That’s not true.
There is a lot of misinformation floating around out there about all candidates and all issues. In order to clarify Thompson’s immigration stance specifically, I looked at S. 1664, the most significant immigration enforcement bill that came up during his time in the senate. Because cherrypicking factoids can easily distort the record (the reporting from Iraq is a good example of this), I catalogued every Thompson vote on every amendment that was brought to the senate floor during the debate on this bill.
Here’s my summary, followed by the actual votes so people can draw their own conclusions.
In a nutshell, Thompson voted in favor of the toughest, most-extensive anti-illegal-immigration bill that came up during his tenure in the Senate. In the debate on this bill, he voted consistently against repeated attempts to extend welfare benefits to both legal and illegal immigrants, voted against attempts to make deportation more difficult, and voted for measures that toughened border enforcement and made it easier for INS agents to arrest illegals.
He did vote against two amendments dealing with chain migration, because it had been established in the Judiciary committee that questions of legal immigration would be dealt separately from illegal immigration. He also voted against efforts to shut down debate on the Abraham amendment and implement a defacto social security national ID card for employment enforcement. Finally, he voted against establishing a $100 million employer verification office within the INS. I don’t have his own testimony to know why he voted against this, but in the floor debate there were questions about the effectiveness of the employer verification program proposed in that bill (e.g., a program that forced employers to verify all applicants could have negative implications for government intrusion into citizens’ lives; a program that only verified non-citizens would be ineffective because illegals could just claim to be citizens to avoid verification).
I’ve also learned in my research that several of the claims against Thompson related to his immigration record are misleading or outright false. For example, he did *not* vote for amnesty for Cuban and Nicaraguan illegal immigrants, as Numbers USA has reported (more information on the Mack amendment is upthread).
In addition, there have been reports slamming Thompson for voting against several Simpson amendments (e.g., claiming that he opposed Simpson’s attempt to increase penalties for falsely claiming citizenship). These claims are either ignorant or deliberate misrepresentation. What actually happened was that Teddy Kennedy tried to attach a minimim wage hike to three Simpson anti-immigration amendments. This forced Simpson — along with Thompson and the other senate republicans — to vote against his own amendments to block Kennedy’s little games.
Here are the votes:
-Thompson voted against Chafee’s proposal “to provide that the emergency benefits available to illegal immigrants also are made available to legal immigrants.” (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00106)
-Thompson voted against Graham’s amendment 3759 that would permit state and local governments to ignore federal immigration enforcement law if enforcement compliance cost more than would be saved in benefits (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00105)
-Thompson voted against Graham’s amendment 3764 that would have allowed legal immigrants who arrived before enactment of the new law to continue collecting Medicaid (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00104).
-Thompson voted against Simon’s amendment 3813 that would have made it easier for legal immigrants who arrived before enactment of the new law to collect welfare (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00103).
-Thompson voted against Simon’s amendment 3810 that would have made it easier for legal immigrants who became disabled after arriving in the US to collect welfare (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00102).
-Thompson voted against tabling/killing Abraham’s amendment that aimed to prevent use of social security cards as a national ID card (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00101)
-Thompson voted against Leahy’s amendment 3780 that would have made it harder to deport illegal immigrants who claimed persecution (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00100)
-Thompson voted against Bradley’s amendment 3790 that would establish a $100 million office of employer sanctions within the INS (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00099)
-Thompson voted for Feinstein’s amendment 3776 that would allow deportation notices to be printed in languages other than English ((http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00098)
-Thompson voted against Simon’s amendment 3809 that would have allowed legal immigrants to stay even if they had received some types of public assistance for a year or more (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00097)
-Thompson voted against Kennedy’s amendment 3816 that would have limited employers’ ability to demand additional documents for employee verification (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00096)
Thompson was absent on 4/29-4/30/96
-Thompson voted with other Republicans (including Simpson) to table Simpson’s amendment 3671 (penalties for falsely claiming citizenship) because Kennedy attempted to attach a minimum wage raise to it (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00088)
-Thompson voted with other Republicans (including Simpson) to table Simpson’s amendment 3670 (pilot program for nonimmigrant foreign students) because Kennedy attempted to attach a minimum wage raise to it (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00087)
-Thompson voted with other Republicans (including Simpson) to table Simpson’s amendment 3669 (prevention of free education for some immigrants) because Kennedy attempted to attach a minimum wage raise to it (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00086)
-Thompson voted to push the overall bill forward in a party-line vote (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00085)
-Thompson voted to table Feinstein amendment 3740 related to chain migration on the grounds that legal immigration should be addressed separately ( http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00084)
-Thompson voted against Simpson amendment 3739 related to chain migration on the grounds that legal immigration should be addressed separately (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00083)
-Thompson voted to table Dorgan’s amendment 3667 that social security should be excluded from any balanced budget amendment (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00083)
-Thompson was one of only 20 senators to vote in favor of repealing the ban on INS agents searching open fields if they have probable cause to believe an illegal act has occured (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00080)
Apparently there are regular FR posters who are willing to lie about Fred's record, which is very disappointing. I realize that some FR posters are ardent supporters of other candidates and that's OK, but I had not expected outright lies.
Thanks again for correcting my error, I won't be as gullible next time I read something derogatory about Fred even if it comes via a FReepmail.
you're the man (or woman, i don't know)!