Posted on 04/07/2006 3:10:22 AM PDT by goldstategop
The Senate has reached a “compromise” on illegal immigration. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (who, by his conduct here, just lost the ’08 nomination) called it a “huge breakthrough” – a moral collapse would be more like it.
Did anyone ask the American people – who have time and again expressed their anger, frustration and outrage over our porous borders – whether they want a compromise on illegal immigration, on an amnesty for an estimated 12 million criminal aliens?
When asked about compromises on the more contentious issues facing the Supreme Court, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia responded: How you can reach a compromise between what the Constitution really means and what judicial activists want it to mean?
How do you split the difference between reality and fantasy – between truth and lies?
The same applies to illegal immigration.
In fact, the deal that Ted Kennedy and Harry Reid worked out with Republicans like Arlen Specter, Mel Martinez, Chuck Hagel and John McCain (the quintessential un-Republican) is no compromise at all – but a blanket amnesty for border-jumpers, whether they came seven years ago or 7 minutes ago. To claim otherwise is an insult to our intelligence.
At their press conference announcing this rape of our national identity, McCain, Specter, Reid et al. couldn’t even refer to the objects of their beneficence as illegal aliens. They were undocumented workers – the weaseliest of weasel words. Sure, and the man who breaks into my house is an uninvited guest.
Perhaps the most hilarious comments at the press conference came from stand-up comic and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV), who spoke of all the undocumented workers employed by Las Vegas casino-hotels, as maids, dishwashers, etc, and how much the industry has come to rely on their (cheap) labor.
Does he think the average American actually cares about the labor costs, hence the profit-margin, of Caesar’s Palace or the MGM Grand? (Gosh, whatever would we do without a gaming industry?) If they don’t want to pay an American wage and fill those jobs with American workers, why should I care about their bottom-line?
Reid sang a different tune (which sounded more like “The Star-Spangled Banner” than “The Bonaparte’s Retreat”) in 1993, when he observed: “Our borders have overflowed with illegal immigrants placing tremendous burdens on our criminal justice system, schools and social programs. …Our federal wallet is stretched to the limit by illegal aliens getting welfare, food stamps, medical care and other benefits often without paying any taxes. … These programs were not meant to entice freeloaders and scam artists from around the world. Even worse, Americans have seen heinous crimes committed by individuals who are here illegally.”
What changed for Reid in the interim isn’t the reality of illegal immigration, but the rise of the lawbreakers’ lobby in his home state, combined with his becoming the Senate leader of the party of plunder and shameless pandering.
That master of politico-babble, Ted Kennedy, called the compromise “tough and fair,” which is like saying Chappaquiddick was a shinning example of responsible drinking and safe driving.
That the bill Kennedy helped to craft is an amnesty is indisputable. If an uninvited guest can prove he’s been here more than 5 years (from the effective date of January 7, 2004), he need do nothing to remain but pay a fine. The dictionary defines amnesty as “an act of forgiveness for past offenses, especially to a class of persons as a whole.”
By definition, coming to America illegally is “an offense.” Calling it a “guest-worker program” (another sniveling euphemism) doesn’t alter the fact that the compromise legislation will allow the criminals to remain here indefinitely, while escaping punishment – hence “an act of forgiveness for past offenses.” Enter national politics, and words suddenly lose any semblance of meaning.
The Great Compromise purports to be forgiveness for past offenses for some trespassers. Actually, it’s a blanket amnesty for all 12 million-plus illegals in the United States. As noted above, immigration criminals who’ve been here more than five years get a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Those who’ve resided here illegally for 2 to 5 years (from 2004) must go to one of 16 designated ports of entry and declare themselves -- as if this means anything. Then they are issued a temporary visa (that isn’t temporary at all), after which they can go home and continue their hostile occupation of American territory, and eventually apply for citizenship under the provisions of the measure.
Where the bill sorta gets tough (but only in theory) is on those who’ve been here less than two years. They are expected to depart forthwith. If they stay and are caught once, it’s a misdemeanor. Twice and it’s a felony.
How hard is it to forge a 1040-form, or a pay stub or a utility bill or a bank statement proving that Jose, who arrived here today, has been an illegal resident of the U.S. since 1999? About as hard as it is to stuff ballot boxes in Cook County.
The Senate compromise is touted as a problem-solving measure. (“Oh dear us,” its proponents wail, “We must do something to regularize all of the undocumented workers.”)
If it becomes law, it will be a major step toward solving the vexing problem of America’s national identity. Soon, we won’t have one any more.
Like the amnesties of the 1980s and the 1990s, it will result in another surge of illegal immigration. Build it, and they will come.
And those who come will have no interest in learning our language and customs, or identifying with our history and heritage. They won’t be Mexican-Americans or Haitian-Americans or hyphenated-whatevers (which would be bad enough), but Mexicans, Haitians or whatevers who happen to reside in the United States.
They and their children, and perhaps their grandchildren, won’t assimilate but be a solvent, eroding our identity as a people, year after year, decade after decade – until, eventually, America comes to be comprised of disparate national groups residing in what used to be a nation. (In less than 20 years, earlier waves that washed over our southern border have made Spanish our unofficial second language.)
Consider the words of Ronald F. Maxwell (writer/director of “Gettysburg” and “Gods And Generals”) commenting in The Washington Times:
“What is happening on the southern border is unprecedented. Not only in our own history, but in the history of the world. No country at any time, anywhere, has sustained the influx of tens of millions of foreigners across its borders … This is invasion masquerading as immigration. It may already be too late to avoid a future annexation of the Southwest by Mexico or the evolution of a Mexican-dominated satellite state.” If not, the Senate compromise will seal our fate.
That congressional Democrats favor lawbreaking and national suicide is unsurprising. They are, after all, the party of the alien and the alienated – the marginal, the misfit and the criminal.
But Republicans? Some are groveling before the illegal-immigrant lobby, whilst pursuing the mirage of an Hispanic Republican vote. Others pray in the direction of Wall Street. (Corporate America wants cheap immigrant labor, and damn the social costs -- crime, welfare and national disintegration.)
In the above-quoted commentary, Maxwell addresses these words to George W. Bush: “Mr. President, this is a time for candor. Your immigration policy is viewed as captive to the cheap labor – big business lobby and inimical to the survival of our country.” And so it is.
If Republicans lose either or both Houses of Congress this year, blame on the immigration-sellout of the McCains, Specters and Hegels.
GOP strategists think Middle Americans have no place else to go in November. We don’t have to go anywhere – just stay comfortably at home.
But that will be only the beginning. The Whig Party committed suicide by refusing to take a stand on slavery. Instead, it sought accommodations with evil, like the Compromise of 1850.
Republicans are emulating their pusillanimous predecessors. The party’s conservative base – its very essence – is furious with this unpardonable betrayal.
If this gift to illegal aliens becomes law, there will be no amnesty for the Republican Party.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
This is a great column. Thanks for posting it. Recently cops raided a Lowell, MA, apt. house, found some 900 illegals crammed in like sardines, but a blanket on a rope divided a corner of one room into a 'documentation' center. They possessed every conceivable US I.D. and the means to fake it. Anything and everything.
We have to deport them, all twenty odd million of them, and then those with jobs waiting for them could apply to return, get fingerprinted and a green card. Everybody else would wait in line like the rest of the world. Period.
Thanks for posting this...and for all your hard work. Much appreciated.
Thanks for looking- it's appreciated.
Like many conservatives who have supported the Republicans for the last two decades, I am very disappointed in our Republican representatives. We have control of both Congress and the White House, and what have we done with it? Oh sure, they've done some good, but I had much higher expectations.
It seems to me that the Democratic Party, influenced by the fringe left, has made a series of mistakes in recent years. They should be easy pickings. But instead of clobbering them, I fear that we will shoot ourselves in the foot over this Illegal Immigration legislation.
Sent to Fl senators this am. "I am oppposed to any guaranteed path to citizenship for illegal aliens. I have seen many very serious human rights abuses and demand that our laws be enforced. They don't have real jobs, and 100 years of labor law is in jeopardy."
In part, the report says:
Senate Republicans and Democrats reached a deal Thursday morning on immigration and border security reform, but by nightfall, a bitter partisan fight over how to bring it to a final vote left the plan's future in danger. Hours after announcing a bipartisan agreement to let immigrants who came here illegally earn legal status, leaders of each party accused the other of blocking the immigration bill in a dispute over how to handle amendments by its opponents.To read the rest of the report, hit the link above.
This is looking like a semi-peaceful version of the barbarian invasions that destroyed the Roman Empire, invasions that occurred because the Romans indulged themselves in one civil war after another. In our case there's a political civil war going on that's every bit as destructive as the Romans' military civil wars, one that's enabling the same kind of barbarian invasion.
Senators,SHUT THE BORDERS NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!
Senators, NO AMNESTY FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS!!!
Senators,WE ARE A NATION OF LAWS,FOLLOW THEM NOW!!
I think you're making it too complicated.
Listen up! Dr. Murdock (sp?), the well-known demographer, said "Look at the schools" to determine the actual percentage of a given ethnicity in a given area. If you do that, the percentage of Hispanics nationwide would have to average to at least 20%. Let's argue that 10% are illegal. 10% of 300 million is 30 million illegals. I'll be nice and agree to compromise at 20 million (probably wrong). That is a LOT more than 12 million. If they pass this, it's over.
Great Post!
MCCAIN will be in N.H. this weekend checking his chances as a candidate and a group of us have decided to go and ask some serious questions. Don't know what good it will do...
With a strong stand on illegal immigration, the Republicans are being handed a landslide victory in November. Why they can't see this is very difficult to grasp.
bttt
bttt
You saw it here first....
A [typically] great Don Feder column. He's an alum of the Boston Herald, which also runs Howie Carr, another great voice against the crimalien invasion.
VOTE TANCREDO IN '08!
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