[Texasforever]

Spiff you have sunk to a new low.

[Reagan Man]

Conservative Phyllis Schlafly is a national treasure.

Contrary to what the small band of pro-amnesty propaganda shills are spewing on FreeRepublic these days, the Pence Plan is a liberal amnesty proposal. Plain and simple.

[CWOJackson]

I'll see you Schlafly and raise you a Newt Gingrich:

Immigration News Daily

Gingrich likes the Pence immigration plan

6 Jun 06

Newt Gingrich gives kudos to the Mike Pence immigration reform plan in his latest Human Events column: One positive addition to the border-security and immigration debate is Rep. Mike Pence's (R-Ind.) bill, the Border Integrity and Immigration Reform Act. This bill is as close to the right solution as I have seen. It sets up a four-step process starting with what is needed and universally agreed upon -- border security. Second, it does not provide amnesty for people in the United States illegally. It requires them to go home. Next, it sets up a work-visa program using electronic bio-metric security based on conservative market principles. After an American employer can, in good faith, show that no American worker will fill a job offer, a work-visa holder may be hired. The key feature is that, in order for people who are here illegally to get a work visa, they must go home, because work visas will only be issued outside of the United States. Fourth, once the program is set up, companies that continue to ignore the law will be sanctioned severely. I hope the House will take a serious look at Rep. Pence's thoughtful and pragmatic approach to solving this issue.

[BigSkyFreeper]

No matter what Schlafly thinks or says, at the end of the day, whether we like it or not, there will be a guest worker program.

[CWOJackson]

Newt Gingrich newsletter of June 12, 2006 in support of the Pence Plan

"After we have demonstrated seriousness by securing the border, we need to establish the work-visa program in Rep. Mike Pence's (R-Ind.) bill (Border Integrity and Immigration Reform Act) that I wrote about last week. (You can learn more about the Pence plan here.) Pence's bill only allows work visas to be issued outside of the United States. So the simple answer to your question is that if you want to work in the U.S. legally, the rules will require you to go home to apply for the work visa.

"But this gets to why being serious about enforcing the law on employers is so important. If we do not enforce the law, then we can expect that employers will continue to break it. However, if we make it prohibitively difficult and costly for employers to hire a non-citizen illegally, then we can expect employers to comply with the law. When this happens, everyone who is working here illegally will be unable to find work and have no choice but to return home to get a work visa if they wish to work in the United States. We can establish a legal and compassionate way for individuals, especially those with families, to return home to apply.

"This is why the dichotomy nurtured by the pro-amnesty camp between 'mass deportation' and 'amnesty' is a false choice. The real choice is between amnesty and enforcing the law. Amnesty is a disaster, because it cheapens the value of American law. It sends the message that American law can be willfully violated without consequence.

"A work-visa program that is accompanied by total border control, uniform enforcement of existing laws (including draconian penalties on employers who continue to violate employment laws after a work-visa program is established), and the rejection of amnesty will have powerful incentives for individuals working here illegally to comply with the law and return home and apply. This will be especially true once a growing number of work-visa holders follow this path and employers find a growing pool of legal workers whom they can tap.

"The key in all of this is to create a set of incentives for the individual working here illegally to choose to comply with the law. If an individual working here illegally knows that improved border control will make it nearly impossible to cross the border again, that stepped-up law enforcement on the border and prompt removal will dramatically increase the chances of his being picked up and returned to his home country (with the penalty of being barred for a period of time of returning legally), that there is a legal way to work here, and that the work visa program that is established by the Pence bill is efficiently run so that there is a reasonably quick transition period in which to return home to apply and receive a work visa, then we can reasonably expect a swift migration to a dramatically improved and legal immigration system that will save lives and protect the rule of law."

[CWOJackson]

But as Michael Barone points out, we do owe a debt of thanks to the losers in Utah last week:

Is it possible that the House and Senate will agree on an immigration bill? For most of June, the answer seemed to be no.

The House Republican leadership announced it would not appoint members of a conference committee to reconcile the border-security-only bill the House passed in December with the comprehensive (border-security-plus-guest-worker-plus-legalization) bill passed by the Senate in May. Instead, House Republicans would hold hearings around the country in August -- hearings expected to be forums for complaints about illegal immigration and demands that border control be strengthened before any legalization or guest-worker program is passed.

Meanwhile, the Senate seemed likely to stick with the approach taken by a bipartisan, mostly Democratic majority that rejected limiting the bill to border security. Deadlock seemed likely.

But three developments last week may be reviving the chance immigration will be passed. The first was the renomination of Utah Rep. Chris Cannon in the Republican primary on June 27. Cannon has supported guest-worker legislation and measures to allow children of illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition to state colleges and universities. His opponent, John Jacob, spent thousands of his own dollars to attack Cannon for supporting "amnesty" and actually led Cannon in the Republican convention, where incumbents are usually renominated routinely. Polls showed the race close. But Cannon won 56% to 44%, down just slightly from his 58% to 42% margin over an immigration opponent who spent much less money two years ago.

If Cannon had lost, House Republicans surely would have panicked and stonewalled any approach but border-security-only. But his victory -- and the fact that he ran ads with endorsements from George W. Bush, who supports a comprehensive bill -- indicates that his positions are not political death, even in a district that went 77% to 20% Republican in the 2004 presidential election.

The second development was an interview of Sen. Arlen Specter in The Washington Times on June 27. Specter is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and supported the Senate bill. He would be the lead Senate voice in any conference committee. Specter still insists that the Senate will only accept a comprehensive bill. But he did concede that he might accept a version that made guest-worker and legalization programs contingent on concrete achievements in border security.

"It may be down the line that we will come to some terms on a timetable, with border security first and employment verification first," he told the Times. Enforcement has "got to be in place firmly. But I don't think the Senate will pass a bill that's limited to that," adding that decisions on a timetable would "come in very hard-fisted negotiations at the end of the rainbow."

The third development was the meeting in the White House of Rep. Mike Pence with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney on June 28. Pence, chairman of the House Republican Study Committee, has advanced a guest-worker plan based on that of Colorado rancher Helen Krieble, which would allow workers to apply in their home countries to "Ellis Island centers" run by private firms, which would match them with jobs from employers in the United States. It's an attempt to get around the current cumbersome green card bureaucracy. Guest-worker slots would not lead to citizenship, but would legalize workers who comply. The Pence program could be phased in after a period in which border security is strengthened.

The Cannon victory, the Specter concession and the Pence plan point toward a possible compromise that could conceivably be adopted by a conference committee and win majorities in both houses. In the process, they direct the attention of those on all sides of this issue to the practical, concrete realities of American life. If advocates of border-security-and-employer-sanctions get their way, and there are high-tech steps to close the sieve on the border and create a forgery-proof identification card system, then what happens to the 7 million or so illegal immigrants who are currently working in the United States? Presumably they go away -- but in the process, we lose a labor force that our economy needs to maximize production. If advocates of a comprehensive bill get their way, and we don't have high-tech ID, then presumably we'll still have millions of illegals in our midst.

It is surely not beyond our technological capabilities to secure the border and to provide legal worker identification, at least if we subcontract these tasks to the private sector, which is so much better at these things than government. Neither the House nor the Senate bill seems likely to achieve those goals. So it's good to note that there's a chance, maybe only a small chance, that a conference committee can come up with a bill that does.

[Ostlandr]

1. Lighten up, gang, and please stop acting like the DU. "We must all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately." - Benjamin Franklin

2. Did somebody get to this guy? Perhaps with the promise of, or threat to withhold, party supprort and/or campaign contributions? Somebody needs to follow the money trail on this.

[Celtjew Libertarian]

Interesting seeing a Republican decrying about the free market.

[gondramB]

>>The Pence plan tries to avoid the amnesty label by requiring illegal aliens now in the U.S. to make what he calls "a quick trip across the border" to Mexico or Canada to pick up a new W visa. A foreigner could get a W visa only if a U.S. employer certifies that a job awaits him.<<

I have no love for Phyllis Schlaffley but she is correct in this case pointing out a growing problem. The President plan and others like Pences's look attractive in an election year if you are concerned about winning "moderates" rather than being true to the vast majority of your base.

The best we will likely do is no bill at all - anything else will include some kind of fancied up amnesty.

[NRA2BFree]

Thanks for posting this article. Phyllis tells it like it is, and even though there are those who would silence her and you, it's something that needs to get out there, so keep on telling the truth! America's sovereignty is at stake!

[Sandy]

Well this thread went to shit in a hurry. It'd be nice if someone would actually discuss the article instead of acting like a bunch of 2 year olds.

Does anybody at least have a bill number or a link to whatever Pence is supposedly proposing? How does Pence's plan differ from what Bush tried to get passed?

[PhilDragoo]

As Theodore Roosevelt warned: "Never under any condition should this nation look at an immigrant as primarily a labor unit."

Do these "new arrivals" desire citizenship, fluency in English, assimilation, or to provide Mexico with its major source of income?

Had to call Mike Pence's DC office and send thanks to that fellow Hoosier for coming out of the closet well in advance of 2008.

The Land of Enchantment is not New Mexico; it is Mexico del Norte with the complicity of George Bush, Pete Domenici and Bill Richardson.

To woo a perceived new demographic, existing statute is trampled like so many miles of rusty Glidden.

Border security is already mandated--and neglected.

But pay no attention to the man behind the curtain--comprehensive immigration reform must be rammed through--in the same white-hot heat as campaign finance reform.

[agere_contra]

Americans should realize that a global, or even a Western Hemisphere free market, means forcing American workers to compete with people who work for 50 cents an hour.

I am truly sorry to find that Schafly is a protectionist.

I agree with her about illegal immigration and the pathetic amnesty proposals - Amnesty is just another way for America to continue to ignore its own laws. But subsidising American workers just to keep them in a job they're used to is an appallingly bad idea. Far better to get your widgets made at 50c/hour and watch new jobs sprout all over your economy.

[TomGuy]

W visa

Isn't this just another version of Sen. Diane Feinstein's color coded (blue) cards?

What is wrong with these politicians? Amnesty -- what ever they call it -- is still amnesty. They can call it green jelly, but it is still amnesty.

[TAdams8591]

"If Pence's "guest worker" plan actually worked, and the guests voluntarily go home after six years, it would mean instituting a system that is immoral and un-American. Inviting foreigners to come to America to do jobs that Americans think they are too good to do creates a subordinate underclass of unassimilated foreign workers, like the serf or peasant classes that exist in corrupt foreign countries such as Mexico."

Well, forget the Pence plan, it will not bode well for America.

[bitt]

maybe it is all a trick to put them on the other side of the border...

[MinuteGal]

It's significant on this thread that some posters chose to attack Mrs. Schlafly personally instead of debating the specifics of her analysis.

Are these posters vested in cheap labor for their businesses or do they work for social-welfare-type governmental or private organizations that depend on endless lines of aliens, the "oppressed" and leeches to keep their doors open?

Among the name-callers, I wonder if the poster who called Mrs. Schlafly a "harpy" knows her. I do. I had the honor several decades ago of working closely with her to defeat the feminazi-promulgated proposal to amend the Constitution known as the ERA (Equal Right Amendment).

Metaphorically, this little lady almost single-handedly defeated this massive liberal effort. She did it working in an almost super-human way in a nation-wide effort that lasted several years. She enlisted the the support of willing conservatives who worked like warriors in each state of the union to tank the move to have big government rule the free marketplace in countless aspects.

Knowing how the media and the liberals operate today, you can imagine the vile attacks she endured at the time. Apparently, for no reason, she's still being attacked, and by "conservatives" on this board no less.

Schlafly is a true conservative, intelligent, articulate and knowledgeable on issues. She's exquisitely particular on her FACTS in her many books, articles, speeches and appearances on TV.

Phyllis is one of the originals heroes in the conservative movement. But many of today's so-called conservatives don't know the history of conservatism, and couldn't care less. Name-calling and denigration due to willful ignorance appears to be de rigeur among those who have no respect for those who have and still walk the walk for true conservatism.

Leni

[Mogollon]

Way to go mike. We'll put you on the list of rino's needing to be replaced whenever the next primary election comes around.