I've been thinking about doing a thread asking for FReepers advice on submitting a congressional inquiry into the allegations that Senator Hagel committed a felony when he told the INS not to deport illegals in the meat-packing industry in Nebraska.
For anyone not familiar with the charges, I copied the following from RUSH's website:
Here's Mark Krikorian giving some examples of how our lawmakers often work behind-the-scenes to thwart our immigration laws:
In ninety eight, the border patrol noticed that the work force picking onions in the vidalia onion fields of Georgia appeared increasingly to be illegals, so they did some raids, arrested a few dozen illegal aliens, and all the rest of them ran off. So the farmers were there stuck with onions in the ground and no one to pull them out. It was all their own fault, they knew what they were doing, but nonetheless, they were outraged. They called their Congressmen, and by the end of the week, three of Georgia's Congressmen and both Senators, Republicans and Democrats, wrote a joint letter to the Attorney General demanding that the Immigration Service stop enforcing the law. Because they said the INS does not understand the needs of American farmers. Which in ordinary English means, "let them pick the onions, then arrest them. Preferably before we have to pay them". Well, the INS got slapped down and stopped.
So what they tried as an alternative to raids, was something called Operation Vanguard in Nebraska. It was sort of the first effort at something like this to see if it worked. They didn't do raids anywhere, all they did was subpoena personnel records. And they didn't just pick one or two employers, they did all the meatpacking plants in all of Nebraska, so that no one of them would be inconvenienced while the others benefitted. They took the personnel records back to the office, checked the Social Security numbers, and came back with a list of people who seemed to be illegal, who did not have authorization to work. They said "we know some of these people are legit and the records are wrong. We want to fix those people's records and the ones that are illegal, have to leave of course". They came back with four thousand names. One thousand people showed up and got their records fixed and three thousand were never heard from again. They were illegal aliens. It worked really well and it was intended to be repeated every two to three months so as to wean the whole industry off of the use of illegal aliens.
After one effort like this, the political and business elite in Nebraska went insane. The ranchers and the meat packers teamed up with the governor. The governor's predecessor, now Senator Nelson, was hired as a lobbyist to put an end to this initiative. Senator Chuck Hagel made it essentially his mission in life to see that this was never repeated and it wasn't. And the Senior INS official who thought it up in the first place was invited to retire early -- and he did. If you're a bureaucrat and you have kids in college, you're going to take the hint: Congress doesn't want you to enforce the law. So the Immigration Service essentially gave up enforcing the immigration laws inside the country. They focused on the important, but narrow, issues of criminal aliens and smugglers. I'm all for that, criminal aliens and alien smugglers are the scum of the earth, but there's a lot more to the issue than just that. But, going after those parts of the issue doesn't get you in trouble politically. So that's what they did, they gave up because Congress told them to stop doing their jobs. They really haven't changed that much (since) 9/11.
I've been told that requests for congressional inquiries are given a high priority (but that was regarding a military office, so I could be wrong). Thought it would be worth the effort though. Hagel committed a felony, and though there may be a statute of limitations, it should be made public knowledge. He is a high profile person in all this, and if he received nothing more than a censure, it would serve as a warning to other power-hungry politicians.
The above examples are the reason why our current immigration laws aren't working. The people who make our laws violate the ones that threaten their power.
My questions are: Is this feasible? Who do I send it to? (Frist is my senator) Do I send it to multiple senators, like Tancredo?
Will never-ever mind! You post away! Thank you!
How about the Attorney General? As well.
U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., and Gov. Mike Johanns said Friday they want a seven- to 10-day suspension of a crackdown by immigration officials on undocumented workers in Nebraska meatpacking plants.
Pulled from an OLD article.
You want Hagel, go ahead...I want JOHANNS; our current and completely unqualified Sec. of Agriculture.