Posted on 03/23/2005 6:30:44 AM PST by sheana
(Editor's Note: What follows is a letter from congressional Democrats urging President Bush and Mexican President Vincente Fox to move quickly on "realistic, humane, and fair" immigration reform.)
March 21, 2005
President George W. Bush
The White House
Washington, DC 20500
Licenciado Vicente Fox
Presidente de Los Estados Unidos Mexicanos
Residencia Oficial de Los Pinos
Colonia San Miguel Chapultepec
11850 Mexico, DF
Dear President Bush and President Fox:
More than three years ago, the Democratic leadership of the United States Congress wrote you to emphasize our strong belief in the value of our relationship, the importance of cooperation between the United States and Mexico, and to set forth our views on the critical issue of immigration. At the time of your meeting, just days before the tragic events of September 11, 2001 and months after the historic elections in Mexico, momentum was building for comprehensive reform of American immigration laws.
In this post-September 11th era, it is now more important than ever that we address the gap between our immigration laws and reality. It is crucial that our federal government know who is crossing our borders and living in this country. To accomplish this goal, we believe the United States needs immigration laws that take our security into consideration and, at the same time, are realistic, humane, and fair. We believe there should be effective and efficient enforcement of these laws.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
This is the salvation of the illegal immigrant. What more could they ask for? NO NO NO. Enforce the laws on the books and show some respect to the legal immigrant. Being a criminal is not supposed to be easy. Being a criminal is not supposed to be rewarded. Make the immigrant fit the law, not the law fit the immigrant.
Dear President Fox,
We realize you are doing little to protect our borders. Ergo, we wrote that bogus letter to you and President Bush because we see political opportunity here. Not to worry, once we regain power we will absolutely and completely abolish the border. We are talking free reign here buddy. Or, better yet, we will pass a strict law knowing full well that our good friends in the ACLU, aided by our better friends in the Federal Judiciary, will strike it down giving us the political cover we need.
Sincerly yours,
the Panderbears.
Would have been a much shorter letter if they had just said...
"We promise to screw the American citizen/taxpayer in every way possible to accommodate more illegal aliens."
Rather than racial pandering, the Republican party should return to the strategy that has made them the majority party. We should return to our values and principles.
Rather than giving a wink and a nod to the violation of our borders, immigration laws, driving laws, identity theft laws, tax laws and employment laws we should return to our principles and once again be the party that stands for the rule of law and law and order. We should demand enforcement.
Rather than tolerating the invasion of our borders by millions of unknown persons during a time of war we should return to our principles and once again be the party that stands for national sovereignty and national security.
The greed of the Republican elite has transformed the Republican party into something that looks little different than the Democrats. You can bet that John McCain, Chris Cannon, Jim Kolbe, Orrin Hatch, Larry Craig, George Bush and several other Republicans will climb right on board with Teddy Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi.
I agree with you sentiments. Illegal immigration is a huge problem in the US and don't think for one second that it does not contribute to terrorism. This is a huge problem and we need to demand that it gets the proper attention.
Politics is compromise.
There is a lot the President could do. But he has made it clear that he prefers hispandering. Interior enforcement has been substantially reduced under his leadership.
Let me give you the numbers in the House:
There are 232 repubs, and 202 dems plus 1 ind = 203.
If 100 repubs are with Tancredo, then that leaves only 132.
If 15 repubs defect to the dems, the dems then have a majority = 218.
President Bush does not need Congress to enforce existing law. Despite spending more money he is doing far less interior enforcement than either his father or Clinton.
You will often read at FR that the Prez is a sorry, no-good SOB because he doesn't round them up, militarize the border, or build a fence. And he should pay for it out of his own pocket.
Where we apparently disagree is that you don't seem to believe that President Bush is one of them. You seem to think that the President is trying as hard as he can to enforce our borders and our immigration and employment laws and that Congress is constraining him in this task.
If this were true, why did the President only request an addition of 210 new border patrol agents in his most recent budget when only 6 weeks earlier he had praised and signed a law that authorized 2000 new agents. If Congress is the constraining factor on border enforcement, why has the Senate overridden the President and upped the funding back to 2000? Why will soon see this repeated in the House? Why were there less than 2 dozen enforcement actions against employers in 2003. Surely he could have found enough funding to bust a couple hundred. It is not like they are hard to find. My grandmother could have done better than that.
I vehemently disagree with the President on the immigration issue but at least I give him the respect of believing what he tells us. He has repeatedly told us about how he feels about hard working good hearted illegal immigrants yet you seem to think that he is really an illegal immigration enforcement crusader when he has most definitely told us that he is not.
Congress will pass a reform bill. That bill will be heavily influenced by the democrats, and will contain all that "earned legalization" language. There will be many goodies for the unions and immigration lawyers. Thank you, Tom Tancredo.
Come the elections there is going to be "H" to pay.... The issue is out from under the rug. Everyone knows who will get the blame.
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