Posted on 07/14/2005 5:10:56 PM PDT by bayourod
WASHINGTON – Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, portraying immigration changes as a vital weapon against terrorism, Wednesday pledged to tighten border security but also called on Congress to approve a guest worker program that would make it easier for foreign workers to enter the United States legally.
“We must gain full control of our borders to prevent illegal immigration and security breaches,” Chertoff said. But, he added, “control of the border will also require reducing the demand for illegal border migration” by channeling needed workers through a new legal system.
Implicit in the guest worker program would be an increase in the number of legal immigrants.
Chertoff vowed to carry his campaign for a guest worker program as well as other changes to Capitol Hill in the weeks ahead.
By linking the subject of immigration policy to the popular goal of thwarting terrorists, Chertoff sought to give new impetus to President Bush’s stalled proposal for an expanded guest worker program as well as enhanced border security.
And, by linking the guest worker plan to calls for tougher border controls, he also sought to mollify those conservative Republicans in Congress who have opposed such programs on grounds that enforcement must come first.
Immigration overhaul has been a particularly difficult issue for the Bush administration politically.
It pits many business-oriented Republicans, who favor ready access to immigrant workers, against social conservatives, who express outrage at the ease with which migrants evade U.S. laws.
Initial reaction from some congressional conservatives suggested Chertoff would not have an easy sell with Congress.
“His chances are slim to none over here,” said Rep. Thomas Tancredo, R-Colo., who founded and leads the pro-enforcement Immigration Reform Caucus in the House.
“It’s so annoying,” he said, speaking of the White House and Chertoff. “They’ve taken our rhetoric, they’re using the right words – enforcement, security. What they’re really describing is, ‘if we make everybody legal, we’ll have solved the problem of illegal immigration in this country.’ They use the right words, they just don’t do the right thing.”
Chertoff’s proposals for beefing up border controls and reshaping the agencies responsible for them might get a better reception.
“Without question, the most difficult problem the department has to face is immigration enforcement,” said Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security. “It’s of vital importance.
“The INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) bureaucracy that the new department inherited was roundly deemed dysfunctional,” he added. “The Homeland Security Act reconstituted the pieces of the INS in new ways, (but) the last few years have shown that the organizational changes themselves were not enough.“
Chertoff also announced plans to:
•Turn the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which deals primarily with hurricanes and other natural disasters, into a freestanding unit. It is now merged with the directorate responsible for preparedness against terrorism.
•Move the Federal Air Marshals organization, which has chafed against the buttoned-down management style of the former Secret Service officials who now run it, into the more flexible environs of the Transportation Security Administration.
•Create a position of a chief medical officer to better coordinate the department’s work with the agencies primarily responsible for security issues involving health, such as stocking vaccines and preparing to deal with bio-terrorism attacks.
When we enact the guest worker program it will provide a legal avenue for fulfilling our demand for foreign laborers and thus reduce the demand for illegal laborers. No employer would want to hire an illegal employee when he could hire a legal one, and no employee would want to be illegal when he could be legal.
You haven't been here very long.
Believe me, there's no doubt what side Rod and the other six people here who agree with him are on.
Here Here! I second that.
Logistics wise that would be impossible, I'd think.
Maybe something along the lines of..."you have 60 days to get your 'red' card (whatever), if after 60 days you cannot produce a 'red' card......
Adios!
LVM
The illegal will be hired for the same reason he is being hired now. He will be under the radar and will therefore work for less. Who the f--- do you think you are fooling Bayou? We have legal Mexicans here now with green cards and why do you suppose we have so many goddamn illegal Mexicans. Guess who works cheaper? Sometimes you keep barking up a tree that has nothing in it!!!
Good one!
That's about as low a priority as I've ever seen. Reminds me of the drunk who said "Everybody has to believe something; I believe I'll have another drink."
Deporting someone for enterring without proper papers or staying after their visa expired is more important to you than your family being blown up by terrorists or preyed upon by MS-13 gangs?
What will you say after they become legal guest workers? Do you have another bumper sticker answer for that?
When you take care of the little shit the big shit takes care of itself.
"They use the right words, they just don’t do the right thing.”
Thank you Rep. Tancredo. Chertoff's speech is just another attempt to placate the citizens while the administration continues the policy of doing nothing more than putting us increaing danger.
It can't be done. Read the section about Operation Gate Keeper on my profile page and then read the Inspector General's report linked thereto.
Why bother booting them out? It's too late already.
Read this cover story article from Business Week and tell me just how we are going to truly be able to reverse what has already happened:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_29/b3943001_mz001.htm?c=bwinsiderjul8&n=link1&t=email
Why isn't anyone making this known to the general public? you know, the general public . . . those of us that have to live with 20+ people crammed in the 3 bedroom house next door . . . and wonder why they can just live like that and no one does anything about it.
No wonder Bush wants to just give them all amnesty . . . we've already let them into the henhouse and have given them a steady supply of eggs! Now we're letting them buy the henhouse, too . . .
I'm shocked . . . but now that I read that article, it makes more sense why no one has made this information common knowledge. (Thank you, Business Week!) Corporate America pays the advertising dollars, and must be appeased, so that might be why this angle is being kept quiet. Too much money being made from the illegals.
Again... no mention or concern from you about border security. It's all about making something illegal... legal. I'm not going going to argue with you about border security, because you obviously have no concern for it. You want to make criminals "legal" and encourage more to come.
By your way of thinking, we could "reduce the demand" for prisons if we simply "provide a legal avenue" for dope dealers, carjackers, murderers, drunk drivers, pedophiles and the like. No criminal would have to be imprisoned when he could be "legal."
Another deflection. It can be done, the Minutemen have shown it can be done, and your page is as full of BS as every thread you start. Answer the question.
They whined about emergency rooms being crowded with illegals so the federal government is going to give the ERs one billion taxpayer dollars to be used to treat illegals.
They whined about gangs so a dozen new groups were established to work with a dozen cities.
They whined about crowded schools so more money is going to be going to schools.
They whined about crowded jails so more money is going to jails.
They whined about terrorists crossing the border so we will enact a guest worker program to take the workload off border guards so they can concentrate on terrorists.
There will be hell to pay if Tancredo blocks this attempt to keep out terrorists and one of those terrorist explodes a nuclear bomb in New York. The blood will be on Tancredo's hands.
Swamp Stick thinks every third person in this country should be a Mexican. I don't know why I just know that is what he beleives. Is he "illegal, engaged or married to an illegal, profitting from the labor of illegals, or just a Mexican lacking friends?". He has his reasons for wanting our borders to be over-run. I just don't happen to agree with em. If it were up to me I would have some target practice on the border. Cans of course.
He is being hired now because we don't have a guest worker program to supply the number of workers we need to sustain our economy. Once we have a sufficient number of legal workers there will be no demand for illegal ones.
The blood will be on the hands of the GOP. Don't kid yourself. America knows why the illegals are here. We have had two succesive GOP administrations. If the GOP wanted the border controlled they could have done it. We have the power. I use that term loosely because there are so few in the GOP that I support anymore. For the most part they are self serving a-holes. But they are still better than the Dems. I am just looking for an out here. Give me the right third party and I am gone.
Once we have a sufficent number of illegals here to drive our middle class into low class status you will be happy. I figured that one out a long time ago. We do not want to live like Mexican peons. Many of us struggle to put our kids through the colleges that you think should offer in state tuition to illegals. Go straight to hell Bayou!!! I will grease the path for you.
A News Week article posted yesterday said that illegals contributed $800 Billion dollars to our GDP. The Buchanan/Tancredo crowd are standing in front of a freight train.
No they contributed two thirds of that to prop up decrepit and broke Mexico. I watch em lined up at 7-11 everynight to get their phone cards and to send the money down to bring up more goddamn illegal Mexicans. Bayou I have been around Colorado long enough to know what is going on. I know the local hospital is stuck with the Med. bills of the Mexican indigent beet whores that come up here to work as guests. I thank our local beet farmers for that. We also educate the children of these beet whores while they are here. My expense Bayou. If they choose to stay we educate their children in Mexican (spanish) at a great expense to our small community. Ramble on all you want about the benefits of Mexicans Swamp stick but it was better before they came.
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