Posted on 11/06/2008 8:01:11 AM PST by 3AngelaD
Immigration reform has a less than comprehensive look at the end of the Bush administration, as Homeland Security Secretary (DHS) Michael Chertoff made clear in his wrap-up speech on the "State of Immigration." Over the past three years Chertoff has intensified the post-Sept. 11 immigrant crackdown with the aim of simplifying immigration reform...Chertoff argued in his Oct. 23 speech that immigration reform can be a simple matter of hunting down illegal immigrants and contracting out foreign workers. Pointing to the recent DHS record of arrests, deportations, and an increasingly fortified southern border, Chertoff made the case that he has successfully set the Homeland Security apparatus to work enforcing immigration law "as it currently exists."
What remains for the next administration, he contended, is to continue down the enforcement path he has "laid out" and "continue the job of securing the borders and get it done." To complete the job of immigration reform, however, what's needed is a new temporary work program that takes "the economic pressure that drives migration illegally into this country."
Chertoff also announced that the administration would again pursue the controversial "No Match" program that will notify employers when there is no match for Social Security numbers provided by their employees. If implemented, the No Match program would shut off all employment opportunities for illegal immigrants in the formal economy and would result in widespread firing of immigrant workers. Critics claim that many legal workers would be caught up in its broad and imprecise net as well.
No word about the centerpiece of the comprehensive reform proposals — legalization — that circulated in Congress last year...
Heeding the complaints of the anti-immigration forces that the federal government was failing to enforce immigration law and to control the border, Chertoff has put the two Homeland Security immigration agencies —Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) — on a strict law-and-order regimen....
Complaints about the abuses of the DHS immigrant crackdown abound...Some immigrant advocates say that a new administration should appoint a DHS secretary and ICE and CBP directors that reform detention practices, halt abusive raids, and end the criminalization of immigrants. Others say that immigration enforcement and border control of illegal immigration don't even rightly belong in a department dedicated to homeland security, since immigrants — legal or illegal—don't represent a threat to national security... immigration advocates are preparing to press their case for legalization...
If there is no pathway to citizenship, immigrants now in the country illegally can expect increasingly precarious lives. Only if they sign up for a temporary or guest worker program will illegal immigrants likely be permitted to stay in the country. But most illegal immigrants don't work in industries, such as agriculture, that have traditionally been included in temporary worker programs.
Immigration restrictionists, while pleased that "pathway to citizenship" proposals seem to be losing support even among Democrats, are already preparing their forces to do battle...
The Federation for American Immigration Reform, for example, has incorporated a response to a Chertoff-like proposal to expand temporary worker programs. In FAIR's newly released Seven Principles of True Comprehensive Immigration Reform, one of its reform principles states: "Redefining illegal aliens as 'guest-workers' or anything else is just that: a redefinition that attempts to hide the fact it is an amnesty, not reform..."
The Obama administration and the new Democratic Congress will soon face the challenge of addressing the immigration crisis. The path of least resistance may be to accept the "State of Immigration" as shaped and defined by Chertoff and the Republicans. But the bolder path is to stand on reason and principle in backing a new comprehensive reform bill, which meets valid citizen concerns about effective border control and sustainable immigration flows while also ensuring that immigrant workers and their families are treated with justice and fairness....
Ruh Roh.
Chertoff is a ‘rat in charge of the granary. A real screen door on a submarine.
What’s the matter with Chertoff’s assessment? What’s the matter with No Match? It’s efficient/logical and just one (not all) of the steps that DHS/feds are taking to root out illegal immigration - remember people - no jobs for illegals, no incentive to come here
what a clown
Skeletor.
Making our homeland more secure for people of other lands.
NOT true. There is the alternative of "permanent residency" WITHOUT any "path to citizenship" if they come "out of the woods" and register. But, not to worry, "the Messiah" will legalize them all. "Stroke of the pen, law of the land" y'know. And then the Democrats will have a permanent majority vote of socialist leaning wetbacks.
With the ascendancey of Obama, do you honestly think any of these enforcement actions will last any longer than the end of January, 2009 (or however long it takes Obama to get Senate confirmation of the new head of the “Department of Homeland Security”.
I can hardly wait to see what Obama puts in for Homeland security.
ugh..
William Ayers?
Yes - remember controlled immigration is something that the current Hispanic population wants (they want to keep their jobs) Plus Obozo has to rule in the center or he’ll suffer same fate as Carter. A majority of people - even friends on center-left want enforced immigration (heck a lot of them want a big long high fence that stretches along the entire border - not just with Mexico but also with Canada.
One of the names I heard was Loretta Sanchez.
Please tell me you’re joking.
No I am not joking.
I’m wondering what kind of affect this election is going to have on illegals pouring over the border. I can’t see a completely controlled democrat government doing anything but encouraging it.
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