Posted on 01/30/2005 6:49:03 PM PST by madfly
Lou Dobbs current column in US News.
No more border games
President Bush has again vowed to spend his political capital to grant legal status to the millions of illegal aliens who live and work in this country. The president rationalizes his guest-worker program by constantly referring to the nation's need to match willing workers with willing employers. The president's "proposed reform" has already met stiff resistance from the 109th Congress, which is apparently ready to finally take on the critically important issue of illegal immigration.
Many from the president's own party say they'll fight his guest-worker proposal, and many of our elected officials are finally grasping the importance of representing the views of working Americans--which, after all, is their responsibility. The latest USA Today /CNN/Gallup poll shows only 34 percent of those surveyed approve of President Bush's immigration policies.
"The American people don't want open borders; they don't want amnesty," says Rep. Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican. "It's a message that is beginning to get through to the Congress. We've just got to get it through to the president."
That message has gotten through to one of the administration's most cheerful and energetic loyalists on Capitol Hill, Rep. David Dreier of California. After ignoring the realities of illegal immigration for nearly all of his long tenure in Congress, Republican Dreier now says he will introduce legislation to stop American businesses from hiring illegal aliens, using a photo-embedded Social Security card, which employers would be required to che
check with a national database to determine whether the job applicant is legal or illegal.
It is unclear to me just why Dreier believes that any one of the 3 million illegal aliens who entered this country last year, or the people in businesses who hire many of them, would turn law-abiding. At this point, while we should welcome Dreier's conversion, his proposal amounts to nothing more than a diversion from the profoundly important reforms that must be enacted. We must take control of our borders, enforce our immigration laws, and ultimately take responsibility for our first line of defense in the war on terrorism, specifically our borders and ports.
Until this administration and the federal government can ensure that we have control of our borders and ports, the Homeland Security Department is simply a federal bureaucracy indulging in nothing less than a sham, spending billions of dollars in taxpayer money to game the American people. These shameless border games must end. And real reform must begin.
That reform, in my opinion, begins at our borders. Here's what real reform should entail: No matter how much money or manpower is required, we must be able to control the flow of people and goods across our borders and through our ports. We must exact heavy penalties on businesses, large and small, as well as individuals who hire illegal aliens. Not only do illegal aliens cost the nations tens of billions of dollars in social services, principally in healthcare and education, but they depress wages for American citizens by an estimated $200 billion a year. American business is exploiting cheap labor and paradoxically doing so with the blessing and support of national unions.
Skipping taxes. The burden of our failed immigration and homeland security policies, if they can be called policies, falls crushingly on working men and women in the form of higher taxes, lower wages, and an all but total lack of representation by the government they support through their votes and tax dollars. An estimated 6 million illegal aliens work in the underground economy, where neither they nor those who employ them pay taxes. That accounts for part of an additional $400 billion a year in taxes that should be paid to the Internal Revenue Service. Once again, the middle class is under assault by a government that is functioning as if it had never heard of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.
In an important recent step, a panel of the most liberal federal appellate court in the nation upheld Proposition 200, which the people of Arizona voted into law to counteract the failure of the federal government to enforce long-standing immigration laws. And GOP Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, appears to have won the support of the House leadership and most of his colleagues to begin the process of true reform on at least a small portion of our immigration policies.
But if the Dreier proposal is given precedence over Sensenbrenner's, we will have a clear, early indication of whether this House, and eventually the Senate, have mustered the will to truly represent the national interest instead of the special interest they've long served in their positions and votes on immigration. Let's hope the border games are drawing to a close.
ping
"...match willing workers with willing employers..."
What kind are willing employers?
Those willing to pay up to $3 an hour.
BTW I have 'Vanities' a couple of his daily polls here (FReep This Poll)
Too bad for old Lou that his Internet polls are being manipulated by people with an agenda and the only people that will "leave" the Republican Party are people of the Buchanan mentality who probably haven't voted GOP except when voting for Buchanan in the primaries.
Having just come from his site, there's an immigration poll there that doesn't need freeping!!! Things are changing!!!!
BTTT
ping
He is setting the next president up for promotion. Whomever makes the promises that sound the best in '08 will win. The two main candidate have already been chosen, and will be foisted upon us when the time is right. Dole was annointed in '96, Bush in 2000 for the Republicans, I have a feeling it is going to be Hillary and probably Newt in the next go round. With Hillary the odds on favorite, Newt being just the right guy to push her to the top. Course I have tin-foil lining my baseball cap at all times it seems.
I liked the approach, and think I saw something about this on TV one night. Something about how sailors in California began a series of brawls with peoples of Mexican descent when the govt began doing "Operation Wetback". It seemed to be a propaganda piece to show what will happen if we allow our"hatred" free reign.
ping
hopefully you didn't watch john stossel's interview with him. Stossel took on the myths of outsourcing (one of ten items covered during the show) and made dobbs look like an absolute fool and idiot on the topic.
I would be VERY disappointed if he continued on with his current proposals and I just can't think he or his advisers would continue on such an obvious crash and burn course - At least I hope not.
BTW I am not a Buchananite, a racist and I do have a brain for those of you who wish to excuse the Illegal issue on such terms.
He presents the true picture of this very serious security problem. Fox actually admits there will be a bloody war in mexico that will spill over into our country. That needs to be stopped now before its to late.
What about matching willing taxpayers to willing health care recipients because their willing employers didn't want to provide them health insurance or high enough wages to buy their own policy?
I'm with you. Bush's immigration position is extremely disappointing.
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