Posted on 06/05/2006 4:51:21 PM PDT by Spiff
House Republicans vs. Senator Frist’s amnesty plan.
By Rep. Tom Tancredo
The United States Congress stands at a historic crossroads on immigration policy. Two roads diverge. Will the nation get another amnesty program or will it get secure borders to halt illegal entry into our country? House Republicans must choose, because they can’t have both.
The recently passed Senate bill giving amnesty to 12-15 million illegal aliens presents a challenge to House Republicans, but it also presents an opportunity. The House should respond with a strong reaffirmation of the enforcement-first strategy for border control and immigration-law enforcement, an approach strongly favored by a large majority of the American people. If House Republicans abandon that path, they will invite the desertion of their conservative base and the certain loss of the House in the November elections.
Senate Democrats voted 38 to 4 for the amnesty bill, while a majority of Senate Republicans rejected it. The amnesty bill is clearly a Democrat bill that passed with Republican support, thanks to Sen. Frist’s machinations. House Republicans must refuse to drink Bill Frist’s Kool Aid concoction—not even a tiny spoonful labeled “amnesty lite.”
Last December, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 4437, a bill that embodies the enforcement-first strategy for border control and immigration enforcement. The Senate bill takes the exact opposite approach. The two bills are polar opposites not only in text but also in spirit and in purpose. For this reason it is impractical and delusional to try to marry one to the other. Despite the advances of modern science, we do not yet have the capacity to marry a snake to a hawk and produce an eagle.
The crux of the problem is that in the deceptively packaged Senate bill, border control is there as a promise but amnesty is guaranteed, immediate, and irreversible. That is the formula that failed in the 1986 amnesty program, and the House must not buy that pig-in-a-poke again. In such omnibus plans, enforcement can be delayed, diluted, and sabotaged in numerous ways. That is why “enforcement first” is not a slogan—it is an urgent necessity.
The American people expect more from the “People’s House” than joining the Senate’s sellout to the cheap-labor lobby and the American Immigration Lawyers Association. If House Republicans do not answer that call to duty, we will deserve neither our citizens’ respect nor their votes.
There is one sure way to derail the Senate’s amnesty bill: The House Republican leadership should tell the Senate we will not go to conference on the Senate bill. The House should simply challenge the Senate to act on H.R. 4437. Until the Senate sends the House an enforcement-only bill, we have nothing to conference about.
A few Republicans in the House have called for compromise by suggesting clever plans that amount to “amnesty lite.” Down that path lies disaster because “enforcement first” cannot be compromised: Either Congress secures the borders before considering new guest-worker plans or we create a guest-worker program on the mere promise of border security. Genuine enforcement cannot be a mere part of a “comprehensive bill,” it must precede any other reform. House Republicans who break ranks with HR 4437 are choosing a path of certain catastrophe—for the nation in the long run and for our party in November.
If House Republicans take the enforcement first platform to the American people in November, they can win. There is no advantage whatsoever for Republicans in agreeing to write a bad bill in conference on the premise that even a bad bill is better than no bill at all. That is the argument we hear from the White House and it is sheer nonsense. The president does not have to face the voters in November, we do. The president lost all credibility on immigration reform in March 2005 when he called the Minutemen “vigilantes” with Vicente Fox standing at his side. It is time for the president to put his attack dogs on a short leash and let House Republicans chart their own course.
Fate has given the House of Representatives the task of rescuing our national sovereignty and our children’s futures from the Senate’s folly. There are signs we may be up to the challenge, but if we are not, neither history nor the voters will forgive us.
—Rep. Tom Tancredo represents Colorado’s 6th district and is chairman of the 97-member Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus.
Pretty much every delegate at the Texas GOP convention this past weekend clearly and loudly voiced their support of the house, as opposed to the senate. We gave our elected representatives a clear message to take back to D.C. with them.
It's always nice to visit and convene with true Conservatives as opposed to such as yourself.
Racial designations are not as important to society as it once was. Whites, latinos, Asians, etc are inter marrying at much greater rate. Which is probally a good thing.
Frist is a terrible leader
Having Mexican immigrants here will not make us Mexico.
So how did he go about designating the "Promised Land", as opposed to the non-promised land?
Your posts didn't focus on what Tancredo said.
You immediately hit F12 and automatically posted your anti-Tancredo talking points and ad-hominem attacks.
David Duke, is that you?
So convene with them and leave me the hell alone.
With a 50 foot wall? Look, I would really be careful about praying for His help in keeping a large group of his most fervent believers from a better life. You may just get His hackles up. This is not a religious matter and if you force it into one you would be on the wrong side of the argument.
He has been saying the same thing like a broken record for the last 3 years at least. In my opinion he is a phony and he needs to be called on it.
"we must pay MORE for fruits, vegetables, and other foods so that less productive white and black faces can replace the brown faces who know what they're doing."
--sinkspur
Race is very important to you "brown supremacists" so I need to make it important for me for my own preservation.
More race. Just stop posting to me, Jimbo. I'm not into wizards, and kleagles, and things like that.
Especially when 90% of those being prayed against are more than likely more true to their faith than them.
Don't you believe that the US should maintain a white majority? Do you believe all euro-white nations should become white minority nations or just the US?
You are really a nasty piece of work.
Much of the opposition on FR is motivated, at bottom, by a dislike of Mexicans and people who are different. You've got a couple of examples on this very thread.
Control of the borders is important, and should be done, but something must be done, at the same time, about those who are already here.
What does securing the border have to do with legal migration to this country? That is handled through Ins and the respective consulates in the affected migrants country.
Yup, we're all racists, drama queens and borderbots--to admit otherwise would mean they'd actually have to have an argument on the merits. And they'd lose.
Why, all of it.
Sinkspur supports the entire Senate bill.
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