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.”
Exactly. Mass deportations could not and would not be successful. Close the border, get rid of the illegals when they break the law again. And the majority of them will break the law again.
Every week our rural Georgia sheriff's office arrests a minimum of six illegals for DUI and driving without a license. Some weeks another half dozen are arrested for fighting in a trailer park. It would take a matter of years, I suppose, but eventually it would be successful.
The trouble is, our elected officials in all their wisdom look for bread and circuses to keep the masses happy, and everything from English as the "unifying language" to 6,000 Guardsmen in a non-patroling, useless "support role" at the border are circuses.
Once again, we've got a serious issue with a simple solution that the politicians are using for their own personal advantage and their own personal political agendas.
I understand where you are coming from. But to say 83% can't be wrong is silly. To say they aren't wrong is a position.
It's just semantics, so it's no big deal, but that's why it struck me funny.
I remember how relieved I was back in the day that I hadn't mentioned Clinton's "love child" to anyone outside my house. I bet if there had been a poll then, at least 83% would have agreed that it was and I certainly was taken in. Fortunately, I was a lurker at the time so there is no record of it.
I am not arguing position...just saying that 83% of us CAN indeed be wrong. No more, no less.
Care to comment?
"Guest Worker Program" by any other name is AMNESTY! Once here we will NEVER get rid of these third worlders. Anyone who thinks different I've got prime real estate in North Dakota to sell you.
By the way, here is a program NOW IN OPERATION that could do be a good start on what is needed, if expanded and made mandatory. Someone here once let me know about the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) Program - http://www.uscis.gov/text/services/SAVE.htm .
This is a program to provide verification of employment eligibility documents, that is currently limited and voluntary. It checks and matches the SSN/ITIN, and verifies the valid issuance of other documents. It needs to be expanded and made mandatory, to keep employers from excusing themselves from compliance.
It does seem somewhat "big brotherish," but the information is already required by law, collected, and available - PLEASE CHECK THE LINK ABOVE.
I have come to believe that securing the border would be much easier and allow for a better use of our resources if we could eliminate these people from the ranks of those crossing the border illegally. The House bill will secure our border, but it will do it even better when its provisions can concentrate just on those illegal border crossers who are criminals, drug dealers and possible terrorists. In order to do that, there must be a legal means for the great majority of people seeking temporary work to come to America.
That's Bush and Senate speak for doing both at the same time. Which means enforcement won't happen.
Further I find it insulting Pence comes forward and states they only need to leave a week and be put on a fast track for a VISA. Sure, they leave the country, but people that do it legally don't get put on the fast track to legalization and work in this country. It's amnesty and he's playing the same game as the rest.
Also, how will this impact legal immigration? It sounds to me like we could get huge numbers of new permanent residents out of this plan....similar to those in the Hagel/Martinez bill-with the same drastic social changes. More analysis is needed before jumping on this bandwagon.
That is not the question, the question is: Can the human trafficing cartels in Mexico sell it to their prospective customers as amnesty? The answer is Absolutely. The only way of stopping the flow is to make them know, the game is over, this nonsense will no longer be tolerated. If that is not done, they will keep finding ways in, even if it is through Canada.
Hard as it may be for some of you to accept it, Tancredo is right, anything less will result in more of what we have now. You may think I'm crazy, but I've been living with the flow North since the last amnesty, I am close enough to the source that I understand what goes on down there.
All these "new ideas" read new laws, are already in place and have been for longer than I've been alive.....more smoke and mirrors and bread&circuses....
Feh!
FMCDH(BITS)
I agree, and I am tired of being bamboozled by the federal government on the issue of illegal immigration.
I want not only enforcement first, I want enforcement only, for a minimum of two years.
Prove to me, federal government, that you can and will enforce the borders. Build the 2,000 mile wall, put the Guard out there, hire thousands more Border Patrol, do it, prove it, show me.
Can’t deport 12 million illegals?
Fine, just deport the first 50,000. Then a little later, the next 50,000, and then the next 50,000. Don’t root them out of their neighborhoods; just wait at welfare agencies, job bureaus, schools, hospitals and the like, and enforce the law – politely, firmly, lawfully.
After two years of enforcement first, enforcement only, we can discuss possible guest worker programs.
If enforcement first, enforcement only, can’t pass Congress this year, too bad.
Republicans can campaign that they are the party of law and order that wants to fix the problem, not bait ‘n switch the country again.
Whatever.
HR4437 is a conservative position and one that is in keeping with the law of the land. How is that silly? I happen to believe that enforcement only is the only way to go and pointing out that 83% of FReepers agree with HR4437 is a factual statement. Secure the borders and enforce employer sanctions first. Then it'll be time for talk of temporary worker programs and paths to citizenship.
But can garner enough support to get passed thru both House and Senate and override W's veto?
Tancredo said he'd support 20 million guest workers? When?
"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."
Really? Which 3?
Never mind.
Sigh.
One simple question: and what are they, the government, going to do if all the illegal aliens say "no" to jumping through all those hoops?
Arrest them? Deport them? Put up a fence? Pressure Mexico? Go after employers?
Pence is someone I would have thought would be a likely presidential candidate in about 8 years. Now I see he isn't good enough, either.
Who are all of these disgruntled people going to back in 2008? More to the point, how in the heck can anyone please them?
Tancredo showed himself for what he is with this attack on Pence, no doubt on the advice of Bay Buchanan. Myself, I hope Tancredo runs. I will take great pleasure in seing him lose primaries by large margins.
They really do all believe their blue collar constituents are intellectual bumpkins.
I want to know who got to Pence. The W.h.? Business? Whomever it was I want pence to know right now he isn't fooling me with this trial balloon. I know pol speak, and he's essentially proposing amnesty immediately.
Excuse me while I go blast Pence for thinking I'd fall for this..
"I have come to believe that securing the border would be much easier and allow for a better use of our resources if we could eliminate these people from the ranks of those crossing the border illegally. The House bill will secure our border, but it will do it even better when its provisions can concentrate just on those illegal border crossers who are criminals, drug dealers and possible terrorists. In order to do that, there must be a legal means for the great majority of people seeking temporary work to come to America."
The W.H. plan.
I'm not so sure president Bush would veto it, but I'm almost certain he wouldn't like Tancredo's bill.
The senate protects him from having to make that decision though.
"You know what they say, there are about 100 dumb people in the U.S. house of representatives and about 100 dumb people in the U.S. senate."
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