[yobid]

They've broken existing laws but don't hurt their feelings.

[Bigg Red]

"No one should play on people's fears or try to pit neighbors against each other," Bush said. "No one should pretend that immigrants are threats to America's identity because immigrants have shaped America's identity.

%%%
Those were LEGAL immigrants who ASSIMILATED.
Good heavens, Mr. President, can't you tell the difference!!!???

[Reagan Man]

PresBush said three things have to be done for any new immigration reform to work. Seal the borders, improve interior enforcement efforts and install a guest worker program. Well, he's got the order right. Now how about them details.

How high will those walls be? How deep are those moats gonna be? Will the electric fences fry folks or just shock`em good? How much jail time will illegals who are caught have to do? And will the 1986 IRCA provisions for employer sanctions be enforced? Any million dollar fines?

Maybe Bush is finally getting it. Then again, maybe he's not.

[ncountylee]

Illegal aliens marching on American cities, disrupting business, screaming obscenities and advocating racism is not civil and dignified discussion.

Call out the troops if these filthy criminals repeat these actions.

[ARCADIA]

This is a criminal matter; do we have nice civil debates on rapist and muderers, or do we pursue and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law?

[cripplecreek]

Sorry George, this vigilante, racist, protectionist, restrictionist, xenophobe is clean out of civil.

[stopem]

Ahh no sorry President Bush there is nothing civil about this issue! Bottom line, protect our borders especially to the south, do NOT allow anymore illegals to sneak in, pass HR4437 please! That's about as civil as I can get at the moment.

[IamConservative]

"We will not accept enforcement-only approaches," said Cecilia Munoz, vice president of the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy group.

Well, with any luck, they will get really, really mad and go home.

As to the assertion that Frist's bill does not address what to do with illegals here, I think enforcing the law against hiring illegals will pretty much address the issue.

[trubluolyguy]

Civil? Mr. President, CIVIL????


I guess so long as there is no name calling like VIGILANTE you open borders a--hole!

[Spiff]

President Bush said Monday that overhauling the nation's immigration laws "is not going to be easy" and warned critics against stoking anti-immigrant feelings by calling them a threat to the nation's identity or a burden to the economy.

Whether it is true or not, the President wants us to shut the hell up about it. We're not "anti-immigrant". We are anti ILLEGAL immigrant, pro sovereignty, pro national security, and pro law enforcement. When Bush insists upon throwing the borders open and upon excusing criminals for the crimes they've committed and to even reward the criminals then he is against all of those things.

[GovernmentShrinker]

We don't need a debate. We need to dismantle the huge magnet that's drawing all these illegals here. End welfare payments of all kinds to any American who isn't severely disabled, so that all the Americans who "don't want to do" the jobs Mexicans are doing, will start wanting them very very badly. Eliminate all minimum wage laws, and all mandatory benefit laws, so employers can hire Americans for what they're actually worth, just like they're doing with Mexicans now. Bar illegals from public schools, and bar them from hospitals as well, except for life-threatening emergency care for below-working-age children who've been dragged here by there law-breaking parents (and arrest the parents who brought them to the hospital, so the whole family can be promptly deported the minute the child can safely travel).

[KarlInOhio]

Step 1. Secure the border.

Without that step, nothing else matters. If you give amnesty (or whatever the politically correct term is) and start collecting taxes on and enforcing OSHA and other rules on the current batch of illegals the cost of hiring them will go up and businesses will have an incentive to hire a new batch of illegals. Make sure that there isn't another batch coming over every day.

Step 2. Punish employers who hire illegals.

I'm not talking about little fines as a cost of doing business. I'm talking about where businesses are destroyed if they knowingly hire illegals or go out of their way to not find out their workers' legal status. Although I don't like it, this will probably mean a program where employers can and must confirm employees' status with the government.

Step 3. Deal with the current batch of illegals.

I admit that deporting 12-20 million illegals will be nearly impossible. I'm even willing to talk about amnesty and the road to citizenship for the ones here if the floodgates of new illegals are closed.

Don't try to blow smoke up my backside by talking about a six year temporary worker plan. If they're here for six years they'll probably have citizen children here and will be impossible to send back. If the temporary worker is here for more than one year, admit that it is permanent and deal with that.

[Pessimist]

The only way to have a civil debate on this issue is to first get control of the problem of the unrestricted flow of illegals into our country.

Then and only then can we decide as a country who and how many to let in.

[surely_you_jest]

The President has blown all his remaining credibility on this issue. This plea for civility suggests to me that his latest numbers are even lower, and despite his bravado about not worrying about polls, he's worried.

If he persists in pursuing in all of this, the GOP is going to go right down the toilet in the next couple of election cycles. It will deserve it. And I for one will be happy to help in pulling the "Flush" lever.

[Spiff]

"The immigration debate should be conducted in a civil and dignified way," the president said

Yeah, like when you called ME and my conservative friends "vigilantes" in an attempt to sow fear and confusion about the mission and behavior of the Minuteman Project volunteers. Instead of debating us on the issue or even just politely disagreeing with us and our tactics, you called us a very emotionally charged, derogatory name, dishonestly portraying us as violent lawbreakers. You lied for political gain and slandered good people to further your misguided political agenda.

Then, in this very speech where you call for "civil" debate on the issue, you again portray those who are for border security, protection of our sovereignty, and the enforcement of our laws as "anti-immigrant". Again, you're implying radicalism and possibly racism with such distortions of language and namecalling. If anyone needs a lecture on engaging in "civil" debate on the issue, it is YOU, Mr. President.

I am more than happy to engage in civil debate on this issue. I invite and welcome the President to travel to Cochise County, Arizona to see firsthand the problems that illegal aliens are causing and just how porous our national borders are. Further, I would love to take that opportunity to have the civil debate between the President and border security advocates. We won't call you names even if you continue to sling them at us. We just want to talk and show you what your failure to protect our borders has caused.

So, either you want "civil" debate on the subject, or you're just engaging in further dishonesty and distortion to further your open borders, globalist agenda. I suspect the latter. I'd love it if you, Mr. President, could back up your words with real actions (ie. a real and "civil" debate on issue) and prove me wrong.

[Travis McGee]

Only someone who is totally clueless thinks the illegal aliens are going to vote for Republicans after they get their guest worker amnesty citizenship in 6 years.

[XJarhead]

Oops. My mistake. I apparently stumbled onto a DU emote-fest on this thread.

[Spiff]

I am finding it very hard to remain "civil" on this issue when over 1 million criminal invaders and their accomplices march in our cities' streets demanding we excuse their criminal activity, wave the flags of the nation to which they give their allegiance (not the U.S.!), and some demanding that we give them back the southwestern portion of American which they mistakenly believe belongs to Mexico. I am infuriated that this can occur in the United States and there were no repercussions against the criminal invaders and their partners in crime. I am further angered that these criminals beat up a peaceful Minuteman Project member simply because he was exercising his god-given freedom of speech by holding a sign.

Blood has been drawn already. It has happened a few times in L.A. as the criminal invaders and their accomplices have beaten pro-border security advocates and trampled their U.S. flags on at least two occasions within the last 6 years. It happened again this weekend in Indiana.

It is only through great restraint that the pro-border security advocates have not fought back. We remain peaceful while the side that President Bush is scrambling to appease is growing more and more brazen and violent. And I find this situation absolutely intolerable.

[kstewskis]

"We will not accept enforcement-only approaches," said Cecilia Munoz, vice president of the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy group.

Hey Celcila!

Stick it where the sun don't shine!

Someone care to step up and *&^%$slap this wench?

[DoctorMichael]

"......."The (*ILLEGAL*) immigration debate should be conducted in a civil and dignified way," the president said as the Senate prepared to tackle the hot- button election issue of what to do with the nation's estimated 11 million illegal immigrants this week.........."

I'm correcting George's statement for the sake of clarity.