Posted on 05/14/2006 6:20:19 PM PDT by Spiff
President Bush will deliver a televised address to the nation tonight on immigration policy. It is his first address from the Oval Office on immigration, and if it not successful, it may be his last.
In this speech, the President needs to do three things to accomplish his goals. There is a road to consensus and success if the President will take it. It is not only a path to consensus -- it is a path to success for the Republican Party in November.
In his Monday speech, the President needs to make a clear break from previous speeches on the topic and come home to Republican Party principles. He needs to stop pandering to perceived voting blocs and employer lobbies and speak to the one thing all Americans agree upon: No immigration policy is workable without secure borders.
The President needs to speak to the nation as fellow citizens, not ethnic or economic groups, and tell them America will have secure borders that stop all illegal entry into our country. He needs to announce that he will federalize the National Guard in four border states to provide support to the beleaguered Border Patrol. He needs to say this will happen tomorrow morning, not next month or next year.
The second thing the President must do is explicitly separate the priority and necessity of secure borders from all other proposed federal legislation. Secure borders do not depend on a “comprehensive” immigration reform package that includes amnesty and a new temporary worker program. Secure borders are a prerequisite for any new immigration legislation, not a component to be bartered away for increased immigration numbers or new visa rules.
The third thing the President’s speech should do is to avoid any mention of amnesty for illegal aliens already in the country. No matter how cleverly he defines his “legalized status” proposal as not being amnesty, it is still amnesty and everyone knows it.
Americans are not in a mood to negotiate the matter of “regularization” for 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens -- and Newt Gingrich has pointed out the amnesty would ultimately legalize up to 36 million -- until they see we have in fact achieved secure borders. Once that is done, once our laws are being enforced, then we can begin to discuss the problem of how to deal with the millions of illegal aliens already living here.
I hope the President and his advisers are perceptive enough to see that this course of action is the only one that will achieve all of his goals. It will unify the Republican Party. It will stop the flood of illegals aliens crossing our borders. And perhaps most importantly, it will point America in a positive direction for immigration policy and set a foundation for future reform. To be sure, it will not solve all of our immigration-related problems -- but it will be a much-needed and long overdue start.
A new beginning is what we desperately need, and the President’s speech can do that if it is based on candor, on Republican principles and the priority of secure borders. Anything less will not only not be a new beginning, it may very well be the end of Republican coherence and credibility.
Rep. Tancredo (R.-Colo.) is chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus.
Something us freepers have been saying all along.
Capt. Tom April 2006 on another FR thread
Didn't Ronald Reagan do that already with his amnesty packgage for illegals ,by signing the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA)of 1982? And things got worse because of lack of enforcement,on the border.
Close the border first no matter how many people and dollars it takes
Then at a later date sort out the illegal immigrant problem on our side of it. Don't try to combine those ideas in one piece of legislation.
When you hear Guest worker, or amnesty, or comprehensive, mentioned in the same legislation along with closing the border, you know they are not serious about closing the border.
Initially closing the border should be a stand alone bill, and when that is accomplished other legislation should follow. - tom
Gotta link to something indicating that Reagan regretted passing an amnesty?
Go Tom go. Nuts!
Guest workers, maybe; citizenship waiting period, yes Bush pledged to revisit guest worker programs and other ways for immigrants to come into the country, but said he would insist on immigration controls and a waiting period before citizenship. Source: Mike Glover, Associated Press Aug 6, 1999 .
I always liked that part of the speech.
The UAV spotted 853,000 during it's four month testing but, since we lacked men on the ground, the BP only apprehended 154,800 of the 853,000 spotted.
The rest are now awaiting Bush's amnesty.
Guess which one Americans prefer by a 2-to-1 margin? "81 percent of Republicans, 72 percent of independents, 57 percent of Democrats, and 53 percent of Hispanics" thought the House bill was a "good or very good idea."
Now you either didn't bother reading the entire article or you're deliberately lying. My money is on "b", but that's just me. I suppose it's possible that you somehow were incapable of reading all the way to the end, but I think that's unlikely.
Now, you got any more cutesy cartoons that cover folks who can't read all the way to the end of an article or would you rather issue vague threats to me via Freepmail?
L
Just like Reagan regretted raising taxes, endorsing the Brady Bill, leaving Beirut with our tail between our legs, and every other thing that Bush has never done but Reagan is used as the Conservative hammer to hit Bush with every day. It is just like St. Tom's hypocricy on term limits and hiring illegals himself. There is always an exuse.
Trust me sinkspur, he did.
good advice for anyone -even Freepers
No matter how he's defined it, he has not come out and blatantly said he'd do nothing about border control, pass an amnesty, or anything of the kind.
He never indicated that he would allow those who stole their way into our country, post 1999, free citizenship. He did not campaign on amnesty. Not forcing illegals to leave the country in order to obtain citizenship is amnesty by any other name.
It's a total joke to expect illegals to "document" how long they've been here in order to qualify now by some magic number of "5 years" that he's come up with. They're already UNDOCUMENTED, because they're here illegally. Who are they going to get to "document" when they arrived? Employers who ILLEGALLY hired them?
Yeah, that's the ticket.
And, BTW, 9/11 happened since 1999, and the borders are still wide open.
Oh wipe your chin.
Kind of like this little problem:
No. I've asked three different posters for evidence that Reagan "regretted" granting amnesty in 1986, and have never gotten a single sentence that proves the point.
Yeah, too bad American citizens who aren't in this because of greed or personal gain want the laws enforced.
Somebody posted an email from him on here last week, saying that the big bad GOP was after him, so please send money.
That's the article we're discussing.
You're just going to have to accept the fact that there are some people on this forum who are in some serious denial about the situation in which Bush and the Republicans have gotten themselves. The GOP stands a very good chance of being destroyed in November, but when you try to discuss that possibility, they call you a troll or a DU plant.
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