Posted on 04/13/2005 3:32:48 PM PDT by Conservative Firster
WASHINGTON, April 12 - Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, said on Tuesday that he was discouraging efforts to incorporate immigration and border security measures into the Senate version of a supplemental military spending bill, which would set the stage for showdowns among Congressional Republicans over immigration later this year.
Meeting with reporters, Dr. Frist, of Tennessee, said, "I am encouraging my colleagues to defer, to postpone discussions of immigration and to postpone that debate."
He said, however, that he was still negotiating with senators who seek to add immigration provisions to the military spending bill.
The House version of the bill includes provisions to block illegal immigrants from obtaining standard driver's licenses, to make it easier to reject requests for asylum and to override environmental rules blocking construction of a barrier along California's border with Mexico.
Senators from each party seek to add amendments that would make it easier for employers to hire more foreign workers.
The immigration debate reveals a fault line in the Republican Party, pitting cultural conservatives hostile to illegal immigrants against business groups that seek foreign laborers. President Bush has declared his support for a guest-worker program that would be open to currently illegal immigrants.
On Tuesday, Dr. Frist called immigration "a huge issue, an issue that we have to address this year, that the president put a proposal on the table last year - legislatively, we did not address it - I believe we have to address this year."
House Republicans, however, said that negotiators in a conference last year promised that the provisions would be included in some "must-pass" legislation, like the supplemental military spending bill. In negotiations with the Senate, House Republicans added, they were determined to keep the provisions in the final version of the bill.
Senate Democrats want to offer a number of amendments seeking to loosen immigration restrictions or expand foreign-workers programs. Dr. Frist and Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, were in talks on Tuesday night about whether to limit the number of immigration amendments to a handful, with some Democrats seeking assurances that the final bill would not include the House's immigration restrictions, aides said.
Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, and Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, said they planned to offer an amendment that would make more visas available for temporary seasonal workers, which they said would be needed by the hotel and fishing industries this summer.
Meanwhile, two Republican senators, John Cornyn of Texas and Jon Kyl of Arizona, advocating the tightening of border security along the lines of the House measures, said they also favored deferring the immigration debate in the Senate and enacting comprehensive measures that would also include some form of Mr. Bush's guest-worker program.
Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and a conservative strategist working with the White House on its guest-worker proposal, predicted that each side would ultimately succeed only through comprehensive legislation that tightens border security and at the same time adds foreign workers to the labor pool. "Immigration reform and border security are not competitors; they are the same thing," he said.
He said he believed that the House Republican opponents of the guest-worker program would "get boxed out by a bipartisan coalition," and that Mr. Bush could achieve his guest-worker program mostly through strong Democratic support.
Uh it is Frist's leadership that is allowing Sensennbrenner's House bill go through the Senate unmolested(i.e without amendments tacked on) .
But you are part of tancredo crowd, I'm not surprised that you knee jerk is part of your rhetoric.
Know nothing posterior orifice.
See two can play your game.
Know nothing... I like it! But do you have a clue what it means?
Fell for it?
These are some of his ideas.
How much do you really know about Norquist?
He's pretty much from the open borders school.
Forget the fork, I'd like to put my boot somewhere he'd have a hard time getting it out of.
The way the Pubs are dealing with this issue is going to doom their run for the WH in 08. And you can quote me on that in 3 years.
Actually I do. The know nothings were an American political movement in the 19th century, whose sole issue was based on immigrant and ethnic animus.
Their movement died with a whimper.
Unfortunatley, the 2 major 3rd parties (yes I know its a contradiction), are both open borders.
The Green Party would probably make it illegal to even look at an illegal immigrant funny, while the Libertarian party (or at least the canidates from 2000, and 2004) are also believers in open borders.
Pat Buchanan ain't running again, and I doubt Tancredo will go 3rd party if loses his shot at the nomination.
Your best hope, have a couple of strong border canidates in the GOP primary that force the issue.
Curiously, you failed to mention the most important fact: that the "Know-Nothings" were anti-Catholic.
All these provisions could become law in the near future, as the House attached REAL ID to a must-pass supplemental spending bill. The only stumbling block is that Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) wants to add an actual immigration-related amendment to the spending bill, which the Senate is slated to take up this week.
Because Tancredo has split the party, a republican bill cannot pass unless the dems support it. Or even more accurate: Because Tancredo has split the party, only a compromise bill can pass.
In the House it breaks out as:
Democrats- 203
Republicans-132
Tancredo- 100 estimate
Anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, same difference in the 19th century politics of the know nothings. The point being they had an animus towards immigrants.
No, it's just interesting that you left out the most salient how's and why's of the Know-Nothing movement. It may be an indication that you don't really care why the Protestants might have carried such an attitude, or why they were wrong in certain ways and right in others. You also failed to point out how important the Scots-Irish Catholics were in America's colonial era and beyond. Either way, you revealed your shallow view of American history and culture. Naturally you'd fail to realize how critical the battle between Catholics and the Anglicant state church was to the process of America's founding. But you're a Dane, and somehow you're above all of this. Lutheran, I suppose?
I don't have a link for you, but immigration lawyer websites have a great deal of info on this. The visa numbers are H2A Ag worker and H2B non-ag worker.
yeah,...but , he was already done,...now he's OVERDONE,not worth keepin'
The problem with a compromise bill is that it will be more liberal than originally planned by Bush. I don't even expect the RINOs in my state of NY will vote for what Kennedy's trying to dish out with McCain.
Bottom line: we end up with nothing the next four years except maybe the Real ID Act and a few other get tough bills.
Of course the compromise bills are to the left of Bush or Cornyn. They are a compromise between dems and pubs. The Kennedy-Gutierrez bill is a democrat bill and is even further to the left.
Uh do you read the Constitution, there is no American state Anglican church, but that doesn't matter, go ahead and dig yourself a deeper hole, trying to defend the know nothings.
BTW, how come no comment about your knee jerk reaction to this NYT article as stated by my reply #70?
So American culture sprang out of nowhere, did it? You think that Constitutional amendment came out of thin air? No wonder you don't care about us maintaining our Anglo-Saxon heritage, you seem to think Americans were hatched out of the ether. Read a little about the old world origins of American colonial unrest when you can spare a few minutes away from the NYT. Maybe you'll get a clue why the Know-Nothing movement came into existence in the first place.
Why don't you go to Northern Ireland. You're rehtoric will get a good hearing there.
JMO, our founders didn't want to happen in America what is happening in modern day Northern Ireland.
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