Posted on 02/01/2006 7:38:50 AM PST by Reagan Man
Sadly, the President missed yet another great opportunity to correct his course on immigration reform tonight. The President should have clarified his plan and joined the forces in Congress holding the line against amnesty. Instead, Americans will have to wait and wonder where the President stands on securing our borders, while he pushes for guest workers.
The President must enforce our immigration laws before we consider any guest worker proposal. Until we bring law and order to our border anarchy, importing more workers into the equation is out of the question.
In 1986, Congress passed a blanket amnesty on the promise that border security would come later. We all remember the ’86 bait-and-switch, and we won’t be fooled again. There is no way to determine if we need guest workers, and there is no way to gain control of this broken system until we seal our borders and control our country’s interior.
A Gallup poll released this week showed that a mere 25 percent of Americans approve of President Bush’s handling of immigration—his worst approval rating of all major issue areas that were surveyed.
The House’s get-tough immigration bill is in the Senate’s hands, where it is in jeopardy of being dropped or – worse yet – turned into a blanket amnesty. From his bully pulpit, President Bush could have broken the Washington stalemate and secured the most significant immigration reform in a decade. But tonight we got more of the same—more stalling, more roadblocks, more lax enforcement with no action in sight.
Border security is not an issue from which President Bush should run away. An overwhelming majority of Americans demand that their government secure the border now, and if we restore law and order, Republicans will be the political winners. As the President does in so many other areas, he must not retreat but lead.
High School kids will work if the situation is right, and it just may get that way again. Of course then there will be millions of illegals willing to take those jobs.
The other night I got my usual twice monthly phone call from the GOP for another donation. After I read them the riot act, I said until Bush and the GOP leadership in Congress addresses illegal immigration/open borders and liberal spending/big government, I wouldn't be sending them a dime. The last time I did that was in 1992. By 1994 things had turned. Newt's Contract With America gave the GOP control of the full Congress for the first time in 40 years. Conservtaives have to hold Bush and the GOP accountable for their actions on these domestic issues. This year, my Congressman will get my vote, just not my money.
There wasn't a debate...I remember it being an issue in his first election. It wasn't a BIG issue. It certainly is now.
We didn't even mention it during the Clinton years. It took time and the enormity of the problem to hit us square in the face before we would acknowledge it (most of us anyway, there were some who were warning us early on.)
But besides blaming Bush, what on earth are we going to do. There's been some good suggestions here. They ALL need to be implemented NOW. Starting tomorrow...not next year. Most are already laws, all we have to do is enforce them. And I mean WE. All of us. Make breaking the law hurt and hurt very badly, and people will quit.
We mostly do nothing about it. THAT is the problem. The bureaucracy can't handle the visa programs we have now. People are not vetted, many criminals are allowed in and there's virtually no enforcement to get the overstays out. Remember a few visa overstays that flew planes into buildings? Technology? Ha!
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0510/24/ldt.01.html Aired Oct. 24, 2005
And millions of foreigners in this country illegally, not because they crossed our borders illegally, but because their visas have expired. You'll be shocked -- I think you will be shocked to hear just how few immigration officials we have assigned to track down all of those people with expired visas.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Visa holders who overstay exit date in this country can easily disappear into American life with little risk from immigration authorities. A report from the Homeland Security inspector general estimates at least 3.6 million illegal aliens are people here who overstayed their visas. Yet last year, there were only 51 agents dedicated to tracking visa violators.
REP. J.D. HAYWORTH, (R) ARIZONA: If there are so-called good people overstaying their visas, there are really bad people too. And more than just your garden variety of criminal, probably in that group, sad to say, are those folks who belong to terrorist cells who mean to do us harm. ROMANS: Immigration and Customs Enforcement received more than 300,000 leads last year on visa violators. The inspector general found authorities investigated just over 4,000 and apprehended only 671.(snip)
McCain says "No amnesty" as well.
GFY
Oh I want it controlled...but shutting down immigration from Mexico is not gonna happen.
Get a worker program and then do what the hell you want to!
Don't post that image here again.
Sorry about that, but he deserved it.
Understood.
Im not asking for it to be shut down. I just dont want a massive preference for mexicans on top of the already large preference they have in our legal immigration system. Sorry, Im not interested in integrating with mexico.
Thanks.
Sorry, my bad...carried away.
Me either, but their culture is not the end of the world. There are a lot of decent Mexican people.
Thank god we don't have a border with Iran.
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