Posted on 12/27/2004 9:23:23 AM PST by calcowgirl
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush faces a major rebellion within his own party if he follows through on a promise to push legislation that would offer millions of illegal immigrants a path to U.S. citizenship. Almost no issue divides Republicans as deeply.
To get the guest-worker initiative through Congress, Bush will need to go against the wishes of many Republicans and forge bipartisan alliances. That's what President Clinton did in 1993 to win approval for a free trade agreement with Mexico and Canada, over objections of a large bloc of congressional Democrats.
The chance seems slim for finding common ground between those in favor of liberalized immigration laws - Bush, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for example - and those who want fewer immigrants, tougher border controls and harsher penalties.
Opposition is strongest among House Republicans.
"In our party, this is a deep division that is growing deeper every minute," says Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo. He heads a group of 70 lawmakers who are against easing immigration laws.
Tancredo said Bush's guest-worker proposal is "a pig with lipstick" and will not pass.
Bush asserts that he won valuable "political capital" in the election and intends to spend it. It is not clear how much of that he is willing to spend on the immigration measure.
Higher on his list of priorities is overhauling the Social Security system, rewriting the tax laws, limiting lawsuit judgments, and making his first-term tax cuts permanent.
An estimated 10 million immigrants live in the United States illegally; the vast majority are from Mexico, with an additional million arriving every year.
A hint of the trouble ahead for Bush on immigration came this month when proposals to tighten - not ease - border restrictions nearly undermined a bill to restructure U.S. intelligence agencies.
The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee wanted the measure to bar states from giving a driver's license to illegal immigrants. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said some of the Sept. 11 hijackers gained access to U.S. aircraft by using a driver's license as identification.
Sensenbrenner ultimately backed down, but only after House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill, promised that the chairman's proposal would be considered in separate legislation in 2005.
Hastert also indicated he would not move ahead on major legislation unless it was supported by a majority of Republicans in the GOP-controlled House - and that he would not rely on Democratic support to pass a bill.
Immigration overhaul is "an issue that splits both parties, and given the new Hastert rule, may never go anywhere," said William A. Niskanen, chairman of the libertarian Cato Institute. Niskanen was a member of President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers.
The president's plan would grant temporary-worker status, for three years to six years, to millions of undocumented workers. It also would it easier for those workers to get permanent U.S. citizenship.
As governor of Texas, Bush was committed to immigration changes. As president, he came close to making a deal with Mexican President Vicente Fox in the days before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Those plans were put on hold as tighter borders took on a higher priority for the United States.
As a presidential candidate, both in 2000 and 2004, Bush eagerly courted Hispanics, the fastest-growing ethnic group in the electorate.
"We will keep working to make this nation a welcoming place for Hispanic people, a land of opportunity para todos (for all) who live here in America," Bush told the League of United Latin American Citizens last summer.
Bush claimed 35 percent of Hispanic voters in 2000 and at least 40 percent last Nov. 2, according to exit polls. That compares with the 21 percent won by Bob Dole in 1996 and the 25 percent that Bush's father got in 1992.
Republican consultants suggest Bush will not make a big push for his immigration bill until he has achieved his goals on Social Security and the tax laws. They also say the president may jettison the immigration bill if it would jeopardize other parts of his agenda.
Inside the administration, nobody is suggesting that passing the immigration plan would be anything other than extremely difficult.
"We don't want to overpromise," Secretary of State Colin Powell said during a visit last month to Mexico City.
EDITOR'S NOTE Tom Raum has covered Washington for The Associated Press since 1973, including five presidencies.
Most ignore him and his fellow pro-Illegal brethren. Same old 3 card Monty with those guys.
There are dairymen on the list.
Geese are effective weeders because they like grasses but do not like many broadleaf plants. At least in modern times, the use of geese as weeders began in the United States in the 1950s when geese were used to weed cotton fields. Since then geese have been used to weed a wide range of crops including asparagus, potatoes, fruit shrubs, nursery stock, tobacco, nut trees, grapes, fruit trees, beets, sugar beets, beans, hops, various ornamental flowers, onions and strawberries. In addition, geese can provide a second source of income in plantations by making use of the forage that grows under the principal plantation crop.
The number of geese needed per hectare for weeding depends on the level of weed growth and the crop. For a hectare of cotton, 5-6 geese are adequate while for a hectare of strawberries 6-8 geese are recommended. In addition to weeding traditional crops, geese can also be used to clean up the forage on dikes and in ditches that are difficult to access with equipment. In fact, it has been shown that white Chinese geese, if properly managed, will readily consume and control floating water hyacinth in drainage ditches.
I suspect he's an attorney, and has done work for human resource depts of various companies.
Just a hunch, based on his posts.
Interesting post, thanks.
To which I might add, I love grain fed goose, stuffed with apples!
;^D
That would explain a lot. He must have a client though to be such a one note player on these threads.
bingo
>"There are dairymen on the list."<
There are a lot of liberal/socialist groups on the list as well.
Some other groups that support S. 1645 :
PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY
TOGETHER IN AMERICA
YANKEE FARM CREDIT
SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF LA RAZA (NCLR)
I suppose one could make the argument that politics make for strange bed-fellows, but S. 1645 has no provision that would discourage more illegals from entering the U.S. illegally or discourage employers from hiring them.
Just as cotton and sugar cane growers had to adapt to non-slave labor, farms can also adapt to not using guest workers and illegals, imo.
"There it is, with three university studies, pictures of mechanized harvest techniques, and links. "
There it is, your ticket to millions - simply lease these machines and go around picking crops - split the savings with the farmers - everyone is happy. John Deere will finance it for you - http://www.deere.com/en_US/jdc/product_financing/ag/index.html
... or talk the university who did these studies into doing it to help pay for it's programs
Now how about coming up with some reasons that the farmers don't do this ?
Is the entire farming industry in league with Bush, Fox and the Democrats to turn all these pickers into Dem voting citizens ?
"....and the same goes for this govt subsidized guest worker program."
From what you say, why are farmers needing workers anyway ?
The problem should just disappear on it's own ...
"govt subsidized guest" worker program ??? This is a new one on me - is the Government going to pay these workers ?
If they are identified properly as illegals, they are deported upon completing their sentence under a new program run by ICE's Office of Detention and Removal Operations. Improvements have been made in the system, you and some of the others on this thread just seem to be looking for a 100%, overnight solution, which is unrealistic.
Why do you think so many hospitals are closing? it is not only med mal cases, there are literally billions in emergency room care that goes unreimbursed because they can't refuse to treat illegals.
Then it is time to write your Congress person to demand action. A bill was just defeated in the house in May of this year that would have required hospitals report illegals. If more people kept up with and lobbied for such bills, it would not have been defeated.
"Why did cotton and sugar cane plantations need slave labor?"
Slaves were the cheapest way of producing at the time.
"Did they survive without slaves, and how did they do it?"
Many of them didn't...
BTW you picked cotton and sugar cane - both of which are easily mechanically picked as the plant is processed anyway. ( how much cotton and sugar cane does Oregon produce ? )
Fruit to be processed can be mechanicaly picked in many cases, but the fresh ones you buy in baskets rather then cans are most likely hand picked.
... and again, if what you say is completely true - WHY are Oregon farmers using immigrant workers ? ( and do the workers really spend a lot of time in school ? )
They are released after the sentence. A violent felon convicted to 8 years will cost a fortune in legal fees, admin costs, and 30k per year in correctional facility costs.
Why don't we demand immediate deportation or something like that? Or that these countries extradite these criminals back home before we have to continue to pay for them?
All of the below articles I linked to were regarding fruits - berries, oranges, apples, coffee, etc.
If you took the time to read the articles I linked to, rather than just being contentious with me, you wouldn't be asking me the same questions over and over.
CJ, Why don't you address the individual who advocated this instead of me? I never said this.
advocating all sorts of Stormfront-approved crimes against the Bill of Rights
A.M., how much longer is CJ and Bayourod are going to get away this kind of slander? I have an uncle who killed more Nazis in one engagement during WW2 than these two have encountered in their whole lives. They wouldn't know a Nazi if one goosesteped them in their behinds.
This kind of inflammatory rhetoric is uncalled for and it needs to be addressed. Or maybe that is the plan to get these threads pulled.
Well, then I suggest you write your Congress person and support mandatory implementation of the Basic Pilot Program. It is already in place, and was just expanded in 2003 to include all states, so the cost would be minimal to make it mandatory. Another suggestion is to join groups like FAIR and keep up with current legislation so you can lobby Congress.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.