Posted on 07/31/2008 10:32:23 AM PDT by Uncledave
AZ in the worst financial shape? Any basis for that assertion?
So anyone who wants to enforce the laws against illegal immigration is an extremist? Oklahoma must be filled with them then.
Johnny-come-lately needs to read the thread.
The underlying issue is whether or not a policy of enforcement only will solve the problems of illegal immigration.
Which takes us back to the premise of the article at the top of the thread.
Krikorian says that enforcement only has reduced the number of illegals. I say the economy has more to do with it than enforcement. And of you consider the cost benefit of more enforcement, we are paying a pretty price.
I also say that enforcement has only "picked the low hanging fruit". Enforcement has been mainly directed towards those illegals caught up in the legal system and those who had been previously ordered to leave.
You bet it does, if illegals are denied employment opportunities as they have been attempting to do in Oklahoma and Arizona the illegals leave. No surprise there and so the premise of the article is correct, enforcement works. Senator Backstab Menendez of New Jersey certainly knows that since he's trying to use it as a way to blackmail the Senate into approving more visas.
As for singling out Menedez, his legislation is not any different from the Grassley-Baucus-Obama amendment that also blocked EEV. That amendment passed and killed the immigration bill in 2007.
Sorry Charlie, while the GOP held the congress, the hardliners were able to finesse. But the dems are now in charge and it looks as if they will expand their control.
Illegal immigration is fast becoming less of an issue for many people and the reason for that is increased enforcement by both the Bush administration and the many states that are clamping down. It isn't just Arizona and Oklahoma. For the first time in years we are starting to see a decline in this population.
Other issues like gas prices and the economy are what most are concerned about and I hate to tell you this but the democrats stand a good chance of losing seats in the House and gaining little in the Senate because of it. So your dreams of amnesty and open borders will be going nowhere for the foreseeable future.
Sorry Charlie.
They have had enough votes to pass amnesty since 2005. The only conflicts in Congress now are the guestworkers and civil libertarian versus authoritarian issues.
2005? You were not going to get amnesty through a GOP House, you’ve said so yourself in your previous post. Likewise a Senate that remains divided will give us the same results we saw in 2007.
There have been enough votes in the House for amnesty since 2005. That is why Hastert wouldn’t let the House vote on the 2006 CIRA immigration bill passed by the Senate.
Wrong. The votes were not there in the House. The reason Hastert avoided going forward was because they didn’t want to be forced into conference where the Senate sellouts like Hagel would try to push the amnesty issue. That’s a lose lose issue for the GOP and they know it despite the open border wing within the party that is determined to ram it through at all costs.
Several States passed laws that forced illegals out of those States. Many of the illegals that left because of the State laws went back to Mexico or other countries farther south.
This movement is a significant reason for the high number of illegals leaving the U. S., perhaps more so than any federal actions.
Reid forced Frist to do two things before he would let Hagel-Martinez proceed in the Senate. One, was to make Frist get definite on the amendment process, and two, name which senators would go to conference committee. Frist chose the entire Senate Judiciary Committee.
I will agree with you only to the extent that the GOP might have been planning to use the conference committee and the amendment process to water down the bill. If they were, it was bad strategy because they had already over-utilized that strategy. This was not the first bill Reid had called there hand on. He had killed the Endangered Species reform bill for the same reason.
Whether or not stacking the conference committee was the strategy is irrelevant, it had no influence on how the House would have voted.
You totally ignored my point that the votes in the House for amnesty were not there, they had already passed a clean bill that was enforcement only. Which takes me back to a prior comment that if the democrats lose seats in the House and gain none or little in the Senate amnesty is going nowhere. You seemed to have convinced yourself otherwise but the fact is very few really want another one. The only people complaining about the recent enforcement are the illegals themselves and their supporters along with those who profit off of them.
The other half of the agreement was that the Senate would write the immigration part and also offer their version of enforcement, and then the two would be merged.
Because the House enforcement bill was understood to be only the enforcement part of the broader enforcement and immigration bill, it was easily passed with many votes from democrats and republicans who supported immigration reform. They certainly weren't voting aye on a stand alone enforcement only bill.
In fact, Tancredo said after the Senate passed CIRA that he didn't have enough votes on the floor of the House to stop it and it would only be stopped if Hastert honored the Hastert Pledge, which Hastert did.
If I'm not mistaken Tancredo was referring to the 2007 bill in that the votes were probably not there to stop it. That's why it was imperative that the GOP in the Senate do so before it made it to the House. The same scenario will play out again next year should they be foolish enough to bring up amnesty. I know how bad you want one but it'll go nowhere fast if the democrats do poorly in November as is now increasingly expected.
They tried two times and the first time the unions killed it over the guest workers and the second time the civil libertarians killed it.
As for next year, no can say for certain what will happen. But, the dems are in a win-win situation. If they pass reform it makes them look good to the hispanic voters. If the GOP is able to block the dems, that makes the GOP look bad to the hispanic voter.
As to your remark about the Hispanic vote: so what. Compared to the rest of the electorate it is still a relatively small demographic who will vote for the democrats no matter what they do.
If the GOP goes along with another massive amnesty however they will suffer the wrath of millions of voters within their own party while significantly raising the number of newly minted voters who like the current legal crop will always vote for the other party. Like I said, it's a lose lose for them.
No, it couldn’t have been 2007 because the dems controlled the House in 2007. Tancredo nor Hastert would have had any control.
If the GOP had united behind the Bush Plan in 2004, they would have had a bill that was more desirable for the party, compared to the subsequent bills. Plus the Hispanic voters would have been very pleased with the outcome.
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