Posted on 05/22/2007 7:01:39 PM PDT by bd476
Border compromise no hit with state GOP officials
Paul Giblin, Tribune
May 22, 2007
The Senate’s bipartisan immigration reform package is flopping badly with leaders of the Arizona Republican Party, said state party chairman Randy Pullen on Monday.
Party officials have received “hundreds” of letters, e-mails and telephone calls from Republicans since Sens. Jon Kyl and John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Edward Kennedy, DMass., and others introduced the compromise measure in Washington on Thursday, Pullen said.
To illustrate the point at a press conference, Pullen displayed a letter with a drawing of a fist and finger making an obscene gesture.
To ensure that the message was understood, the letter’s author used a blue highlighter to color in the extended digit, and jotted the message, “Here is my middle finger.”
“This basically is the outlook that many of our party faithful are feeling right now about the Republican Party,” Pullen said.
At least some members of the party appear to be taking their cues from the state party chairman himself.
During the weekend, he posted a statement on his blog that starts: “On behalf of the more than 1 million registered Arizona Republicans who care very deeply about this state and have tremendous love for our great nation, I am very disappointed in this new legislation.”
The state party also emailed the 1½-page statement to 86,000 people in its database.
Despite the unrest within the party, Pullen and members of his staff have been working to soothe party members who are upset about the immigration bill and Arizona’s senators, he said.
“I’ve got to tell you, when you have people coming in every day, tearing up their registration cards and throwing them on the floor or changing their registrations from Republican to independent, it’s a little bit disconcerting,” he said.
A better program would have provided increased border security without packaging it with immigration reform, he said.
Furthermore, a better program would have extended consideration to the length of time illegal immigrants have lived in the United States when determining eligibility for granting legal status, Pullen said.
Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., defended Kyl, one of the chief architects of the immigration reform package, as a conservative Republican.
“This is a conservative bill. What people haven’t appreciated fully yet — and I think they will when they step back and actually see the language — is that Kyl won some big concessions on this for some areas of real concern,” Flake told the Tribune.
Among those provisions:
• A temporary worker program that limits the amount of time foreign workers may spend in the United States.
• The “touch-back” provision that requires heads of households to return to their native countries to apply for citizenship.
• An end of “chain migration,” an immigration platform that awards citizenship status based largely on ties to family members who already are U.S. citizens. The new bill calls for the selection process for future immigrants to be based on a points system that rewards employment criteria, education and knowledge of English.
“The notion that this is amnesty when the fastest anybody could get citizenship is 13 or 14 years is just crazy,” Flake said.
“This is a conservative bill. I don’t think it’s conservative at all to just ignore the problem and pretend to solve it by doing something at the border.”
Meanwhile, the bill received generally favorable reviews from the Valley Interfaith Project.
The bill is an important first step, vice president Dick White said. He called on Kyl and Mc-Cain to guide the bill through Congress until it’s signed into law by President Bush.
In no state would passage of this bill have more impact than in Arizona, White said. Our border would become more secure, 500,000 undocumented immigrants would have a path to citizenship, high school students would benefit from the inclusion of the Dream Act, and our agriculture industry would have the workers they need, he said.
O’Reilly summarized the theme of most of his callers on his Friday radio show - most callers don’t trust the government to actually do any real enforcement. That’s why we want to see enforcement first. If there is real enforcement, the illegals will go home on their own. There won’t be any need to track down and deport 12-30 million illegals. The fact that the globalists keep arguing for “comprehensive” reform is because they have no intention of interior enforcement.
Someone from the RNC called here today to speak with me about this. That person probably won’t make that mistake again.
Somewhere I read that Kyl stated in a few years people will forget about it and vote GOP again as if nothing happened. It’s just incredible arrogance from these sellouts.
It adds 400,000 temporary workers a year, which allows them to stay two years and bring their families. They can then renew it twice with a one year hiatus between renewals. And then what happens if they disappear?
• The “touch-back” provision that requires heads of households to return to their native countries to apply for citizenship.
They don't have to apply for citizenship. They get legal status immediately and can renew their Z visas indefinitely, which allows them to travel back and forth, bring their families [spouse, children, and one set of parents], and enroll in SS/Medicare.
• An end of “chain migration,” an immigration platform that awards citizenship status based largely on ties to family members who already are U.S. citizens. The new bill calls for the selection process for future immigrants to be based on a points system that rewards employment criteria, education and knowledge of English.
Chain migration, as currently structured, doesn't end for another 8 years and is in fact accelerated. Chain migration will still remain accounting for 40% of all new immigrants.
Kyl struck a Faustian bargain and the Dems can change whatever provisions they want in subsequent Congresses especially if a Dem wins the WH in 2008.
"Now it is not good for the Christian’s health to hustle the Aryan brown,
For the Christian riles, and the Aryan smiles and he weareth the Christian down;
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white with the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear: “A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.”
Rudyard Kipling
Kyl is a Fool who tried to hustle the Dems.
“I’ve got to tell you, when you have people coming in every day, tearing up their registration cards and throwing them on the floor or changing their registrations from Republican to independent, it’s a little bit disconcerting,” he said.A little disconcerting ???This is what I am doing here in North Carolina(changing to not affiliated). The old boy might buy a clue. Does he think people are doing these things for the fun of it ??? Guess 2008 is REALLY going to be a surprise for some.
Oooo, do I smell cooked goose?
I am going to photocopy my registration change and send it to my ex-senator (Dole) and wish her good luck as she rides the Titanic down the drain...
““The notion that this is amnesty when the fastest anybody could get citizenship is 13 or 14 years is just crazy,” Flake said.”
Illegals DO NOT CARE ABOUT CITIZENSHIP!! Flake, YOU FLAKE!!!!
Bump! : )
“Kyl struck a Faustian bargain and the Dems can change whatever provisions they want in subsequent Congresses especially if a Dem wins the WH in 2008”
Bingo!!
An amendment needs to be proposed stating the following:
“All portions of this legislation shall be inoperable until the completion of the border fence as mandated under previous statute.”
“Seems to be working! ;-)”
I’m pounding the charlatans every day until they relent!!
"A temporary worker program that limits the amount of time foreign workers may spend in the United States."
Germany invented Guest Workers back in the '60s. I'm very familiar withe the German experience. There ain't no such thing as "temporary" workers.
"The “touch-back” provision that requires heads of households to return to their native countries to apply for citizenship."
The entire "path to citizenship" is a fraud. These illegal aliens are not interested in becoming citizens or even less in becoming Americans. All of this happens AFTER the illegal aliens get what THEY want: Legalization with the Z visas. With the Z visas they get all the beneftis of citizenship with none of the drawbacks.
"An end of “chain migration,”
Who believes this? Bueller. Bueller. Bueller.
Everytime I get a request from the RNC, I am going to send it back with a note-seal the borders.
>>An amendment needs to be proposed stating the following:
“All portions of this legislation shall be inoperable until the completion of the border fence as mandated under previous statute.”<<
Not quite. You also have to find all the exceptions like 601(h).
My thoughts exactly.
The existing provision used to keep out many Eurotrash types simply disappears. That's the one about "Have you used a controlled substance" (asked in a variety of ways). Notice that it's the individual's USE of drugs that keeps him or her out now. Under the new bill every swinging doper or stoner gains admittance as long as he or she has never been convicted of violating US drug importation laws.
At this point I'm convinced a bunch of narcotrafficantes participated in writing this law and that Kennedy knew it.
VERY interesting! Still more reason for this smelly pile to be dumped completely.
ping
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