Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, left, and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., meet with reporters on Capitol Hill Thursday, May 4, 2006, after a private meeting on immigration legislation. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook)
Posted on 05/09/2006 5:47:47 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - In a warm-up for next week's immigration debate, impatient senators flirted with the fringes of the issue with separate bills to crack down on border tunnel builders and insist that the national anthem be sung in English.
A compromise that would protect most of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants from being deported faltered in the Senate in April.
Senators, however, were unwilling to wait to express their disdain for a recently released version of the national anthem in Spanish or to delay legislation for imprisoning smugglers convicted of digging tunnels under the U.S.-Mexican border.
The Senate approved a resolution late Monday evening stating that the national anthem, the Pledge of Allegiance, the oath recited by immigrants when they are sworn in as citizens and other songs or statements symbolizing national unity should be spoken or sung in English.
"At the opening of the Senate each day, or at a football game, or at a Boy or Girl Scout meeting, we are free to sing or say our national symbols in any language we please, but we ought to sing and say them in our common language, English," said Sen. Lamar Alexander (news, bio, voting record), R-Tenn.
A similar resolution has been introduced in the House by Rep. Jim Ryun (news, bio, voting record), R-Kan.
A Spanish version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" debuted last month, prompting an outcry around the country. President Bush said people who want to be U.S. citizens ought to learn English and learn to sing the national anthem in English.
It was later revealed the State Department's own Web site has four versions of the national anthem in Spanish as well as translations of the Constitution and other national symbols.
Sen. Daniel Akaka (news, bio, voting record), D-Hawaii, spoke against the resolution, noting that the nation's motto — E Pluribus Unum — is in Latin.
"We cannot win the hearts and minds of people of other nations and promote American ideals if we close the door on people expressing their support for our country and the freedoms on which it was founded," Akaka said.
Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., introduced a bill for cracking down on border tunnel builders and financiers "just to get it done" in case broader immigration legislation never makes it to Bush's desk.
Their measure would impose prison sentences of up to 20 years for anyone who builds a tunnel or pays to have one built and up to 10 years for anyone who allows one to be built on their land or disregards the building of a cross-border tunnel.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, left, and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., meet with reporters on Capitol Hill Thursday, May 4, 2006, after a private meeting on immigration legislation. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook)
James 'Jim' Gilchrist, the founder of the Minuteman Project, speaks against illegal immigration during a rally in Los Angeles to signify the start of a cross-country caravan the Minuteman Project is using to raise awareness about illegal immigration May 3, 2006. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters)
Socialist, Bird's of a feather
(pix of Kennedy and the mayor.)
How about 10 years for any elected official who allow the border to be crossed or disregards massive crossing the border? No, that would empty out Washington.
Sen. Di-Fi came to Sandiego a while back, and had a great photo op on the tunnel that was discovered a few miles from the otay border crossing, I would think it to be illegal to gain entry into our country by boat, tunnel, foot, car, plane, glider, swimming,,, we dont need another law, when we dont enforce the ones we have, read in the paper last week where it will cost millions of dollars to fill that tunnel in, looks like they could do a few sticks of dynamite and accomplish the same thing,
But they will give all illegal amnesty via the McKennedy bill just like they were going to before their 3 week spring vacation.
Singing the anthem is Spanish is absolutely meaningless. Worry about the borders, not bread and circuses.
Jose Canu, si!
Interesting.
Seems to imply that despite best efforts the movement for amnesty in those "civil" halls is faltering?
No, I don't think it's dead. I thik they are hoping a moment arives when they can sneak a vote for it while attentions are elsewhere. Yet, it's undeniable the language is becoming more transparently desperate by those favoring amnesty. We're now hearings statements implying it may never happen...or far more pendering given to enforcement of the border at the beginning of speeches rather than later.
It doesn't indicate they will do the right thing. It does indicate they are worried because they are hearing enough voices that they cannot be ignored.
It's small progress.
Amazing that a Democrat Senator in a liberal state crawling with invaders and invader sympathizers realizes that her job is danger if she doesn't pretend that she is cracking down on invaders....yet the Republican Senators remain clueless.
PHOENIX: A prosecutor seeking to convict dozens of illegal immigrants for illegally crossing into Arizona has accused the Mexican government of organizing legal efforts to dismantle a state law targeting immigrant smugglers.
Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas says the Mexican government has arranged for a lawyer to challenge his legal opinion that illegal immigrants suspected of using smugglers to cross into the state can be charged as conspirators.
The lawyer also argues that the state can't regulate immigration.
Thomas has asked the US State Department to protest the Mexican government's alleged involvement in the case.
A call to the office of the Carlos Flores Vizcarra, the Mexican consul general in Phoenix whom Thomas has accused of seeking to weaken the state law, wasn't immediately returned late this morning.
Forty-eight illegal immigrants were charged as conspirators under the 9-month-old law.
Thanks, I saw a report on that earlier..
good luck to him.
now if we could get the mexican govt to compensate US states for the maintenance and upkeep on all of the incarcerated illegals/criminals here, for starters.
Well wouldn't that mean you would have to impeach Bush first.
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