Posted on 05/26/2007 6:03:10 PM PDT by WOSG
The current immigration bill being considered by the Senate is so large, complex, and full of legalistic 'gotchas', that there is no telling what unintended consequences will flow from its passage. There is however one thing we can count on: It will not in way solve our immigration woes.
To critics of the immigration bill, this bill will irredeemably change America for the worse through the instant create of a new underclass. Whether it is called amnesty or another name, giving blanket legalization and citizenship to the 12 to 20 million illegal immigrants here in this country is the most significant part of this bill. This plus the further migration of these legalized immigrants' families may lead to 100 million more Americans in about a generation. This massive legalization will cost taxpayers $2.5 trillion, according to Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation; it will hasten Social Security and Medicare's demise by creating more future demands than will be commensurately paid in via taxes, and will constitute the largest unfunded mandate ever on state and local Governments. Today's largely impoverished illegal immigrant class will become tomorrow's citizen-clients of our expanded welfare state.
Proponents for this bill retort by waxing poetic about immigration and blurring the difference between legal and illegal immigration. It is said that today's immigration is like the waves of immigration from 1880 to 1920, when masses "yearning to breathe free" came to our shores, mostly from Europe. It's no wonder they want to confuse the legal versus illegal distinction. Legal immigration, especially high-skill immigration (e.g. under H1-B), has been a net plus for our economy. Illegal immigration, mostly low-wage and low-education, is decidedly not, when one accounts for the full social costs of supporting low wage families and compares it to their much smaller tax contributions such low-wage workers make. No doubt illlegal immigrants would like to be here, and that cheap-labor employers would like them so as well. However, neither low-wage employers nor low-wage migrant workers pay the full cost of health insurance, education, welfare and income subsidies that will be the entitlement of these future citizens. Even today, illegal immigrants are a fiscal drain; it will only be greater should they be given a legalization path.
The cost of this shift will be borne by taxpayers and by today's low-wage Americans, who will be under further wage pressure by the competition of so many low-skill immigrants. Median incomes have been stagnant for working men in this country, a wake-up call that the clear supply-and-demand consequence of large-scale illegal immigration has been to curb wage scales. Curiously, we harken back to the 'good old days' for 1945 to 1965, when family incomes rose as fast the economy; it was an era of much lower levels of immigration. Which trend should we prefer?
The losers in this bill are also today's legal immigrants, who played by the rules and who have had to jump through many hoops to stay legal, and pay much more in immigration fees than the $1,000 the illegal alien has to pay to get the Z-visa. They will face more delays as our bureaucracy will be swamped with millions of amnesty applications.
Illegal immigration has other social costs, Drug smuggling and human trafficking are rampant on our out-of-control southern border. Illegal immigrants make up more than a quarter of the prison population in California, commit a disproportionate number of crimes. As Heather MacDonald has shown, 'sanctuary cities' have, as a consequence of failing to enforce immigration laws, become incapable of enforcing other laws as well: "Sanctuary mandates create vast law-free zones where illegal immigrants know that they face virtually no risk of apprehension; the zones have notoriously protected criminals as well as itinerant roofers." Time and again, deportable criminal aliens have been let go due to lax immigration law enforcement, only to commit crime again.
What makes this bill truly horrific is that this bill is built to fail; it is deliberately constructed to fail to solve even the basic immigration issue at hand: Can we as Americans determine who comes here and who does not?
We have a border with Mexico where every day Federal law is violated thousands of times; yet despite a Federal budget of $2,800 billion, we cannot find the $1 billion it would take to build a secure barrier. We have tens of thousands of criminal aliens in America, yet we do not actively deport most of them, nor, thanks to our insecure border, can we assure that once deported they won't succeed in returning (many do). We have millions of fraudulent social security IDs in Government databases, many known to the IRS already, and yet nobody is bothering to cross-check and investigate these apparent law violations. Pitifully few employers are checked for immigration law violations.
In the recent Fort Dix terrorism case (the plot to attack an Army base that was foiled), three of the six terrorist plotters were illegal aliens. We've seen that script before: Several of the 9/11 plotters broke immigration law by over-staying visas; even after 9/11, the INS sent Mohammed Atta valid US visa six months to the day after he died. John Lee Malvo, co-conspirator in 2002 DC area sniper killing, was an illegal alien, a Jamaican stowaway, who was caught then released. The holes in our current system continue to be exploited by criminals.
The real crisis in immigration is this: Our country has lost control of immigration, and without control of immigration, we as Americans can't ensure that immigration is in our best interests. We can't be sure the people who are here are the ones we want to be here.
Solving the crisis is stymied by special interests who are more afraid of effective immigration law enforcement than they are afraid of the economic, social and national security costs of out-of-control system. To these special interests, the 'crisis' in effect is the scary possibility that someday we might end up with an immigration system that actually enforces the intent of our law. Then where would the agri-businesses and meatpackers be, without a ready source of illegal and therefore pliant fruit pickers and factory workers?
The proponents are saying there is a crisis, but do not identify the crisis nor the root cause. They believe that no amount of crisis would be sufficient to actually deport any significant number of illegal immigrants.
Can there be a system that is both 'in control' of immigration and at the same meets the needs of would-be immigrants, employers, and the rest of us? If there is a solution, it is probably the following: First, secure our borders. Second, enforce immigration law in the workplace far beyond the current pitiful levels. Third, replace our current immigration system, tilted too far in favor family-based migration (known as "chain migration" to some), with a system that leans more towards employment-based immigration. With 1-2 million jobs created each year, if our current legal level of immigration were mostly employment-based, it would be more than sufficient to meet any supposed labor needs.
The current Senate bill makes a few moves in the above direction, but they are only a garnish around the main entree of amnesty. The author of our current immigration misery is Senator Ted Kennedy, who pushed through the 1965 immigration bill that initiated waves of chain migration and incited illegal immigration. In 1986, Senator Kennedy helped author that year's amnesty program, while knocking the legs from under employer enforcement, actually making it a crime for employer's to question legalization status of employees except under restricted conditions. The one-two combo of amnesty plus a system designed to be unenforceable led to massive fraud in amnesty applications and fraud in employment documentation, and encouraged massive further illegal immigration. We went from two million illegal immigrants then to over twelve million today. The amnesty didn't curb illegal immigration, it multiplied it.
Having Senator Ted Kennedy author this bill is like asking an incompetent doctor who botched an operation to conduct the surgery to fix his own mistakes. In 1986, Senator Kennedy said "We will never again bring forward another Amnesty Bill like this." Today, he brings forward the 1986-redo bill, only bigger. Kennedy has joined with La Raza and cheap labor lobbies on the business side to ensure that American immigration stays as out-of-control as possible, and the result is predictably bad.
The bill continues to gut enforcement, not even funding border guard that were authorized years ago; it fails to properly put in play employer sanctions and make sure they are working before the 'amnesty' happens; they play shell games with border security, asking for only a portion of the much-needed fence to keep out human-trafficking and drug smuggling, a fence put into law last year but which has not been fully funded, with only a few miles of 700 miles built so far; it guts "English only" assimilation while claiming to support it; so-called triggers are undermined by language which allows them to be easily waived; a better way to handle legal immigration, a point system, is deferred for 8 years, sure to be abolished and undermined again before it becomes real. Even worse are provisions that allow even criminal aliens who have multiple convictions to become legal citizens. This list of abuses and errors in this bill goes on.
Perhaps this is why the bill was rushed to the Senate floor without getting vetted first by a committee hearing.
Those same forces who are against solving our real immigration problems have written this Senate bill. This bill ensures that more waves of illegal immigrants will continue to arrive, assured that deportation will never happen and another amnesty some day likely will. Cheap labor employers are happy to have cheap non-union labor; the Kennedy Democrats are happy to have new welfare-state clients and potential voters; and the 'immigrant rights' groups are happy to flex political muscle and grow their ranks and power. The rest of us - American-born citizens, legal immigrants, taxpayers - are the suckers who will pick up the tab and shoulder the burden.
But rest assured. This bill is built to fail; it will fail to control the border, it will fail to enforce immigration law, and it will fail to eliminate the massive numbers of illegal immigrants in our midst. More will come to await the next amnesty. The crises this bill creates will be far greater than anything it solves, and the immigration crisis will surely continue to be with us if we make the mistake of making this law.
As such, we can be sure that another grand compromise will be hammered out to 'fix' the problems this bill creates. I just hope Senator Kennedy won't be around to write the next bill when that happens. Three strikes and you're out, Senator.
Just in case you were wondering about Romney’s position on “gay rights”...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1840234/posts
Romney Supports Tolerance for Gays, But Not Public Servants Who Speak Against Homosexuality
BTW, I missed his "even stronger" statements. Could you provide a link to them?
Anyway, I stand by my statement that Thompson believes deportation of the illegals is unrealistic and that Thompson has no concrete plan for dealing with the problem. From everything I've heard him say so far, he's going to dance around the issue just like every other blockhead who's currently in this race, with the possible exceptions of Hunter and Tancredo.
Haha...you lied and I caught you and all you do is gloss over it.
Now you’re doing it again, using selective quotes that are misstating the facts.
I believe Fred Thompson over an underhanded liar like you any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
I may post some of them for others in the AM if I am so inclined. However, I don’t do research for lying scum like you.
LOL.
In the past all the threads about politics would be hijacked with immigration stuff.
This was supposed to be a thread about immigration. Now you are hijacking it with politics.
my title was a mistake!
Chew on this:
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/mac_donald04-13-05.htm
And this:
A plurality of 48 percent favored imposing some controls on immigration. But large minorities on either side disagreed, with a quarter of respondents saying the United States should open its borders to all immigrants, and a quarter saying that the borders should be completely closed. These polarized positions may help explain the acrimony of the immigration debate across the nation.
We can win on this issue politically, if we are smart.
What ever I take what you say with no grain of salt!
“I’m concerned about the country’s reaction,there’s no way to predict how bad that reaction could become.”
That’s why we need to ACT now, rather than re-act later, but if it passes, reaction is, imo, a must. The sovereignty and security of our country depends on it.
MARCH TO TAKE BACK AMERICA
WWW.LFRAMERICA.COM
I’m not sure why so many people are pushing Fred Thompson. Maybe, I’m biased because I’ve discovered through research that the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill would not have passed without Fred’s undaunted support of it. I hate campaign finance reform because it limits our first amendment freedoms. Last election, my mother got pulled over by an attorney for handing out voter guides she made herself from research. With McCain’s legislation, in the days preceding an election, one has to now be apart of an official campaign. Also, if you are still unconvinced, look at Kentucky, last Tuesday, they had an governor primary. Ernie Fletcher the Republican incumbent should have had no chance since he has been convicted of misdemeanor crimes as governor. Thanks to McCain and his buddy Fred Thompson, grassroots efforts for unheard of candidates does not get off the ground. Now, the Democrat will have an easy win in Kentucky. The same was true in my home state with Senator Mike Dewine and now he has been replaced by the extreme liberal Sherrod Brown.
Although he voted pro-life as a Senator, Thompson promoted big-tent restructuring of the Republican party in 1996 where abortion was deemphasized; and Bob Dole lost.
Fred Thompson is also a globalist and serves on the Council of Foreign Relations. For those who think he is great on immigration, go to www.ontheissues.org and look up his voting record. He has consistently supporting Mexican workers taking the place of American workers and supports NAFTA and our trade arrangements with China which each have cost America 1.8 million jobs.
Duncan Hunter is a much better candidate and makes Thompson’s conservitism look moderate. I also belive Duncan Hunter is the most electable too. He is the only Republican candidate with a real plan and motivation to change these trade laws which are causing American jobs to leave our shores. For my home state, Ohio and and the rest of the rust belt, this is a major issue. President Bush had a very difficult time winning Ohio because of all of the manufacturing jobs we have lost.
I encourage you to do your research and be intellectually honest. Always remember, the Republicans cannot win without the votes of Christian conservatives like me.
Romney, McMainiac, Guliani or Thompson would be far worse than Hillary.
They are just as much evil socialists, but they would fool enough conservatives to go along with them to finish off this nation.
Hillary fools only the most foolish of fools.
Fred Thompson is providing lip service as a staunch conservative when he is clearly weak on this issue and would also like to gloss over campaign finance reform. Right now he’s trying to act as if he is solid on these issues but he has shown bad judgment as with the info you provided. He’s proven to be too much in the ‘maverick’, close friend of McCain mold. We need a solid conservative who does not cave on important issues such as this. And, for the record, Fred needs to decide NOW rather than being the lazy, tired, good for nothing candidate he is being now. He is not showing he has the mettle outside the hype.
But don’t you know Fred Thompson is a glitzy actor?!! THAT is reason enough to have him as GOP nominee! /s
That’s what people would like us all to believe. Fred is a decent conservative but he shows a little too much bad judgments on important issues such as campaign finance reform and his softness for illegal immigration to not be fawned over like he is. He was not an effective Senator and was too much of the softy with the Demonrat opposition. He provides no change for the GOP. I wouldn’t trust him with a Demonrat Congress. And he has never proven himself an effective messenger.
You’re certainly entitled to your opinion no matter how wrong headed I believe you are when it comes to there being so little real difference between the two useless parties on so many social and economic issues and I’m entitled to my own opinion and vote accordingly after seeing what is happening and has been happening in politics in Washington and in my state capitol for far too many years now. I also refuse to accept weak and phony excuses to keep voting for our nations destruction and that is exactly what is happening when sheeple refuse to consider the principled vote over the party vote.
Have a meaningful Memorial Day holiday.
“He has consistently supporting Mexican workers taking the place of American workers and supports NAFTA and our trade arrangements with China which each have cost America 1.8 million jobs.”
That statement is beyond dubious. We have created about 10 million jobs in the last 12 or so years since NAFTA was created and the economy has done well. We have no special deals with China except for that we buy and sell with them.
Trade doesnt hurt our country, it helps it.
What hurts our economy is socialist economic policies by our own Government.
Protectionism will not save us but make things work. OTOH if we simply moved from taxing production to taxing consumption we would get most of the way to balancing the imbalance on trade.
I share your grave distate for McCain-Feingold.
Are all these people just trying to smear your candidate?
Or is there perhaps some solid factual evidence that Thompson would not be good on immigration issues?
Thanks for asking! Here’s just a partial list of what we know about Fred Thompson so far:
From Fred Dalton Thompson’s voting record, we know that he consistently voted for gun owners (the NRA called him a “staunch supporter of the Second Amendment”), against abortion, for business, against higher taxes, for a balanced budget, for a strong defense, for ANWR drilling, for capping foreign aid, for free trade, for private property rights, for personal retirement accounts, for the Iraq War Resolution and for welfare reform.
From his interest group ratings, we know that FDT earned a perfect zero from National Abortion Reproductive Rights Action, a perfect 100% from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, only 11% from the ACLU, 86% from the American Conservative Union, 86% from the Center for Security Policy, a perfect zero from the American Federation of Teachers, 6% from the National Education Association, 90% from the League of Private Property Voters, 97% from the National Tax Limitation committee, 88% from the National Taxpayers Union and a perfect zero from the liberal ADA. In a 1995 analysis, Project Vote Smart listed Thompson as having supported Contract With America items 100% of the time.
We know that among FDT’s Senate accomplishments were his election as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs in 1997, making him among the most junior senators in history to serve as Chairman of a major Senate Committee. He served as Chairman until June of 2001.
We know that the Governmental Affairs Committee is charged with overseeing the management of the federal government. We kow that during his Chairmanship, Sen. Thompson’s committee actively pursued an agenda aimed at producing a smaller, more efficient, and more accountable government. Of his efforts, the Kingsport Times-News wrote, “Sen. Thompson is to be applauded for keeping a watchful eye over Washington fiscal matters. There should be more like him.”
We know that Sen. Thompson held hearings on topics such as improving the federal regulatory process; reforming the IRS; exploring ways to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse; and a number of national security issues, including the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and missile technologies. Thompson also investigated and successfully enacted solutions to information management problems such as the security of the federal government’s and the military’s computer systems.
We know that Thompson was also a member of the powerful Senate Committee on Finance, which has jurisdiction over taxes, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare reform, and international trade. From this position, he focused on reducing taxes, reforming the tax code to make it simpler and fairer, and restoring the Social Security and Medicare programs to long-term solvency.
We know that while he was a strong supporter of free trade, Sen. Thompson advocated a balanced approach to trade and national security. He pushed for an export control policy that protects our country’s national security without unnecessarily burdening American industry with bureaucratic red tape. He also proposed legislation to curb the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction by China and other countries and to strengthen the United States’ response to such activities.
We know that FDT served on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the National Security Working Group, which observes and monitors executive branch negotiations with foreign governments.
We know that even the liberal Washington Monthly, in a 1999 hit piece on Thompson, had to begrudgingly admit that as a Senator, Thompson worked hard to keep his campaign promises. We know that Democratic strategist Bob Beckel admitted, in a discussion on Fox News’ Hannity & Colmes program, that Fred Thompson for president would be the Dems’ “worst nightmare” because of his communications skills and ability to appeal to swing voters. We know that many backers of Fred’s GOP opponents such as yourself attack him for no other reason than he poses a major threat to their candidates even before he officially gets in the race.
We know that Thompson isn’t perfect. We are aware of his stances on immigration (he wasn’t a hawk on it) and McCain? Feingold (he supported it) in the 1990s. But we also know that those votes were a full decade ago, and since then FDT has taken a much tougher stance on securing our borders before all else, and he has admitted that McCain Feingold was campaign finance reform gone bad.
We know that Mitt Romney had a change of heart and mind on gays, guns and abortion, so we believe that FDT should at least be given some consideration for admitting that both he and Ronald Reagan were wrong on immigration, and the reforms he hoped McCain-Feingold would produce didn’t turn out to be “reforms” at all. We know that Fred is a stand-up guy, and he will answer questions on any issues honestly and in a straitforward manner when he gets into the race.
We know that Fred Thompson is media-savvy, has a commanding presence, enjoys superb name recognition (thanks to his Law & Order and movie roles and his hard-hitting commentary for ABC Radio) and left the Senate with a solid conservative voting record. We know that Fred is the first to admit that there was and will ever be only one Ronald Reagan, and Fred is one of Reagan’s smartest students and most consistent disciples. We know that like Reagan, Thompson is that rare sort of conservative who can sell conservative ideas to moderates and independents. And we know that, again like Reagan, Thompson may be the only potential candidate who can unite the factions of the Republican Party right now.
Oh, and we know that Ronald Reagan was an actor/entertainer and a radio commentator, too.
That’s just a few of the things we know about Fred. But it was and is compelling enough to ignite and maintain the momentum of a grassroots movement to draft Fred to run for President of the United States. And we know that we won’t rest until Fred has taken the oath of office.
source: FredThompsonFAQ.com
I know you don't post any links to your sources for "lying scum" like me, but I'll post some Thompson links for you anyway.
Duncan Hunter is a hawk on ALL immigration, both legal and illegal. Fred Thompson is not and nobody claims he is. Fred Thompson is for securing our borders first and foremost. Fred Thompson wants to enforce and strengthen existing laws to make it less desirable for illegals to remain in the United States.
Fred Thompson thinks that the entire debate about guest workers and visas should be shelved until the government proves that they can enforce existing laws to curb illegal immigration and significant headway is made. Fred Thompson's position is simply common sense.
A person like you that uses misquotes and halftruths to 'prove' their arguments, isn't worth arguing with. You're nothing but a troll. But let's have some of those links, shall we?
Let's start here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1840027/posts http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1839904/posts http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1839544/posts http://abcradio.com/article.asp?id=409614&SPID=15663
And a video of the part of his speech in CT that addresses the issue:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H3zhZu0S5w
The full video of that speech: http://www.latestpolitics.com/blog/2007/05/fred-thompson-in-ct-the-full-video.html
The video of the original Fox News interview with Chris Wallace that you deliberately misquoted earlier:
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snw7_6mJf5c
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN3z4mqRn7I
Happy reading and viewing.
Thanks for the input WOSG. I like to make an extreme initial stance on negotiations with tyrants so they will take notice. Then I can momderate my position to ‘give’ them and so they can ‘give’ me some. You think it’s cruel to deport all illegals? I don’t. If some of them have legals in their families, I say give them a choice: they can leave the legals here, or the legals can go with them! That way there is no mandated breaking up of families. Good luck finding out who belongs to which family anyway, the import types really believe in ‘it takes a village...’.
You don’t think the US can deport all the illegals? I do. Suire it would take some time, but it can be done. I think the main reason it isn’t being done is because of the lily livered cowards we have for politicians. They are afraid of setting off a civil war IMHO. Great, I say if this happens, then we will have even more reason to deport them. The illegals, too!
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