Posted on 04/07/2006 7:58:29 AM PDT by rob777
In the rush to get an immigration bill out of the Senate, the Bush administration appears willing to cave into the Democrats on the issue of amnesty.
The latest burst of bipartisan enthusiasm came when a strange marriage of Republican Sens. John McCain and Bill Frist joined with Democratic Sens. Ted Kennedy and Harry Reid in proclaiming that only those illegal aliens who are in the United States five years or more will be allowed to stay.
Suddenly, every "undocumented migrant" you ask will claim to have been in the United States five years or more. How is anyone going to prove different? In the thriving market in forged documents, we find in major cities such as Los Angeles and New York, any reasonably enterprising illegal alien should be able to get a Social Security number and produce a driving license for any name it takes to prove they have been in the United States five years or more.
We are witnessing remarkable statements from the likes of Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who said of the recent compromise, "While it admittedly is not perfect, the choice we have to make is whether it is better than no bill, and the choice is decisive." This sounds uncomfortably familiar.
What we are likely to get out of the compromise is new language promising to secure the border, but without building a fence. We're probably going to be sold that electronic sensors are just as good. So why don't we just build an electronic surveillance force? All this is nonsense. We already have good immigration laws on the books that we don't enforce. How long will it take to put the electronic surveillance force in place? How many illegal immigrants will the electronic fence actually prevent from getting into the United States anyway? Will we add enough Border Patrol agents to make sure the electronic fence is working?
Why won't the Senate and President Bush just come clean on what is really going on? Senate Republicans do not have enough votes for a tough enforcement law and the president is not going to push for tough enforcement. Besides, President Bush is basically in favor of amnesty, as long as we can find the right euphemism, such as "guest worker." Certainly, no Republican wants to be accused of offering a "guest illegal" program, even if that's what the "get out of jail free" card after five years here actually means.
Maybe no bill at all would be better. Why is President Bush so determined in his second term to commit political suicide? Conservative Republicans want "guest worker" amnesty and "electronic surveillance" fences no more than they wanted Harriet Miers to be on the Supreme Court.
Probably, what it will take to wake the White House up is the massive defeat in the 2006 congressional elections that is brewing right now. Maybe if enough Republican senators and congressmen bite the dust in November, Karl Rove will realize that courting future "illegal immigrant" voters to expand the Hispanic base of the Republican Party is probably a very costly strategy, especially if in the process the growing conservative majority turns hard against the president.
The immigration bill that is being hammered together will certainly be proclaimed as a "great solution," a "comprehensive bill." In the end, this new immigration bill is not really intended to stop illegal immigration. The bill is just intended to sound like we are going to stop illegal immigration.
In another few years, we will have not 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States, as the administration claims we have now, but maybe 25 million. But, of course, in five years from now, all we have to do is wave the magic wand again, permitting Congress to declare once more that everybody is legal, as long as they have been here five years or more. Why don't we just do this every five years? That should make the problem go away altogether.
I LIKE that idea - screw up the system.
I don't follow Arizona politics to closely, but how does McCain get elected for the Senate?
Neither party wants to confront the issue, because they see it as a political loser. Booting the GOP out will not solve the problem, but rather, make it worse. The Dems see it as a political winner. If they can lock up the fastest growing and biggest minority, i.e., Hispanics, like they have the black vote, they will control this country again like they did for almost 60 years. Remember, today one out of almost every three Dem voters is black or Hispanic.
The GOP is split beteen the elites and big business and the conservative core. It cannot win elections with this split now or even less in the future due to demographics. The GOP is scared to death to antagonize the Hispanic vote, which votes majority Dem but not in lock step like the black vote. If the truth be told, we have already alienated many Hispanics because the MSM and Dems have portrayed the GOP has being in hospitable to immigrants. That is devastating in a country, which has currently 33.1 million foreign born residents, equal to 11.5 percent of the U.S. population.
Bush his not caving in, he is leading the charge to surrender America to Mexico.
When RINOs get elected pretending to be Republicans, they screw everything up and the public blames Republican political philosophy.
That's why its better that Dems get in than RINOs. Then when they inevitably srew things up, real Republicans can a have a better crack at flushing them down the drain.
A traitor is always worse than an open enemy.
You can now put your head back into the sand dune.
Is Hugh Hewitt also supposedly in the DU suddenly? I don't think so. If anything, he is soft-pedalling this so that the Administration doesn't tune out...and go bubble-mode... instantly.
You pro-Alienists need to get real...and face the electoral carnage that you are already causing. Not just in the future...now.
What if your party loses their majority in the midterm elections due to ones actions or lack of action.
This is the real GWB.
The idea that this is some sort of the-mask-is-off revelation of a politician who's no longer accountable to the voters is pure bunk.
It's the same man who ran for president in 2000 and 2004 stating the exact same views. It's what he believed as governor of Texas, it's what he believed in winning two national elections.
Whether you love his position or hate it, Bush's position on illegal immigration should come as no surprise to anyone other than the ignorant. Bush is simply keeping his campaign promises.
I'll bet you never get picked for a jury panel.
the democrats had the majority in 86...
Then American citizenship is "arbitrary".
LOL, you really want to use Ronald Reagan??? Reagan supported tight borders, but he also supported wide open doors. Reagan legalized 2.8 million undocumented workers.
Reagan: ""It makes one wonder about the illegal alien fuss. Are great numbers of our unemployed really victims of the illegal alien invasion or are those illegal tourists actually doing work our own people won't do? One thing is certain in this hungry world; no regulation or law should be allowed if it results in crops rotting in the fields for lack of harvesters."
Reagan at Ellis Island in 1982 spoke movingly of immigrants who "possessed a determination that with hard work and freedom, they would live a better life and their children even more so."
So please go ahead an use Ronald Reagan. Reagan's views are identical to mine.
I doubt there are economic "Supply / Demand" graphs at the border which are adhered to by Pedro & Maria.
And you think I support abortion??? Get a clue before you post garbage.
Numbers for our revolutionary war, 33% for. 33% against, 33% could care less.
The President should take a few minutes alonee, sit down in front of a mirror, and tell himself, "I CAN defend our borders, I CAN enforce our laws. I'm strong enough, I'm smart enough and, doggoneit, people used to like me."
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