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
Lately, the GOP has been relentless in its pursuit of my money. In several responses, I remarked that Mr. Bush would be wise to PAY ATTENTION to FReepers. I’m glad the message was received.
Welcome, Mr. Thompson! I hope you visit us often!
Ping to you, Mr. Thompson. This is the pulse of the American people. You do remember us - the citizens of this country?
BTTT.
We will have to agree to disagree on this- as long as illegals can simply walk or drive across the border in my opinion there is no enforcement. As long as they can return- and most do- then other enforcement efforts are pretty meaningless. It doesn’t matter how many are deported when they can and do return within hours or days. If our prisons were as pourous as our border would it matter how many arrests and convictions there were?
ICE has increased enforcement efforts- but any meaningful change will have to start with the border being secured. I see the increased ICE enforcement as a political move of smoke and mirrors as long as the border is not secure. This is common sense and it is the reason so many of us are being “hard headed” about this issue. The border needs to be secured as step one.
Typical DU tactic here...
I can’t believe you gave reverence enough to Clinton to type his name correctly and yet you called the POTUS in office fighting a war for our very survival (Shrub)....
You like typical liberals have elevated everything to a personal vandetta with the President. Not only isn’t that fair to the man it is Unpatriotic.
Sending border patrols to prision because they were trying to inforce current laws does not sound like we are steadfast in supporting enforcing the border.
They didn’t file some information in a timely manner and the man was shot in the buttox, abandoning a van with loads of drugs in it, and excaping back to Mexico. Kool it’s over with until the Mexican came back and filed charges, America dropped ours and sent our border guards to prison.
Arrggghhh...when will you folks get it...you are changing the subject again! One last time...I was responding to someone who said there was NO enforcement by ICE, by providing figures to show that enforcement had been increased by ICE. That is all. You all keep wandering onto other subjects (illegals coming back over, sending border patrols to prison) and castigating me for them, when I didn’t bring them into the equation. For the record...again...I don’t support this bill. But I’ll be damned if I am going to sit by and let people lie about the facts as that one poster did.
Sorry for the misunderstanding, that’s what Monday’s are all about. Hope you had a great day and again, I’ll try to understand the post history prior to kicking off an reply
It's really very, very simple. Cut and dried. Clear as a bell.
What, exactly, is it that these nimrods do not comprehend???
Patience is a virtue, so it is claimed. But, waiting until Hell freezes over for so-called Republicans to fulfill their duties is lunacy. The number of times I've wanted to reach through the television screen and grab these amnesty whores by the ears and scream into their faces to "do your friggin' job!" has reached beyond my ability to count. I'm beginning to wonder what kind of payoffs they're due if they get their way. Either they're a grifting mass of dishonest elitists or they're spineless cowards who may have dirty secrets to hide that Hildebeast and her antiChrist fornicating old man have over their heads.
Whatever the "reasons", this administration had better get in deep and serious touch with its claimed principles and do what their constituents demand they do: Follow the law! Protect the citizenry and homeland! Defend the nation!
BUMP!
Why pretend to create new laws when you steadfastly refuse to enforce existing laws?
Secure the borders.
Punish the employers of illegals.
Deport all illegal aliens.
Try that first!
No amnesty for millions of illegal aliens.
Millions of people who actually want to be legal immigrants should go to the head of the ICE processing line, before even one of your politically preferred class of imported slaves gets a hearing.
Not to worry, the U.S. borders are secure. </Sarcasm>
bump to read later
I Agree/100% !! This Is The Problem,,,This “bill” will be the “tipping-point” for the “VOTER-BASE”,,,The Libo-Kraps
will have the vote numbers to pass ALL that they want,,,
It’s a “Power-Shift” to NWO/NAU/Globalism/Etc.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~GAME~OVER~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Our biggest challenge will be to separate my uncle from the rest of the Republican Party.”
“‘This is a President who represents the diversity of OUR society, who WE can count on to change the Republican Party to represent OUR views.’” … He told the rally his mother had instilled him the values of Cesar Chavez, the Chicano activist who fought for the rights of migrant farmworkers in the United States. ‘She told me WE have to fight for OUR RACE, we have to find the leaders who represent US,’ he said in fluent Spanish.’
George P. Bush
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/865000/images/_865697_10_300.jpg
I would appreciate it if someone would actually post that picture to the thread. It says it all.
You’re trying to be on both sides of the fence at the same time. You cannot be both for and against illegal immigration. I suspect that the spin you put on one area of enforcement as representative of all areas of enforcement reveals your true allegiance to illegal immigration, and your list of concerns that conservatives have was just a list taken from the post of someone who really does want to put a stop to illegal immigration. If they were really your concerns, you wouldn’t be spinning lies to make it look like our immigration laws are already being enforced.
I’ve seen your method used in all types of debates. “I support enforcement of our immigration laws, but they’re already being enforced.” “I support the right to life, but denying food and water to brain damaged people isn’t euthanasia, because they aren’t really alive.” “I support the WOT, but there aren’t any terrorists in Iraq.”
Your methods are transparent. You claim to support one viewpoint, without any supporting evidence, but the only “facts” you provide are in opposition to the views you claim to support. Try something new.
Here it izzz...
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