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
LOL!
CLOSE THE BORDER! NOW!
He’s over at http://redstatemobile.com/node/97852 too...
I've already got popcorn going...
LOL!
I like it. Precise, yet tactful.
-Bruce
Can we all hear an AMEN for that post?
Borders FIRST. The rest can come later when we see Bush is serious.
hear hear.
Yesterday's NRO editorial says it for me:
“Unacceptable” By The Editors
Speaking to Republican senators yesterday, President Bush argued that they should support the immigration bill because “doing nothing is unacceptable.” That’s odd: It has seemed pretty acceptable to him for most of his time in office. He is right that the status quo features porous borders, widespread flouting of the law, and more than 12 million illegal aliens. But it is the very status quo over which he has presided and which the bill he favors would probably make worse.
The grand compromise bill assumes that critical improvements in border security and interior enforcement can be made in 18 months. Of course, whether any improvements are realized or not, legal status would have been conferred on millions of illegal aliens within months of the bill becoming law. As Senator Jim DeMint explains, “There is no excuse for anyone to believe that what’s in this bill is going to happen, except for the amnesty.”
Senators on both sides of the immigration debate told President Bush that their constituents doubted the federal government’s willingness to enforce the immigration laws. They suggested that Washington show a concrete commitment on enforcement before asking the public to accept such a sweeping reform. Many of them support an emergency supplemental spending bill to fund enhanced border security and to help states pay for the secure identity cards that the federal government has required them to develop. Spending money is a typical Washington cop-out. Additional funding is, obviously, not all that stands in the way of these long-overdue reforms being realized. Any new spending must be matched with a demonstrable political will to see our immigration laws enforced, or else Congress would have merely enacted a far more expensive version of the failed 1986 immigration reform.
“Comprehensive immigration reform” should be set aside so that over the next 18 months, President Bush can do what his administration has failed to do over the past six years. Don’t just show us the money, show us the enforcement.
I think you’ll find the visitors & regulars to this site are of the mindset not to sit by in ignorance while the politicians try to give our nation away.
Close the borders & start upholding the current laws, try to regain some credibility and we’ll get back to you folks, right around ELECTION TIME, you can count on that!!
Regardless of how I might feel about this decision or even this post - what an amazing time we live in. I’ve been involved in FR since 98 and here we have a spokesman for the WH taking the time to speak to us. I’m having a hard time expressing the thought - but this is such a product of this technology age.... heck - it props up the pajamamuhadeen quite nicely!
LOL. Yep.
Build the fence first and then try for the immigration bill. If it’s a trust issue then have congress pass a bill guaranteeing they will visit the immigration issue after all 800 miles of fence is built.
We won’t get fooled again.
They really understand how we feel. They really just don’t give a ratz a$$.
Once upon a time, I made mention of this hideous type of behaviour by a “partisan” group of one worlders.
I took a drubbing from those who declared I was a “kook”.
The John Birch society predicted this nonsense YEARS ago.
Kooks.
Ok, maybe I’m a kook. But it doesn’t mean they aren’t out to destroy our sovereignty.
New world order, and all that rot.
Illegal aliens are CRIMINALS.
1.Close the freakin border! How hard is that?
2.Prosecute employers of illegals. Ain’t hard, you make employers withhold tax, you can make check status.
3.Let local cops round the buggers up. Local cops run into these criminals all the time. Over time, we can in deed get all 20 mil or so off the street.
Its doable. You know it, I know it, they know it.
Everything else is a lie.
I overheard a conversation at the coffee pot this morning. Two democrats were saying:
“Yep, Bush tried to sell us out to the illegals by writing that amnesty legislation and trying to get it through congress. Good thing the democrats in congress blocked it. If the Repubs still ran congress it would have went on through””
I know they have no idea what they are talking about but they are average American people that get average amounts of information. So that leads me to think that alot of other average Americans think that way too.
$15,000,000 in fines IN A YEAR.
Whoop de friggin do.
That is less than 1 day’s payroll to illegal aliens in just a single state of this country.
What an absolute freaking joke.
OH, and having the White House and Senior Federal Republicans pull the race card against their constituency voter blocs is the most disgusting display of illiberal demogoguery we’ve seen since Clinton’s and Albright’s speech after the Ramboulliet meetings.
‘If an employer was duped by false documentation, then I can understand not holding that against them. Unless there’s say 550 who are undocumented working for the same folks.’
The only way they can be ‘duped’ is if they don’t verify the Social Security Number, which costs less than 50 cents and takes less than 30 seconds with dozens upon dozens of employment screening companies nationally.
Its pretty frustrating to read this, given I can do exactly what I’ve detailed twice on this thread with literally a ‘wave of the hand’ here.
FYI
Who is going to pay for the new schools and jails that will be needed if they allow the extended families to come in. 6-7% of any population will need to be incarcerated in state prisons...who is going to pay for new ones, when we already have a problem with overcrowding now.
What are the feds going to do about all the fraudlent documents the current corp of illegals are using?
And have they stripped the provisions that will allow convicted illegal alien felons to remain in the US?
Who is going to pay for the welfare, food stamps and medic-aid these extended family members are going to demand?
We the US Citizens is who with increased propery taxes, increased state and local taxes.
Lamar Alexaner's office couldn't answer these questions, nor could the Minority Leaders office.
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