Posted on 01/21/2006 5:02:47 PM PST by SandRat
| Sierra Vista resident Jim Behnke, left, talks Friday with U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colorado, in Benson. (Bill Hess-Herald/Review) |
Herald/Review
BENSON — U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo says that when it comes to understanding Americans’ anger about the border, the House of Representatives has got it and the Senate doesn’t.
And, he said, the American people want the border with Mexico secured and the president enforcing U.S. immigration law.
During a morning stop in Benson, the Colorado Republican pointed to the recently passes bill in the House that requires building 700 more miles of wall along the southern boundary, along with hiring additional Border Patrol agents and adding more technology to secure the border is the right thing.
But he fears the Senate will not follow suit and fall under the sway of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and big businesses, meaning the House members would have failed in their attempt to protect the country.
He spoke with about 50 people Friday morning as he made his way through parts of Southern Arizona. The excursion began in Phoenix on Thursday and included a stop in Tucson before heading to Benson and then on to Willcox.
Tancredo said Americans and Mexicans are to blame for the problem. “America is hooked on cheap labor, and Mexico is hooked on the remittances (from its citizens in the U.S.),” he said.
Of the $52 billion last year sent out of the United States by foreign workers, $20 billion went to Mexico, he added.
The Mexican government and some other Central American officials are now threatening to take the United States to the United Nations, claiming the United States is violating the human rights of their citizens, the congressman said.
“You talk about chutzpah (a Yiddish word for impudence), they have the gall to tell us we can’t secure our own borders,” Tancredo said.
Governments like Mexico need to address their own internal problems causing their citizens to flee, seeking jobs in the U.S., he said.
“They’ve got to create a better economy for their unemployed,” said Tancredo, who has made border issues his bully pulpit while in Congress.
Bay Buchanan, whose brother Pat has been a Republican presidential candidate, joined Tancredo on the tour.
A founder of Team America Political Action Committee, she said Republican senators have to be told not to cave into big business and corporation cheerleaders, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. She said the message the senators must hear is “secured the border, enforcement only.”
President George W. Bush praised the House of Representatives in passing the enforcement bill. But, Buchanan said, Bush hasn’t said he wants to secure the border without a guest-worker program. She said that view is wrong and not want people want.
“Do not be fooled,” she said. “They are not going to say guest worker, they are going to say enforcement.”
The guest worker phrase will not be used, but they will claim enforcement will be difficult without some kind of policy to help Mexico and other countries, whose citizens are illegally entering the United States, Buchanan claims.
“Guest worker is nothing more than amnesty,” she said.
Buchanan and Tancredo wore badges that stated: “Secure America Now, No Amnesty.”
They said there must be what can be described as a full-court press, with people urging their senators not to water down the House bill.
However, Buchanan said, “Just skip (Sen. John) McCain.”
Tancredo said U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., will be more amenable to calls for re-election this year.
While he praised McCain for doing many good things, Tancredo said the Arizona U.S. senator and fellow Republican is out of the mainstream when it comes to border issues.
In a handout provided by Team America PAC, both Arizona senators were rated on border issues. Kyl received a B average, while McCain’s average was D minus.
Tancredo said there is hope for some of southern Arizona this year as residents of Congressional District 8 will have a chance to elect a more conservative Republican.
As he walked to the large RV that he, Buchanan and others are using on the road trip, Tancredo said he has endorsed Randy Graf for the seat, currently held by Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Kolbe. In 2004, Graf lost the GOP primary to Kolbe, although he carried Cochise County.
Kolbe, an 11-term congressman, announced he will not be seeking re-election, opening the door for a new representative for a district that includes Cochise County.
Tancredo said he wants Graf elected because he will be an important ally in Congress in securing the border.
With a smile, Tancredo would not make an in-depth comment about Kolbe’s decision to retire.
“He made a decision with which I can’t disagree,” he said.
As for McCain, Tancredo said he and the senator are “poles apart when it comes to immigration.”
Roger Barnett, a Sierra Vista businessman and Douglas-area rancher, listened to Tancredo and Buchanan. He said Americans are seeing their jobs eliminated because illegal immigrants will work for less.
“Businesses are paying slave wages,” he said.
If the United States does not close down the border and enforce existing immigration laws, more Americans will lose pay and benefits because illegal immigrants will take their jobs, Barnett said. “Big business are the whores,” he added.
Buchanan called on people to start a campaign to force the Senate, while simultaneously strengthening House members to stay the course, by refusing to kowtow to businesses.
“We need to drown out the voice of corporate America,” she said.
Looking at the people crowding into a small room at the Horseshoe Cafe in Benson, Tancredo said, “I have a feeling we (he and Buchanan) are preaching to the choir.”
Al Garza is in the choir.
The executive director of the national Minuteman Civil Defense Corps presented the congressman with a membership card from the organization.
“Now, I’m a card-carrying Minuteman,” Tancredo said to laugher.
In a telephone interview, Tancredo critic Douglas Mayor Ray Borane said the congressman may say he understands border issues, but he doesn’t.
“He’s completely out of touch,” Borane said.
Tancredo has found a small, dedicated vocal following because he has been outspoken on more enforcement on the border, the mayor said. “It’s not that simple,” he said.
Being a border mayor, Borane said he has worked immigration issues directly because he understands the two cultures involved in the problem.
In the past, the mayor has called for a guest-worker program, but with assurances there will be no amnesty.
People such as Tancredo come and make a visit to the border and fly back to Washington, D.C., without understanding all the nuances involved with the problem, the mayor said.
“I wish he would stop all the posturing,” Borane said. “He thinks he has all the solutions, but he has no experience.”
During his stop in Benson, the congressman said that three years ago, he was about the only member of Congress talking about the need to secure the border through enforcement.
The issue is now throughout the nation, and other members of Congress are seeing the need to do something now, he said.
“The president and my party need to have public pressure,” Tancredo said.
So far, increased pressure is helping some see the need to act. “They are seeing the light because they are feeling the heat,” Tancredo said.
SENIOR REPORTER Bill Hess can be reached at 515-4615 or by e-mail at bill.hess@svherald.com.
Still flacking for the pro-illegal alien/OBL/cheap labor lobby, I see. Must be getting harder for you, though, what with so few quislings left around FR. Better start recruiting a new crop.
I guess a bunch of them voted absentee?
If Congress, for some unknown reason, were to hash out those details, they would probably resemble the H5A and H5B proposed by McK, but without the Green Card language, of course.
More bad news, indeed, but for the RNC. You Hispandering GOP Big Tent party-over-principle types just never learn. You will never recruit enough illegal alien voters to make up for loss of the conservative base. And we're deserting Mehlman by the thousands. Check with your RNC RINO buddies and ask them how the 2006 "survey" and "membership" drives are going. Also ask them how many 2006 membership cards have been returned cut in half.
Should be enlightening, even for you GOP Big Tenters.
The premise behind offering to allow a rise in naturalization is one of compromise. If the dems would abandon their position of converting the illegals(10-20 million) to greencard holders to naturalization to citizen, Bush would a back, let's say for discussion purposes, a 1 million increase in naturalization.
That's a good compromise, especially if it would split enough dems away from the official party position.
All 1 percent of you?
The Bush plan stipulates an annual increase.
What Bush plan? What annual increase?
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/01/20040107-1.html
"Reasonable Annual Increase of Legal Immigrants: A reasonable increase in the annual limit of legal immigrants will benefit those who follow the lawful path to citizenship."
Also note the Bush supports allowing illegals turned guest workers being allowed to stay in country as they pursue citizenship.
I have no idea whether or not Ambassador Garza means what he says, but here is what he's been quoted as saying.
Border controversy continues for U.S. and Mexico - January 21, 2006
Antonio Garza, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, has been forced to take a defensive stance towards growing international criticism over U.S.-Mexico border security.
Garza believes illegal immigrants do not have a right to seek employment in any country but their own.
Garza said, "Illegal immigration is a threat to our system of laws and an affront to the millions around the world, including Mexico, who play by the rules in seeking to come to the U.S,".
[snip]
Garza cited that roughly 1 million Mexican immigrants were granted some form of entry to the U.S. last year. This number is outweighed by the 1.2 million arrests that were issued because of illegal immigration.
[snip]
Garza's strategy in deflecting criticism has been more or less by discrediting what his opposition has to say. He told reporters the other side's accusations are "excessive, often irresponsible and almost always inaccurate."
In response to the idea that security measures increase the danger level along the border, Garza called upon the Mexican government to play a more active role in preventing their citizens from entering the U.S. illegally.
[snip]
As for standing in the rear of Green Card line, itdepends on how you read it. If we read as you are reading it, where they are is irrelevant since that line is longer than 6 years and the guest worker will have the ability to come and go so that he will be able to apply at home. If anything, it benefits those who come from futher away(Asia) over those whose home is close(Mex).
What Bush has proposed here is not binding and is entirely up to how Congress wants to work out the details.
That line can be read either way. An annual increase would be a yearly increase while an increase in the annual limit could mean a one time increase. Likely deliberately vague. The greencard language benefits the mexicans more by simple numbers. They have a 20+million head start.
"Then ask yourself, 'Who stabbed who in the back?'"
You can blow all the smoke you want to, but can't deny that the Republican Party Platform has taken a major lurch to the Left.
"I can read Tancredo's reform bill and he says that the illegals can't be deported.
We don't have to deport them.
They Will Deport Themselves
February 16th, 2002 | Sabertooth
Posted on 02/16/2002 11:28:04 AM EST by Sabertooth
They Will Deport Themselves
Every time an illegal alien sets foot in America he or she is a knowing burglar, breaking and entering across our borders, violating our laws. They are also squatters, attempting to colonize our land and our nation. Every moment of their presence in our country is an ongoing criminal act.
It is also illegal for a them to work here, so every cent these alien invaders take is done so illegally… as is ever dollar of unearned subsides they're able to defraud from American taxpayers.
Thus, all of the proceeds of the illegals' inhabitation of the United States are the ill-gotten gains of an ongoing criminal enterprise.
As such, they ought to be treated like the proceeds of any other criminal enterprise, from fraud to theft to drug dealing to racketeering…
The assets of illegal aliens should be subject to total forfeiture.
They are criminals, there is no moral reason why not. Therefore, a solution to much of our nation's problems with these international burglars resolves into focus…
Amnesty for illegal aliens was tried in 1986, with a bipartisan bill that was signed into law by President Reagan. 2.7 million illegals were able to get green cards in a one-time only program. That amnesty would only happen once was an integral part of the bargain the federal government struck with the American people, who have always opposed illegal immigration by large margins. The other part of the bargain was a promise of effective law enforcement against future illegals. The craven betrayal of this promise to the American people is bipartisan. Presidents Reagan, Bush the Elder, and Clinton all ignored the problem of illegals, as did both parties in Congress with the lone exception of the Republicans in 1996. Key to this failure has been the unwillingness of the federal government to deport illegals, as the law provides, in large numbers from the interior of our country.
Without deportation, there will be no solution to illegal immigration.
Now that the cancer of illegals has metastasized to 12 million and growing, many of these same politicians suggest that the solution to their malfeasance of duty is some new form of amnesty… "Nevermind the earlier deal with the American people, the problem is now too big for our laws to solve, we must Surrender."
Their condescending gall is like that of death row lawyers who run out of appeals, and then suggest that execution after 15 years is cruel and unusual punishment. Any unpleasantness resulting from the delay is entirely the onus of our elected officials to bear. The American people never wanted their laws not to be enforced.
Even the current White House of President George W. Bush is sending such signals with their periodic trial balloons about "normalizing undocumented workers" and "making their work legal."
This is as much as saying…
"Because we broke our promise to enforce the law against illegal aliens, we have no choice to break our promise that amnesty would happen only once."
Bunk.
We are told incessantly by these same spineless, duplicitous politicians from both parties how the problem of illegal immigration is intractable… Much as many of those same cowards once described the problem of terrorism. Winning changes things, doesn't it?
It's time to fight and win the battle against the illegal invaders, all 12 million-plus of them. We don't need to round them all up; we simply enact the appropriate and fully Constitutional legislation, and serve the aliens notice:
"Be gone in 90 days. If you aren't, all of the proceeds of your criminal presence in the United States will be subject to total asset forfeiture."
This will be the disincentive to their ongoing invasion.
Some will leave, and some won't. After 90 days, we round up a few hundred thousand of them. That should be enough time to hire the manpower to process the invaders. Then we take all they own within our borders, recycle it into INS coffers, and send them swiftly back to their own countries, whether China, Mexico, Ireland, or wherever, with no profit for their illegal efforts.
The other 12 million illegals will take heed. Step aside, and watch the stampede.
It will only get easier… if only we start.
Thanks for giving me an opportunity to re-post this, Ben.
When does the exodus start?
When Bush/Rove and the RNC grow spines.
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