders. Winning combo!
"But these "good-hearted" immigrants should be LEGAL and go through the channels that they are supposed to. That is where your plan makes no sense."
He's forgotten that the Republican Party is the party of law-and-order. Apologizing for lawbreakers used to be the domain of the Democrats.
If we lose our values and principles, we will lose to Hillary in 2008.
GOP party leaders...I hope you are reading this. Aloud. Over and over again.
I guess I'll write them in, heh, for syumbolic reasons if nothing else.
The Republicans are determined to do to us what the Dutch have done to Netherlands.
That's the key. Also, conservative GOP challgengers fielded to take on and unseat RINOs in the GOP primaries, across the land, on this issue. We can do it.
We have the NUMBERS and the PASSSION within the G.O.P. at the grassroots, and can topple the RINO Establishment Country Club G.O.P.-set and their toadies, who look the other way, make excuses, and who allow Illegal Immigration to great peril of this nation for a variety of LAME excuses.
Let's Roll! Eagles Up!
THANKS!
That's why Hillary is running to the right of Bush on this issue, IMO. Figure that Hillary already has the left coast votes, plus the upper midwest and New England. If she can peel off a couple of southern states over the border issue (Ariz., N.M., Fla.) she can get to 270 EVs.
OK, here's what we need to do to ensure a successful future:
--Abolish the IRS and income tax. Replace with a consumption tax like the FairTax proposal (MAAAAYBE a flat tax)
--Seal up the borders, throw the whole mess of em back to Mexico
--Cut out half of the Departments (Education, etc) and balance the budget
--Fill the Supreme Court with more true conservatives
Bush will probably do the last one. I have doubts about the rest. Sanford in 2008!
If we start now you won't have to write them in. Tancredo-that will be difficult. But if Sanford plays his cards right he can be a front-runner. He hasn't clarified his stance on the above issue, but if he's smart, he knows where he needs to be.
My grandparents are rolling over in their graves right now wishing they could have skipped the immigration process. I hope the President is slapped down hard on this one.
"Focus first on 2006."
That's a good point. We need to send a crystal-clear message to the 2008 GOP primary contenders?
Any ideas on possible targets? David Dreier comes to my mind.
I know many will argue that he's in a "swing" district, and we can't afford to challenge him. He won 53.8/42.7 versus an unfunded, inexperienced Democrat, with 3.6 to a Libertarian. The interesting part, though, is that Cynthia Matthews (his Dem opponent) ran on an anti-illegals platform.
I am still convinced that a strong stand against illegals would win back California for the Republican party. We've hit the worst of both sides in California.... angered the La Raza crowd with Prop 187, but never did anything to actually solve the illegal problem and appeal to other voters.
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