Posted on 06/14/2007 11:16:52 AM PDT by kristinn
A spokeman for the Bush administration sent an e-mail to Jim Robinson and myself confirming the authenticity of a post on Free Republic this afternoon regarding the immigration bill currently before the Senate as having been posted on behalf of the White House.
The spokesman, Nicholas Thompson, works for the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives. The Politico reported yesterday that Thompson and Kerrie Rushton, associate directors in the Office of Strategic Initiatives who work under Karl Rove, would be engaging the blogosphere on the immigration bill.
Thompson's post is on the thread titled Penalty Mitigation in the Immigration Reform Bill, a vanity posted by philman_36. Thompson posted at comment #53.
Thompson's e-mail to Free Republic included a brief introduction and the text of his posted comment:
Hi,
I just wanted to let you know that I just posted a response to the post "Penalty Mitigation in the Immigration Reform Bill."
The White House appreciates the opportunity to respond on Free Republic.
Response:
I would like to point out that the Secretary is authorized to reduce or mitigate penalities against employers who in good faith are trying to comply with the law. Certainly, we understand that not all employers knowingly hire illegal immigrants; this will remain the case, especially before the bill’s new secure documentation requirements are fully phased in. We do not seek to wrongly penalize honest employers who unknowingly hire illegal immigrants, therefore we reserve the right to reduce or mitigate their penalties if the employer can show good faith compliance in following the law.
For those employers who do knowingly hire illegal immigrants, please know that we intend to penalize these employers strongly, and the Administration has already stepped up these penalties in the last couple of years. For example, a 2005 program, “Operation Rollback,” assessed $15,000,000 in civil fines to employers, an amount greater than the sum of administrative fines collected in the previous eight years and was the largest worksite enforcement penalty in US history. In the first quarter of FY07, criminal and civil forfeitures have totaled $26,700,000 for employers.
As a reminder of what’s in the bill, fines for hiring an illegal worker are $5,000 maximum per illegal worker for the first offense, $10,000 maximum per illegal worker for the second, $25,000 maximum per illegal worker for the third , and $75,000 maximum per illegal worker for the fourth. In addition, the bill increases the maximum criminal penalty for a pattern or practice of unlawful hiring twenty-five-fold, from $3,000 to $75,000, and would impose a prison term of up to six months. This represents a significant increase in fines for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.
Nicholas Thompson
White House Office of Strategic Initiatives
In other words, no matter what progress ICE makes, y’all won’t be satisfied. That’s why I usually avoid these threads...chronic complainers that ignore facts and base their assumptions on what-if theories. Must be a sad way to live life.
Dear Mr. Thompson:
With reference to the immigration bill, allow us to respond.
NO.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Your Base
Sorry, but it’s a fact that deportees frequently come right back over the border. They know that getting caught is just a stroke of bad luck, and the next time they might get to stay a while.
Without the fence, and serious border enforcement, deporting illegals is about as effective as shoveling water.
I am with you — it is going to be exciting and we can only get this bill killed in the Senate, it will be even better because every last candidate will have to come up with a plan or already has a plan.
After this debacle in the Senate we are seeing, any candidate that has main Bush people around him might as well hang it up. If they are tied to Rove or any of the Bush’s, I don’t think it will play well. Bet this time candidates for Congress and Senate won’t want Rove anywhere around them for fundraisers — would probably go in the hole. I bet you can take it to the bank that Sen Inhofe will not invite Rove to do a fundraiser after all the arm twisting he has done to get Senators to support this amenesty bill.
Build the fence.Deport the illegals. Enforce the LAW Mr. President.
Unfortunately, there is only limited enforcement at all.
We need a few Tommy Paines about now.
I work for an assisted living facility. Our license REQUIRES US TO DO THE FOLLOWING: drug screen; fingerprint with a subsequent DOJ report on those fingerprints.
And .. this costs us $25 for the physical and drug screen, plus $86 for the fingerprints. We charge the employee for the fingerprints, but after 90 days, we reimburse them.
If any red flag comes up - WE CANNOT HIRE THE EMPLOYEE. And .. we do have red flags and we DO NOT hire those people.
MY QUESTION: WHY IS THIS PRACTICE NOT A STANDARD EMPLOYMENT PRACTICE ..??
ANSWER: Cheap wages and probably no benefits.
While the press tries to imply these employees keep consumer prices down .. but the PRICE TO THE TAXPAYER KEEPS GOING UP IN REGARD TO WELFARE, FOOD STAMPS, FREE MEDICAL, TAX BREAKS, etc., from our taxes - which always seem to be going up.
What these cheaper wages also mean is MORE PROFIT TO THE BUSINESS OWNER. I’m all for a business making a profit .. but not at the expense of the sovereignty of America.
We the people BUMP!
Of the 195,000 aliens removed from the U.S. last year, 780,000 of them are already back, with more to follow....
A few TR’s wouldn’t be bad either:
-There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all.
-This is just as true of the man who puts “native” before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance.
-But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as any one else.
-Where immigrants, or the sons of immigrants, do not heartily and in good faith throw in their lot with us, but cling to the speech, the customs, the ways of life, and the habits of thought of the Old World which they have left, they thereby harm both themselves and us. If they remain alien elements, unassimilated, and with interests separate from ours, they are mere obstructions to the current of our national life, and, moreover, can get no good from it themselves. In fact, though we ourselves also suffer from their perversity, it is they who really suffer most.
-Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States
They are here. You are one of them.
We must be firm in our resolve.
To this cause and... with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
The short answer to this is that there are employer penalties in place now that are simply not enforced. Why does the White House think that anyone would believe that new laws would be enforced when current laws are ignored? Words on a piece paper do nothing. They are worthless.
I used some of the TR quotes at the front of my new book. They ring more true today than ever.
Thanks, and likewise yourself.
The White House needs to understand that as it’s written, this is not a pro-immigration bill, it’s a PRO-CRIME bill. What naturalized (read: immigrant) citizens like AnnaZ & I despise about it is that we understand full well that it DISCOURAGES LEGAL IMMIGRATION.
If you’re an illegal, you get your papers automatically (and irrevokably) after a 24 waiting period. And since most illegals will be rushing for their papers in huge numbers, the gov’t will be so overwhelmed that I predict over 95% will get their visas with absolutely no background check at all.
Meanwhile, applicants who have been following the legal route since May 2005 will have to start the process all over again. And since the gov’t will be so overwhelmed by Z-Visa applications, there will be a massive backlog for another half decade.
Result: Legal immigration iremains costly and time-consuming, illegal immigration remains easy and low-risk. Guess what happens next.
The White House has failed to listen to the voters. So now they think we can believe them.
BS
His theme of "inevitability", whether it was the eventuality of US independence, or an eventual repetition of the same conflicts if the colonies attempted to reconcile with GB, seem to ring true once more.
We know the break is coming either way. If amnesty passes, we're on to the next stage of the American experiment, with CWII in store for our descendants; if it's somehow defeated, we may forgive, but we'll never forget.
No, Clancy, thos White House source was talking AT “the people”. Talking WITH us would require him to listen, and the Bush Administration stopped doing that some time ago.
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