Posted on 07/04/2006 11:48:04 PM PDT by garbageseeker
Bringing San Diego to the forefront of the immigration debate, House Republicans will hold field hearings on the issue Wednesday at an Imperial Beach border patrol station.
Two opposing immigration bills from the House and Senate will head for negotiations after the hearings senators and representatives are holding across the country this summer. San Diego area representatives have been heavily involved in the debate, some authoring sections of the House bill.
Measures proposed in the House bill, H.R. 4437, include: making illegal presence in the country a felony, building 698 miles of fencing along the border, requiring employers to use a database to verify the Social Security numbers of employees and increasing penalties for employers of illegal immigrants.
The Senate bill differs from the House proposal, increasing border enforcement but also creating a guest-worker program affecting an estimated 1.5 million immigrant farm workers who could eventually earn legal permanent residency.
Also under the Senate proposal, illegal immigrants who have been in the United States for five years or more could become legal residents after learning English and paying at least $3,250 in fees and back taxes. Those who have been in the country between two and five years can go back to a border crossing and submit an application to return, while those who have been in the U.S. for less than two years would have to leave.
President Bush supports a guest-worker program and path to citizenship similar to measures in the Senate bill.
The House passed its version of the bill in December, and the Senate passed its bill in May. Now, House Republicans plan to hold several hearings on the issue. The hearings began in Washington last week, and will continue with San Diego and other border states throughout the rest of the summer. Critics have said the hearings are an attempt to delay negotiations and the passage of an immigration bill. Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter has planned a competing hearing in Pennsylvania, also scheduled for Wednesday.
The hearing, called Border Vulnerabilities and International Terrorism, Part I, will start at 9 a.m., Wednesday, at the Imperial Beach Border Patrol Station, 1802 Saturn Blvd., Imperial Beach. Border Patrol agents and law enforcement officials, including San Diego Sheriff Bill Kolender, are scheduled to testify at the hearing, according to the Associated Press.
San Diego representatives have contributed their own voices to the debate. Though they split along party lines when it came to voting on the House bill, their individual thoughts and priorities vary on the topic of immigration.
Darrell Issa, 49th District
Rep. Darrell Issa (news, bio, voting record), R-Vista, voted for the House bill, but said he would also be in favor of a guest-worker program as long as it was adequately enforced. Issa wrote a section of the House bill that would establish mandatory minimum sentences for illegal immigrants who return to the United States after already having been removed.
Issa also worked on border security-related provisions in a bill approved by the House Thursday that would increase funding for federal prosecutors. Issa and the Appropriations Committee worked on a section of the bill that would require about $4.5 million of the $84.8 million increase go toward "prosecution of human smugglers referred to as 'coyotes' and other criminal aliens, methamphetamine traffickers and identity thieves." Issa said his office had read a memo from the Department of Homeland Security that said only 6 percent of those apprehended for smuggling immigrants were actually prosecuted.
The Senate bill would not deter illegal immigration and in its path to citizenship would provide an amnesty, Issa said, calling it a "nonstarter."
"There'll be no incentive to play by the rules," he said.
He said a "considerable isolation of Senators" from the public had resulted in a bill that did not follow constituents' wishes.
He also said his job as a congressman was not to look out for businesses that say they need the cheap labor of illegal immigrants to operate.
"Businesses are part of our consideration as congressmen, to the extent that they hire Americans and add to the American economy," he said. "Our mandate is not to make a business profitable, it's to make a nation profitable."
Issa said he will be involved with the San Diego field hearings and expects to be on the conference committee that will try to negotiate between the House and Senate bills, as he has been involved in the issue and is a member of the House Judiciary Committee and the subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims.
Issa said the history of the recent immigration debate started with the broad amnesty declared in 1986. That released the pent-up immigration demand for a time, until the government revisited the issue in 1996 with the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, an immigration bill that included adding more border agents and establishing pilot programs for employee eligibility verification. The government allowed the provisions of that bill to take their course and was about to begin anew on the issue when the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks shifted the government's priorities, Issa said.
"Realistically, getting back to it four years later is pretty good," he said.
Brian Bilbray, 50th District
Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Escondido, elected in the special election last month, was not yet a member of the House when the immigration bill was voted on, but said he would have voted for it.
He said he would have liked to add provisions embodied by H.R. 98, a bill introduced in January by David Dreier, R-Calif. The resolution proposes developing Social Security cards encrypted with electronic strips that employers could check against a national database to verify potential employees are authorized to work in the United States.
Bilbray has long been involved in the immigration debate. In 1997, as representative for the 49th District, he introduced a bill to end birthright citizenship. He has also served for the past three years as co-chairman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). FAIR states on its Web site its goals are to end illegal immigration and to set legal immigration at the lowest feasible level.
The Senate bill is tantamount to an amnesty, Bilbray said, and allows people to buy citizenship. He said he expected it to be "drawn and quartered in the public arena" at the hearings this summer.
"The Senate bill is the most well-intentioned and most naive disaster I've ever seen," he said.
Bilbray said it was important to crack down on "illegal employers" and criticized the "brazenness" of businesspeople that claim they need the cheap labor of illegal immigrants, saying this was the same argument used to justify slavery. Illegal immigration costs the country more, he said, because illegal immigrants are a financial burden on institutions such as schools and jails.
Passing the Senate bill would lead to more illegal immigration, he said, and more of these kinds of costs.
"The Senate doesn't understand that once you start rewarding someone for being here illegally, it's a downhill spiral," he said.
The issue of immigration arose in the House because "people are finally raising hell," Bilbray said, and representatives were hearing a lot on the topic from their constituents. He said the immigration debate was "essential" in his recent campaign against Democrat Francine Busby, who supported the Senate's bill.
Bob Filner, 51st District
Rep. Bob Filner (news, bio, voting record), D-Chula Vista, voted against H.R. 4437, but did add an amendment to the bill that put the distribution of fraudulent immigration documents on the list of criminal offenses.
"This is a crime that we ought to be going after," Filner said on the House floor on Dec. 16, 2005. "We should go after the real criminals who are profiting by the sale and distribution of these documents ... While we might disagree about broader immigration policy, we all agree that the selling of fake and fraudulent and illegal documents should be stopped."
Filner's Web site says he "plays a key role in injecting common sense into the sometimes hysterical debates about border security."
He believes investing in technology and the border patrol are more effective than deploying the military to monitor the border.
Filner supports expanding the SENTRI program, which gives screened applicants electronic transponders that allow them to cross the border through more efficient SENTRI lanes. Filner sponsored a June 2003 amendment to increase funding for the program by $5 million, but it failed.
Filner's border efforts often involve infrastructure in the region, and he has worked to clean up the border's air and water.
Last June, Filner introduced the "PAY UP! Act," which would require the government pay hospitals and other emergency services for the cost of uncompensated care for illegal immigrants. Rep. Susan Davis (news, bio, voting record) co-sponsored the bill, which was sent to committee.
"The federal government is responsible for immigration and therefore must take responsibility for the costs imposed on hospitals by a broken immigration system," Filner wrote in a July 2005 newsletter. "As Congress continues to debate the best approach to reforming our immigration programs, we must act now to shore up these hospitals and secure the health of communities throughout the country."
Duncan Hunter, 52nd District
Like the other Republican San Diego representatives, Rep. Duncan Hunter (news, bio, voting record), R-El Cajon, voted for the House resolution. He also added the amendment to H.R. 4437 that would require the building of 698 miles of fencing along the border. The resolution mandates the construction of 22 miles of fencing in Tecate, 361 miles from Calexico, to Douglas, Ariz., and 88 miles from Columbus, N.M., to El Paso, Texas.
Hunter has been active in several pieces of legislation regarding border fencing, working since 1990 to complete construction and add layers to the 14 miles of fencing along the San Diego border.
According to a press release from Hunter's office, crime in San Diego County dropped 47.3 percent between 1989 and 2000, and apprehensions of illegal immigrants in the area of the fence dropped from more than 202,000 in 1992 to about 9,000 in 2004. Hunter attributes these statistics to the fencing.
"The San Diego border fence continues to serve its primary function with unquestioned success," Hunter said in a December 2005 press release. "There is no doubt that its duplication at specific locations along our southern border will be equally successful and bring us one step closer to a border region that is no longer overrun by illegal aliens."
Hunter was one of 140 co-sponsors of the REAL ID Act. The act, which passed in May 2005, sets federal standards for issuing state drivers' license. It also mandated completion of 3.5 more miles of the San Diego border fence.
"It's understood that if you want to get into this country illegally, you come across our land border with Mexico," Hunter said in a spring 2006 newsletter. "Today's security threat mandates that we implement a strategy that prevents illegal entry into our nation and identifies who and what is crossing our border."
Susan Davis, 53rd District
Rep. Susan Davis, D-San Diego, voted against H.R. 4437. She said it increased penalties for laws that aren't currently being enforced anyway.
"It seems to me that what we need to do is put pressure on agencies enforcing immigration laws," she said, suggesting that those agencies need more manpower.
She said she supports many aspects of the Senate bill, saying it was more comprehensive and with its provisions for a path to citizenship created a better policy for illegal immigrants already in the United States.
Those already here need to be brought "out of the shadows," Davis said, or it creates a security risk.
However, she was less supportive of the guest-worker program currently being discussed, saying Congress needed to be a "little more selective" about such a program. Many industries rely on unskilled labor, she said, but reliance on illegal workers could be decreased. Incentives like raising the minimum wage and creating better apprenticeship programs could attract more legal workers, she said.
When Davis ran against Bilbray in 1998, immigration was not a central issue like it was in the Bilbray-Busby campaign. In the six years since, events like the war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina and the "incompetence" of the Bush administration have led to a less secure environment, which has made the American public more concerned about immigration, Davis said.
She said she hopes the particular needs of San Diego are addressed at the hearing today, though she considers the hearings a delaying tactic and does not think it will help the House and Senate move toward a compromise.
"Every day that we don't pass something is a day that we're letting this problem slide, and I think that's irresponsible," she said.
She said that if a conference committee were started, it would ultimately result in an immigration bill.
"I think people need to sit down in a room and start hammering this out," she said.
Ping
I'm looking forward to these hearings.
I for one am going to richly enjoy watching the Senate bill dying a long, slow, painful death at the hands of the House Republicans.
I think about a dozen of these hearing should be held in border towns all across the southern US. Hell if they were on pay per view I'd plunk down some cash to watch them.
I'm thinking that a few hours of ordinary Americans who've been robbed, beaten, had their property violated or destroyed, some pictures of the damage these criminal invaders do to our parks, played across television screens will go along way towards putting the final nails in the coffin of the Senate Amnesty Plan.
L
Get the popcorn ready. This is going to be a very interesting hearing.
If the House Conservatives are smart they'll hold about 6 of them in the hardest hit border towns.
L
I agree with you totally. It would drive a stake in the Senate plan.
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.
Cannon's Victory Means Little in Immigration Debate
by Chuck Muth
In a race with national implications, and dominated by the sole issue of illegal immigration, Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah) scratched out another all-but-certain 2-year term by winning his Republican primary race against millionaire developer John Jacob on Tuesday, 56% to 44%. But those hoping this race would serve as a bellwether for congressional action on immigration reform or the November elections won’t be able to take much from this contest.
Most importantly, Cannon didn’t win this race so much as Jacob lost it. More on that later. And anyone who thinks Cannon’s re-election means the immigration issue isn’t resonating at the ballot box and won’t be a decisive factor in other close races in November is deluding himself. As are the White House and the U.S. Senate if they think Cannon’s victory is a sign that they can safely move forward with a guest worker program. No such mandate can be taken from the Utah 3rd congressional district race.
One of the main reasons is that Cannon successfully re-invented himself over the past few months. While once an outspoken advocate of lax immigration policies -- telling a Hispanic audience at one point that he didn’t make much of a distinction between legal and illegal immigration -- Cannon all but became a born-again Tom Tancredo, the outspoken anti-illegal immigration congressman from Colorado, in his campaign rhetoric the days and weeks leading up to the election. Had Cannon not all but renounced his own past policy proposals and votes, the result on Tuesday could have been very different.
Also, it’s important to note that the White House brought out its big gun to pull Cannon’s fat from the fire. No, not the President. The First Lady. As the White House’s point man on immigration for the past few years, the Bush team recognized that Cannon’s defeat would mean the end of any hope for the president’s guest worker program. So Laura Bush, whose popularity is unmatched inside the Beltway, recorded a very strong phone message which was piped into the district just days before the ballots were cast. The last-minute endorsement by Mrs. Bush surely had a positive impact on the outcome of this race.
And then there was the challenger...
On paper, John Jacob certainly appeared to be a formidable opponent. In Utah, candidates can avoid a primary election if they obtain 60 percent or more of the delegate votes at the party’s spring convention. Not only did Cannon fail to obtain the convention endorsement, but he actually lost the balloting to Jacob, 52-48 percent. In addition, unlike the primary challenger from two years ago, Jacob was understood to be a very wealthy individual who was willing and able to fully self-fund his campaign. So on the surface it looked like a perfect storm scenario for a major upset: a weak incumbent, a red-hot contrasting issue and a credible challenger who could write his own checks to deliver his campaign message.
However, just days before the election, stories appeared which set off alarm bells for seasoned political professionals. The first was when Jacob announced he couldn’t afford to go up on TV the full two weeks leading up to Game Day. The second was that the Jacob campaign hadn’t devoted any serious time or attention to wooing early and absentee ballot voters -- voters which can, and often do, make or break a close election. And it went downhill from there.
It’s difficult enough to take out an incumbent as is. You have to run an almost flawless campaign no matter how much money you have, even with the illegal immigration issue on your side. But John Jacob’s performance over the final two weeks of the campaign was anything but flawless.
First came the reports that Jacob may have unlawfully funneled money to an immigrant family. It was an involved and detailed story, but in our sound-bite age all the public heard was that Jacob was a personal hypocrite on the immigration issue. Right or wrong, that’s how the story was perceived by the electorate.
Then Jacob was forced to admit, in no particular order, that he: 1) had a gambling “problem,” 2) had his figures all wrong regarding the number of illegal aliens being housed in a Utah jail, 3) had not one, but two bankruptcies and other business failures, and 4) had a “path to citizenship” proposal of his own based on a practice at Disneyland called FastPass which allows certain people to jump to the front of the line. In other words, “amnesty” by another name.
However, the final nail in the coffin came just five days before the election, at a time when Jacob was, despite all his other problems, still in a statistical dead heat with the incumbent.
First at a campaign event, and then in front of editors from the state’s largest newspaper, Jacob blamed his struggles in challenging Cannon on...the devil. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, Jacob said that “since he decided to run for Congress, Satan (had) disrupted his business deals, preventing him from putting as much money into the race as he had hoped.” Overnight, the comments made their way from Utah all across the country and even as far away as London. Jacob tried to recover, saying his “devil” remarks were taken out of context, but the damage was done.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Considering the support Cannon received from the White House which other candidates aren’t likely to receive in November, and considering how spectacularly the challenger in this race blew up his campaign in the end, incumbents who the public perceive are on the wrong side of the enforcement-first brigades of the illegal immigration war are susceptible to ballot box defeat. It’s not a matter of “if” the immigration issue will decide a close race sometime in the near future; it’s when. Cannon dodged the bullet. Others won’t be so lucky.
And that’s the bottom line lesson from Tuesday’s shoot-out in Utah
It would be useful to have testimony from medical companies, which have had to shut hospitals due to hordes of illegals jamming emergency rooms, for free care.
It would be useful to have testimony from law enforcement officials, with statistics for crimes and prison occupancy be illegals.
It would be useful to have testimony from educators about the degradation of schools' ability to move English speaking students along, one honest grade at a time.
Issa's remarks about employers is useful. I like where he says it is NOT their right to have cheap labor and profits.
It would be useful to hear testimony from border security officials about middle easterners caught at the border. (As an indicator of the huge risk to National Security).
Finally, it would be useful to hear testimony from LEGAL immigrants, that follow the laws. My mother-in-law came legally from Italy in 1947. She waited an extra year for her quota slot, and had sponsors to commit she would not be a burden on taxpayers.
You're right in that it meant little...despite the best efforts of the out-of-state PACs that billed it as a national referendum and staked their money, volunteers and reputations on the outcome...it meant very little to the voters. As Michael Barone points out, the impact of the election in Utah...or lack of impact...sends a very clear message to Congress and the Pence plan is the winner.
I agree with you that the hearings should be very broad in scope on how illegal immigrants puts strain on out social services. I would love for them to call me about to tell my family. About my great granparents coming from Italy after WWI. Excellent post!!
So how 'bout we just firmly enforce what we've already got for, say, a year. Then come back and evaluate and make adjustments if necessary.
IMHO, this whole controversy is smoke and mirrors to put off passing any new unneeded laws until after the Nov elections.
The President wants his global vision and big business wants cheap labor and they are going to ram this down our throats, flood our country and turn the illegals into legals whichever bill is passed no matter what the people want.
What the house needs is to do show Senators that there is a lot of support in their states for the house bill. That means rallies in states with RINO senators. Will they have any?
The problem is the Utah Exit polls showed that less than 10 percent of the voters in Utah cared about illegal immigration.
Consider that in Californis's 50th district a pro Amnesty position by the Demorat did not cost any Democrat votes. The Democrat got the same percentage of the vote as Kerry... And when Kerry ran illegal immigration was not on the agenda. Democrats are not interested in immigration and that leaves only some Republicans. They need more than that.
The house members say the senate is not paying attention to voters. But that defies logic. If the voters were climbing all over Senate members they would be folding. The RINOs up for reelection this year would be folding and they are not.
Remember house Majority leader Boehner on June 13th told the pro amnesty Chamber of Commerce convention he had the votes in the house to get a bill out of the conference committee. No one believes Boehner meant he had the Senate ready to fold. That leaves the house as the folding object.
That is just logical. If the senate was going to fold why would the House delay the conference committee vote until after they campaign for the House bill. If the senate was about to fold there would be no need for hearings to buck up support for the house bill.
Hastert, Tancredo and King must need to cook up some support for the house bill and they are doing it in the state most likely to fail at convincing Demorat senators.
I look for the Senate bill to pass both houses with some cosmetics to give some cover to then anti illegal immigration house members.
I don't think Boehner is faking. I think a number of House members have changed sides since the house bill passed over six months ago.
"Rome had Senators too, that's why it declined." -- Frank Dane
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