decisions, decisions
Posted on 05/23/2006 3:37:01 PM PDT by KyleM
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO), Chairman of the 97-member House Immigration Reform Caucus, expressed disappointment at Rep. Mike Pence’s policy shift on immigration reform. At a Heritage Foundation speech this afternoon, Pence presented what he called “a rational middle ground… between amnesty and mass deportation” that turns its back on a enforcement-first strategy, grants rogue employers amnesty, and would in effect reward illegal aliens for breaking the law.
“Mike Pence is making the same mistakes that the President has, using the straw man of mass deportations and redefining amnesty to suit his interests. Unfortunately, like the President, Pence is breaking from House conservatives who remain steadfast in their support of a security-first approach to immigration,” said Tancredo.
Pence’s plan would require illegal aliens to return to their home countries to apply for a new ‘W’ worker visa. Employers could hire as many foreign workers as they want under the W visa, and, in practice, they would likely hire the same workers who they employed illegally before. Pence wants to start the new foreign worker program before border security is even proved effective, which is the same strategy that was used in the 1986 amnesty. Twenty years later, the U.S. got amnesty as promised but no border security.
“Pence’s W visa is aptly named. It gives the Administration exactly what it wants: unlimited foreign workers first, enforcement later or never,” said Tancredo. “Pence’s plan is just the 1986 amnesty with a trip home tacked on.”
The Pence plan includes no prevailing wage standard for foreign workers—it simply relies on the good will of employers to “try to hire American workers” before offering jobs under the new foreign worker visa. In fact, almost all current visas require employers to offer the job to American workers before seeking foreign labor, but with no enforcement mechanism, the requirement is laughable.
“The House’s strategy in H.R. 4437 was to fix the illegal alien problem by enforcing the law. Over time, as illegal workers cannot obtain jobs, they go home because they have no other option open to them. Pence takes a much different approach: fix illegal behavior by legalizing it,” said Tancredo. “As a conservative and a friend of Mike Pence, I am baffled by his shift on immigration. I hope he reconsiders his position and returns to an enforcement-first position.”
America does not need an underclass of indentured servants or slaves. Although the illegal aliens are not property of the plantation owners who hire them, there IS a proprietary interest in their work, paid at small wages with few or no benefits. Aliens are not free men. One call from their employers can bring the Feds down on them with a deportation wagon.
We do not need them, send them back to Liberia? Or so the old argument went.
None of them should be allowed to stay without becoming free men and women who swear to defend the constitution.They are generally not interested in much else about the USA except material gain that cannot be gotten in Mexico.
Perfect description of the "Straw Man" argument that will enable almost wide open "legal" immigration, making border security largely a mute issue.
So far, I have heard of several variations of the "make them jump through hoops first" plan, MCain-Kennedy, Hagel-Martinez, and the earlier Bush plans, that required fines, English lessons, some sort of screening, and even some sort of "get to the end of the line" token penalty, often left unexplained.
The more these are objected to by anti illegal immigration conservatives, the more convoluted the evolving plans become. The result is that no one with a appreciation of the Federal Government's history of feeble and even fraudulent attempts at enforcement of existing laws, and of the very dubious effectiveness of what another layer of bureaucracy can do to solve the situation, can possibly take these "not amnesty" bills seriously.
The McCain-Kennedy bill would be laughable if it weren't so close to being imposed on us, as I cannot imagine any of the existing in US illegals going through what amounts to a new gauntlet of proposed red tape regimes, when that Senate bill weakens border enforcement and eliminates the only effective penalty worth mentioning; deportation.
These ridiculous contraptions of "requirements" simply are not viable. Why should illegals jump through all these new and expensive hoops, when there is no penalty for ignoring them? What about employer-sanctions? What about the illegal's honest desire to comply with our laws? Sorry, not naive enough here to buy that nonsense. The latest I've heard is that employer sanctions aren't high on the priority list of the Senate bill writers. They are several lines below the considerable expansion of the number of "legal" immigrants allowed in the future annually from Mexico, and various other "redemption" for illegals plans.
This issue is complex, thorny, and difficult to resolve, mainly because we are not at all coming to agree even to what is wrong in the first place. Is the unrestricted flood of uneducated, non-English speaking, illegal aliens from several 3rd World countries, but mainly Mexico the problem? Or is the potential lack of unskilled, low wage, labor for big agribusiness if border enforcement is finally enacted the problem, as seen from Wall Street, inside the Beltway, and by Eastern elites? Until this conflict is faced for what it really is, there will be no stemming the flood of illegal aliens, arriving a million plus, every year from here on out.
Pretty much.
That idea is dead in the water.
Very few Americans want the imagery of otherwise law-abiding illegal immigrants being separated from their American citizen children and thrown into cattle cars heading south.
That imagery is a lie and BS. And I think you know this. The only mass deportation I have heard Tancredo talk of is self-deportation when employer sanctions are enforced. The ones we have right now would produce results - IF ENFORCED-
For the feeble minded this means they go home when they cannot earn $$$ here. They self deport.
Cattle cars my butt!!!!
Note the use of the words "otherwise" and "illegal" which acknowledges that I'm referring very specifically to people who broke immigration laws, but only immigration laws.
My language was very precise and was not an oxymoron by any definition of the phrase.
The only way to get them to self-deport is to make life in the United States far worse than life in Mexico.
Go Irish!! Well Said.
amnesty:
"giving those who have made their way into our country illegally, an opportunity to come out of the shadows."
And here I thought Sinkspur was an FR pet troll.
Hopefully, as the rhetoric ramps up over these competing bills and over the fall elections, we won't have to care about who they'll support.
Jim will handle it in his own way.
Pence is a loser.
Not that I've seen, no.
Apparently the GOP boosters believe that the "name" should derive support. I guess that makes sense...for why they have taken their own position. And why they tolerate how the definition of amnesty keeps changing to reflect the politician, infact, proposing amnesty but not desirous of experiencing the ill effects that come with the support.
People demanding enforcement prefer to endorse proposals based on the substance of the policy..if its deserved.
Pence is proposing they be penalized with leaving the country for one week then they will be eligible to go back to work, keep their property, apply for citizenship...and all at the same time as enforcement magically begins to take place. Once again we're supposed to believe that will happen once they get the massive influx of poor and uneducated from Mexico to line business' pocket at expense of Americans.
Where did you get that, moveon.org?
I never cease to be amazed at how open your disdain for conservatives is on FR.
And neither does Tancredo.
Fine the employers, cut off the welfare benefits, and most illegal aliens will leave.
That's what Tancredo said and most people agree with him.
It's setting a bomb off, post iceberg, while rearranging deck chairs.
All of this caterwauling about amnesty and enforcing the law is just a smoke screen, isn't it? You want them all deported as quickly as possible, right?
If not, then state plainly what you would do. Right now, I am thinking you have staked out a position which is pointless, since it is not going to happen.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.