I don't care who and I don't care why, I just want to see it get done. The lives and safety of the people is the most important thing.
Instead, Mrs. Clinton pandered to the liberal crowd and received a standing ovation when she announced a new bill that would guarantee in-state college tuition rates for the children of illegal immigrants as well as amnesty to some 65,000 illegal immigrant students who graduate from U.S. high schools each year. Patti Solis Doyle, Mrs. Clinton's chief political strategist and a Mexican-American, told Democratic friends that the speech was a smashing success.
"Hillary won 85% of the Hispanic vote in New York for Senate in 2000," says her former adviser turned adversary Dick Morris. "She thinks she can outbid the Republicans for Hispanic votes in 2008 while bringing Reagan Democrats home with vague rhetoric about getting tough and employer sanctions she has no intention of implementing."
In New Mexico, Gov. Richardson has done much the same thing. He now blasts the federal government for not showing "the commitment or the leadership to deal with border issues." He is demanding that officials on the Mexican side bulldoze an abandoned town on the border that serves "as a staging area for illegal drugs and illegal aliens." But Mr. Richardson sang a different tune in late 2003, when he showed up at a rally for the "Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride" and told them, "¡Viva la raza! . . . Thank you for coming to Santa Fe. Know that New Mexico is your home. We will protect you. You have rights here." Jaime Becerril, one of the organizers of the freedom ride, told the Santa Fe New Mexican that the participants favored a new amnesty program. He called immigration "a byproduct of colonialism and capitalism."
Further evidence of the governor's zigzag policy on immigration came in April when he vetoed a "No Fear" bill, which would have prohibited state and local law enforcement agencies from cooperating with federal authorities to detect or apprehend people based solely on immigration status. But then he quietly issued an executive order that had much the same effect. Earlier this year, he also signed legislation giving some illegal aliens the right to in-state tuition rates at public universities.
"The governor is all puff and no cigar," says David Pfeffer, a Santa Fe city councilman who abandoned the Democratic Party this past March when he concluded its members "were closer to Michael Moore than to me." He expects the governor "to run for national office while saying one thing while he does something else back home."
And those sentiments will likely be the Republicans undoing in '06 and quite likely in '08.
BTW, I share those same sentiments as I consider this issue to be the one single most important issue facing America today and in the future. Illegal immigration affects almost every segment of our way of life here in America. The Congress and the WH are the Republicans to lose and they are well on their way to that scenario. I can see the Dems already licking their chops on the prospects of seeing the Republicans imploding over this.