Republicans weigh immigration options

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070424/ap_on_go_co/congress_immigration_5 ^ | 4-23-07 | JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Writer

[Sharks]

WASHINGTON - Searching for a bipartisan deal on immigration, Republicans are backing off from strict conditions they floated earlier this year for allowing illegal immigrants a crack at citizenship.

Deep rifts are keeping the two parties from agreeing on a broad overhaul, however, with only a couple of weeks left to reach a compromise under a self-imposed Senate deadline.

An intense round of closed-door talks among Cabinet officials and Senate Republicans and Democrats has reached a critical bargaining stage, congressional officials and lobbyists said. Senior lawmakers from opposite sides of the spectrum — led by liberal Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), D-Mass., and conservative Sen. Jon Kyl (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz. — hope to draft a bipartisan measure as early as this week that could come to a Senate vote in May.

The White House and some GOP allies now say they are willing to lower the steep fines and shorten the waits the nation's roughly 12 million illegal immigrants would face if they sought legal status, said sources close to the talks, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to outline the negotiations.

[Sovernity]

The politicans have top notch health care and live quite well. The rest of us get to EAT CAKE.

[Hawk1976]

You know what the funny part of all this is? (Funny hmmmmmm, not funny ha ha)

If the republicans had some how managed to hold on in 2006. we would be hearing how the win was an “endorsement” for Comprehensive Immigration Reform. Then, the politicians have the unmitigated gall to wonder why the public despises them.

The difference between the two parties? Mostly just a few pretty words. We are being sold out, because they are determined to import cheap labor when they can’t export the job.

[Aetius]

Of most interest to me in this article was the following;

-—” But key sticking points remain. Democrats oppose Republican proposals to make it harder for temporary workers to stay in the country, bar them from bringing family members to the U.S. and end visa preferences for citizens’ relatives.-—”

On the one hand, I am shocked that GOP leaders are allegedly fighting to include at least some such sensible and conservative provisions to the overall amnesty bill. Part of me doesn’t believe it, but another part of me thinks that some in the GOP actually understand demographics, and realize that most immigrants are going to become Democrats, and they therefore want to limit the number of future Democrats we import.

Ending extended family chain migration is a much-needed reform. Making it harder for ‘guest workers’ to stay permanently would also be good, and key to that is making it so that they can’t bring family with them while still technically ‘guests’, because if they are allowed to do so, then it is almost inevitable that most ‘guests’ will put down roots that results in them wanting to (and being allowed to) stay permanently. Taken together, such provisions might prevent the type of enormous increases in permanent legal immigration that ‘comprehensive’ reformers wish to deceptively enact.

On the other hand, I have no doubt that the Democrats will prevail on this, and neither President Bush or the GOP Congressional leadership will fight to keep such sensible reforms that could at least make this travesty of a bill stink a little less. If any bill passes, I have no doubt it will be what the Democrats want; amnesty for illegals, and a massive increase in permanent legal immigration under the guise of a guest worker prgram.